I keep seeing stuff along these lines:
I have to say that my most frustrated and confused friends are the ones who "followed the science" and are now trying to figure out why the science has changed so drastically in the last 2 months
— PoliMath (@politicalmath) May 14, 2021
Am I crazy or is everyone else crazy? Nothing significant has changed about "the science" in the past two months—although we do have more data about how well the COVID vaccines work against all the variants floating around out there. (Pretty well, it seems.) Nobody has said otherwise.
What's changed is the circumstances. No one ever suggested that we'd wear masks forever, which means there was always going to be a day when the CDC would announce that it was OK for vaccinated folks to stop wearing them. That day would come when (a) the case count was dropping, (b) the vaccination rate had gotten sufficiently high, (c) real-world experience with the vaccines was convincingly positive, and (d) other indicators suggested that it was safe to drop the mask recommendation.
This is something of a judgment call, and there's nothing special about the day before or the day after. Nothing "suddenly" changed. Is this really so hard to understand?
Is this really so hard to understand?
Um, there's that Upton Sinclair quote, except in this case there's no salary involved. (Other than for the media mouthpieces of course.)
Think like an emotionally frantic, appallingly ignorant, and somewhat dimwitted 13-year-old. What does "understanding" mean to him/her? Apply that to an issue that involves (1) science, (2) social responsibility, and (3) politics. What's the (predictable) result?
Republicans are by and large overwrought, paranoid, ignorant, and significantly cognitively challenged, and they are primed to reject both science and any kind of social responsibility. They have resisted using masks since the outset, for the stupidest and most antisocial reasons, and this is merely the latest manifestation of it. They've been a problem from the start, and they're a problem now. There is literally NO reason to pay the slightest bit of attention to their rantings, much less attempt to "understand" them.
Useless post. You don't get it and I guess refuse to.
You are describing your own commenting history with succinct accuracy.
"This is something of a judgment call, and there's nothing special about the day before or the day after. Nothing "suddenly" changed. Is this really so hard to understand?"
If the circumstances changed gradually one would expect the recommendations to change gradually also. They didn't. Which just reinforces the perception that the CDC has no idea what they are doing.
What does gradually look like for a mask mandate? You have to wear one if the cubic volume of an indoor spot is less than a certain number? Chain coffee shops but not independent ones?
(Hint: tipping point is a useful concept for you to consider)
What we've been repeatedly told (even eluded to at a televised town hall less than 24 hours before the new guidance) was that it would be safe to ditch masks when we've gotten "closer" to herd immunity (around 70% vaccinated) and the community numbers are very low. Given current trends that could be like a month or two from now... as opposed to now where the numbers are still higher than our first peak.
No, there haven't been a ton of new studies in the last few days... the only notable event was Rand Paul badgering the CDC. It definitely leaves the impression that the decisions being made aren't entirely "science is science" based... more like "what can we do about crybaby Republican politicians who are convincing their people not to get vaccinated".
"What does gradually look like for a mask mandate? .."
In some places but not others according to some sort of objective criteria. Like proportion of people fully vaccinated or current infection and death rates.
And to the extent that these are political decisions not medical decisions the CDC shouldn't be making them.
On a geologic timescale, this change turned on a dime, for sure.
From what I’ve been reading, the point of contention isn’t about the continued wearing of mask as a scientific necessity but instead is an argument that since you can’t distinguish between vaccinated people and unvaccinated ones either we need to maintain the status quo (including vaccinated people wearing masks) or institute vaccine passports. Unvaccinated people will now be at heightened risk since essentially people (particularly antivaxers and their fellow travelers, the Trumpkins, will now be able to going into stores and restaurants and infect even those unvaccinated people who might be wearing masks.
A system which tells vaccinated people they can stop wearing masks and engage in indoors activities but doesn’t take into account the situation with anti mask, anti vaccine, and Republicans is one that’s eliminating safeguards way too soon. And we’ll all be living with this poor choice for decades to come.
Again, this post is irrelevant. Anti-vaccine is generally more Democratic in practice. Not getting vaccinated is generally non-educated under 50 group. If the die, they die. There will be mini outbreaks for the next few years while they get vaccinated most likely by spread. 92% of all Caucasians 65- are vaccinated.....The inability to move on cracks me up.
you live in a different universe than the rest of us.
"Although more than half of U.S. adults have received at least one dose of coronavirus vaccine, more than 40 percent of Republicans have consistently told pollsters they’re not planning to be vaccinated — a group that could threaten efforts to tamp down the virus’s spread, public health officials fear."
from the monmouth poll three weeks ago: Partisanship remains the main distinguishing factor among those who want to avoid the vaccine altogether, with 43% of Republicans versus just 5% of Democrats saying this.
Please don't feed the "Midgard" troll. It leaves its droppings to get attention. Starve it.
As far as I can tell from the actual counts of vaccines administered, race remains the main factor in determining who gets vaccinated and who doesn't.
