True. All clothing, in fact. 
The Catholic Church is now advocating nudity for all!! Yeah, I extrapolated a little.
I mentioned elsewhere that the pharmacy didn’t notify the state of my second Moderna shot. They said they’d take care of it. Today I registered at the Dept of Health website and verified that the information has been updated. Interestingly, they had a list of my flu shots going back to January 2013, pneumonia shot, shingles shot, and DTaP/DT/Td. They also have the due dates for my pneumo PPSV (2026) and DTaP/DT/Td (2028).
That’s pretty cool. I downloaded my COVID vaccination certificate and put it on iCloud so I have it on my phone.
Not sure where to put this news piece, so here is as good as anywhere. Notable for two rare things - a positive story and a look at a country that has not really popped up in the discussions yet. Our problems are not necessarily the world’s problems.
Today I had my first encounter with vaccine hesitancy, and I am not sure if I handled it correctly. I am in the UK, 60 years old, double vaccinated for some time and I finally went out for a professional haircut in the nearest town to me. My barber was a 28 year old man and the barbershop had no restrictions at all regarding masks and distancing (these have recently been removed over here). I was wearing a mask, as is normal for me when entering any premises other than my own home.
The discussion got around to vaccinations and to my surprise he said he’d not been vaccinated and was hesitant to get one. The grounds for this seemed to be a) that he was worried that they were new vaccines and side effects could still come to light, and b) the side effects already seen (he mentioned blood clots) were too dangerous to risk going ahead and getting vaccinated. He said that he and his wife were waiting to see if the vaccines were safe, and that she would follow his lead on it.
He didn’t seem very well informed and was perfectly reasonable and pleasant in our discussion… I was just rather surprised that people, other than raving lunatics, thought this way. I explained the extremely low risk of side effects, the huge numbers of people that had been vaccinated, and the risk to both himself and other people of actually catching Covid. He said that he had been offered the vaccine by the NHS and that it would be the Pfizer version. I felt that it wasn’t really the right circumstances to have a discussion of virus mutation, variants and vaccine escape. He seemed to think he was completely invulnerable to Covid due to his age, and he didn’t seem receptive to me mentioning infection and complication rates in younger age groups. I think that the idea of him catching it and spreading it to a more vulnerable person (especially in his job) resonated most with him.
All the time we were having this conversation his colleague was glaring at me and I don’t think welcomed my opinion on the matter. I am not sure what else I could have done, but I still feel that I was a little under-prepared and could have been more effective. Is there anything else you think I should have done?
On a more general note, I was pretty disappointed with the way people seem to have abandoned most precautions - I now have a greater understanding of why the UK infection rates are currently where they are!
Amid the current surge in COVID-19 cases in Missouri, a recent Facebook conversation between two Republican state lawmakers is telling.
Around Independence Day, State Rep. Bill Kidd, from the Kansas City suburbs, revealed that he has been infected by the coronavirus.
“And no, we didn’t get the vaccine,” he wrote in a post that has since been deleted. “We’re Republicans
”
State Rep. Brian Seitz, a Republican from Taney County, home to the tourist destination of Branson, commented on the post by falsely claiming that the virus had been developed by top government scientist Anthony Fauci and billionaire Microsoft founder Bill Gates. They “knew what was coming,” Seitz wrote.
“The jury is still out on the ‘vaccine’ (who knows what’s in that),” he wrote.
As the number of coronavirus infections rises around the country, lawmakers like Kidd and Seitz have adopted responses that trouble many health officials.
…
My bold.
I sure didn’t know that. 
What would you expect from a county named after Roger Taney?
Guy who mocks Corona dies of Corona at Corona in Corona.
I’m in a county that is at 40% fully vaccinated for 12+. My wife and I went into a popular, large big-box store this weekend and you could count the number of masks on one hand. What are the odds that the unvaccinated are not shopping?
