I’ve had Covid. It was a symptomatic case, although very manageably so.
As such – as we have established in this space, with information from the National Institutes of Health – I have an enhanced degree of, if not complete immunity, at least enhanced, probably highly-enhanced, resistance to Covid.
WIth that being said, I also got vaccinated. The wisdom or lack thereof, or that action’s adherence to your particular version of libertarian conservative, is not up for discussion, and won’t be discussed in this space. I got the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, because I figured it was the minimum expenditure of effort – one shot and round of side effects rather than two – needed to get at least some of the less-irrational Karens, especially business and institutional Karens, to shut the hell up in the coming months. Given that I also have some degree of natural immunity and likely resistance, the J&J vaccine also provides the results I want; since the evidence shows I’m unlikely to get infected at all, preventing infections – the supposed upside of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines – is irrelvant to me. Preventing such an infection from killing me or putting me in a hospital, should the current understanding of science turn up flawed, is my only real goal.
Again – the fact that I got a vaccination isn’t up for discussion.
Evading Karen
What is up for discussion is this: Governor Klink has set the state’s restrictions to end on July 1. May it please the crown, thanks. Sarcasm intended. We’ll be caught up with Wisconsin – in seven weeks. Probably.
That’s right – it’ll be mandatory to wear a mask on June 30, but perfectly safe on July 1. Science!
But let’s ignore that, also. We’ve talked about that in this space for over a year, now.
Given that I, like most Minnesotans, have some combination of natural immunity, vaccination or both, masks are completely pointless.
Completely. Pointless.
And yet there is a lineup of stores – big box and ma and pa – promising to continue requiring masks after July 1.
And I want to make sure that I don’t patronize them after July 1. At all.
But how to tell which business is which?
The first step I’ve seen is this crowd-sourced map.
It’s being provisioned by people on both sides of the argument, of course – and some of the “reviews” would be comical if you didn’t realize these people have the same right to vote that you do.
What’s needed next is some way of searching for businesses that, shall we say, match your preference, so you can find ’em on the go.
It’s a nice idea but I question whether it’s the restaurant’s fault.
I went to Old Chicago Pizza in Har Mar last Winter. Must have a reservation, cannot arrive early and wait in the lobby, must wait outside. A manager explained it’s because the Health Department licenses restaurants so a Health Department functionary measured the square footage of their ‘lobby’ and determined they could not social-distance people inside, therefore, customers must huddle together outside to be safe.
So I stepped outside, called them, made a reservation for One Minute From Now, and went back in. No problem, sir, right this way.
It’s not the girl at the podium. It’s not even her manager. It’s a faceless bureaucrat with a tape measure and a pocket calculator who has been given the power to destroy their business if they don’t kowtow to the magic formula X times Y divided by 36 (or whatever it is, not a math guy, I’m sure someone will correct me).
That’s why it won’t help to harass restaurant greeters or even restaurant managers. They didn’t impose the idiocy and have no power to end it. Dictator-for-Life Walz, on the other hand . . . .
Study: Over 99% of hospitalized COVID-19 patients were not vaccinated
https://www.axios.com/study-hospitalized-coronavirus-patients-unvaccinated-7ed34f63-fd1d-437c-b4b7-0c1dd3600a15.html
I’ve been saying for months now: drop the restrictions; these folks can have the ICUs all to themselves. When it takes free beer or MLB tickets to motivate someone to get the vaccine — that’s not hesitancy— it’s lazy Americans.
JD – we went to a small mom & pop restaurant last week in our neighborhood that we’ve been supporting. As we sat down I noticed that the table top was sticky, so I asked the waitress if we could get a wipe down. The owner was nearby and overhead me, and came over. She wanted me to know that a wipe down wouldn’t do any good: the state-mandated cleaning solution they have had to use to prevent COVID spread has had the unfortunate effect of dissolving the protective surface of the their tables, turning the sealant into glue. When this is all over (as if), they are going to have to replace all their table tops.
Regardless of the sign, I go into an establishment like a normal, adjusted, FREE human being. If the establishment asks me to put on a mask, I make that decision. But so far, only about 1 out 20 places asked for a mask, regardless what the sign on the door says – big boxes and m&p shops alike.
