danger in gop

OP, you are bringing some facts and mixing in a lot of opinions that you’re calling facts. Many of your points are wrong.

I try to never allow anyone to find room on my left in matters of politics and social policy AND I agree that most of your points are true at at a high level….BUT, my progressive friends have OVERSTATED or MISSTATED some key facts under each of your big lies. For example, its 100 percent true that vaccines WORK but from the very beginning under Trump and continuing through the very recent past, they never should have been characterized as providing as nearly 100 percent effective against “catching covid” as compare to a proper characterization of reducing the liklihood of infection and severity of illness if you were infected. Likewise, January 6th was a violent attack on the capitol conducted almost entirely by a wierd and eclectic band of Trump supporters including many white supremacist and right wingnuts (not Antifa or a false flag FBI operation) and reflects a dangerous cancer and polarization in our political system but it was not a pre-planned and coordinated “insurrection” directed by Trump and his meshughah band of “stop the steal” supporters and not on a level with Pearl Harbor, 9/11 etc. Same with virtually your other ponts. We live in a world where there aren’t 50 shades of political grey or even one. Everything is black/white, taken to an extreme and tempered with adjectives adopted to fit the political narratives taken by each side.In a world of 15 second sound bytes, it takes too long to provide an accurate and nuanced description of reality.

Gadol, sounds like the J6 reruns worked as sobering medicine for your tds, or should we just call it a “retroactive vaccine”? great news

re:vaccine, let’s do retrospective review: original ph. 3 results were:
20x reduction in transmission 2 weeks after 2nd vaccine, assuming same behaviors.

what changed or is better understood now:
for getting infected:
1) effect gradually decreases from 2 weeks, so several months later it maybe 5x not 20x
2) did not change: effect is roughly the same for all age groups, with similar decrease for all
3) variants decreased effectiveness
4) there seems to be a conclusion that 3-4 weeks between doses is too short. Better to have more time between them to get longer immunity that is now being improved by boosters. The idea was to get to full 2-doses faster. I think Brits are doing 2 months now, but US still does 3 weeks.
Here, as in other aspects, the big guy dismissed former guy’s successful team and also his own advisors who were useful for pre-election PR and relied solely on government thinkers, severely limiting new ideas, so public policy flows by itself uncontrolled.

5) mixing mRNA and JJ/AZ seems to work well (JJ first), but not tested/advertised enough – companies do not care and gov did not pursue

6) kids were underestimated. They were first presumed not to contribute to transmission.

for serious sickness:
1) immunity seems to be holding against variants and time pretty well despite variants
2) vaccines were not optimized for long-term T-cell production. There are several vaccines in development that try to focus on that. Maybe months away from production

The Capitol is not more “holy” than any other government buildings such as the courthouses and police stations that were attacked by left wing mobs in their own “mostly peaceful” protests.

Pekak: Its not a matter of “kedusha” of a building…its the significance of what happens in that building as it affects our country and political system. . If you believe the Capital or WH have the same significance in real world terms as a post-office in Portland or a courthouse in Seattle, thats your opinion.

Dear Syag,

I think that you know my posts to be generally non-partisan when it comes to other people’s opinions. I do not share your take here.

You are correct that people who take on these claims that are based on the utility of the claim itself – as opposed to the factors that are at the root of the claim, do indeed think it through. But they are only thinking of how useful the claim is. Like how it could be proven, or how it could be used in an argument.

However, there seems to be very little thinking of it is actually true. In many pleasant conversations with all kinds of card carrying conspiracy theorists, it is a matter of course that they did not bother to look up the sources and proofs. Which in today’s day, is no more difficult than clicking on the link. The little information that it takes to sound knowledgeable today, is astounding.

In sum, while people from all sides of the national conversation are insisting that they have looked into and thought about what is actually a wagon load of falsehoods, it simply does not cross their minds to check if it ever even happened.

In short, just because they are using their minds it does not mean that have any way of discerning what truth is.

