Oh Lord. 
Thanks 
for that thorough (and disheartening) reply.
…yeah, its basically a MUCH bigger problem than just covid, and probably out-of-scope for the thread.
But we saw in real-time the co-relation between the rise in activity (as observed by the Disinformation Project) and the rise in the anti-vaxx movment. We saw the shift from “hesitancy” to “active-resistance.” The big protest marches. The adoption of Qanon talking points, the memes, the “American style” calls for freedom. And plenty of Trump hats and flags.
It all happened in less than a few weeks: it seemed to come out of no-where, but as the Project shows it was a very co-ordinated attack focused on Māori and Pasifika people. And those communities were hit hardest by the Delta outbreak, and they have been the behind on vaccinations, etc. 
This video shows a bit of some of the things that have happened. For context, Māori in remote communities set up checkpoints to stop people from outside the community from coming in. (These were local initiatives, backed by the police.) The video shows a confrontation with a group of anti-vaxx protestors: the protestors were majority pakeha, but they had adopted Māori terms (hīkoi, or protest) and flags, all part of the indoctrination process.
(Also note how the police held back here. They let the local Iwi speak in defence of the community.)
Here, RW conservative types (with a big fundie Christian angle) and hippie types.
UK here. I think I’ll try to address this in two parts - mostly because I think I can have a go at the first part, but part 2 is … problematic.
- Who are these people?
- Why are they like that?
Re: part 1, I thought to myself, I bet there’s a correlation here that I can guess. One quick google later - and indeed there is. We know (some of) these people well. Specimen search result:
That’s just about the least surprising thing I have seen in years. But even so, the extent of this correlation amongst hard-core Brexiteers is pretty eye-popping:
When we ask about current vote intention, supporters of Nigel Farage’s new Reform UK party are strikingly less willing to take the vaccine (only just over 50%).
Well, we know plenty about Brexiteers, so we can at least get some hints about UK anti-vaxxers. Brexiteers are characterised by being old, and having low educational attainment; and the latter part of that correlates to a lack of intelligence and to (relative) poverty. Brexit voters also tended to the right and to nationalism; and to xenophobia.
More to consider - here’s a piece about the demographics of hesitancy (rather than strident anti-vaxxing) from the UK Office for National Statistics.
Too long and detailed to summarise; but I’ll note that it largely excludes the old from vaccine hesitancy. - not that big a surprise in the context of the disease. There’s other complicating detail in here as well - there was/is a lot of hesitancy in black and asian communities, for example, but those populations tended to be anti-Brexit.
In loose terms, I’m assuming that (many of) your strident anti-vaxxers are a politicised subset of the hesitant/resistant; and that politicisation maps pretty well to the Brexiteer profile.
As to Why are they like that? Jeez Louise, I dunno. My opinion is that, within this group there is an over-representation of the (generally white) get off my lawn-you can’t make me do that-I know my rights brigade, plus the occasional asian or black maverick driven by religious interpretation* or mistrust.
To me that looks very like the situation in the US. There’s a nice line in the Nature article (about Brexiteers) which I linked to.
it is not simply a case of educational attainment; rather, it is an issue of relative deprivation and a feeling of being ‘left behind’ in society
I think that’s describing a group of people who feel that they are missing out, that they are being ignored and forgotten; and they react to this by choosing to exclude themselves. We have an established core of disaffected persons; a public appeal for covid vaccination (for the benefit of society) is just so much more grist to their mill.
j
* - it’s not directly relevant to the discussion, but I should note in the UK, “asian” is largely south asian; and that here that many of our mosques were closely involved in vaccination drives, and made an invaluable contribution to achieving high vaccination rates in the muslim community.
Thanks, y’all, for those replies.
I went into my local Walgreen’s this afternoon and there was a table piled high with ziploc bags, each containing three masks, and a sign saying take one bag per household. The pile was replenished by a staffer while I was waiting to check out. I didn’t take one because I have a whole box of KN-95s at home.
I’m sure plenty of people will trash Biden and somehow find fault with this, but I say bravo!
Also in Canada, “Canada Unity”, a group that sounds like a weird amalgam of white supremacists, Soveriegn citizen wanna-be’s, Western Canada separatists, and assorted hangers on. They’ve raised 5 million dollars from donations, but (surprise) nobody seems to know who is controlling the money or where it is going. (Grifting the rubes again).
Their truck convoy protest has morphed from an anti-vax protest into one where they want to remove the government by force and arrest the prime minister.
Disturbingly, some in the Conservative party are implicitly (or explicitly) endorsing these lunatics.
If Biden cured cancer, people would bitch at him for putting doctors out of work.
This may be old news to most of you, but I was grateful that the local news station reported this about K95 and KN95 masks.
- Do not wash. Washing removes the electrostatic properties that are so much more important with the transmissible variant.
- Do not place a used mask in a plastic bag. It needs to dry out so the virus is inactivated.
- After wearing one, hang up and wait three days before reusing. (So I guess that means wear it on Monday - wear it again on Thursday.)
- After using a mask five times, discard it.
Aaron Collins, who has done a ton of testing of masks, and posted his info on YouTube and Google docs, says masks are a little sturdier than that
He slips his back into the (unsealed) plastic sleeve they came in between uses. Yes, let them dry out, but they don’t need to be really carefully aired
He says that if the mask is still clean and undamaged, it can be worn for a huge number of hours. He’s tested masks that he keeps in his car, and they barely degrade over very long periods of time (and use).
But, he agrees that you shouldn’t wash them, as the electrostatic properties are key to them working well. Even more important, don’t let them touch alcohol, which will strip off the charge. He says this is so critical that you shouldn’t, for instance, use a sharpie marker to label your masks, as that might create a “hole” in the charge, and let virus leak thru.
