the more people get it the more chances to mutate, although I imagine that cases in the US are going to be subdominant over places like India for a while.

Yes, slowing down replication will slow down mutation.

And yes, if more people got their flu vaccines we would probably slow it down as well.

We need a lot of community compliance to get these things under control

That's what I was thinking; so, as long as people are not getting vaccinated, chances are they'll catch it and it'll mutate. So shouldn't it behoove people to be vaccinated for it, to decrease the chances of mutant variants?

So why isn't this being promoted? Because of the dumbasses?

yeah, vax for all 16+ has been open in the city since april 19th, now with freaking walk-ins accepted. it really couldn't be made any easier.

so any adult in chicago not at least partially vaxxed by memorial day, well, that's gonna be 100% on them by that point.

the rest of us are dropping our masks outside, eating in restaurants, beginning to attend sporting events again, etc.

it really does feel like we're getting back to normal. and by the end of this month, it'll even more so.




no kidding. we live 2.5 miles straight west on larwence from the beach. took us ~25 minutes to drive there yesterday as the entire damn city was trying to get to the lakefront.

the lakefront was PACKED. other than the maybe 20% of people still masking outside, you'd have had zero inclination that a global pandemic was even taking place.

now that vax for all is available, people here are fucking done with it. government officials will no longer be able to walk it back now.

right, but vaccines just became available to everyone ~2 weeks ago, and it takes up to 6 weeks between first dose and "full immunity." I agree that after everyone has reasonably had a chance to be fully vaccinated, it doesn't make sense to let the hesitant hold others hostage if it's not going to overload hospitals.

Yes.

The true 'dumbassery' of America lies in the vaccine-hesitant. There really is no reason.....

Yeah, once everyone has had a reasonable chance to get vaccinated then the restrictions should be lifted, as long as hospitals aren't being overwhelmed. But there are some other unknowns that still haven't been answered that could push vaccinations a lot higher. For instance, a lot of colleges are already requiring vaccinations for students to live on campus in the fall. Will public school systems follow suit? Will COVID vaccinations become commonly required by employers? Can/will the insurance industry push vaccinations?

People are getting way to worked up about viral mutations. This isn’t science fiction. If you’re vaccinated you’re still fine, if you’re not vaccinated that’s your choice, just open everything up already.

I hope that the answer is 'yes' to all of this

In LA it really feels like things have begun to shift back to 'normal' in the past couple weeks, though it really feels like we're in this transition period where people are somewhat scared to change their behavior. At least in my part of LA, almost everyone wore masks at all times in public. Very much including outdoor activities like walking the dog around the block, hiking in the park, biking, etc. Not wearing a mask would make you a bit of a pariah, and in addition to trying to be considerate and safe, wearing a mask outside became part of the social code, I'd say.

Now that the CDC updated their guidance on mask wearing for vaccinated people, I have stopped wearing a mask outside. My friends have done the same because we're all fully vaxxed (2+ weeks from second shot). From what I hear, LA has been really good about getting vaccinated, and shots have been open to all people 16+ for a couple weeks now. Yet walking around outside, I'd say 2/3 of people I encounter are still masking up. It makes me feel a bit uneasy, and I worry people think I'm an asshole or that I'm a MAGA dude or something, but I feel like it's the right thing to do to try to change to culture and allow ourselves to get back to some semblance of normality. I think of walking around outside without a mask as being one of the ancillary 'rewards' of getting vaxxed, and the more we can demonstrate these benefits, the more people will be encouraged to also get vaxxed. Of course, the anti-vaxers generally don't GAF, and will also just walk around maskless, go to bars and parties, etc., so they wouldn't view those things as rewards.

the fact that despite being available now vaccines are slowing down, which will continue to prolong the disease unnecessarily?

Maybe you could just get a “I’m Vaccinated” hat or shirt.

This would be an egregious violation of civil liberties. Not even the UK is leaning toward allowing most employers to require vaccinations.

Nor is it necessary. Covid is never going away and once the panic dies down should be treated like flu. Encourage vaccinations particularly among the vulnerable, get vaccinated if you want, don’t if you don’t want, it will go around every winter season and as with flu some people will die because they weren’t vaccinated or have a freak reaction. It will likely mutate into a much milder form anyway.

Employers are allowed to require vaccinations in the U.S. Most public schools already require students to be vaccinated for a number of diseases.

^ Exactly. Vaccination as a condition of employment or as a part of registering for school or University is already a common practice

But making COVID last a little bit longer just to piss you off is.....reason enough to keep it going ;)

Yup. Almost 20 years ago, when I worked at a hospital, I was required to get a Hep A and Hep B series.

