I’d still do my best to a) not let Other Grandparents into the house and b) try to disinfect everything Grandkids come back with and to avoid/remain masked around them as much as possible for two weeks after they return. And to make it absolutely clear ahead of time that this is going to happen. Possibly tell them somebody else will have to cook for that time because you and MrVow will be staying in your room.
Other Grandparents are probably not going to isolate during the two weeks, and even if they haven’t got it yet may pick it up somewhere else during that time.
Ah. I’d been going to say that this seemed to me to be one of the rare cases in which pitching a screaming fit yelling You Are Trying To Kill Me would be justified. However if it seems the Daughter’s starting to listen to reason, possibly in the form of Grandchild’s doctor, then it’s possible that that would only get Daughter back into defensiveness again. And you, of course, know all these people much better than I do.
Can you get Grandchild’s doctor in on this, if they’re not already?
Mr VOW must have misunderstood The Daughter last night during her explosion. I think her screaming and yelling was about the other grandparents not believing in COVID.
The Daughter works as an auditor for Kaiser Permanente insurance. She has a front row seat when it comes to anything health-related. She equates the COVID-hoaxers with the anti-vaxxers, and she is the veteran of too many battles with anti-vaxxer parents when she was a CSR for Kaiser.
I equate her with Joan of Arc, wearing her armor of modern medicine, riding her horse into battle with her standard held high. She understands my concerns, her daddy’s concerns, and she will fight tooth and nail to protect her kids.
The other grandparents are good people, and they have helped out many times over the years.
But in instances like these, they are nucking futz.
And they dearly love to hold grudges.
~VOW
(ETA: and yes, I know how it ended for poor Joan. I just hope it isn’t the familial relationship that gets burned at the stake here.)
Their answer would be that all those people were old and sick and would have died anyway. I know some otherwise intelligent, rational people who believe this.
The COVID-hoaxers and the anti-vaxxers are the ones who yammer about “herd immunity,” without understanding what the Hell that means.
I’ve gone a few rounds with anti-vaxxers, and it’s easier to argue with a hormonal teenager. I had one lady tell me that the reason why smallpox has been eliminated is that “it was time for smallpox to go.”
(Yeah, riiiiiight)
My argument to the anti-vaxxers, and it was usually my parting shot, is that when their kids are decimated with measles, mumps, chickenpox, diphtheria, polio, tetanus, whooping cough–well MY kids would be the ones holding society together, caring for the sick, operating the utilities, etc etc etc etc.
After banging your head against a cement block wall, eventually you’ve got to realize the wall isn’t learning anything, and all you’ve got is a headache.
I’ll settle down eventually. I must. My blood pressure needs a break.
~VOW
Glad to hear that your daughter hasn’t gone over to the Dark Side.
This is probably a touchy question, but where does your SIL stand in all this? It’s gotta be tough to be in his shoes either way, but I sure hope he’s with your daughter on this, trying to placate his parents as best he can for the sake of family harmony, rather than the other way around.
Yeah, the 120-bed nursing home that my wife’s late grandmother was in until ~3 weeks ago - as of Monday, they’d had 87 residents test covid-positive, plus 20 staffers. 18 dead so far. They had their first positive test for the coronavirus just a month ago.
That’s 15% of their residents dying, in less than a month. Now maybe they could have had that many dying that quickly due to other causes, but even given the age and poor health of the residents, it’s pretty unlikely.
You know how it works here, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence - so - having made your assertion, I would be most interested i your extraordinary evidence to back it up. We would all like to know who these corrupt doctors are.
I have seen similar sentiments elsewhere without any shred of evidence and I am concerned that such a line feeds directly into conspiracy disinformation which itself can be fatal,
Not only this, but those old sickly people were just costing society too much money all around, so it’s kind of a net gain to bump them off a little early.
Regarding the other grandparents - I am somewhat fascinated (greatly dismayed, but also curious) about the dynamic at work for someone to actually take the steps to physically participate in one of these rallies.
I can (mostly) get that they are getting certain messages that resonate with them that it’s all BS and they should be outraged. I know it’s all lies, but if one is a deep red MAGA acolyte, and the Governor is a Dem and they are telling you to stay home, well, there is SOME discernible through line of logic in them getting outraged. But, to go to the extent of loading up the Prius (it’s a joke, son) and driving hundreds of miles to where-ever the rally is, and putting signs together and and and…what’s up with that? Someone has got to be paying them…
And it’s funny that the sanitation drastically improved in the USSR two years before it did in the US.
(I wish I had a cite for this, but I did see a graph showing this factoid - the US wouldn’t use the USSR developed vaccine because commies, so it took two more years for the US vaccine to be developed)
It means other people die so they can shop. They will be immune because of God’s love, or “the hydroxy”, or whatever myth they tell themselves. People are rationalizing animals, not rational ones.
I would be inclined to believe that this is the actual strategy of the GOP and Fox News, except those “old sickly people” are a large segment of their base. So, instead, they’re just stupid.
The poliovirus is spread via the fecal-oral route, so in theory better sanitation should reduce transmission. However, in the 'Fifties, handwashing was not as prevalent as it was now even in hospitals and food preparatoin much less the general public, public pools had indifferent if any treatment, and nobody was using hand wipes or wiping off door handles. In developing countries where clean water is a scarce resource, the fecal-oral route transmits just fine.
The Salk vaccine, once it was widely distributed, pretty much shut down poliomyelitis epidemics so dramatically there is no question that it was responsible even though the Salk vaccine was only about 70% effective and it was only distributed to about 70% of the juvenile population, which was enough to achieve effective “herd immunity”. The Sabin vaccine was more effective and is still the vaccine of choice (although in a bivalent formulation rather than Sabin’s original trivalent formulation) for the global eradication campaign due to the ease of delivery.
