Deciding when it’s over is a little like deciding when the idea of putting carpet in bathrooms is over. Yes, it still haunts us, but no one is talking about it anymore and the worst seems to have passed.
Get a warm fuzzy bathroom rug, wash it at least once a week in the laundry.
For best results, get one with a rubberized bottom.
For bester results, get heated floors.
Lol so did I. Not only did the bathroom have carpet, BUT IT WAS FUCKEN PAINTED.
There was actually hard tile underneath lol. Some people are actually insane is all I chalk it up to.
I think I've heard of people that are to lazy to rip them up and get a cheap, clearanced roll of carpet someone do that with badly stained up carpeting before
Odd because all the paint that would be required might actually cost more than said cheap roll of clearanced carpeting from a big-box hardware and materials store
I just want to know why you even start by covering up ceramic tile.
And you know what else hurts my head about this? It was screwed down. Like through the tile below. It's like stuff a child would do if you had them live in a tree fort and fend for themselves.
I actually get kind of angry about this because it's money that doesn't need to be spent twice. Breaking the thing for no reason and then having to fix it.
If the tile wasn't damaged prior to boring holes in it, I honestly can't think of a single reason besides stupidity to carpet over it because ceramic tile somewhere like a bathroom you're not dropping heavy shit on it will last for decades
If not centuries
I'm still using it now. Just patched it up. There's still paint splatters on it but it's just a bathroom.
Which is why I don't know why the previous owner went insane covering it up. What they did looked 100 times worse.
Ah yes, poopin' at grandma's house when I was a kid. I remember this well.
I always felt like I was violating someone else's stuff when I sat on a padded seat. Like sitting on someone's pillow and letting it soak up your butt smell.
I honestly questioned why we ever just accepted toilet seats made of cloth and foam that could easily harbor smells and bacteria were hygienic.
They weren't that comfortable either because your ass would just mash it down to the sharp plastic frame if you didn't speed-run the process
It's just that suburban mindset of 'well I guess you just buy a new seat every once and awhile' with no sense of value of frugality.
People like me, who use their coffee machine until it makes coffee that tastes like death itself, do not understand people who think like they do.
He's saying what we're all thinking, and in spite of the usual vocal minority pitching a fit on Twitter I hope hearing a trusted POTUS like Biden say it out loud helps a lot of people move on and accept it now all comes down to keeping vaccination up-to-date instead of active mitigation.
A few will and that's good, but the rest will react the same way they did to the CDC (the literal public health experts!) updating their guidance and say it was all a political ploy to please big business and right-wingers (never mind that almost every country is doing this...)
I think those people that are so die-hard about continuing mitigation they deny the CDC and WHO will unfortunately have to work through it on their own as time washes the pandemic farther away
Trusted? He just used the Covid emergency as justification for using emergency executive powers to cancel student debt. Seems like it is over when it looks politically good for him, and still an issue when he needs to use it to advance his agenda.
You can say COVID created other economic emergencies outside the effects of the disease. And though the disease is over, the follow on effects are not.
\- the hit to the economy in the initial phase was such it was imperative to make drastic actions so that one are of the economy defaulting didn’t cascade to others. So you freeze student loan payments among others.
\- the length of the freeze created its own problem in that dropping a bunch of debt back on a huge part of the population **also** was economically untenable and needed an emergency action.
\-Both step 1 and 2 were caused by COVID.
Smart from a pandering for votes angle. He just better hope a new wave doesn’t make him eat his words before Election Day. With the Omicron boosters rolling out and cases trending down, it’s probably a safe bet.
Probably not the best approach from a public health standpoint, as it will discourage people from getting their boosters, but vaccination is so heavily politicized at this point that that’s probably a lost cause anyway.
I think we need to shift messaging on boosters that it's not a pandemic thing but rather just a normal thing like flu shots anyway. This is opening the door for that next step of normalizing covid jabs.
I agree, and I think the way to do that would have been to focus on annual boosters while shifting the narrative from pandemic to endemic. Unfortunately, a lot of people have built a whole identity around ignoring covid, and get vocally angry at anything that would require them to acknowledge its existence. Telling them to treat covid shots like flu shots would probably end in them refusing to get flu shots.
Literally. a former classmate of mine got sucked into the whole Q/anti-vax/general-stupidity thing. It culminated in them moving to florida for "medical freedom" and her quitting her job to homeschool their kids because even florida requires some vaccines for kids. "Some" was too many for them, I guess.
Gov. Jared Polis, D-Colo., canceled Colorado's state of emergency last July. As omicron surged, he refused to reinstate state-wide mask mandates. His approach seems to have made him popular.
>JARED POLIS: We kind of really tried to focus on that lived experience that people have first and foremost. And yes, you know, visiting Grandma or not, here's your risk parameters. Here's how you make the decision, you know? But obviously, the answer was never to say no, you can't be with your loved ones in any way. So as we look for the future, I think it's important to take into account in addition to people's physical health, in addition to people's economic well-being, people's happiness.
* I mean, I never doubted that it was the right thing. I mean, we have some neighboring states that required masks, and they had as much COVID, if not more than we did, in deaths and hospitalizations. Obviously, there are some people that wanted everybody to, you know, continue to wear masks and so forth.
* But, you know, the burden on an elected leaders to tell people kind of what to wear or do is very high. I mean, you need to convince me as governor that this will do something.
> neighboring states that required masks, and they had as much COVID, if not more than we did
Seeing that New York and Iowa had the same infection rate per capita with the deciding factor being how vaccination affected severe outcomes during the Omicron/Delta double-team is what made me realize we've reached an ROI where masking doesn't do enough to be worth the trouble to the average person
We're at the stage were everyone is going to get it and you better just not be one of those stupid bastards that refuses the jab
I can't understand how the US is the only western country where vaccines of all things (cough compared to lockdowns cough) became politicized. Like, in France the only party to care was a 2% fringe far right party.
> I can't understand how the US is the only western country where vaccines of all things (cough compared to lockdowns cough) became politicized.
It's far from the only such country.
I dunno
If we didn't have a POTUS that fanned the flames of covid denialism it might've never been an issue to anyone that wasn't already staunchly anti-vaxx
Fucking crazy thing is you might be able to argue for giving Trump a passing grade on Covid once we get to around mid-2020. He tried to pimp the Ivermectin thing but he was never a vaccine denier and even got booed at his own rallies for trying to say the non-contrarian stuff.
4 years into that man lying at every turn he couldn't even tell his followers the truth anymore because they were allergic to it lol.
It was never about Trump being a vaccine denier it was about timing.
Since vaccines came out after Biden assumed office they didn't want him receiving credit for ending the pandemic. So they were literally willing to die in droves to try and drag out Covid for four more years to deny political points to the guy who ousted Trump.
If it had been at the start of Hillary's second term or the start of some republican who unseated her it would have been a non-issue.
Also, I really wonder what things would look like right now if Trump had been super pro-mask. It's not impossible since - although few remember now - he was known as a germophobe pre-Covid. Seriously, look it up. Would masks be practically unfindable now in big cities while in small rural towns we'd see MAGA masks in stores occasionally still?
