With the Omicron variant barreling down on us, I'd like to take this chance to say that I'm all in favor of making life as miserable as possible for people who don't get vaccinated.¹ This is not because I have no empathy for them, or because I think they're stupid and want to punish them. It's purely for selfish reasons.
The more people who get vaccinated, the safer I am. Every person who refuses to get vaccinated is a mortal threat to me and my family, and that's not something I'm willing to treat lightly.
That's it. That's all there is to it.
¹Standard caveat here about those who have legit medical reasons for not getting vaccinated.
I'll add to that: people who refuse to wear masks (or wear them properly) in public transit, public indoor settings. Shout at the fuckers, make 'em feel as uncomfortable as possible.
And I'll show you my "Relax, I'm Vaxxed" button.
Omicron also infects the vaccinated, and breakthrough cases also result in long covid, with (so far as we know) a decent probability.
To refuse to mask when it is mandated by law is despicable. I'm not asking you to mask where it's not mandated, but to not mask on public transit is despicable.
Tell me how foolish you are without using the word "foolish."
I have no trouble admitting that I feel NO empathy for the unvaccinated. While I don’t want to get Covid, I’m much more worried for my 80-something mother and mother-in-law who are both in nursing facilities - I can’t tell you how angry it makes me that there are still significant numbers of unvaccinated in the health care system.
As Kevin has pointed out, if you're vaxxed and boosted, there's virtually no risk to you or to vaxxed people around you, and therefore no benefit from wearing masks. I resent wearing masks because it's not for me or to prevent me infecting other vaxxed people, but only for the unvaxxed who made their choice to keep this thing going.
Do you know for a fact that vaccinated people cannot become infected nor pass on the virus, as you imply?
Of course there are breakthrough infections, but how likely are they transmissible to another vaccinated person? Consider the viral load is a fraction, and the vaxxed recipient more resistant. Moreover, what are the health outcomes of vaccinated people? Fortunately, Marin County breaks out outcomes by vaccination:
https://coronavirus.marinhhs.org/vaccine/data
If I'm interpreting this right then on average in a population of a quarter million 1 vaxxed person is hospitalized every 4 days, and 1 dies every 3 months. Plainly this is not a risk to worry about - if you're vaxxed.
Breakthrough infections of vaccinated people occur. When they say the vaccines are 70 to 90 percent effective, they mean you can still get infected, but the odds are much better you won't. If you do get infected your symptoms are likely to be milder and the period where you a shedding virus reduced.
And Omicron seems to be producing a LOT more break-through infections (a friend who's a nurse has seen 5 cases this week of patients coming to the ER with COVID who were vaccinated).
I'm very uncertain that vaccination protects others*--but I got my booster this week on the grounds that I'm quite sure it protects me.
*Vaccination reduces symptom severity: if that means more asymptomatic infections, or more "minor symptoms and I'm vaccinated so it's probably a cold" cases, it may no reduce transmission much at all.
Alas, they have persecution complexes already...and Gorsuch is about to announce the new religion of owning the libs...
Even paranoids can have enemies. And if they didn’t have them before all their LARPing, they’ve got some now.
If Ayn Rand had been smart, she would have made Objectivism a church, like L. Ron did with DIANETICS!
It's the Church of Satan,
https://www.churchofsatan.com/satanism-and-objectivism/
Doubly so that Ayn lost out.
& just think: we could have had Paul Ryan never reach Congress because he would have been too busy being the David Miscavige of Objectivetics.
Is it just me or does 'Miscavige' and 'Dianetics' sound like some kind of pediatric dental infection?
I'll ask Dr. Reynolds (my gp) the next time I see her. She's the one who found the staskunas on my misko & properly diagnosed it as Christiansen's Disease.
Near the end of her life Rand signed up for Social Security so she could get Medicare. Kind of like the militant anti-vaxxers who brag about their immune systems and then end up occupying valuable space in the ICU after they get COVID.
