The first two paragraphs
Few Americans have received the latest vaccines against the coronavirus: Just over 7 percent of adults and 2 percent of children had received the shot as of Oct. 14, according to a survey presented on Thursday to scientific advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The uptake is weak even among those most at risk of severe illness. Only one in five people age 75 or older has been vaccinated, along with about 15 percent of those ages 65 to 74, according to the survey of nearly 15,000 people.
The for-profit system keeps finding ways to make things worse. At least when the pandemic started liberals were doing some social distancing and masking. And when the first vaccines came out a lot of people got them. Now covid-19 is as dangerous as ever and a lot of people aren't masking, aren't testing, aren't contact tracing, aren't paying attention to the numbers, aren't social distancing, aren't vaxxing, etc, largely because the government has rolled back every one of those protections. Covid is as strong as ever, maybe stronger since it's had the chance to mutate in so many directions. And people are less and less protected, and the protections are more and more expensive if they're even available.
Be careful, everyone. Use as many layers of protection as you can: masking, vaccination, air filtration, ventilation, avoiding sharing air supply with people when you can. Avoiding repeat infections can still help reduce your chances of sickness, disablement, and death. And of course every time you protect yourself, you are also protecting your loved ones and communities.
It's amazing to me that liberals eventually and aggressively adopted a Trumpian attitude towards covid. Pretend it doesn't exist and it'll go away.
In context - it was weird for me to see the focus on the Maine mass shooter. Every single day in communities all over the US - Americans make other people sick, they make them debilitated, and they kill them via covid. And this happens without any comment in the media. It's just unimportant background noise like accidents and death due to cars.
Yeah, it really goes to show how powerful the propaganda machine is. I really thought that some of the liberals were making decisions based on critical thinking but it looks like nearly all of them were just waiting for the democrats to give them the green light, even though the road ahead was full of corpses.
Yeah, I had similar thoughts about the mass shooting. Around 20 people killed horrifically and quickly. And covid is killing people all the time and no one even blinks. We are getting zero solutions for either and yet the one with the far higher kill count isn't even recognized. There are so many forms of death and debilitation that we are propagandized to accept as normal. Seeing the treatment of the pandemic has made me realize that they've been pulling the same tricks on us with basically every form of preventable death that we encounter.
One other thing that frustrates me is the media narrative that if something doesn't protect you 100% it's not worth it at all. They did it for masks, they do it for vaccines. It will be really hard to eliminate covid, but if a sizeable chunk of the population started masking again, demanded better working conditions, filtered and ventilated their air, and were more careful about how they socialized, we could really slow it down, save a lot of lives, and save a lot of people from getting disabled. I hope we can work towards that, because even one life saved is worth it.
I guess in an alternate universe - liberals are "uncertain" if seatbelts, airbags, crumble zones, etc are worthwhile because they add to the cost of a vehicle.
I still can't believe that - as far as I know - Biden's infrastructure bill budgeted effectively nothing for filtration and ventilation. And - of course - the bill was passed during a literal fucking epidemic. It seems to me that a fundational purpose of a federal government is to keep the public safe. In a simple phrase "planning ahead" is key.
Biden and the dems didn't "follow the science" on this. They did exactly the opposite. They wanted people to sleepwalk though covid so they followed the politics. And they've done that for so many other things as well. Eventually - there will be another pandemic. And if we don't have vaccine solution like we did this time - Biden/dem non-actions on filtration and ventilation will likely help lead to awful outcomes. It's all insane.
The top-down (trickle-down if you will), government-led approach has been an absolute failure and will continue to fail to protect people in every regard. What I mean is that we need ground-up initiatives. We need people choosing to mask, socialize carefully, and vaccinate not because the government says to or makes it easy, but because that's what our communities need to do to survive. We need individuals to mask and spread awareness that the pandemic is not over, that the media is lying, and that people need to do more to protect themselves.
Things are very bad. Most people are taking no measures to protect themselves. BUT we should not give up. Each infection prevented is a win. Each infection/reinfection can lead to disability or death of the person infected and to all the people they spread it to and all the people those people spread it too. So, preventing even one infection can actually do a lot to save a lot of lives and to save a lot of people from being disabled.
It's hard to see it because if you save someone's life by wearing a mask you're not going to get any feedback that that person was saved because of you. Since Covid-19 can spread asymptomatically, you won't necessarily know when you are sick and infectious. But wearing a mask even when you don't feel sick can keep you from spreading it to other people, and not spreading it to other people can save their lives.
It's important to remember that the little things we do can have an impact on a greater scale. Part of the reason the government was so keen to drop masking is that it's a visual sign that something is different from the status quo they've worked so hard to establish. People are being constantly bombarded with propaganda that the pandemic is over, but eventually, some people are going to notice that their families, friends, and coworkers are still getting sick. By holding out and continuing to protect ourselves, we can convert people over time. Some people are bound to have a reawakening. To realize "oh, those weirdos who kept masking after I thought the pandemic was over were right all along." We need to build a ground-up movement. Things are bad but even small measures make a difference. Even one infection prevented is worth it.
That's were i think the real blame should go. How can we expect people to stay vigilant and protect themselves and others, when the state does nothing?Well, not just nothing. Biden admin is making it even worse because they want credit for it being over.
It is still disappointing and frustrating that people aren't doing more in spite of the government response, especially for immunocompromised people.
Hospitals and Nursing homes don't even bother with masks anymore. If they do, it's after an outbreak starts to stop too many staff from getting sick at once. They absolutely don't care about infecting vulnerable people.
It's so fucked. I feel so bad for people who have no option but to live in congregate living. Like being old and knowing you and everyone is going to die unless the people in charge protect you and no one does it, even though it's simple and straightforward. People are being put in institutions to die. They are death farms. Prisons, nursing homes, long term care facilities for disabled people, hospitals. They're all just herding people over the edge of a cliff. They are death mills for the less fortunate. It's so fucked. The numbers are being hidden, they aren't testing people and they're putting down other things as the cause of death. I'm convinced it's basically a class-based genocide.
Edit: syntax
Yes, the government is to blame. They are the tool of the ruling class in the class war, and the pandemic is being dealt with to suit the needs of the ruling class, at the cost of the lives and health of the working class. Since the government is failing us, we must be the ones to take care of ourselves and our communities. I hope that over time we can spread awareness to the rest of the working class, because even with the intended failures of the government, there's a lot that people can do to reduce their risk level and protect themselves and communities. And yeah, the whole situation is fucked for immunocompromised people for sure. It's still so weird to see non-immunocompromised people taking such risks though. Covid-19 kills and maims healthy and young people along with everyone else.
I'm still not the same as before getting it 3 years ago. And that's what i was most worried about when the whole thing started. 🙃
Yes. This is the case for so many people. And each reinfection is a roll of the dice. Each time people get it again, there's the risk of disability and death. Some health problems last forever. Sometimes when people get covid, it gives them a permanent condition like diabetes or a heart problem or an autoimmune disorder. The media acts like people who get covid get better, but that's not the case for everyone. We can't go back in time but at least we can try to not get it again and try to not spread it to anyone else. Best wishes to you, comrade. I hope you get better, and if not, I hope your condition does not get worse.