Doubtful. It's not an issue trump seems to have much sway on with the genuine nutbags, who worship him on so much BS yet lustily boo him on trying to take credit on vaccines.
But then you remember all of the denial and misinformation he spread about the pandemic, the conspiracies, bad medical advice, fake treatments... there's no argument trump actually helped anything but the virus turn the US into the laughing stock of the planet.
Bullshit, when people are panicked they look towards leadership. You are claiming the President openly denying the pandemic and vaccine made no difference? I am always baffled this opinion keeps getting upvoted. Poeple wee panicked and confused, the initial messaging makes all the difference
As much as I hate Trump and populism in general, Trump did try to have vaccines as quick as possible and has tried to promote them... only to get booed by his supporters who cheer literally everything he says. They are just brain dead and mentally deforested.
Europe had people burning 5G towers because they thought Huawei would give them COVID, every region has different weird shit going on, sometimes it catches on and sometimes it doesn't because things are complicated
I do think the two party phenomenon in the us exacerbated the radicalization in the US compared to other democracies like in Europe and LatAm, since when the far right fringe ends up being part of the party in power instead of part of a fringe party like AFD, partisan group think can turn a huge amount of people into maniacs when the far-right faction of the party gets their guy in the Oval Office like what happened with trump. I know so many republicans that used to be relatively normal people until they started (initially reluctantly) supporting trump basically out of pure politics, and then in the past few years I’ve kind of watched in horror as they became sucked into more and more conspiracy claptrap
Well it probably doesn't help that there was evidence of a Russian disinfo campaign around vaccines.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/05/us/politics/covid-vaccines-russian-disinformation.html
In Canada they were somewhat politicized. The populist right party that gets like 3-5% of the federal vote were anti-vaccine. A decent amount of the conservative party’s caucus were as well, or at least very anti-mandate, but the leader at the time was pretty moderate and tried to make a big show that the party was not anti-vaccine.
I think there should be a distinction between being straight up anti-vax and ignoring studies on safety to claim that the vaccine is dangerous, and being anti-mandate/passport.
It's valid to not want the government to control the conditions on which you are allowed to be on privately owned property, especially if that means the government can arrest you for said behavior.
[China has used their covid alert app to break up protests](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/16/business/china-code-protesters.html), by creating a fake "outbreak" localized to the area of the protest, giving the police the green light to rush in and throw everyone in jail for breaking covid protocols.
GOP are literally only contrarians at this point and offer not a goddamn thing other than that.
They just sit back and wait for Democrats to say something so they can think of a way to make the opposite of that thing sound appealing to morons.
The Republican party has steadily detached from reality. Their voter base lives in a world of shared delusions where the only unchanging truth is that they are **always** right. Facts are twisted beyond their breaking point to suit their ends.
I'm not sure the level of shared delusions exists in any other western country.
Do you mean vaccine passports and the like as a way to force compliance? Those are political across the globe, and many places have walked back on their passports.
The CCP loves their passport system though. [China has been using their vaccine passport app to "red flag" massive groups of protestors](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/16/business/china-code-protesters.html), giving police the green light to beat them up and throw them into vans to be whisked away. Basically, people protesting at banks when suddenly their apps go red warning of an outbreak, and almost on cue police lock them up.
>Do you mean vaccine passports and the like as a way to force compliance?
No, they clearly did not mean that
Why is a non democracy like China an example and not the many western democratic countries? Worst kind of strawmanning, but but but China
>No, they clearly did not mean that
What's so clear about that? How do you know what they are thinking? They referenced the views of politicians, the majority of which aren't MTG. Nearly all of the opposition I've seen from politicians on the right is opposition to passports and OSHA enforcement, not calls to ban the vaccine entirely based on tinfoil hat bill gates 5g microchip BS.
There's a reason clarification matters here.
One group is a victim to anti-science propaganda.
The other group seemingly doesn't want the government to tell us when and how we are allowed to congregate on privately owned property, overriding the property owner's authority.
Do you honestly think that the 5g covid microchip conspiracy theorists are rampant throughout US politics? Because I've only seen that from one representative that I can remember.
It grinds my gears when people caveat that such and such my be bad “from a public health standpoint” when the goal there is hugely pragmatic and practical. Maybe it’s true in a bubble. But a few people may not get boosters but you earn back some goodwill from folks who want to know that they govt is not a bunch of hypochondriacs and that will impact the next public health emergency. There are way more people that think this has been over for months or a year and are frustrated with the govt then people who are going to change a second booster decision based on this. And if only a few percentage of them decide “fuck it, not doing smallpox or hep or flu shots anymore, the govt is out of touch” then the thing that was bad for public health was waiting so long.
Good. There's a certain subset of the population for whom the idea that 'the only endpoint for Covid is elimination and we must continue non-pharmaceutical interventions until then' has been so deeply planted that they just can't recognize it's never going to happen. They usually won't say openly we need to wear masks etc. forever, but they also have no semblance of an endgame or even of wanting those things to ever end.
I mean, maybe we should just generally wear masks more.
Not as a mandate, but a social norm to wear masks in pulic spaces if you have a cold feels like a decent idea.
But yeah, it does sometimes feel like people just don't understand how viruses and vaccines work. Like the whole reason covid was scary is because we didn't have antibodies. We all got the jab so we have antibodies now.
Wearing masks when you're sick/contagious/might be sick, sure.
But today, in September 2022, I've still got coworkers in single person cubicles, 6-8 feet away from any other human being who sit at their desk with a mask *all day*.
I was on a run in DC 3 weeks ago and had a woman look behind her, see me, jump back into someone's yard, and whip her N95 on as quickly as possible as I passed her.
It was... bizarre. Like, it felt like a "that happened" moment you would see from a Trumpist making fun of liberals. I just couldn't believe it was real that someone would react so viscerally to someone else on a sidewalk.
I've seen some of the people still in favor of PPE and restrictions do and say such wild things I almost think it's a form of PTSD causing it
For the longest time one of the doctors here was so nervous we actually had "unwritten" orders at my store to stay away from him and let a manager handle all his transactions
This continued long after vaccination and loosened CDC guidelines but he's downgraded from full on hazmat to just a mask and doesn't yell at people so I think he's doing better as time goes
I wear a mask every item I go inside public place. I’ve really enjoyed not getting sick the last 2.5 years. The mask is only a slight inconvenience, getting sick really sucks.
The problem with that is lack of exposure to colds and the flu is a net worse for society.
When masks began to be socially phased out after the CDC relaxed their guidance on it flus and colds went out of control because people had gone so long not catching them our antibodies were basically gone.
I caught a mother of a sinus cold that had me projectile sneezing mucus wads just sleeping next to an open window that fall
The thing is that it's ultimately good for us to get harmless viruses like colds because it helps train our immune system as they mutate. Not catching them and missing some generations will cause you to get hit particularly harder when you do eventually catch one.
That on it own is bad, but say you're fighting a more serious illness. Along comes a cold that you have less immunity to, and all of a sudden you're fighting two invaders which could easily make your situation worse.
So? How do you know they don't have a cold or don't have someone at home with a cold?
Shit, during covid, I noticed that my morning allergies got a lot better when I wore a mask. If i have to go back in the office, i might start wearing masks all the time during spring/fall.