Thank you for listening.

n0m – I am not sure how to answer because I feel like you said a few different things, possibly overlapping or even contradictory. I’ll just respond and you will have to sort out which piece goes where, if you don’t mind.

I disagree with your first paragraph. If they only are thinking of the utility of the claim, then I catagorize them as not having thought about it.

I also don’t ever cross paths with card acrrying conspiracy theorists outside of this room so I wasn’t really including them.

I don’t think finding out the truth is as easy as clicking a link. I believe clicking the link is what fed them the garbage.

My response was about how laughable it is to think that if you have a different opinion it is because you didn’t think about it. As if everything he described that was half conspiracy and unproved and half truth was a result of HIM having thought about it, and now he “challenges” us to think lest we come up with something different. As if thinking about it could have brought him to his point in the first place.

Thinking about it, to me, means finding truth. If they did what you described as ‘using their minds’, then i don’t qualify that as having thought about it. Which is why I made the comment in the first place.

That’s my mish mash. Thanks for participating.

the middle is enabling the extremists. Currently, political parties can precisely slice the electorate into blocks and divide it close to 50% (not the total votes, but the power – see Senate at 50%, House at 51%, Electoral college by 10Ks of votes). So, when it is impossible to change any of the voter preferences by reasoning, then all you can do is outrage people so that more of them actually vote (as US has lower voting rates than other countries) and engage extremists. Then, politicians are reluctant to offend those easily-offended crazies to such degree that, for example, Trump who did great things in vaccine developments can’t praise that without being booed.

Trump expressed the same in much shorter way, addressing the Black community with “what do you have to lose”? It is now acknowledged that he significantly moved Hispanics to the right, so there is some hope. Not sure whether any English-speaking electorate is capable of changing their opinions.

@guteyid
“‘its 100 percent true that vaccines WORK’
Not true. End of conversation.”

They work, no one posted that they are 100% effective.
Some vaccines work better than others

I think everyone believes what they want to believe. It is then always easy to find sources that are reputable to back one’s belief. Nobody can know all the biases behind a seemingly reputable source.
EX:
When one believes vaccines and masks work- they can find plenty of reputable sources backing their belief.
But if one believes vaccines and masks don’t work- they can also find reputable sources backing their belief.
So everyone sticks to their beliefs.

Since when are vaccines one of the gop’s platforms?
And it’s funny, you admit vaccines work…..yet isn’t it the Democrat government acting their hardest to dispel that claim? Vaccinated still have to wear masks. Vaccinated still have to do covid tests. vaccinated still could pass the virus on. vaccinated must get some more boosters. Laws speak louder than words, especially when the words are “WAIT!!!!!!! I never said they’re COMPLETELY effective!”

The Dems have –and continue to–misstate the purpose and efficacy of the Covid vaccine. It was never meant to provide 100 percent (or even the claimed 90+ percentages cited in the EUA authorizations) against infection. The objective was to REDUCE infection rates in the context of communal spread, and REDUCE the severity of illness and rate of hospitalization for breakthrough infections. It has clearly succeed in both objectives although the metrics of that success can be debated. Yet every time we read about the infection or death someone who has been vaccinated we get the usual response of “they don’t work”. Sort of like denying global warming every time it snows.

Gadol > Dems have –and continue to–misstate the purpose and efficacy

I’ll take your word for that. I don’t use Dem party for medical information. Next, you’ll be asking CNN for psak halakha. I think Phase 3 results were pretty clear on chance on getting infected: 95%, or 20x reduction 2 weeks after vaccination and seemingly was all over the news.

what changed from then?
– decreasing efficiency over time. this was as expected
– vaccinated can still infect others, to lesser degree. this was seemingly unknown.
– variants decrease efficiency, as expected.
– 2 doses were given too close to each other (3-4 weeks), decreasing long-term effectiveness
– T-cell immunity (completely unknown after Phase 3) holds against severe disease even against variants.
– most of population does not understand statistics and listen to pundits. As expected, but still jarring.

ymr: No one is obligated to put chemicals into their body for the good of the national healthcare system.

ujm > No one is obligated to put chemicals into their body

and nobody should be denied access to medical system on the account of people who put themselves at risk on their own. In our country, this could be resolved very simply over time (that we do not have due to fast moving events): insurance companies should have different rates based on vaccination status. Also, discounts based on masking and social behavior (tracked by GPS, as already done for car insurance).