This betrays a misunderstanding of what "herd immunity" actually means of there part of whoever wrote the headline. It doesn't mean the virus is totally eliminated like smallpox (sort of--sample of that were kept in biowarfare labs at cxonsiderable risk). It's more like measles. There aren't regularly occurring cases--which would mean endemic disease and no "herd immunity"--but rather sporadic outbreaks and the larger the susceptible (unvaccinated) population, the wider those can spread.

But in the US at least, there is still a major stumbling block besides vaccine hesitancy. It's the fact that the vaccine isn't approved for children (even if it's approved for those 12 and older this week). There needs to be a version approved for the very young, at least those old enough to spend any time away from their parents and exposed to the wider community such as in nursery school. Otherwise, they remain a reservoir of infection and must be counted as part of the total population when determining the unvaccinated percentages of the population.

A growing list of universities are requiring vaccination against SARS-CoV-2 as a condition of returning to in-person campus residence and class attendance in the fall.

But there are all sorts of "required" things for various purposes. "No shoes/no shirt=No service" is a cliche and common. Intoxication will bar you from many things including airplanes. As usual 10023 is very wrong about civil liberties. You can't discriminate based on race, religion, national origin and in some places gender identity, sexual preference and so on. But beyond these things named in law, you CAN discriminate on the basis of most things including vaccination status. However as in so many things, science is going by the wayside and the subject is being politicized with the red team standing for the rights of the unvaccinated and the blue team standing for the rights of the vulnerable not to be exposed to their germs. I recently heard about some public event (I think it was a pop music concert in the UK) in which getting tested--not vaccination--was a requirement for entrance and 10% turned up positive and were excluded. The audience probably skewed young but if that means what it seems--that every 10th youngish person you come in contact with even in a country that has a very aggressive vaccination campaign going on can infect you--then we still have a lot of work to do and there's very valid reasons to require vaccination (or, perhaps, either vaccination or a negative test but a negative test is only valid at the time its done whereas vaccination means you aren't a likely spreader of the virus for at least months into the future).

From Deadline:

Los Angeles County Reports Zero Daily Covid-19 Deaths For 2nd Day In A Row; 1st Time in Over A Year

By Tom Tapp
Deputy Managing Editor
May 3, 2021 1:12pm

On Sunday and Monday, Los Angeles County reported no additional deaths from Covid-19, though officials stressed those low numbers likely reflect reporting delays over the weekend.

Still, given that the number of daily deaths was over 200 in January and that in the past year the region has lost nearly 30,000 souls to Covid, even if the counts are an anomaly it’s welcome news. According to county records, the last time there were no daily pandemic deaths recorded in L.A. was on March 18, 2020. That was also the last time there were two consecutive days with zero Covid-related deaths in the region. There were only 15 such deaths statewide on Monday.

More good news: As of Saturday, the county’s test positivity rate was at the lowest level of the pandemic at 0.6%.

“This does represent a delay from the weekend,” said county public health director Barbara Ferrer on Monday about the numbers, “and we’re hoping that the number of deaths does remain low.”

According to state figures, the number of coronavirus patients in L.A. county hospitals dropped from 410 on Saturday to 390, with 87 people in intensive care, up from 86 the previous day.

California Governor Gavin Newsom said on Monday that the state’s number of Covid-related hospitalizations is at an all-time low since the start of the pandemic. Coronavirus patients in CA were down from a January peak of nearly 23,000 to 1,626 on Monday.

Sunday’s figures brought the county’s totals to 1,233,772 cases and 23,915 fatalities since the pandemic began, according to the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health.

The county has further eased its Covid-19 health restrictions, allowing indoor playgrounds and arcades to reopen at limited capacity, while lifting restrictions on operating hours for bars, breweries and wineries.

Indoor arcades and playgrounds — such as laser tag businesses, ball pits or “bounce” centers — are restricted to 25% of capacity, along with other mandated safety modifications.

Bars, which are currently allowed to operate outdoors only, had been restricted to operating hours of 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m., but those restrictions are now lifted.

On Monday, playgrounds at all Los Angeles Unified elementary schools and early education centers will reopen. District personnel will use electrostatic misters and approved disinfectant to regularly sanitize playground equipment, the same procedure used to clean frequently touched surfaces in a school, according to Superintendent Austin Beutner.

The easing of restrictions comes amid continued concern about the slowing pace of vaccinations in the county.

County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer again stressed the urgency for people to get inoculated, while also continuing to adhere to other health guidelines to prevent a resurgence of the virus locally.

“Getting vaccinated in L.A. County is easier and more accessible than ever before and we encourage everyone waiting to get vaccinated to take advantage of the opportunity as soon as possible,” Ferrer said. “There continues to be much higher risk of COVID-19 transmission among unvaccinated people. As more L.A. County residents and workers are vaccinated, the risk of transmission of variants is significantly reduced and we get back to the many activities that we loved to do before the pandemic.”

