"The picture is, in fact, more complicated when you look at the actual demographics; for instance, black Americans are the least likely to be vaccinated, and they hardly belong to the tribe generally associated with MAGA."
Just want to point out that if you look at the difference in age distributions among black and white in the US, the difference in vaccination rates makes perfect sense. Those (the old) that really need to be vaccinated are disproportionately white.
Otherwise, really liked this article, esp the link to the Eisenstein piece. I've been enjoying your work over the last couple of months after Arnold Kling linked to one of your pieces.
"For people younger than 70 years old, the infection fatality rate of COVID-19 across 40 locations with available data ranged from 0.00% to 0.31% (median 0.05%); the corrected values were similar." - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7947934/ -published 1/2021.
for a virus with a low infection fatality rate except for the very ill and very old- 100million+ decided to take a shot with no long term safety data. good for you in becoming part of the largest clinical trial ever. be advised if you suffer adverse events, the therapy makers have been subsidized by your tax dollars & also immunized from any liability. keep those sleeves rolled up because who knows how many needles you will need. at first it was 2, now its 3...
at least the J&J & AstraZeneca adenovirus based vaccines, though never achieving an approval before covid, had been tested & researched for decades = long term safety data...
now the idiots least capable of making a rational risk assessment are calling for creating a further stratified society based on herd mentality? dont get a vaccine, cant go to work, the gym, a restaurant (the sage wisdom of don lemon that many of the thoughtless follow).
if you want the vaccine, take it. but please spare us the 'pandemic of the unvaccinated' nonsense when double jabbed mrna lab rats are contracting the delta variant and demonstrating the same viral load and shedding as an unvaccinated person.
also please enough with the comparisons to measles, small pox, polio etc. covid 19 is not those diseases, and neither are these vaccines the same as those.
who is asking where did covid 19 come from? it took 10 months to track & trace sars 1 to horseshoe bats & civet cat intermediary back in 2003/2004...18 months on and tens of thousands of animals tested and sars cov2 has no identified intermediary...and sars cov2 is not capable of infecting horseshoe bats despite having a 94% genetic match to a known & researched horseshoe bat corona virus...
read less main stream media and more direct sources. think for yourselves.
Another interesting article (with an equally interesting comments section). I find it disturbing that the same group of people who would rail against traditional religion as damaging to a cohesive society have become zealots of a secular religion themselves in not only this case but many others. But self-awareness is not a wide spread characteristic of humanity at this point in history, if it ever was.
And thank you so much for the link to the Charles Eisenstein article.
The pandemic more than anything for me has led to an unfortunate number of Tim the Tool Man Taylor grunts of confusion. There's left and right, but suddenly the opinions don't have a lot of political coherence. Makes for some strange bedfellows, at least if one still thinks that partisan lines mean anything in any material sense.
You're absolutely right: it's the playground all over again, but with much higher stakes. Which i guess just makes it Lord of the Flies. My god, I would love to encounter some grownups.
It’s true that the liberal elite love to sneer at the rubes. But in my view, refusing the vaccine is different from watching Fox News or voting for Trump, because the holdouts are getting themselves and others killed—directly and indirectly (ICUs over capacity). Plus long Covid, which is not theoretical like long-term vaccine risks.
Just because the discourse roughly maps onto other tribal spats doesn’t mean it’s the same. Contracting and spreading a deadly illness isn’t the same as having impure beliefs. I don’t ostracize Republicans, but I will stay TF away from those who aren’t vaccinated and refuse to wear masks.
It's emotional because of the consequences playing out in front of us (look at ICUs in the south), and because of personal risk. My child is too young to be vaccinated, so when adults won’t do everything possible to reduce transmission (get vaccinated, wear masks, be cautious) I get upset. I think that’s understandable.
I’ll be the first to agree that we shouldn’t make everything tribal. But when it comes to vaccines, I just want to do whatever works, whether that’s coddling them or banning them from malls. I don’t care. This isn’t about tolerating disagreement.
You might be surprised to hear I agree with you on some things. I agree with you that freedom of speech is being curbed and that is dangerous; I agree with you that crime is a big problem and (I assume you think) that defunding the police is ridiculous, and so do I.
We don’t have to be in lockstep on every issue, but I was challenging your ideas about why vaccination and masking is inappropriate in your view.
I think our debate shows that actual conversations can happen, but you’re insisting I’m not listening to you because I disagree on this point. If as a nation we can’t even agree to cover our mouths when virulent disease is running rampant, I guess there’s no point in trying to talk.