I highly recommend him. I’ve seen several legit news sources say he’s good, and he’s done actual testing of a gazillion masks. He also has advice on finding a mask that fits, and on where to buy masks: Buy them from a vendor that can vouch for its supply chain, not from Amazon, Etsy, or eBay. There are a LOT of realistic-looking fakes out there. If you buy from Home Depot or Behealthyusa (a Korean vendor that sells a lot of good Korean masks) you will probably get whatever is advertised. If you buy on Amazon, there’s a good chance you won’t.
I got my Moderna booster yesterday. Side effects started last night. I had an itchy rash around the vaccination site for a short time, and my arm started getting sore. Today, my arm and shoulder hurt a lot.
I got Pfizer for the first two shots, and had the most side effects to the first shot, so it’s interesting to have them again. Of course, I also had covid before this shot.
This might have been better as its own thread, but putting it here for now, because it’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while.
I read on social media an argument that COVID, like climate change, is a systemic problem and not due to individual choices. By my recollection, the writer noted the “but I did everything right!” lament and thought it was wrong for those people to believe they contributed significantly to the pandemic, because failures in the capitalist system and in government were much more responsible, like a multinational conglomerate both putting out metric fucktons of pollutants each day and using their media reach to scold individual citizens for not recycling their last water bottle.
On one hand, I’m sympathetic to the argument; I mean, if we had more sick leave, a saner health care system, some way to punish blatant media lying, and a better social safety net in general, I don’t think there’s any denying that a lot more people would be alive right now. On the other hand, it seems to me that the argument (probably unintentionally) absolves anti-vaxxers of any responsibility for not getting vaccinated, and that doesn’t sit right with me.
What do y’all think?
I pretty much agree. Absolutely, systemic problems made things worse both in the US and around the world. However, unlike as much with climate change, with a communicable disease I think personal responsibility does play a tremendous part. A global break down in distributing vaccines may leave billions vulnerable and give rise to the next super contagious variant, but the disease still passes ultimately from one person to another.
For example, I have an electric car. I know that the few tons of CO2 I save every year isn’t going to make a bit of difference in fighting climate change. So even if electrified transportation is an important part of eliminating carbon emissions, my personal use savings is lower than trivial.
However, if I get vaccinated and wear an effective mask, so am less likely to contract and spread COVID-19, that has a direct effect on people around me, who in turn have a direct effect on the people around them.
Don’t think like this. Decarbonizing transportation is going to be done one vehicle at a time, just as a journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step. Your vehicle is decarbonized, that’s one step. A couple million more have done the same, that’s that many more steps. Just because we have a couple hundred million more steps to make does not make your step unimportant.
This applies to other things, like decarbonizing your house. Or to keep it on topic, getting vaxxed.
Coming to Hawaii; Maui specifically? After Monday, a booster is required for restaurants, gyms, and similar masking situations.
Good for Hawaii.
(Although that might make it hard for me to go. My booster was administered by a clinical study, and probably isn’t in the state records. The study did give me a signed letter saying “we gave her a, b, or c on this date.” when i needed to tell my employer I’d been boosted, and my employer accepted that. But i doubt Hawaii will.)
I had the same experience yesterday. The place used to be pretty good with masking, but yesterday, when I went in for takeout, the vast majority of the people in the packed foyer were unmasked, including two employees. And it was the place I had been going to second-most for takeout up until this point.
(It was Japanese Teppanyaki style with all the ingredient of a Teppanyaki meal except that with takeout they don’t give you the heaping helpings they throw onto your plate when they cook it in front of you. The place I takeout more from is Indian and I go there more because their food comes in a compact tin with sauce and thus keeps warmer. Although next time I go there, perhaps they will be unmasked as well.)
I wonder how many days the average infectee goes about the town without realizing they’re sick. If the average is 3 days, then at 150 cases per day per 100K, there is an almost .5% chance that any random person is actively spreading Covid, which means that in a decently-packed grocery store, you’ve a very high chance of being in the same building as a contagious person, whom you will thankfully usually be able to avoid close contact with and sometimes not even pass by.
But with 15 unmasked people in a compact foyer or small restaurant, there’s an almost 10% chance you’re going to be standing around the air of someone who’s unmasked and spreading. I would hardly take that chance even for influenza, let alone Covid.
Another coworker has come down with plague. I know she isn’t vaccinated. She’s five months pregnant. (That’s probably why she didn’t want to be vaccinated; out of fear for the baby she’s been trying to make.) I was about eight feet away from her for 15 minutes or so on Tuesday. (Separate tables in the kitchen.) She tested negative yesterday, but apparently tested positive today and has gone home. As I’ve said, I spend most of my time in the basement and usually only see my coworkers in passing. The president’s birthday is today, and we’re all supposed to get together in the kitchen for pie. At least that was the plan before this news. I don’t eat pie, and would rather keep my distance.
Wifey, RN has seen a couple of patients who have COVID. They wear masks, and she wears a mask and gloves.
I have never understood this. Wouldn’t having covid while pregnant be more likely to do harm to the fetus than a vaccine? Or is there some reason to think the contrary?
I didn’t ask her. My guess is the thinking (in general, not specifically my coworker) is this: ‘I’ve heard that the vaccine might harm my baby, or prevent me from getting pregnant in the first place. So I won’t be vaccinated while I’m trying to have a baby, nor while I’m pregnant. I’m young and wear a mask, so I won’t get COVID.’
Yes, it can do serious harm to both fetus and mother. The mother’s immune system tends to be wacky during pregnancy (hyperinflammatory, hypoinflammatory, then hyperinflammatory again). So a pregnant woman could be more likely to become infected during the hypoinflammatory state and once, infected, may have serious illness due to cytokine storms etc. because of the hyperinflammatory stage. Some young pregnant women have died from covid.