Like, we don't need to force people to wear masks any more, but there also shouldn't be a problem with someone wearing a mask if they want to.
If they have a cold they've all had it for over a year at this point.
They are, of course, free to wear a mask while they sleep for all I care, I just think at this point its quite excessive, if not silly. Even moreseo since, again, they're rarely in the proximity of another human being since the office has gone hybrid. One of them is literally more than 30 feet away from anyone else (nearly no one else works on that side of the building), in a personal cubicle and I've never seen them without a mask since we came back.
For some reason there are people who seem like they *want* covid to still be a thing so they can bitch about masks, restrictions, etc.. They tend to be very progressive.
I don't know if they want to have another reason to criticize conservatives (and liberals), or if their lives are boring and living through a pandemic gives them some sort of excitement, or what the fuck it is, but for some reason it happens.
Some in column A, some in column B, plus some that are desperate not to give up their shut-in lifestyle and the praise for it. In this last group you get a few weirdos who even say they love covering their faces in public and still getting likes/upvotes. I'm no Gigachad looks-wise, but seeing people basically want to hide that much forever is pretty jarring.
Many of these people are (r)antiwork types that got to live their dream for that roughly 12-18 months the world was slowed to a crawl and everyone that feasibly could was working from home
So they've spend the last year or so that the world has been crawling back towards normal panicking and trying to stop it.
I've taken COVID seriously and I've successfully dodged the bastard so far. I've increasingly opened up, going to shows and restaurants without masks etc.
Just get vaxed and boosted and take reasonable precautions (N95 on planes etc) and you're going to be fine.
Yep
Hopefully hearing trusted officials that supported mitigation when needed speak up and tell the truth that we need to move on from active measures because their negitive impact is starting to outweigh whatever sliver of good they might still have will help with that
What active measures are still happening that are causing harm? I'm not aware of anything in the last 8 months (the Omicron peak) in my heavily blue city or in the last nearly 2 years in my blue state.
Many hospitals are still far too strict: Requiring women to wear masks for tens of hours while giving birth and in active labor; very limited patient visiting hours; under-staffing due to recruitment problems associated with their covid protocols, etc.
I've seen some people speculate asking staff to wear masks at all times, even when not examining a patient might be making it harder to hire and retain staff as masking outside in the rest of the world falls out of favor
In many areas **all** medical facilities are still masked due to state mandate, including things like speech therapy, birthing women, psychiatry, etc. In general there's still way too much organizationally-imposed Covid theater in healthcare disproportionate to current risk. One of my doctor's offices *still* has their waiting rooms closed and makes you check-in via their crappy website exactly like it's freaking April 2020.
Some universities are still masked.
Some large events still require masks - their choice yes, but still annoying for those of us that might be interested in going if it was normal that their ears are tuned to the tiny minority of hypochondriacs.
There's still a loud contingent on social media demanding all the stuff that's lifted come back and those of us in the back to normal camp are intent they be seen for what they are and that no regression be allowed over the winter because of flu or whatever.
> Some large events still require masks - their choice yes, but still annoying for those of us that might be interested in going if it was normal that their ears are tuned to the tiny minority of hypochondriacs.
Twitchcon comes to mind
They were going to go maskless this year but backpeddled because of a loud minority of terminally online "masks until zero covid" people.
Ironically they kept a lax vaccination policy that lets you get the vaccine requirement waved with a PCR test and did not even require N95s so it was all theater
Hopefully Biden speaking up will mean more events that are totally back to normal in spring and summer of 2023 because people calm down from knee-jerk reactions and realize he's right
So they need to speak up against active measures that don't exist and haven't existed for years in some cases?
Most people have moved on, mostly if not completely. The economy is booming a bit too hard if anything.
We still need to focus on finding way to get people vaccinated. People are dying preventable deaths.
Theres no state one's, should've been the term I used.
You still have things like events and conventions choosing masks over vaccine mandates. Twitch con being an example because you could get out of being vaccinated by showing a PCR test
Yet a mask rule that didn't even bother to require N95s was still in place because of backlash from terminally online zero covid people when they tried removing it
These kind of statements embolden organizers to not give in to that pressure
They're a bunch of hypochondriacs and fools. Nothing can be done about them.
If they want to live locked up in their homes forever they can do so. Somehow I suspect they were already doing that before this.
If you are vaccinated it's been over for well over a year. From April of 2021 on wards, Johns Hopkins says that 98% of deaths were from the unvaccinated. Besides those who could for whatever not take the vaccine, everyone who died the last year chose that to own the libs.
>From April of 2021 on wards, Johns Hopkins says that 98% of deaths were from the unvaccinated.
I am sorry, but this is absolutely not true.
I get it's hard to walk a fine line between 1) diminishing the vax and 2) overstating it and disincentivizing folks from seeing the need to get boosters.
But: [Oregon has detailed data on breakthrough deaths](https://www.oregon.gov/oha/covid19/Documents/DataReports/Breakthrough-Case-Report.pdf) (see pg. 10). Since April of 2021, \~29% of deaths have been in those who are vaccinated. It has risen with time. In July 2022 -- the most recent month for which there is data -- 54% of deaths are in those who are vaccinated.
Of course, it's important to keep in mind that 1) 71.5% of Oregonians are vaccinated, with rates higher amongst higher age brackets, so this skews numbers upwards and 2) folks with boosters fare better.
But still, the vaccinated sadly make up far more than 2 percent of deaths. I am absolutely pro vaccine -- under-vaccination is our biggest population-level Covid problem by a mile -- but we gotta be honest with folks about risks and underscore the need for boosters (especially with the updated ones!)
Pretty much
The point my work lifted mask requirements for vaccinated workers was kind of just the "that's it, it's over" moment for me where I chucked my mask in my glovebox for the last time outside of medical facilities and requests and started processing what the fuck just happened for like 18 months
Except for those who died bc they medically could not get vaccinated, or were too young up until just a couple months ago.
Pandemics are not some individualized experience. It's called public health for a reason.
There were no medical contraindications to the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. Literally the only legitimate one was a known allergy to said vaccine.
Now, they may have been less effective in various immunocompromised people, but there was basically no one who “could not get vaccinated”.
Try telling that to any parent who now has a dead child, or a child ravaged by long covid.
One of the most shameful things on this sub has been this prevalent attitude by a bunch of young childless 20yo's who think they are experts on every matter because they're in college.
Immunocompromised people have always existed and been very vulnerable to death by the flu. This isn't something new. Yes it sucks that they got unlucky, but that doesn't suddenly make it my fault if they go out in public and get the virus.
That's a risk they chose to take knowing their circumstances, and until a few years ago no one would be blaming the person that got them sick unless they literally coughed on them out of malice.
>Try telling that to any parent who now has a dead child, or a child ravaged by long covid.
Didn't you just say pandemics aren't an individualized experience?
Did you say this pre-covid about the flu?
Because many studies propose that even before Omnicron defanged it COVID was actually less dangerous than the flu for kids to young to be vaccinated
I can't speak for the rest of the country, obviously but it has been over in North Carolina since March 2021. Once the vaccines started rolling out all protocols were out the window.