Emery, I can always count on you to say something profoundly foolish. I don’t believe that the right thing to do is to force people to take a vaccine, but I do know that when people around me are willing to expose themselves to a disease, that increases the chances that I’ll be re-exposed (I’m like Mitch, COVID and then the J&J) and find out the small chance that I’m not completely immune, and it also increases the odds that the disease will mutate into something “even more interesting” and not preventable by the current vaccines.
Take your pick, all.
Regarding those who require “anti-COVID” measures that don’t make scientific sense, I seem to remember learning last spring that outdoor transmission was unlikely, and I personally looked up the spread of “globules” and aerosols to see how long they’d stay in the air. Even aerosols don’t last more than a few hours. And along those lines, yes, I’m willing to graciously decline to do business with companies that impose silly rules not backed by science.
I think in the comming months and years we learn a great deal about just how bad the “science” was that led to the lockdowns.
The lockdowns were about behaviour not biology.
BB, the point is — vaccines work.
Give up, bikebubba, that’s about as close to the topic as the E-Collective are capable of. They skim until they see a trigger word they recognize, then cut-and-paste the meme-of-the-day as a comment. The fact it’s directly contrary to the instructions given in the post itself . . .
” vaccinated . . . tis not up for discussion, and won’t be discussed in this space”
. . . is completely irrelevent. See trigger word, get triggered, post idiocy.
JD, the point is – the troll has gotta troll.
Emery, the point is that you, foolish one, were OK with ICUs filled with your ideological opponents, you heartless (and brainless) son of unmarried parents.
I’ve been saying for months now: drop the restrictions; these folks can have the ICUs all to themselves.
Cool! I’ve always wanted to be the math Nazi, Joe. It’s X (feet) times Y (feet) divided by 28.3 square feet. It’s a 3 foot radius around each patron to maintain 6 feet of social distancing in all directions (each patron’s 28.3 square feet can’t overlap the next person’s). I wouldn’t be surprised if the Karen with the tape measure had to account for odd shaped waiting areas and the non lapping spaces around each circle of protection (not to mention the patrons’ half circles since they are the ones standing up against a wall!!). Do we want to factor in couples that are holding hands while they wait?? I suspect the Karen’s hired for this job must be math majors and paid commensurately.
About the only place I see social distancing is standing in a line. In stores I regularly see people oblivious to each other as they shop.
Home Depot is one of those stores that continue to require customers to wear masks, even if they have been vaccinated. My understanding is that they have accepted gubmint ChiCom virus money and a condition of accepting it, was that they had to enforce the CDC’s dictatorial edicts, until they got the all clear.
Last week, Slow Joe and his elder abusing wife, visited 90 plus year old Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter, the most vulnerable ages for contracting the virus and possibly dying from it. None of them were wearing face diapers, until the dumb ass Bidens WALKED OUTSIDE! If that hypocrisy didn’t expose, yet again, that this whole plandemic was an exercise in control by the the Democrats and wake some of the minions up, nothing will. This is the case with the Emery twins. Drooling left wing stooges that not only believe their masters, but perpetuate the scam.
Yeah zdad this has been one of my complaints about the entire “social distancing” and “mask wearing” regime since it began. The only place where you see large crowds gather is in the big box stores. Nobody pays any attention to the social distancing “recommendations” outside of the check out lines. Have you been to Menards on a weekend? Jeez.
So if Covid is as nasty as the experts say that is, we should have seen that these stores were a significant contributor to the spread of covid.
But we haven’t.
The pro-lockdown people believe that the public health experts who advised politicians to favor lockdowns have some “secret sauce” whose recipe they are given along with their PhD.
They don’t.
As I wrote earlier, when this is all said and done, we will be astonished by the poor quality of the “science” used to justify destroying so many businesses and lives.
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I’ve always wanted to be the math Nazi,
On this blog, we use the term “Math Stalinist”, “Math Cultural Revolutionary” or the newer “Math Karen”.