We made the decision to mask up again and start avoiding stores except early in the morning before they get busy.
I think the underlying point is that they want the people to surrender their freedom to the church. They think it’s a turf war.
You could also try an hour before closing. Usually much quieter then.
We are early birds, but the type that are trying to avoid catching worms or bugs 
Just got an update from a work colleague. She and her husband have been fully vaccinated for a couple of months. Her youngest kid was exposed at daycare to a kid who had covid. The exposure was a couple of hours indoors. Two days later, her kid was sick. Within a few more days, the whole family was sick – her other kid plus the vaccinated adults.*
The adults have symptoms, though not serious ones. For example, she had spent the last three days mostly in bed. No high fever, but low grade. So not just testing positive.
She pointed out that it seems. . . unwise that we have a planned return to the office date in early September. I hope they change that, or at the very least make exceptions for those with kids under 12 or other reasons for needing to limit exposure.
It really seems like no one is grappling with what phase of the pandemic we are really in.
*We are still all working from home for now, so no general exposure at work.
I"m afraid the “It’s all a hoax/the flu/a liberal conspiracy” folks have won. Many folks are simply pretending the current surge in cases, followed by hospitalizations followed by deaths are not happening.
If we ignore it harder, it will disappear one day like magic.
Even those who have lost close family to covid are not getting vaccinated, because they don’t want to be told what to do, or because they believe lies told to them by anonymous sources on the internet over what their own family doctor says.
I’m quite nervous about what is coming. And the tragedy is; It didn’t have to be this way. There was enough vaccine for every single person in the US, and a great willingness to see it distributed.
For free.
I don’t want to wish death on anybody, but if the COVID deniers started dropping dead it would solve a couple of problems.
Englad had a surge in cases that was near their peak (and it’s declining now.) Yet deaths are a mere fraction of that. So going A-B-C doesn’t seem to apply there.
Where I live, we were doing well, taking ng it seriously, keeping numbers down, and largely getting vaccinated. We had a surge driven by the alpha variant, but eventually got it under control, partly because vaccination was still going up at a good pace.
Then, we hit a wall on vaccinations, and the CDC came out with its sunshine and roses guidance for vaccinated people/people willing to impersonate vaccinated people, and everything just opened back up despite delta, kids under 12, back to school and fall/winter approaching. Apparently we’re just done with it.
I don’t wish it either. My sincere wish is for people to come to grips with reality.
But I do think about the Darwinian consequences of their point of view, and how it might affect the numbers in future elections, etc. It’s still tragic for people to suffer and die for such a terrible reason. But the bulk of my sympathy goes to those who suffer or die despite having taken reasonable steps to protect themselves, or having been unable to do so.
Vaccination does not stop cases, but it does make the cases less severe, and certainly leads to fewer hospitalizations and fewer deaths.
68.59% of the population of the UK has had at least one shot. cf. 56.35% of the USA.
The UK’s recent surge peaked on July 21 at a 7 day average of 47,000/day. The death rate is a lagging indicator, but current stands at a 7 day average of 64/day.
The USA’s current surge is at 50,000/day (7 day average) and shows no signs of peaking. The death rate is currently 255/day and due to be spiking up any time now.
It’s going to get better in the UK going forward. It’s going to get worse in the USA going forward. I hope not much worse. But looking at the news out of Arkansas and neighboring states I’m not hopeful.
Right after opening is best - fewer people, fewer particles. Particles can stay aloft in the air for hours.
The CDC has no good data on breakthrough infections – absolutely none. So when it comes out with crap “estimates” that end up in the news, it’s misleading. The UK and Israel health agencies actually have Pfizer data. Pfizer itself came out a few weeks ago and said that they would get to work on a booster shot and they have since suggested, based on Israeli data, that the vaccine efficacy may decrease with time. Yet CDC comes back and pushes back against both the manufacturer of the vaccine in question and the Israeli health officials who’ve been gathering data that we’ve not.