Among millions anti-vaxer, surely there are some who run an insurance company and who will provide discounts to other anti-vaxers. If not, you pay the risk you present. BYOV. Buy your own ventilator.

” Buy your own ventilator.”

you have just proved yourself a troll.
you may be unaware but the current run of covid, according to more reliable sources, is not putting people on ventilators. There are sick people on ventilators who may or may not have covid. Some of them are on vents because the stupid hospitals ignored their non covid issues and let them rot and now they are suffering the consequences. Don’t believe every hyped up media report you can find that tells you that the hospital is filled with the unvaxed (fake news) or that people are using up the vents BECAUSE of covid. Especially since you have a tendency to wish death on anyone who you feel is standing in the way of your potential health care, which is a worse aveirah than most of what you look down your nose at.

AAQ: And people who over-eat should, per your argument, be charged higher insurance and forced to pay for medical expenses resulting from obesity.

MSC: welcome to the coffee room.

syag > the current run of covid, according to more reliable sources, is not putting people on ventilators”

My choice of words may have been too harsh, but with current risks, I hope people use their brain and do simple things to protect themselves and their relatives despite the websites they are reading.

It does looks that there is less lung problems, indeed, B’H. Statistics seems to bear that and so do anecdotes from people saying that “this time it was much easier”. During very high fall season, some/not all of the reports were that “this time it was worse”. Still, as of now, death rates started unfortunately going up in their grim 3-week lag cycle after cases. In your Chicago, it is 1/3 off. That is deaths go “only” 1/3 up of cases v. previous, but cases are way up. In NYC, correlation is closer to 1 somehow.

Whatever mistakes doctors do, I don’t think we can explain full ICUs by that. I live in a place with good hospitals and educate doctors, and ICUs are filling up. A couple of antivaxers I know who were there in the fall talked about many theories, but did not attack doctors who saved their lives.

ujm > And people who over-eat should, per your argument, be charged higher insurance

We do. I do when I pay insurance for my companies with rates reflecting prior year expenses by the employees. A number of big companies self-insure and provide positive incentives for employees to go the gym ($800/year on average). ACA allows charging smokers 50% more (the only one surcharge allowed). Life insurance is less regulated and charges smokers 3 times more, obesity 150% more, Delta (airline, not variant) started charging $200 more for insurance for covid unvaxers.

Is this wrong somehow? In halakha, if you can assign cost to specific people, then only those people pay tax. If a wall protects everyone, then everyone pays.

ujm > forced to pay for medical expenses resulting from obesity.

also, I do not know whether you are working for Feds or a college, but most private insurances have now huge copays and deductibles, so yes obese pay more, unless they are very poor. I am not sure what is the case with Covid. At some point government was paying it all, I think, and it seems to make sense if we want people to go get help, but maybe it will be also productive to make them look at the cost side also.

I found a partial answer to the question I was curious about – does it matter whether you just spent 15 minutes with a sick person or whether you were sitting in the same unventilated room for hours? The paper below gives a clue:

among admitted to the hospital in 2020, chances of death was 5x higher for those with high viral load at admission v. those with low – about same as difference between 30 y.o and 65 y.o.

Of course, viral load may be a factor of how disease is progressing. They have another clue – how viral load changed during first weeks of pandemic in 2020, when people became aware and started practicing SD. Low viral load went from 30% of cases to 70% in one month. So, seems like level of exposure is important.

SARS-CoV-2 infection: Initial viral load (iVL) predicts severity of illness/outcome, and declining trend of iVL in hospitalized patients corresponds with slowing of the pandemic
Said El Zein, Sep 2021 PLOS