Ayn Rand was a ludicrously glib and unserious intellectual lightweight who founded a pop "philosophy" cult that has done enormous damage. But I don't begrudge her signing up for government benefits she had to pay for; nor do I think it's even hypocritical: as long as libertarians can't opt out of taxes, it's ok by me if they access the services they're paying for.
Fundamentally, the solution is a combination of vaccine mandates and a ruthlessly enforced policy of excluding the voluntarily unvaccinated from all nonessential activities, which definitely should include travel, indoor dining, theaters, and offices.
Also, I would agree with David Frum that voluntarily unvaccinated people who get Covid-19 should go to the back of the line. A voluntarily unvaccinated person should not be given a preference over his or her victims.
What is it going to take for you to realize you're not the good guy here?
Maybe it would be easier to round up the unvaccinated and put them in camps or something, huh Mitch? Maybe surround them with armed guards so they don't sneak off to their office jobs or try to take a vacation.
Also, wouldn't denying medical care and "non-essential activities" to the unvaccinated necessarily lead to disproportionate suffering among minority communities who tend to be less vaccinated? Isn't that the definition of systemic racism?
I’m not the one who is claiming the bizarre “right” to spread a deadly disease. I’m simply saying that if we’re to emerge from this pandemic in decent shape as a society, those who choose not to be vaccinated must be excluded from nonessential activities so that the rest of us can try to fight the pandemic without having to allow it to run its course. I think you’re being rather hysterical to equate not being allowed to eat in a restaurant or fly on a plan with being imprisoned in a concentration camp.
For hundreds of years in this country, vaccinates have either been mandatory or else unvaccinated people were excluded from schools and from travel abroad, to name just two examples.
I’m not advocating denying anyone medical care but as our hospitals again become overwhelmed and health care is rationed because of the “personal choices” of the unvaccinated, it is they who should bear the burden of their selfishness and irresponsibility, not the decent people who have acted to protect themselves and others from Covid-19.
Either get vaccinated or stay in lockdown. The rest of us want to get out from this pandemic in one uninflected piece and begin to return to normal.
The government has the right to protect the nation by drafting you into the military and sending you to a foreign land to die, but not the right to vaccinate you? I'm particularly irritated by anti-vax health care workers and police. Part of their job is to serve the public. If they are not willing to get vaxxed they need to find a new profession.
Agree entirely.
And maybe judges shouldn't force hospitals to provide Ivermectin to those who arrive in the ER & ICU after defying mask mandates & refusing vaccinations. Perhaps such patients can locate a source & pay for the treatment without violating a hospital's reasonable standard of care, especially if neither the patient nor any insurance will cover the off-label use for a non-parasitic infection.
Given the recent Supremes abortion ruling & inevitable vaxxx ruling, it seems our Conservative majority Supremes are saying that it is lawyers & judges who can dictate what procedures & treatments doctors can provide.
Almost sounds like the Roberts Court is a DEATH PANEL.
Yup - just as long as it doesn't involve a fetus & the woman whose body it's in. Wondering if the son of Virginia patient who will now receive Ivermectin will sue the hospital if she doesn't survive, as others have done, claiming that the delay in administering it caused her death. There is no reasoning with these people.
I have been prophylactically using ivermectin as hemorrhoid cream since 2014 for just this reason.
Good catch!
It seems to me that if people have the “personal choice” to get a highly communicable deadly disease then they want to have the “right “to have the medical treatment of their choice based on their own excellent research, provided, of course they sign a waiver. That gets the hospital out from under and allows people to exercise a choice which affects really no one except their immediate family and other loved ones.
Perhaps they are being foolish in following the advice of hypocritical Fox News commentators and hypocritical pastors but truly that is their choice and it harms no one else. I feel sorry for them and their loved ones but but if someone wants to follow the medical advice of Dr. Oz or Dr. Hannity there’s a limit to want you can expect from the medical profession. Anyone who wants to sign a waiver should be able to refuse treatment and consume as much horse paste as they truly desire.