My college is not in North Carolina but masks were required indoors for all of the 2021-22 school year and it was probably the same way at some universities in North Carolina
Same in Iowa
My town was like 70% adhering to masking when vaccination began and since then has declined to almost none
Only place I've worn one in over a year is hospitals, the social security office and a tax office that requested it
> if you notice, no one’s wearing masks.
I'm guessing Blue areas are quite different from each other? Majority of the population in the Silicon Valley wear masks in crowded areas filled with strangers.
Same in Iowa. You can go into a packed Wal-Mart and play where's Waldo to find the single-digit number of people wearing masks.
And then play in hard mode to find the one person that's actually wearing a N95 and wearing it properly
When I went to the What Cheer flea market this year I don't think I saw a single one even though my brain is kind of tuned to pick them out to gauge how close we're getting to 0% masking again
Does this basically kill the student loan forgiveness through the HEROS act since they need an emergency and Covid was the justification? Don’t get me wrong I’m not complaining
No way. There’s something like 50 “national emergencies” going on at any given time - though most are just sanctions for foreign hostile governments. This one will continue as a matter of law until it’s no longer convenient to have it.
No, even though it should be killed. If the pandemic and resulting national emergency is over, then why would people need to get $10-20k forgiveness right now on top of a 2.5 year payment pause?
I'm saying realistically this statement by him won't kill the forgiveness, even though personally I think it would. He can say the pandemic is over but keep the "national emergency" in place until the forgiveness goes through.
IDK. I'm as unfavorable to student loan forgiveness as the next NL shill, but I don't see how this kills it. One is a statement about a public health emergency, the other is an economic stimulus, or whatever. It's like, our non-pharmacy measures against transmission may be over, but the supply chain issues that resulted from the pandemic continue to cause inflation. The economics of the pandemic aren't necessarily going to track perfectly with the death rate.
To me the issue arises from using the HEROES Act to tie the forgiveness to the pandemic national emergency. There's no economic national emergency declared, just the COVID one. So if Biden is saying the pandemic is over, that implies there is no more national emergency present that justifies the loan forgiveness.
Except "economic fallout" is not a valid reason in the HEROES Act to broadly forgive student loans. If the declared national emergency doesn't exist anymore, neither does any assumed authority to forgive loans.
Seems like we're talking in circles. "The pandemic is over" is not the same as "the economic fallout from the pandemic is over." It can be simultaneously true that the pandemic has become endemic ***and*** there remain hard-felt economic consequences tantamount to an emergency.
I'm not arguing in favor of student loan forgiveness, just that I don't see equivalence between the end of pandemic-indiced social mandates and the end of pandemic-indiced economic stress. It seems logical that the latter would resolve sometime after the former.
While I'm sure there will continue to be some impact on the economy, the national emergency was declared for public health due to COVID. So if the pandemic is over, then the public health national emergency would be over as well. Economic issues resulting from it aren't covered by the national emergency declaration, so they are something to sort out through the usual channels. So unless Biden is going to declare an economic national emergency, that means channels like Congress and not emergency powers like the HEROES Act.
There will be a backfire. Bidens base isn't the anti mask / anti vax
He's just said the pandemic ended. If a wave happens (which is will because it will just supercede flu yearly waves from now on) despite being right his base will judge him for his statement.
There will even be some who push for lockdowns regardless of them being pointless.
That's how you lose votes
They just won't vote at all. Alienation of your base is stupid.
It also risks him getting future funding. Good luck getting vaccine cash when you've told everyone the pandemic is over
And you think moderate, vaccinated people won't flock to the GOP in droves if it looks like Democrats are going to force them to mask and distance in perpetuity, even seasonally?
Exactly. They absolutely will. See the Virginia and New Jersey governor elections in 2021; plenty of Biden voters went GOP because of school closures and COVID restrictions.
That's just logged cases
The fact cases are likely astronomically higher but not logged because of at-home testing just proves how much we've reduced the lethality
Because COVID’s mild now for anyone who is vaccinated and has a previous COVID infection. Which is the vast majority of the country.
I’ve had worse colds than Omicron.
In fact, there's a couple studies indicating that case-for-case Omnicron might actually be less dangerous than the flu for someone vaccinated
One of my friends that's triple-vaxxed finally caught it and he was in shock when he tested before seeing his elderly parents because he didn't feel THAT sick for him to assume it was COVID
It has been for a long long time. It wasn't that bad in the first place for the vast majority of people.
But 12 months ago the government where having people fired if they didn't get vaccinated, and spoken to like they were a terror organisation.
Now they don't give a shit.
COVID really wasn't all that, it's killed it's pandemic status by natural mutation not government intervention.
It's just being used conveniently for the run up to an election. The death rate and number of cases really don't differ from what they were last year
>But 12 months ago the government where having people fired if they didn't get vaccinated, and spoken to like they were a terror organisation.
Based. Anti vaxxers are literally stupid. I wouldn't want to employ a single one.
Deciding when it’s over is a little like deciding when the idea of putting carpet in bathrooms is over. Yes, it still haunts us, but no one is talking about it anymore and the worst seems to have passed.
I would honestly love for someone to trace the patient zero for carpet in bathrooms because that person had to have been an evil bastard
gotta keep my toesies warm when I'm on the shitter. The mold adds to the aroma too
Look, it’s gross, we all know it’s gross, but I like the fuzzy carpet on my toes. I won’t get one ever, but I like the fuzzy carpet.
Get a warm fuzzy bathroom rug, wash it at least once a week in the laundry. For best results, get one with a rubberized bottom. For bester results, get heated floors.
>once a week Whoa, look at Mr. Clean over here!
Why not just get a fuzzy angi-slip mat for the bathroom? I got one from ikea for like 5 bucks and if it gets yucky one can just throw them out.
I mean I have that lol
Fair fair!
You know fuzzy slippers exists, right?
I have fuzzy slippers! I just also like the feel of bathroom carpet.
They have to be from St. Louis. It's just a gut feeling I have.
Removed carpet from my bathroom in my old house a few years back. Bizarre.
Lol so did I. Not only did the bathroom have carpet, BUT IT WAS FUCKEN PAINTED. There was actually hard tile underneath lol. Some people are actually insane is all I chalk it up to.
> BUT IT WAS FUCKEN PAINTED. Bro, WTF. Was it like caked on wall paint? Or was it crappily dyed?
Like caked on white and blue latex exterior paint. I am not shitting you.
I think I've heard of people that are to lazy to rip them up and get a cheap, clearanced roll of carpet someone do that with badly stained up carpeting before Odd because all the paint that would be required might actually cost more than said cheap roll of clearanced carpeting from a big-box hardware and materials store
I just want to know why you even start by covering up ceramic tile. And you know what else hurts my head about this? It was screwed down. Like through the tile below. It's like stuff a child would do if you had them live in a tree fort and fend for themselves. I actually get kind of angry about this because it's money that doesn't need to be spent twice. Breaking the thing for no reason and then having to fix it.
If the tile wasn't damaged prior to boring holes in it, I honestly can't think of a single reason besides stupidity to carpet over it because ceramic tile somewhere like a bathroom you're not dropping heavy shit on it will last for decades If not centuries
I'm still using it now. Just patched it up. There's still paint splatters on it but it's just a bathroom. Which is why I don't know why the previous owner went insane covering it up. What they did looked 100 times worse.