The county is expected to reach the least-restrictive yellow tier of the state’s four-tier Blueprint for a Safer Economy when updated statistics are released on Tuesday. Ferrer said if the county does qualify for the move, a new health order with more relaxed restrictions will be published Wednesday, taking effect Thursday.

Entering the yellow tier will primarily allow higher capacity limits at most businesses. Fitness centers, cardrooms, wineries and breweries, for\ instance, would be permitted to increase indoor attendance limits to 50%, up from the current 25%; bars would be able to open indoors at 25%; outdoor venues such as Dodger Stadium could increase capacity to 67%, up from the current 33%; and amusement parks could allow 35%, up from 25%.

The county also revised its health order last week to incorporate changes in mask-wearing guidelines recommended last week for fully vaccinated people by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The revisions also state that surveillance COVID testing is no longer recommended for fully vaccinated people, unless they work at skilled nursing facilities or other high-risk settings, are traveling internationally or are required by a particular business or facility.

City News Service contributed to this report.

Link: https://deadline.com/2021/05/los-ang...hs-1234749095/

^ That’s because LA has nice weather but still has fanatical restrictions. It’s clear overkill.

I read somewhere that couches priced above 15K really depress covid transmissions.

What fanatical restrictions? I ate at two restaurants (one inside) and went to a bar this weekend, and other than operating at reduced capacity, it was basically normal. Disneyland even reopened last week. :shrug:

Yeah but you can't hug Goofy. Fail. :frog:

I came from Miami so it was like going back into lockdown by comparison. You don’t have bars that are open, it’s table service only, everywhere is pretty quiet etc.

Ok so not being able to sit shoulder to shoulder at a bar = lockdown? Damn dude you are something else :koko:

It is still somewhat quiet, I will agree with that. But that's more a symptom of people being hesitant to get back to normal rather than 'fanatical restrictions' imposed by the government. The pandemic was very bad in LA Nov-Jan, and I think people have taken it pretty seriously. That's a good thing, I think.

Still quite low.

In SF, 43% of all residents, 49% of those 16+, and 73% of those 65+ have been fully vaccinated.

63% of all residents, 72% of those 16+, and 86% of those 65+ have received at least one dose.

It’s the vaccines, dummy. It’s not the lockdowns—sorry Mayors and Governors, but you didn’t save your cities and municipalities. You just bankrupted everyone.

Science saved us. The vaccine is the solution. Period.

I live dining out, going to movies, etc. Ever since my shots it’s been much better.

Wow, Disney just opened!? It's been open in Florida for the last 11 months LOL

No one need fret. If SF (and maybe LA) makes the yellow tier tomorrow, he'll be able to sit at that bar and do so safely (which I'm not sure can really be said about Miami at this point: According to The NY Times FL is averaging 23 cases/100,000/day statewide and Miami is worse than that average while CA is averaging only 5 cases/100,000/day and neither LA nor SF is any longer a hotspot).

Meanwhile, 9% of the LA population and 7% of San Francisco's are "vaccine hesitant" according to the CDC while in Dade County it's 19% according to the CDC ( https://data.cdc.gov/stories/s/Vacci...D-19/cnd2-a6zw ). CA is going vaccinate all but a tiny minority of its population and reopen safely. It's less clear about FL.

Oh, what a heavy burden Lord Pretend must bear--it's not noisy enough! Not every single bar is open!

Won't someone relieve His Heinous of this ghastly oppression?

Yes, and Disney has been very unhappy about the state of CA not buying their profit-driven assurances.

He's going back to London where they are serious about their lockdowns.

And the city is still pumping vaccine into arms at a rate of nearly 1% of the eligible population (7000 people) per day. See what I posted just above about our rate of vaccine hesitancy--it's remarkably low. And it will mean that the city, at least, will probably truly reach "herd immunity" once we can start vaccinating the kids too while other parts of the country may not.

Incidentally, I don't think it's a coincidence that the national rate of vaccination began to plummet contemporaneously with the ill-advised suspension of the J&J vaccine. It appears the typical American isn't able to distinguish between the rare side effects that MAY (it's still unclear whether the cases of thrombotic thrombocytopenia among those vaccinated exceeded the rate among an unvaccinated group) be associated with the J&J and Astrazenica technology and the very different technology from Pfizer and Moderna. The suspension seems to have scared many people away from all available coronavirus vaccines. As one might guess (based on educational attainment stats), San Franciscans seem smarter than the national average and are able to make these distinctions.

Check out your town's "vaccine hesitancy" (you can roll over the link to see percentages):

https://uniim1.shutterfly.com/ng/ser...117736/enhance
https://data.cdc.gov/stories/s/Vacci...D-19/cnd2-a6zw

I disagree that fear and hesitancy amongst younger people who have never been at risk from the virus is a good thing. It’s a product of a government and media fear campaign that will probably have lasting mental health consequences more severe than any other health impact on these generations.