I agree in theory, or would if they weren't also exposing others to their condition - medical staff, & other patients before isolation - as well as occupying ICU beds when some facilities have no room for other emergency care. In some places where people don't even have a hospital in their county, as in rural areas, it isn't just a matter of postponing optional procedures, & it really worries me. Never expected such irrational behavior with regard to one's own health care OR public health policy, but the anti-vax issue has been building a long time, hasn't it, with autism concerns?
But of course then there are the medical providers who won't get vaccinated (but who presumably have been using PPE on the job!). THOSE individuals I can't even begin to understand.
These same people are going to get Covid-19 regardless. And they’re going to occupy the ICU beds, and endanger health care workers regardless. Letting them have the horse medicine and refuse other treatments will likely free up those scarce beds more quickly.
You're right, but it's just too depressing. These are the same people who gave us the great destroyer - not Shiva, but trump.
And now they will sacrifice themselves to their callous and bloodthirsty god. Trump, leader of the thugs. Our democracy’s situation is perilous but many followers are happy to sacrifice their lives to the glory of the Donald and even though the effect on our situation is minimal, every little bit helps.
P.S. And is Mehmet Oz's entry into the Pennsylvania political fray after using his relatives' address to vote ther, rather where he lives in NJ, really going to go unchallenged?! Guess HRC was a carpetbagger senator, but she didn't vote in NY b4 moving there.
Challenging Dr. Oz’s qualifications would be partisan, so beyond the keen of most Democrats. Just as speaking his name is apparently a vicious act of raw bigotry.
Indeed- hyper-partisanshipvis the exclusive purview of the :Republicans." I still cannot for the life of me understand how Oprah, in her infinite wisdom, chose to elevate Dr. Oz, Dr. Phil, & that author of a fabricated life story.
Oprah was one of the earliest boosters of the antivax movement. She greatly raised their profile and gave them tremendous credibility. She’s probably more responsible for our current predicament than anyone not named Donald.
https://skepticalteacher.wordpress.com/2009/05/07/oprah-winfrey-gives-platform-to-anti-vax-movement/
https://skepticalteacher.wordpress.com/2009/05/07/oprah-winfrey-gives-platform-to-anti-vax-movement/
Never watched her (working 2 jobs will do that) but learned of those others she promoted - & somehow missed that she was also giving a platform to those people. How gullible people can be; recent history makes me appreciate my reasoning family more than ever. They weren't easily impressed or influenced, & strongly believed in calm discussions of history, religions, & other cultures.
Josh Hawley pulled the same shit on Missouri, using his sister's address in the Show Me State as his official residence on his candidacy filing.
& Indiana pols did this twice: Richard Lugar "rented" a guest room from a lobbyist & his wife in Indiana to use their home as his, & Mike Pence listed the Indiana Governor's Mansion as his legal address while serving as VP under El Jefe.
We from the county where the first battle of the Civil War was fought have a different name for Missouri.
Knew about Hawkey but don't remember reading of the others. Yes, they can excoriate the left for anything & everything, while they not only do it, but feel no shame.
¹Standard caveat here about those who have legit medical reasons for not getting vaccinated.
These people are why I'll continue masking without complaining about it.
Hey Kevin Drum......
Due to the impending wave perhaps you many want to re-visit the decision to not give COVID updates??????
Now, this is reassuring - NOT
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/12/covid-cases-omicron-highly-contagious/621038/
{snip}
A lot has changed for Omicron in just two weeks. At December’s onset, the variant was barely present in Europe, showing up in 1 to 2 percent of COVID cases. Now it’s accounting for 72 percent of new cases in London, where everybody seems to know somebody with COVID. In the U.K. and Denmark, Omicron case numbers are doubling every other day. The same exponential growth is happening—or will happen—in the United States too, just in time for the holidays.
What seemed likely earlier this month is now quite certain: A big Omicron wave is coming, on top of an already substantial Delta wave. There are still some unknowns about the variant, such as exactly how severe these cases will be. But we know enough about Omicron to understand that the time to act is now. “If we wait until our hospitals look like they’re starting to fill,” says Lauren Ancel Meyers, the director of the UT COVID-19 Modeling Consortium, “then it will be too late.”
