What boggles my mind is it doesn't really matter to the right-wing what happens.

  • If there's a miracle and only dozens of people go into the hospital - "See? The pointy-headed scientists are super-fucking idiots."

  • If rally puts 100s of people into the hospital - the right-wing will say "See? The pointy-headed scientists are fucking idiots. No biggie." They might even quote morality rates.

  • If it becomes a super-spreader event just like last time - they'll say say "Freedom is more important."

Comments are disabled at the NYT - what a shitty site.

Hundreds of Thousands of Bikers Expected in Sturgis Despite Delta Variant - The New York Times

The annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally began on Friday, just as the infectious Delta variant is producing a surge in cases nationwide.

Although most large events shut down last summer because of the coronavirus pandemic, the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally forged ahead, panicking health experts as nearly a half-million motorcycle enthusiasts descended on the Black Hills of South Dakota.

This year's rally, which began on Friday, is expected to draw an even larger crowd, just as the infectious Delta variant is producing more new virus cases nationwide than this time last year.

[...]

Whatever minimal precautions people took last year have drifted away like so much motorcycle exhaust, she said. "This year it's hog-wild," she said. "Nobody cares."

[...]

Meade County, which includes Sturgis, has a 37 percent vaccination rate — significantly lower than the half of Americans who are fully vaccinated — and the six counties that border it have even lower vaccination rates.

    • inshallah2 [none/use name]
      ·
      3 years ago

      That's true.

      Imagine if the vaccine hadn't saved our bacon and the vaccines became available in the future - about a year from now in late 2022? How many covid-dead Americans would there be right now? Surely more than 1,000,000. More than 1,500,000?

        • inshallah2 [none/use name]
          ·
          3 years ago

          will never forgive Biden and the CDC for saying we don’t need to wear masks and all their confusing means testing masks shit now.

          Me too. At least once somebody in the White House must have told Biden that many 10,000,000s of Americans might totally refuse to get the vaccine. And then what?

          All the lib pundits love to say how Biden under-promises and over-delivers. Well - why didn't he set the covid mission accomplished date for late January, 2022 - the first anniversary of his presidency? There's being hopeful and there's being delusional and also being as naïve as fuck. Biden is one of those tedious idiots who needs wins (the bigger - the better) for his legacy.

          It's the same reason he'd do anything to get a bipartisan infrastructure deal. I'm really surprised McConnell allowed there to be ~$600B in new spending. I'm dead certain if the GOP offered half that - Biden would have forced the dems to take it. He needs to "prove" bipartisanship can work via his win.

            • inshallah2 [none/use name]
              ·
              3 years ago

              There’s also a lot of bad shit in that bill like privatizing a lot of infrastructure

              I've intentionally read hardly anything about the bill. This infographic alone was bad enough. The dems, themselves, are going pass shit. What they and the GOP agree on will be shit-cubed.

              a pilot program for mayor Pete’s mileage tax

              Oh, that dirty rat.

                • inshallah2 [none/use name]
                  ·
                  3 years ago

                  your infographic illustrates but seeing it laid out like that is so hilarious.

                  I put that and the tweet I found it in on my HD to share at r/politics. So far I've shared it once. The redditor said something like - it's just the first bill and dems will make up stuff in the second bill. I wanted to SATIRE (PARODY) him.

                  The dems fucked public transportation in the first bill. They're not going to do a single fucking thing for it the second bill.

                  Infographics can be so useful. And sometimes so brutally effective. It's illustrative and sort of amazing how/when media outlets use infographics. MSNBC for example shows stuff that...

                  1. Makes the dems look good.

                  2. Makes Biden look good.

                  3. Made Trump look bad.

                  A lot (if not a gigantic amount) of context is missing. And they never give you a way to find it on the website - you must do a screengrab if you want it. The data is just visual props that you shouldn't consider without the all important MSNBC voices for context.

                  This is my MSNBC favorite. It was shown on screen on Thursday. The segment was 11 minutes long and it was called "Good News! Poverty Drops To Historic Low After Biden Relief". Of course - I had to do a fucking screengrab to get it. On Friday Biden said "Oopsie - the eviction ban is up! Sorry!" And on Saturday the house took its August break.

                  Biden's good works look shittier if you understand the context. But MSNBC viewers will end up blaming the GOP.

        • star_wraith [he/him]
          ·
          3 years ago

          Back when it was around 550k or 600k deaths officially, I think it was U. of Washington that did a study that showed 900k exess deaths over what would be expected, so I think your 1-1.5 million is pretty close.

    • Ho_Chi_Chungus [she/her]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Hell even I'll admit, after having this drag on for so long even I'm starting to slack on taking shit seriously. I try to but it's difficult to keep trying to keep my job safe from disease when only like 20% of people are wearing masks and nobody seems to even pretend to know what "social distancing" is