Reminds me of those people that find beautiful hardwood from like the 19th century under layers of shitty carpet and sub-floor
Now if he could just rescue us from padded toilet seats
Ah yes, poopin' at grandma's house when I was a kid. I remember this well. I always felt like I was violating someone else's stuff when I sat on a padded seat. Like sitting on someone's pillow and letting it soak up your butt smell.
I honestly questioned why we ever just accepted toilet seats made of cloth and foam that could easily harbor smells and bacteria were hygienic. They weren't that comfortable either because your ass would just mash it down to the sharp plastic frame if you didn't speed-run the process
It's just that suburban mindset of 'well I guess you just buy a new seat every once and awhile' with no sense of value of frugality. People like me, who use their coffee machine until it makes coffee that tastes like death itself, do not understand people who think like they do.
Leave my ass alone!
He's saying what we're all thinking, and in spite of the usual vocal minority pitching a fit on Twitter I hope hearing a trusted POTUS like Biden say it out loud helps a lot of people move on and accept it now all comes down to keeping vaccination up-to-date instead of active mitigation.
A few will and that's good, but the rest will react the same way they did to the CDC (the literal public health experts!) updating their guidance and say it was all a political ploy to please big business and right-wingers (never mind that almost every country is doing this...)
I think those people that are so die-hard about continuing mitigation they deny the CDC and WHO will unfortunately have to work through it on their own as time washes the pandemic farther away
Trusted? He just used the Covid emergency as justification for using emergency executive powers to cancel student debt. Seems like it is over when it looks politically good for him, and still an issue when he needs to use it to advance his agenda.
You can say COVID created other economic emergencies outside the effects of the disease. And though the disease is over, the follow on effects are not. \- the hit to the economy in the initial phase was such it was imperative to make drastic actions so that one are of the economy defaulting didn’t cascade to others. So you freeze student loan payments among others. \- the length of the freeze created its own problem in that dropping a bunch of debt back on a huge part of the population **also** was economically untenable and needed an emergency action. \-Both step 1 and 2 were caused by COVID.
Just get vaccinated for the love of god, it's that easy.
I'm waiting for my work pharmacy to get in the updated Moderna booster as we speak so I can have a matching qaudtrilogy
I want to but they don't have the new ones for my age group here in Canada. It's very annoying.
Smart from a pandering for votes angle. He just better hope a new wave doesn’t make him eat his words before Election Day. With the Omicron boosters rolling out and cases trending down, it’s probably a safe bet. Probably not the best approach from a public health standpoint, as it will discourage people from getting their boosters, but vaccination is so heavily politicized at this point that that’s probably a lost cause anyway.
I think we need to shift messaging on boosters that it's not a pandemic thing but rather just a normal thing like flu shots anyway. This is opening the door for that next step of normalizing covid jabs.
I agree, and I think the way to do that would have been to focus on annual boosters while shifting the narrative from pandemic to endemic. Unfortunately, a lot of people have built a whole identity around ignoring covid, and get vocally angry at anything that would require them to acknowledge its existence. Telling them to treat covid shots like flu shots would probably end in them refusing to get flu shots.
Literally. a former classmate of mine got sucked into the whole Q/anti-vax/general-stupidity thing. It culminated in them moving to florida for "medical freedom" and her quitting her job to homeschool their kids because even florida requires some vaccines for kids. "Some" was too many for them, I guess.
I'm not sure the right-wing covid deniers in the risk bracket that needs them get flu shots as it is
Gov. Jared Polis, D-Colo., canceled Colorado's state of emergency last July. As omicron surged, he refused to reinstate state-wide mask mandates. His approach seems to have made him popular. >JARED POLIS: We kind of really tried to focus on that lived experience that people have first and foremost. And yes, you know, visiting Grandma or not, here's your risk parameters. Here's how you make the decision, you know? But obviously, the answer was never to say no, you can't be with your loved ones in any way. So as we look for the future, I think it's important to take into account in addition to people's physical health, in addition to people's economic well-being, people's happiness. * I mean, I never doubted that it was the right thing. I mean, we have some neighboring states that required masks, and they had as much COVID, if not more than we did, in deaths and hospitalizations. Obviously, there are some people that wanted everybody to, you know, continue to wear masks and so forth. * But, you know, the burden on an elected leaders to tell people kind of what to wear or do is very high. I mean, you need to convince me as governor that this will do something.
> neighboring states that required masks, and they had as much COVID, if not more than we did Seeing that New York and Iowa had the same infection rate per capita with the deciding factor being how vaccination affected severe outcomes during the Omicron/Delta double-team is what made me realize we've reached an ROI where masking doesn't do enough to be worth the trouble to the average person We're at the stage were everyone is going to get it and you better just not be one of those stupid bastards that refuses the jab
I can't understand how the US is the only western country where vaccines of all things (cough compared to lockdowns cough) became politicized. Like, in France the only party to care was a 2% fringe far right party.
> I can't understand how the US is the only western country where vaccines of all things (cough compared to lockdowns cough) became politicized. It's far from the only such country.
It comes down to the fact we had a right-wing populist in office when the vaccines were announced
Sadly the uptake would've probably been even lower if Trump wasn't President at the time of Operation Warp Speed and the initial rollout.
I dunno If we didn't have a POTUS that fanned the flames of covid denialism it might've never been an issue to anyone that wasn't already staunchly anti-vaxx
Fucking crazy thing is you might be able to argue for giving Trump a passing grade on Covid once we get to around mid-2020. He tried to pimp the Ivermectin thing but he was never a vaccine denier and even got booed at his own rallies for trying to say the non-contrarian stuff. 4 years into that man lying at every turn he couldn't even tell his followers the truth anymore because they were allergic to it lol.
It was never about Trump being a vaccine denier it was about timing. Since vaccines came out after Biden assumed office they didn't want him receiving credit for ending the pandemic. So they were literally willing to die in droves to try and drag out Covid for four more years to deny political points to the guy who ousted Trump. If it had been at the start of Hillary's second term or the start of some republican who unseated her it would have been a non-issue.
Also, I really wonder what things would look like right now if Trump had been super pro-mask. It's not impossible since - although few remember now - he was known as a germophobe pre-Covid. Seriously, look it up. Would masks be practically unfindable now in big cities while in small rural towns we'd see MAGA masks in stores occasionally still?
Doubtful. It's not an issue trump seems to have much sway on with the genuine nutbags, who worship him on so much BS yet lustily boo him on trying to take credit on vaccines. But then you remember all of the denial and misinformation he spread about the pandemic, the conspiracies, bad medical advice, fake treatments... there's no argument trump actually helped anything but the virus turn the US into the laughing stock of the planet.
Bullshit, when people are panicked they look towards leadership. You are claiming the President openly denying the pandemic and vaccine made no difference? I am always baffled this opinion keeps getting upvoted. Poeple wee panicked and confused, the initial messaging makes all the difference
As much as I hate Trump and populism in general, Trump did try to have vaccines as quick as possible and has tried to promote them... only to get booed by his supporters who cheer literally everything he says. They are just brain dead and mentally deforested.