The most intriguing unknown—the one in which we might like to place our hopes—is whether Omicron could be milder than Delta. But a milder, more transmissible virus can easily sicken so many people that it ends up increasing hospitalizations and deaths on the whole. Here is some simple math to explain the danger: Suppose we have two viruses, one that is twice as transmissible as the other. (For the record, Omicron is currently three to five times as transmissible as Delta in the U.K.—though that number is likely to fall over time.) And suppose it takes five days between a person’s getting infected and their infecting others. After 30 days, the more transmissible virus is now causing 26, or 64, times as many new cases as the less transmissible one. Exponentials are one hell of a growth hack. If we are banking on the idea that Omicron is more mild to get us through winter, then we had better hope that it’s really, really mild.
{snip}
Oh its nothing
Hospitalizations are going down YrY
Anybody and I mean anybody who suggested early on that this should just wash over the population should be shot in the public square.
The speed at which this is spreading will lead to a Delta/Omicron unholy alliance and the offspring from that alliance would be interesting.
It is what it is. Stop acting like there is a large outbreak. Even in Ohio, most of it is unvaccinated negros....which further makes me question raw data. Why are these people getting sick at such a high number????
Happy days for you, then.
The rose colored spectacles with the Coke bottle thick lenses crowd is thrilled with Omicron, claiming it will flood the Earth and create
the raptureherd immunity.But my question is, if it's so different from the other variants the vaccines are ineffective against it, won't any immunity it creates be meaningless except against itself and it's own immediate descendants?
And, yesterday, I saw a report showing that Omicron infects the bronchial tubes, as opposed to those areas other variants target, so isn't it just unlikely it will eliminate them by competition?
Omicron only increases your chances of getting it and Delta at the same time.
Just read initial reports that two doses of the Pfizer vaccine is far less effective at preventing Omicron illness, but still pretty effective, like around 70-percent, at preventing serious illness.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/22824183/omicron-variant-covid-19-vaccine-south-africa-pfizer-vaccine
I would be afraid that what would happen would be that upon catching Omicron your system would be so overloaded fighting it off it will be an easy mark for anything else that comes along at the same time, and that, as Omicron and Delta transmit in the same way, and the crowds that might spread them are the same kind of people, both variants will be there at once, and you'll end up with both, or with one and then the other, in short order.
The variants are different variations of the same disease. It's how the virus attacks and infiltrates the body, but once it's there, it's the same disease.
I agree with Kevin except that; I have no empathy for the unvaccinated and I think they are fucking morons. I don't care if they feel they are being punished or discriminated against. I have no issue wearing a mask as long as there is material risk of infection for fully vaccinated and boosted people.
I oppose bullying people into getting vaccinated; it's too slow and not effective enough. I support simply grabbing the unvaxxed and vaccinating them by force.
West Virginia is the most obvious use of manipulation. 85% adult rate. Why?? $$$$$$$$$
And even better just over 100 years ago the Supreme Court was a okay with the state of Massachusetts doing just that with smallpox vaccine.
As to bullying, mandates are likely to work with a majority of social conservatives, because they're authoritarians, they'll complain, probably bitterly, but the majority of them who are not now vaccinated will get vaccinated if it's actually required.
But if it's not required they never will, because they can get away with it and they're sticking it to authority, getting away with it, while they can.
Omicron is nothing. Please please come.
Ok. Now extend this same train of thought to racism, homophobia, misogyny, etc. if you’re a racial minority, non-heterosexual or female in our society, a lot of what Kevin says he feels about the unvaxxed - that they are “a mortal threat to me and my family, and that's not something I'm willing to treat lightly” - is how those people feel about racists, homophobes and misogynists. Which is why they want to bully (cancel) them. And yet Kevin (and lots of others) tell the racial/sexual minorities and the women to shut up (“lighten up”)… even as racial/sexual minorities and women face disproportionate violence against them from the racists, homophobes and misogynists waking freely amongst us.