"While the survey finds that racial and ethnic differences in vaccine hesitancy persist, level of education now has a stronger effect on people’s willingness to get the vaccine. The only exception may be people of Asian descent who—regardless of educational level—indicate a high level of willingness to get vaccinated."
https://healthpolicy.usc.edu/evidence-base/education-is-now-a-bigger-factor-than-race-in-desire-for-covid-19-vaccine/
There are still like four states with vaccinations below 35% of the population. And I think the governors in those states lifted restrictions weeks ago. Unless that changes a lot, there will be a summer surge.
60% of all Americans are vaccinated. 92% of Caucasians over 65. It's mission accomplished. If the stupid non-college negros, latins and whitey don't want it, the herd will be culled. Hospitals won't skip a beat.
The issue has always been misunderstanding of masking, either intentionally or thru sheer ignorance. Nurses wear masks to protect themselves, everyone else wears masks to protect others. This is fundamentally incomprehensible to a large segment of our population. Or tragically, and easily, continually muddled by cons and the self-righteous towards the segment of the population who are tenuously grasping the concept but frequently lose it again.
Also sadly, many of us who do grasp it have also lost our camaraderie and 'all for one and one for all' approach that is America's Greatest Strength but also exposes our Greatest Weakness. We have the attention span and focus of a gnat and can't be bothered to keep doing The Right Thing while so many of 'us' are doing The Wrong Thing and (apparently) Having Fun and Rubbing Our Face In It. Sadly, the stories of so many nurses and doctors who are still caring for COVID patients who die are Becoming Old Boring News. Enough aren't dying to make an impact on the Nightly News. We'll get thru this, but more will die (and more will have long haul tragedies for their lives and their families) than will have needed to.
Movies will be made, and Books will be written.
Those who do not learn from the history of the 1918 and HIV epidemics will be doomed to repeat them.
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Re: masking: Another thing that hasn't changed: People finding some gratuitous niggling way to bitch about it and show their incredibly self-righteous political cleverness.
(Said Stewart politically self-righteously)
Of course when you grew up taking care of your polio-paralyzed mother in the '50s and '60s, one tends to see anything but dead-nuts medical science as suicidal idiocy.
I will admit that I find the new CDC masking guidance to be quite frustrating. I see it almost as a petulant, passive-aggressive abdication of responsibility in the face of political pressure. "Yeah, we know you aren't going to play right anyway, so we're outta here, losers!"
No, the sciences hasn't changed, and yes, the idea that vaccinated people don't need to mask is based on science. And as a vaccinated person (and a scientist!), I know that I am extremely unlikely (for now, anyway) to get severe COVID, and pretty much entirely unlikely to transmit any coronavirus that happens to make its way into my nose.
The CDC pretty much just said what I already know. But they are not being super clear about what they are NOT saying,
Even though I know all that science stuff, and even though I live in one of the most highly vaccinated states, and even though I live and work and shop and socialize almost entirely in the part of the state that is THE MOST highly vaccinated, I will still wear a mask when shopping, when getting my nails done, and even in restaurants when I am not putting food into my mouth, regardless of what the business owners require. Why, because in my state, when I can walk into any CVS or Walgreens and get a shot, the only people who are unvaccinated are ignorant, aggressive, willfully disruptive trumpers. Fortunately, they are not numerous enough to even win a local election. But they and their unvaccinated children are numerous enough to create mobile viral-evolution incubators that will make things a bit more uncomfortable for the rest of us.
I'm sure we will all be getting boosters in the fall or winter. And I am sure that a few vaccinated, responsible people will get severely sick or even die, not because there is anything wrong with the vaccine, but because these motherfuckers will be the perfect breeding ground for an immune-evading variant.
"But they and their unvaccinated children are numerous enough to create mobile viral-evolution incubators that will make things a bit more uncomfortable for the rest of us . . . because these motherfuckers will be the perfect breeding ground for an immune-evading variant."
This is exactly the problem.
It seems to me that tweet is nothing other than a twitter burn. A gotcha tweet with no redeeming social value.
Well of course things have changed — we know more about modes of transmission, we are testing at much higher rates, we have a large and increasing plurality of the adult population vaccinated, and more. What did this twit want, for everything to stay the same? What has not changed is the fundamental model — bring the pandemic under control by reducing Rt below 1.0, since that puts us in a state of exponential decay in the number of new cases. You do that by a) interfering with the mechanisms of transmission, through mask-wearing, distancing, capacity restrictions, closures, self-quarantine, etc., and b) reducing the proportion of available hosts through vaccination. A real polymath would be able to understand that. This person is a fraud.
I personally am kind of scared because my son is 3 and it's tough to get him masked. Now that we can't tell who is a murderer and who isn't, keeping him from getting sick gets a lot harder.
Sure you say it usually doesn't hit kids hard. But UK variant does tend to hit harder, and there's always a chance my kid is an unlucky one. Can't protect them against everything but this is a horrible way to die. I'd have preferred tying vaccination rates and mask mandates.