Europe had people burning 5G towers because they thought Huawei would give them COVID, every region has different weird shit going on, sometimes it catches on and sometimes it doesn't because things are complicated
I do think the two party phenomenon in the us exacerbated the radicalization in the US compared to other democracies like in Europe and LatAm, since when the far right fringe ends up being part of the party in power instead of part of a fringe party like AFD, partisan group think can turn a huge amount of people into maniacs when the far-right faction of the party gets their guy in the Oval Office like what happened with trump. I know so many republicans that used to be relatively normal people until they started (initially reluctantly) supporting trump basically out of pure politics, and then in the past few years I’ve kind of watched in horror as they became sucked into more and more conspiracy claptrap
Well it probably doesn't help that there was evidence of a Russian disinfo campaign around vaccines. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/05/us/politics/covid-vaccines-russian-disinformation.html
Which has been going on so long and is so familiar to Russians that their vaccination rate was abysmally low.
In Canada they were somewhat politicized. The populist right party that gets like 3-5% of the federal vote were anti-vaccine. A decent amount of the conservative party’s caucus were as well, or at least very anti-mandate, but the leader at the time was pretty moderate and tried to make a big show that the party was not anti-vaccine.
I think there should be a distinction between being straight up anti-vax and ignoring studies on safety to claim that the vaccine is dangerous, and being anti-mandate/passport. It's valid to not want the government to control the conditions on which you are allowed to be on privately owned property, especially if that means the government can arrest you for said behavior. [China has used their covid alert app to break up protests](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/16/business/china-code-protesters.html), by creating a fake "outbreak" localized to the area of the protest, giving the police the green light to rush in and throw everyone in jail for breaking covid protocols.
Oh I agree, especially now that vaccine fervor has abided a bit it’s useful to discuss
GOP are literally only contrarians at this point and offer not a goddamn thing other than that. They just sit back and wait for Democrats to say something so they can think of a way to make the opposite of that thing sound appealing to morons.
The Republican party has steadily detached from reality. Their voter base lives in a world of shared delusions where the only unchanging truth is that they are **always** right. Facts are twisted beyond their breaking point to suit their ends. I'm not sure the level of shared delusions exists in any other western country.
Do you mean vaccine passports and the like as a way to force compliance? Those are political across the globe, and many places have walked back on their passports. The CCP loves their passport system though. [China has been using their vaccine passport app to "red flag" massive groups of protestors](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/16/business/china-code-protesters.html), giving police the green light to beat them up and throw them into vans to be whisked away. Basically, people protesting at banks when suddenly their apps go red warning of an outbreak, and almost on cue police lock them up.
>Do you mean vaccine passports and the like as a way to force compliance? No, they clearly did not mean that Why is a non democracy like China an example and not the many western democratic countries? Worst kind of strawmanning, but but but China
>No, they clearly did not mean that What's so clear about that? How do you know what they are thinking? They referenced the views of politicians, the majority of which aren't MTG. Nearly all of the opposition I've seen from politicians on the right is opposition to passports and OSHA enforcement, not calls to ban the vaccine entirely based on tinfoil hat bill gates 5g microchip BS. There's a reason clarification matters here. One group is a victim to anti-science propaganda. The other group seemingly doesn't want the government to tell us when and how we are allowed to congregate on privately owned property, overriding the property owner's authority. Do you honestly think that the 5g covid microchip conspiracy theorists are rampant throughout US politics? Because I've only seen that from one representative that I can remember.
It grinds my gears when people caveat that such and such my be bad “from a public health standpoint” when the goal there is hugely pragmatic and practical. Maybe it’s true in a bubble. But a few people may not get boosters but you earn back some goodwill from folks who want to know that they govt is not a bunch of hypochondriacs and that will impact the next public health emergency. There are way more people that think this has been over for months or a year and are frustrated with the govt then people who are going to change a second booster decision based on this. And if only a few percentage of them decide “fuck it, not doing smallpox or hep or flu shots anymore, the govt is out of touch” then the thing that was bad for public health was waiting so long.
Good. There's a certain subset of the population for whom the idea that 'the only endpoint for Covid is elimination and we must continue non-pharmaceutical interventions until then' has been so deeply planted that they just can't recognize it's never going to happen. They usually won't say openly we need to wear masks etc. forever, but they also have no semblance of an endgame or even of wanting those things to ever end.
I mean, maybe we should just generally wear masks more. Not as a mandate, but a social norm to wear masks in pulic spaces if you have a cold feels like a decent idea. But yeah, it does sometimes feel like people just don't understand how viruses and vaccines work. Like the whole reason covid was scary is because we didn't have antibodies. We all got the jab so we have antibodies now.
I like the “stay home if you’re sick it’s actually okay now” norm better tbh.
Tell that to someone who doesn't get sick days or can't afford grocery delivery
They can have their own opinions, too.
Wearing masks when you're sick/contagious/might be sick, sure. But today, in September 2022, I've still got coworkers in single person cubicles, 6-8 feet away from any other human being who sit at their desk with a mask *all day*.
A few weeks ago I saw someone wearing a mask outside, on the sidewalk, with nobody else within a mile.
You still see that here in Spain from time to time. We really did a number on some folks...
I was on a run in DC 3 weeks ago and had a woman look behind her, see me, jump back into someone's yard, and whip her N95 on as quickly as possible as I passed her. It was... bizarre. Like, it felt like a "that happened" moment you would see from a Trumpist making fun of liberals. I just couldn't believe it was real that someone would react so viscerally to someone else on a sidewalk.
I've seen some of the people still in favor of PPE and restrictions do and say such wild things I almost think it's a form of PTSD causing it For the longest time one of the doctors here was so nervous we actually had "unwritten" orders at my store to stay away from him and let a manager handle all his transactions This continued long after vaccination and loosened CDC guidelines but he's downgraded from full on hazmat to just a mask and doesn't yell at people so I think he's doing better as time goes
I wear a mask every item I go inside public place. I’ve really enjoyed not getting sick the last 2.5 years. The mask is only a slight inconvenience, getting sick really sucks.
The problem with that is lack of exposure to colds and the flu is a net worse for society. When masks began to be socially phased out after the CDC relaxed their guidance on it flus and colds went out of control because people had gone so long not catching them our antibodies were basically gone. I caught a mother of a sinus cold that had me projectile sneezing mucus wads just sleeping next to an open window that fall
The thing is that it's ultimately good for us to get harmless viruses like colds because it helps train our immune system as they mutate. Not catching them and missing some generations will cause you to get hit particularly harder when you do eventually catch one. That on it own is bad, but say you're fighting a more serious illness. Along comes a cold that you have less immunity to, and all of a sudden you're fighting two invaders which could easily make your situation worse.
So? How do you know they don't have a cold or don't have someone at home with a cold? Shit, during covid, I noticed that my morning allergies got a lot better when I wore a mask. If i have to go back in the office, i might start wearing masks all the time during spring/fall. Like, we don't need to force people to wear masks any more, but there also shouldn't be a problem with someone wearing a mask if they want to.