You’re so close Kevin to seeing how your mortal fear of the belligerent unvaxxed is analogous to how other longtime oppressed people mortally fear the belligerent racists/homophobes/misogynists… please keep pondering this.
No, I don’t think it’s the same at all. It’s perfectly reasonable to berate a criminal or a terrorist. Their actions and their hostility justify push back.
I don't really follow you. Supreme Court Justice Jackson originated the saying that "the Constituion is not a suicide pact". Racial/sexual minorities are no physical threat to me, the anit-vaxxers are.
You can't possibly believe racism, misogyny, or homophobia are behind the majority of violent crime.
Whites, for example, are responsible for less than ten percent of interracial violent crime...a percentage that has been decreasing for years.
Quite so. They’re also not deadly and highly communicable diseases. A distinction with a clear difference for those who have any brain cells left after they finish consuming their horse paste or fish tank cleaner.
Multiple myeloma is the gay son to Kevin Drum's Rob Portman.
... too harsh?
I’m all in favor of making willfully unvaccinated go without medical care. I am not in favor of requiring them to get shot. This is our chance to wipe them out. We should take it.
Death to the negro!!!!!
The a flaw in this approach: The prevalence of the virus and the frequency of mutations make it impossible to contain or control its spread without nearly universal vaccination or denying unvaccinated people access to nonessential activities. If they’re not vaccinated or excluded from nonessential activities, they will take us with them.
It’s not really an “approach”… more like an acceptance of reality. Delta came from India and spread here via air travelers. Omicron likely came from outside the US and also traveled here in the bodies of international travelers. These variants, so far, aren’t originating in the US, but The unvaccinated in the US (and Europe) are suffering as a result. I’d prefer it didn’t happen, but this is out of my control. Mr. Drum said he was in favor of making their lives as miserable as possible. I’m pretty sure the only way to punish them is via illness. All you and I can do is stay out of their way. If I had my way, there would be no passenger air travel.
There will never be a mandate for the general public. Even my employer’s mandate was just a threat. No one’s been let go. So given the choice between harassing the willfully unvaccinated to get the shot and staying out their way as they get sick, I’m going with the latter. By now everyone knows what they need to do.
The problem is that we can’t keep our modern citified society closed until the virus is unable to find new hosts. This is essentially the strategy the USA is following at this point; the Biden administration hopes people will get vaccinated but is unwilling to really push hard for things that would makes life more difficult for the voluntarily unvaccinated.
The other point worth considering is that unless we exclude the voluntarily unvaccinated from nonessential activities, the prevalence of the virus and its spread among the unvaccinated endangers the rest of us. It’s only a matter of time until a new variant escapes the current vaccines and we’re back to square one. Quite literally, no man is an island in a pandemic.
Biden and the Democrats need to push back against Republican politicians, Republican media personalities, and Republican judges. His passivity is allowing them to keep the pandemic going to wreak his chances in 2024 and if he doesn’t step up, we’re practically guaranteed a Trump restoration.
Biden's lifting OSHA mandates. All spread responsibility will be put and granted to local authorities. It's over dip shit. Nobody cares. The fun part will be when hospitalization falls to 3-5 k by June.
Its endemic. It's mutating into weaker forms as we speak. Deal, accept the will of 90% of the American people.
All I’m really saying is that I’m not personally interested in trying to convince an acquaintance to get the vaccine. Of course the government will continue to broadcast PSA on TV advocating vaccination. I’m not concerned with the political implications. I’m not an island, but I’m building a mote! It’s easy for me to keep my distance.
I’m content to ride it out. And again… the variants are coming from other places like India and Africa. The first one came from China. I’m guessing sooner or later they will give us another one.
I understand your argument but even with precautions it’s highly infectious and it can be spread by individuals who don’t display symptoms. Unless you’re ready to withdraw from the world entirely, if it goes on long enough we’re all going to get it unless we take steps as a society to reduce the prevalence of the virus.