Jolly Swagman:
It is good to hear you say that there are massive infringements on our civil liberties, and I agree that those are some of the more egregious ones. But I absolutely feel that the mask is another massive infringement. And I feel this for the reasons I have pointed out to you time and again; not very effective, removes major aspects of communication, and dehumanizes. But each time I point these things out, you cannot seem to see that I have my reasons. I know that you disagree, but when I point out that I do feel that the mask is equivalent to women being forced to take the vail, you poo-poo my feelings about that, when I point out that I am being forced to wear it, you give a version of the Love Or Leave It speech. To sum up, when I and millions of others through their actions tell you that we feel very strongly about this, you say "we can’t even agree to cover our mouths when virulent disease is running rampant, I guess there’s no point in trying to talk" which tells me that no matter how I point out to you that is in my view part of the steady walk to totalitarianism, which you really admit is happening, you handwave away any example I give.
To be blunt, I don't think you want to debate this. Nowhere do I say that we shouldn't vax, as I forthrightly point out that I am vaxed, and I give the reason why I am vaxed. What I am against is using vax status to determine the rights of citizenship. Either you are a citizen or you are not. And while I take your point about getting your shots for HS, grades school, and various work positions, but I simply do not see Covid as being anywhere near as deadly as Mumps, Polio, and the like. Yes, if someone is "at the end of the tether", so to speak, it can be deadly, but anything at that point can be.
To that point, I also give a rundown of who is especially vulnerable to this disease, which in looking at the numbers, is anything but virulent, to use your words. It is no more rampant than a cold is rampant, and certainly not as virulent as AIDS, indeed for most people it is no more than a cold. The rumors of Long Covid notwithstanding as Covid has not been around long enough to generate enough real data to make the determination of what is really the long-term effects of having had it.
So, in the end, my position is; get vaxed if you feel you are vulnerable, as a society we should take care to protect the vulnerable, and other than that we should live life as we always have. No lockdowns, no masks, no mandates. Each of those sets bad precedence as to what gov't actions can be gotten away with at any point. Should we shut down elections, shut down free association, force untested medicine on people, force them to wear socially destructive objects? Do any of those things anytime the government says boo? Every one of them sets a bad precedence.
"The picture is, in fact, more complicated when you look at the actual demographics; for instance, black Americans are the least likely to be vaccinated, and they hardly belong to the tribe generally associated with MAGA."
Just want to point out that if you look at the difference in age distributions among black and white in the US, the difference in vaccination rates makes perfect sense. Those (the old) that really need to be vaccinated are disproportionately white.
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/07/30/most-common-age-among-us-racial-ethnic-groups/
Otherwise, really liked this article, esp the link to the Eisenstein piece. I've been enjoying your work over the last couple of months after Arnold Kling linked to one of your pieces.
roll up your sleeves for another round lab rats:
(preprint) Six Month Safety and Efficacy of the BNT162b2 mRNA COVID-19 Vaccine = https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.28.21261159v1
the research says adverse events are low (meaning it is safe at least in short termanalysis) but says effectiveness is waning after just 6 months.
boosters for all - Pfizer seeking approval to give all booster shots of mrna covid therapies: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/16/covid-vaccine-booster-shot-pfizer-submits-data-to-fda-for-approval.html
"For people younger than 70 years old, the infection fatality rate of COVID-19 across 40 locations with available data ranged from 0.00% to 0.31% (median 0.05%); the corrected values were similar." - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7947934/ -published 1/2021.
for a virus with a low infection fatality rate except for the very ill and very old- 100million+ decided to take a shot with no long term safety data. good for you in becoming part of the largest clinical trial ever. be advised if you suffer adverse events, the therapy makers have been subsidized by your tax dollars & also immunized from any liability. keep those sleeves rolled up because who knows how many needles you will need. at first it was 2, now its 3...
at least the J&J & AstraZeneca adenovirus based vaccines, though never achieving an approval before covid, had been tested & researched for decades = long term safety data...
now the idiots least capable of making a rational risk assessment are calling for creating a further stratified society based on herd mentality? dont get a vaccine, cant go to work, the gym, a restaurant (the sage wisdom of don lemon that many of the thoughtless follow).
if you want the vaccine, take it. but please spare us the 'pandemic of the unvaccinated' nonsense when double jabbed mrna lab rats are contracting the delta variant and demonstrating the same viral load and shedding as an unvaccinated person.
also please enough with the comparisons to measles, small pox, polio etc. covid 19 is not those diseases, and neither are these vaccines the same as those.
who is asking where did covid 19 come from? it took 10 months to track & trace sars 1 to horseshoe bats & civet cat intermediary back in 2003/2004...18 months on and tens of thousands of animals tested and sars cov2 has no identified intermediary...and sars cov2 is not capable of infecting horseshoe bats despite having a 94% genetic match to a known & researched horseshoe bat corona virus...
read less main stream media and more direct sources. think for yourselves.