^ instead of your bar buddies, tell that to those who other similarly reckless people made sick or killed.

***

touristy new orleans is big easying back to life:


https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-new-...om-11620120601

So are you saying that you fear the impact of the lockdowns? If that's the case, then what is so bad about somebody fearing the virus? It's acting on the same thing, and both sides are doing it. Consider that every statement you have said about covid, can be molded into a comment about the impact of the lockdowns...
"the number of lockdowns doesn't matter"
"everybody has been impacted by the lockdowns so it's not a big deal"
"in any given year there are millions of lockdowns"

full article: https://chicago.suntimes.com/2021/5/...zker-lightfoot

Yep, bring the snowflakes back to the office :cheers::tup:

Funny, I just put together an investor pitch and used a quote from their COO from a couple months ago.

“Going back to the office with 100% of the people 100% of the time, I think there is zero chance of that,” said Daniel Pinto, co-president and chief operating officer of JP Morgan & Chase Co., in a February interview with CNBC.

https://theticker.org/3585/business/...that.%E2%80%9D


I think we're going to see a lot of back office folks working from home more, or on flexible schedules of 3 days in the office 2 days out kind of thing. No doubt that people looking to accelerate their careers as fast as possible are going to be in the office. Decisions are still going to be made in the boardroom and face time is crucial for building relationships. Still, I've seen multiple institutional tenants who had renewals in the past year give back 10-15% of their office space. We're not going to be flicking a switch and going back to 2019 as soon as everyone is vaccinated.

^ I see that happening as well.

Why do I have a funny feeling that we will see a gender divide over this? I see more women, particularly moms with kids, working from home (and hence putting off their career advancement) while we will see more men plowing into the office.

I agree with some of this, but there definitely large permanent changes that have been made. Maybe for *some* people, they need that face time, but for many many of us, we simply don't need it. Especially for those of us who work with teams across different regions already. This is an ongoing tug-of-war where some larger companies think they are just going to drag everyone back to the office ASAP. What they don't understand is you opened the flood gates, and it's impossible to herd cats back in now. And for those who push hard enough, there will be another company somewhere that will hire them and let them continue to work remotely.

I think anyone who thinks we are magically going back to 2019 office commuting patterns anytime soon is vastly underestimating the permanent lasting changes this pandemic has had.....

It seems pretty clear to me: The folks looking to climb the corporate ladder are going to be in the office and the fewer competitors they see there, the happier they will be. The seat warmers will spend as much time as they can at home. And yeah, the folks answering your customer service call for minimum wage may be on their own couch but niether they nor the company really see that as a career.

My guess is people will gradually drift back into the office more and more as they figure out who’s getting promoted and who’s getting more responsibility and pats on the back from the boss. They may never be required to spend much time there but will figure out it’s career enhancing. And the era of the Zoom meeting may pass as well. Jamie Dimon also said he’s looking forward to cancelling all his.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/even-th...ue-11620151459

:haha:

Good luck. I think some of you are really overvaluing your “talent” and are in for a serious reality check. You can dispense with your employer to find a job that fits your needs to plant your butt at home but that doesn’t mean they can’t do the same.

And the global Zoom-based workforce is........HUGE

You don't even know what I do for a living, or what my specific talents are.

With that said, companies allowing remote work doesn't just cut on office expenses, but it also opens the potential talent pool to people who they might not otherwise be able to tap into. My company is SAAS-based, but has a huge R&D component to in with the sciences, which is where talent there can be niche and harder to find.

Our company is definitely more on the "liberal" side of this issue. We are <200 employees and Boston-based, but have a large office in Tel Avi, and a smaller on in Boulder. Since the beginning of the pandemic, we have hired people all over the US, and all over the World (Tokyo, Ukraine, India, Tel Aviv). One of our scientists is working remotely on a beach in Costa Rica with his family. We have people now from CA to FL and in-between, with no indication that anyone is going to be forced into a central office anytime soon.

That's my experience, but I suspect many other companies are showing some similar patterns over the past year.

And I think you are so personally invested in real estate that suffers when workers are not forced to physically commute into CBD offices that your advocacy for forcing others to in-person work is just you pushing what will be most profitable for yourself.

Ditto for many of the CEOs who either oversaw the construction or long-term leasing of pricey CBD real estate.

Meanwhile, the kind of worker who will insist on refraining from daily, grinding commutes will be precisely those with the talent to make such a demand.

AMEN!

This last weekend has been the most normal I've experienced here since this all started.

Also meant to comment on this - This is great to hear!

I think Lorrie is doing it right here. Put a date out for people to look forward to, give them that push to go get the vaccine. This makes me so f'ing excited I chose to come to Chicago for the Summer now. Ugh.... I can't wait.