Even in the Middle Ages there was enough trade and movement of people for the Black Death to spread over all of Europe and The British isles. And it killed half the population of Europe because they didn’t know what caused it or how to stop it. Unlike them we know the answers to both of those things but we have chosen to indulge people who are essentially advocates for the spread of the virus. Whether you are concerned with the implications or not the reality is that if Biden does not act more forcefully, it will probably be impossible for you to avoid becoming infected with any high degree of probability. Over time more variants will be found and eventually one of them will escape the vaccines and that means people such as myself(and presumably yourself also) will be in the greatest possible danger and it will be almost impossible to avoid becoming infected.
I understand the doomsday scenario you’ve laid out, but there really is no policy or tactic which gets us where you want to go without all sorts of nastiness. It’s hard to know exactly what goes on in China, but it seems like they have a pretty vigorous response which involves lots of things no one would tolerate here.
If there is some sort of sweet spot that involves a combination of bullying and coaxing, then I’m all for it, but I just don’t think there is one.
Maybe the reality is that this never goes away and we have seasonal waves which kill thousands every day for… well forever. I’m coming around to that view. Perhaps it’s time to start building a Covid care infrastructure separate from the existing healthcare systems so that those waves of infection don’t leave hospitals unable to treat injured people or those with non Covid illness.
But, but, but, GAWD has told that He will protect them. It would be blasphemy for them to take the Devil Shot! They may lose their putrescent bodies but their place at the Right Hand will be sure!
My 7 month pregnant daughter works for a major hospital that is right now overwhelmed with unvaccinated Covid patients.
It is putting considerable stress on her and my grandchild.
And I feel extremely pissed off about it.
Where does she live??l the midwest???? It's the only area going through a noticeable rise in hospitalization. Look at the yry in mass, Rhode island and Conn. Similar cases, far less hospitalization. Most are black that actually get sick.
Sounds like Biden will lift OSHA mandate.
As a retired health care provider, I feel the same as Kevin. I also believe it is the government's job to do the bullying. Demanding vax for everyone. It worked with polio and for many childhood diseases which are almost non existent. Where is the country's spine!!!!
So Northeast liberal establishment will have a parade for West Virginia adults, the most vaxxed 18+ state in the union. Maybe Biden can rally with coal workers as they mine coal for the chinks.
The state health department prolly paid heroin, meth, & oxycontin dealers to cut their product with the Moderna vaxxx.
On a not unrelate note, automobile fatalities haved increased dramatically since the start of the pandemic.
Apparently, more people are driving faster, driving without seatbelts on, being DUI, than prior.
Perhaps the real plague is the spread of voluntary, deliberate stupidity.
The vaccines are not effective at stopping the spread of the disease.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/radio-city-rockettes-cancel-friday-christmas-spectacular-shows-over-breakthrough-covid-cases-11639767392
Why cancel??? That is the point. You can't and frankly should not stop spread. At some point as the NFL and NBA are seeing, with a mostly vaxxed population, stop with the junk. Move on.
Bullying the stupid is helping them. So, I fully support doing so because I'm an altruist. I'm completely serious. I have a dear friend in California who's probably very lucky she lives in a metro (Bay Area) with a high vax rate and is able to work from home. But "bullying" her would likely have prompted her to get jabbed by now.
The fact is, the lack of "bullying" has enabled her to continue living with an unnecessary, elevated risk of death or serious illness.
She got major dental work done a couple of weeks ago. I'm disappointed she was able to access such medical services without showing proof of vaccination. Had she been required to, I suspect she would've gotten jabbed. Same thing with employment: she does high end gig work for Silicon Valley firms. None of them have required her to get vaccinated.
I know a lot of people are understandably angry at the dullards who have fallen for Murdochian-Trumpian anti-vax jive, and say they don't care if they die or not. But sometimes public policy should take into account the existence of human ignorance. And yes, robust mandatory vaccination policies will make all of us safer, too.
I, on the other hand, have no empathy and think they're stupid.