🙂
Case in point:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/11/briefing/outdoor-covid-transmission-cdc-number.html
That benchmark “seems to be a huge exaggeration,” as Dr. Muge Cevik, a virologist at the University of St. Andrews, said. In truth, the share of transmission that has occurred outdoors seems to be below 1 percent and may be below 0.1 percent, multiple epidemiologists told me. The rare outdoor transmission that has happened almost all seems to have involved crowded places or close conversation.
How did the CDC screw up so badly?
Bad methodology. Doing Science came in way down the list of priorities. The 10% number was a guesstimate based on a metastudy, and metastudies are cheap & fast, but aren’t going to give you good data.
When informed of their monumental screw up, the CDC spokesdrone said
There are limited data on outdoor transmission. The data we do have supports the hypothesis that the risk of outdoor transmission is low. 10 percent is a conservative estimate from a recent systematic review of peer-reviewed papers. CDC cannot provide the specific risk level for every activity in every community and errs on the side of protection when it comes to recommending steps to protect health. It is important for people and communities to consider their own situations and risks and to take appropriate steps to protect their health.
But of course the Karens and the Walz’s completely ignore the last sentence.
The CDC’s covid recomendations are garbage, you should probably do the opposite of what they say.
For the “math Karen”, it’s a honeycomb arrangement, I believe, and a little over 32 square feet per person. But really, since it’s a 1/r kind of thing, and not a step function, it’s playing the odds a touch. Get the robust vaccinated and/or infected, let’s hope and pray that it doesn’t get a new variety that gets “very interesting”.
Regarding why the CDC messed up so badly, I think it’s because their idea going in was that they HAD to prevent as many people from getting it as possible, and they therefore really didn’t consider the question of who could get it mostly harmlessly, nor the question of whether the measures they were taking were causing other issues.
And the thing about not raising H*** about sending COVID patients into nursing homes flat out baffles me. They do all this piddly stuff and missed the big hitter–it’s almost like they wanted to cause problems.
Well, we now know how our 21st century streamlined bureaucracies f*ck up, don’t we? Do poor modeling, deliver contradictory messages, push bad science, and, above all, grab as much power as you can.
I wonder what the “science” looked like that told the CDC they had to put a moratorium on evictions.
What a clusterfarg. The whole lot of our elite failures should be tarred and feathered, including Zuckerberg, Bezos, and Dorsey.
As I wrote earlier, when this is all said and done, we will be astonished by the poor quality of the “science” used to justify destroying so many businesses and lives.
As if we’ll ever get to see the poor quality of “science” publicized.
^ Living in a state that prefers political science to the hard sciences means there’s no change.
As I wrote earlier, when this is all said and done, we will be astonished by the poor quality of the “science” used to justify destroying so many businesses and lives.
I wouldn’t hold my breath MO. Much like vote/voter fraud stealing the election, fully half or more of this country not only refuses to acknowledge the slightest possibility it happened and is unwilling to look at any other viewpoint or data, but also that you are evil for even entertaining any idea contrary to the narrative.
^^ Part of the reason of what Cheney’s done is to put pressure on colleagues like Mccarthy to answer questions like this.
“I don’t think anybody is questioning the legitimacy of the presidential election. That’s all over with. We are sitting here with the president today.” ~ House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy
https://www.axios.com/kevin-mccarthy-election-lies-cheney-stefanik-9782bcc8-9306-46e0-bd92-ce7747229922.html
“People are entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts.” It is the continued divisive lies from the former President and his supporters, not the truth-tellers, that present a clear and present danger to our democracy and nation.
The sworn oath to nation and God to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic” still matters.
When truth is cancelled in favor of lies, this is “cancel culture” at its very worst and most dangerous.
Threadjack.
I’m curious to know, E-Boys: does George Soros pay as much for a threadjack posted long after everybody else has moved on, as he pays for a comment on a currently active topic?
It would be easy to go back to earlier columns to post stupid comments to rack up the comment totals to increase your take, but since nobody will read the comments they’re not doing George any good so he shouldn’t pay as much for them, right? But then again, maybe he pays on the Labor Theory of Value (takes as much effort to post an irrelevant comment as a relevant one, so they pay the same)?
Don’t go out of your way to write a giant screed like some of your fellow trolls, it was just idle curiousity.
Massive threadjack by the Trump obsessive.