Another interesting article (with an equally interesting comments section). I find it disturbing that the same group of people who would rail against traditional religion as damaging to a cohesive society have become zealots of a secular religion themselves in not only this case but many others. But self-awareness is not a wide spread characteristic of humanity at this point in history, if it ever was.
And thank you so much for the link to the Charles Eisenstein article.
The pandemic more than anything for me has led to an unfortunate number of Tim the Tool Man Taylor grunts of confusion. There's left and right, but suddenly the opinions don't have a lot of political coherence. Makes for some strange bedfellows, at least if one still thinks that partisan lines mean anything in any material sense.
You're absolutely right: it's the playground all over again, but with much higher stakes. Which i guess just makes it Lord of the Flies. My god, I would love to encounter some grownups.
Just as an FYI, the author of that PLOS study says the results do not apply to a virus like COVID and a vaccine like the ones we have: https://www.forbes.com/sites/andreamorris/2021/08/08/joe-rogan-is-getting-this-completely-wrong-says-the-scientist-who-conducted-the-vaccine-study/
It’s true that the liberal elite love to sneer at the rubes. But in my view, refusing the vaccine is different from watching Fox News or voting for Trump, because the holdouts are getting themselves and others killed—directly and indirectly (ICUs over capacity). Plus long Covid, which is not theoretical like long-term vaccine risks.
Just because the discourse roughly maps onto other tribal spats doesn’t mean it’s the same. Contracting and spreading a deadly illness isn’t the same as having impure beliefs. I don’t ostracize Republicans, but I will stay TF away from those who aren’t vaccinated and refuse to wear masks.
It's emotional because of the consequences playing out in front of us (look at ICUs in the south), and because of personal risk. My child is too young to be vaccinated, so when adults won’t do everything possible to reduce transmission (get vaccinated, wear masks, be cautious) I get upset. I think that’s understandable.
I’ll be the first to agree that we shouldn’t make everything tribal. But when it comes to vaccines, I just want to do whatever works, whether that’s coddling them or banning them from malls. I don’t care. This isn’t about tolerating disagreement.
Erin Etheridge15 min ago
You might be surprised to hear I agree with you on some things. I agree with you that freedom of speech is being curbed and that is dangerous; I agree with you that crime is a big problem and (I assume you think) that defunding the police is ridiculous, and so do I.
We don’t have to be in lockstep on every issue, but I was challenging your ideas about why vaccination and masking is inappropriate in your view.
I think our debate shows that actual conversations can happen, but you’re insisting I’m not listening to you because I disagree on this point. If as a nation we can’t even agree to cover our mouths when virulent disease is running rampant, I guess there’s no point in trying to talk.
Jolly Swagman:
It is good to hear you say that there are massive infringements on our civil liberties, and I agree that those are some of the more egregious ones. But I absolutely feel that the mask is another massive infringement. And I feel this for the reasons I have pointed out to you time and again; not very effective, removes major aspects of communication, and dehumanizes. But each time I point these things out, you cannot seem to see that I have my reasons. I know that you disagree, but when I point out that I do feel that the mask is equivalent to women being forced to take the vail, you poo-poo my feelings about that, when I point out that I am being forced to wear it, you give a version of the Love Or Leave It speech. To sum up, when I and millions of others through their actions tell you that we feel very strongly about this, you say "we can’t even agree to cover our mouths when virulent disease is running rampant, I guess there’s no point in trying to talk" which tells me that no matter how I point out to you that is in my view part of the steady walk to totalitarianism, which you really admit is happening, you handwave away any example I give.
To be blunt, I don't think you want to debate this. Nowhere do I say that we shouldn't vax, as I forthrightly point out that I am vaxed, and I give the reason why I am vaxed. What I am against is using vax status to determine the rights of citizenship. Either you are a citizen or you are not. And while I take your point about getting your shots for HS, grades school, and various work positions, but I simply do not see Covid as being anywhere near as deadly as Mumps, Polio, and the like. Yes, if someone is "at the end of the tether", so to speak, it can be deadly, but anything at that point can be.
To that point, I also give a rundown of who is especially vulnerable to this disease, which in looking at the numbers, is anything but virulent, to use your words. It is no more rampant than a cold is rampant, and certainly not as virulent as AIDS, indeed for most people it is no more than a cold. The rumors of Long Covid notwithstanding as Covid has not been around long enough to generate enough real data to make the determination of what is really the long-term effects of having had it.
So, in the end, my position is; get vaxed if you feel you are vulnerable, as a society we should take care to protect the vulnerable, and other than that we should live life as we always have. No lockdowns, no masks, no mandates. Each of those sets bad precedence as to what gov't actions can be gotten away with at any point. Should we shut down elections, shut down free association, force untested medicine on people, force them to wear socially destructive objects? Do any of those things anytime the government says boo? Every one of them sets a bad precedence.