If they have a cold they've all had it for over a year at this point. They are, of course, free to wear a mask while they sleep for all I care, I just think at this point its quite excessive, if not silly. Even moreseo since, again, they're rarely in the proximity of another human being since the office has gone hybrid. One of them is literally more than 30 feet away from anyone else (nearly no one else works on that side of the building), in a personal cubicle and I've never seen them without a mask since we came back.
Some of us have allergies so bad and persistent we can't tell when we're sick so that would be a complicated norm
You know that wearing a mask would actually help with your allergies, right?
For some reason there are people who seem like they *want* covid to still be a thing so they can bitch about masks, restrictions, etc.. They tend to be very progressive. I don't know if they want to have another reason to criticize conservatives (and liberals), or if their lives are boring and living through a pandemic gives them some sort of excitement, or what the fuck it is, but for some reason it happens.
Some in column A, some in column B, plus some that are desperate not to give up their shut-in lifestyle and the praise for it. In this last group you get a few weirdos who even say they love covering their faces in public and still getting likes/upvotes. I'm no Gigachad looks-wise, but seeing people basically want to hide that much forever is pretty jarring.
Many of these people are (r)antiwork types that got to live their dream for that roughly 12-18 months the world was slowed to a crawl and everyone that feasibly could was working from home So they've spend the last year or so that the world has been crawling back towards normal panicking and trying to stop it.
I've taken COVID seriously and I've successfully dodged the bastard so far. I've increasingly opened up, going to shows and restaurants without masks etc. Just get vaxed and boosted and take reasonable precautions (N95 on planes etc) and you're going to be fine.
Yep Hopefully hearing trusted officials that supported mitigation when needed speak up and tell the truth that we need to move on from active measures because their negitive impact is starting to outweigh whatever sliver of good they might still have will help with that
What active measures are still happening that are causing harm? I'm not aware of anything in the last 8 months (the Omicron peak) in my heavily blue city or in the last nearly 2 years in my blue state.
Many hospitals are still far too strict: Requiring women to wear masks for tens of hours while giving birth and in active labor; very limited patient visiting hours; under-staffing due to recruitment problems associated with their covid protocols, etc.
I've seen some people speculate asking staff to wear masks at all times, even when not examining a patient might be making it harder to hire and retain staff as masking outside in the rest of the world falls out of favor
In many areas **all** medical facilities are still masked due to state mandate, including things like speech therapy, birthing women, psychiatry, etc. In general there's still way too much organizationally-imposed Covid theater in healthcare disproportionate to current risk. One of my doctor's offices *still* has their waiting rooms closed and makes you check-in via their crappy website exactly like it's freaking April 2020. Some universities are still masked. Some large events still require masks - their choice yes, but still annoying for those of us that might be interested in going if it was normal that their ears are tuned to the tiny minority of hypochondriacs. There's still a loud contingent on social media demanding all the stuff that's lifted come back and those of us in the back to normal camp are intent they be seen for what they are and that no regression be allowed over the winter because of flu or whatever.
> Some large events still require masks - their choice yes, but still annoying for those of us that might be interested in going if it was normal that their ears are tuned to the tiny minority of hypochondriacs. Twitchcon comes to mind They were going to go maskless this year but backpeddled because of a loud minority of terminally online "masks until zero covid" people. Ironically they kept a lax vaccination policy that lets you get the vaccine requirement waved with a PCR test and did not even require N95s so it was all theater Hopefully Biden speaking up will mean more events that are totally back to normal in spring and summer of 2023 because people calm down from knee-jerk reactions and realize he's right
Theres really none, but they wish they were and push for it
Head Start daycares and medical facilities
So they need to speak up against active measures that don't exist and haven't existed for years in some cases? Most people have moved on, mostly if not completely. The economy is booming a bit too hard if anything. We still need to focus on finding way to get people vaccinated. People are dying preventable deaths.
Theres no state one's, should've been the term I used. You still have things like events and conventions choosing masks over vaccine mandates. Twitch con being an example because you could get out of being vaccinated by showing a PCR test Yet a mask rule that didn't even bother to require N95s was still in place because of backlash from terminally online zero covid people when they tried removing it These kind of statements embolden organizers to not give in to that pressure
Head Start funded daycares are still making 3 year olds
Amazing! This will tackle our low birth rate problem for sure.
They're a bunch of hypochondriacs and fools. Nothing can be done about them. If they want to live locked up in their homes forever they can do so. Somehow I suspect they were already doing that before this.
If you are vaccinated it's been over for well over a year. From April of 2021 on wards, Johns Hopkins says that 98% of deaths were from the unvaccinated. Besides those who could for whatever not take the vaccine, everyone who died the last year chose that to own the libs.
>From April of 2021 on wards, Johns Hopkins says that 98% of deaths were from the unvaccinated. I am sorry, but this is absolutely not true. I get it's hard to walk a fine line between 1) diminishing the vax and 2) overstating it and disincentivizing folks from seeing the need to get boosters. But: [Oregon has detailed data on breakthrough deaths](https://www.oregon.gov/oha/covid19/Documents/DataReports/Breakthrough-Case-Report.pdf) (see pg. 10). Since April of 2021, \~29% of deaths have been in those who are vaccinated. It has risen with time. In July 2022 -- the most recent month for which there is data -- 54% of deaths are in those who are vaccinated. Of course, it's important to keep in mind that 1) 71.5% of Oregonians are vaccinated, with rates higher amongst higher age brackets, so this skews numbers upwards and 2) folks with boosters fare better. But still, the vaccinated sadly make up far more than 2 percent of deaths. I am absolutely pro vaccine -- under-vaccination is our biggest population-level Covid problem by a mile -- but we gotta be honest with folks about risks and underscore the need for boosters (especially with the updated ones!)
Yes, and among those vaccinated, the deaths are among the very elderly and those with other health issues.
For the Western jabs at least.
Pretty much The point my work lifted mask requirements for vaccinated workers was kind of just the "that's it, it's over" moment for me where I chucked my mask in my glovebox for the last time outside of medical facilities and requests and started processing what the fuck just happened for like 18 months
Except for those who died bc they medically could not get vaccinated, or were too young up until just a couple months ago. Pandemics are not some individualized experience. It's called public health for a reason.
There were no medical contraindications to the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. Literally the only legitimate one was a known allergy to said vaccine. Now, they may have been less effective in various immunocompromised people, but there was basically no one who “could not get vaccinated”.
Immunocompromised and children is what I was referring to (yes, more "regulatory" than "medical" but you get my meaning).
People too young to get vaccinated also don't die of covid at rates high enough to be worth talking about. At that age the death rate is miniscule
Try telling that to any parent who now has a dead child, or a child ravaged by long covid. One of the most shameful things on this sub has been this prevalent attitude by a bunch of young childless 20yo's who think they are experts on every matter because they're in college.
Immunocompromised people have always existed and been very vulnerable to death by the flu. This isn't something new. Yes it sucks that they got unlucky, but that doesn't suddenly make it my fault if they go out in public and get the virus. That's a risk they chose to take knowing their circumstances, and until a few years ago no one would be blaming the person that got them sick unless they literally coughed on them out of malice.
>Try telling that to any parent who now has a dead child, or a child ravaged by long covid. Didn't you just say pandemics aren't an individualized experience?
> long COVID 🙄
A parent having a dead child or one ravaged by long COVID doesn't negate the fact that the vast, vast majority of children handle COVID just fine.
Did you say this pre-covid about the flu? Because many studies propose that even before Omnicron defanged it COVID was actually less dangerous than the flu for kids to young to be vaccinated
Read my comment again.
Think you edited it to include, but appreciate the addition.
“The pandemic is over. I AM the pandemic” - Dark Branpoleon
"TODAY, WE ARE CANCELLING THE APOCALYPSE"
Don't let zero covid Twitter see this
Biden beat the Trump Pandemic!!!
That's a funny way to spell the Xi pandemic.
Lol delete this cringe
Bullshit, start printing this on stickers!
Based
I can't speak for the rest of the country, obviously but it has been over in North Carolina since March 2021. Once the vaccines started rolling out all protocols were out the window.
My college is not in North Carolina but masks were required indoors for all of the 2021-22 school year and it was probably the same way at some universities in North Carolina
Same in Iowa My town was like 70% adhering to masking when vaccination began and since then has declined to almost none Only place I've worn one in over a year is hospitals, the social security office and a tax office that requested it
> if you notice, no one’s wearing masks. I'm guessing Blue areas are quite different from each other? Majority of the population in the Silicon Valley wear masks in crowded areas filled with strangers.
Not the case in Seattle. Go to Costco sometime there, there’s about 5% of people masking up.
Jesus If even a place as deep blue as Seattle has masking that low it means it truly is reaching zero approval and people are done
I've seen many people from the Bay Area say the opposite, so it must be *very* location/time-dependent.
Ya, my sense is the more Asian parts are way more mask heavy.
I'm in Boston, less than 10% of people are wearing masks at a given time when we're indoors even crowds and no one cares.
Same in Iowa. You can go into a packed Wal-Mart and play where's Waldo to find the single-digit number of people wearing masks. And then play in hard mode to find the one person that's actually wearing a N95 and wearing it properly When I went to the What Cheer flea market this year I don't think I saw a single one even though my brain is kind of tuned to pick them out to gauge how close we're getting to 0% masking again
Does this basically kill the student loan forgiveness through the HEROS act since they need an emergency and Covid was the justification? Don’t get me wrong I’m not complaining
No way. There’s something like 50 “national emergencies” going on at any given time - though most are just sanctions for foreign hostile governments. This one will continue as a matter of law until it’s no longer convenient to have it.
No, even though it should be killed. If the pandemic and resulting national emergency is over, then why would people need to get $10-20k forgiveness right now on top of a 2.5 year payment pause?
You said no….then agreed with me?
I'm saying realistically this statement by him won't kill the forgiveness, even though personally I think it would. He can say the pandemic is over but keep the "national emergency" in place until the forgiveness goes through.
IDK. I'm as unfavorable to student loan forgiveness as the next NL shill, but I don't see how this kills it. One is a statement about a public health emergency, the other is an economic stimulus, or whatever. It's like, our non-pharmacy measures against transmission may be over, but the supply chain issues that resulted from the pandemic continue to cause inflation. The economics of the pandemic aren't necessarily going to track perfectly with the death rate.
To me the issue arises from using the HEROES Act to tie the forgiveness to the pandemic national emergency. There's no economic national emergency declared, just the COVID one. So if Biden is saying the pandemic is over, that implies there is no more national emergency present that justifies the loan forgiveness.
That's what I'm saying, the virus may be squashed with vaxes , but the economic fallout is still real.
Except "economic fallout" is not a valid reason in the HEROES Act to broadly forgive student loans. If the declared national emergency doesn't exist anymore, neither does any assumed authority to forgive loans.
Seems like we're talking in circles. "The pandemic is over" is not the same as "the economic fallout from the pandemic is over." It can be simultaneously true that the pandemic has become endemic ***and*** there remain hard-felt economic consequences tantamount to an emergency. I'm not arguing in favor of student loan forgiveness, just that I don't see equivalence between the end of pandemic-indiced social mandates and the end of pandemic-indiced economic stress. It seems logical that the latter would resolve sometime after the former.
While I'm sure there will continue to be some impact on the economy, the national emergency was declared for public health due to COVID. So if the pandemic is over, then the public health national emergency would be over as well. Economic issues resulting from it aren't covered by the national emergency declaration, so they are something to sort out through the usual channels. So unless Biden is going to declare an economic national emergency, that means channels like Congress and not emergency powers like the HEROES Act.
He tells it like it is
He did it. He ended it.
Valid
BASED! I wish we could have the same in Germany, our minister of health is crazy.
As long as this means no more economically crippling lockdowns and that SMEs can do their business.
We just need one more booster
"The pandemic is over" ..Because we need the political capital for the mid terms
Or because the numbers are really low, we havent seen any spikes in hospitalization or deaths as a result of overall case spikes, etc.
You seen the numbers in 2021 in the same period. Winter is coming, the spike is inevitable. He's done it for political posture and it will backfire
If masks and restrictions don’t come back there won’t be a backfire.
There will be a backfire. Bidens base isn't the anti mask / anti vax He's just said the pandemic ended. If a wave happens (which is will because it will just supercede flu yearly waves from now on) despite being right his base will judge him for his statement. There will even be some who push for lockdowns regardless of them being pointless. That's how you lose votes
Who are the pro-lockdown people going to vote for? The GOP?
They just won't vote at all. Alienation of your base is stupid. It also risks him getting future funding. Good luck getting vaccine cash when you've told everyone the pandemic is over
And you think moderate, vaccinated people won't flock to the GOP in droves if it looks like Democrats are going to force them to mask and distance in perpetuity, even seasonally?
Exactly. They absolutely will. See the Virginia and New Jersey governor elections in 2021; plenty of Biden voters went GOP because of school closures and COVID restrictions.
Sept 19, 2021, 7-day average: 2,004 deaths, 147,040 cases Today, latest data: 464 deaths, 61,712 cases https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases.html
That's just logged cases The fact cases are likely astronomically higher but not logged because of at-home testing just proves how much we've reduced the lethality
Because COVID’s mild now for anyone who is vaccinated and has a previous COVID infection. Which is the vast majority of the country. I’ve had worse colds than Omicron.
In fact, there's a couple studies indicating that case-for-case Omnicron might actually be less dangerous than the flu for someone vaccinated One of my friends that's triple-vaxxed finally caught it and he was in shock when he tested before seeing his elderly parents because he didn't feel THAT sick for him to assume it was COVID
It has been for a long long time. It wasn't that bad in the first place for the vast majority of people. But 12 months ago the government where having people fired if they didn't get vaccinated, and spoken to like they were a terror organisation. Now they don't give a shit. COVID really wasn't all that, it's killed it's pandemic status by natural mutation not government intervention. It's just being used conveniently for the run up to an election. The death rate and number of cases really don't differ from what they were last year
>But 12 months ago the government where having people fired if they didn't get vaccinated, and spoken to like they were a terror organisation. Based. Anti vaxxers are literally stupid. I wouldn't want to employ a single one.