How Is Covid-19 Impacting Life in Your City?

[Camelback]

People have been eating bats and living in caves with bats alongside their excrement for thousands of years. I'm not convinced that all of the sudden a zoonotic viral jump occurred in some consumer in random wet market in Wuhan that ate bat soup when you literally have an a high tech institute dedicated to the study of bat corona viruses is next door.

[sopas ej]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

The problem would have been the human consumption of wild animals and/or the confinement of different species wild animals that may not normally come into contact with each other in close proximity.

[...]

But we should probably focus on minimizing the interactions of humans with intermediary species like parasites and eating wild animals.

Exactly. And I really think that if China were the truly communist country that it used to be before it embraced capitalism, commerce would be highly regulated, and wet markets would not have been allowed to keep live animals in close proximity to each other, etc. etc.

And there would have been no demand for wild bats or whatever else exotic animals for humans to even buy and eat; my assumption is the desire to even buy and eat those things became a "status" thing, created by deregulation and the capitalism that they didn't use to have in China. Because eating bats wasn't (and still isn't) a common thing in China.

But hey, that's just my spin on it.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by sopas ej

And there would have been no demand for wild bats or whatever else exotic animals for humans to even buy and eat; my assumption is the desire to even buy and eat those things became a "status" thing, created by deregulation and the capitalism that they didn't use to have in China. Because eating bats wasn't (and still isn't) a common thing in China.

But hey, that's just my spin on it.

But my point partly was I don't think they were eating bats (bats look to me like they'd have hardly any meat!). I think they were eating intermediate species like pangolins or whatever they were.

As for China being Communist, I don't think it's so much how Communist they are but how authoritarian. Their system seems to depend a lot on seemingly undependable (and corrupt) local officials.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by edale

I don't think you're talking to me since I said I don't really care if people choose to wear a mask outside, but I'll chime in here. Wearing a mask outside, especially if you're vaccinated, is essentially virtue signaling. It's a sign that people have lost trust in science and official government guidance, as the CDC has said people do not need to wear them outside. That is troubling, I think. Further erosion of trust of government and facts is never a good thing.

I wear a mask 100% of the time inside, as I believe you are still required to in CA. Continuing to wear them outside, to me, feels like a hesitancy for people to allow themselves to return to some semblance of normal. I don't want to live in a world where everyone has their faces covered, and where people are afraid to even walk by each other on the sidewalk. I choose to not wear a mask outside because I am vaccinated, but when I see everyone else masked up outside, I feel like people view me suspiciously or think that I'm not taking the pandemic seriously.

The government didn't say that you should not wear a mask outside. They said that you don't need to. That's a huge distinction that seems to be confusing a lot of people.

I'm fully vaccinated and I mostly wear a mask outside out of convenience. I have no problem walking around outside without a mask, and I spent plenty of time in outdoor settings last year without a mask, well before the CDC confirmed what was pretty obvious. But most of the time when I'm outside I'm in transit from one situation where I'll need to have on a mask to another where I'll need to have a mask on.

[edale]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

The government didn't say that you should not wear a mask outside. They said that you don't need to. That's a huge distinction that seems to be confusing a lot of people.

That's what I said in my post that you quoted! "the CDC has said people do not need to wear them outside"

Originally Posted by iheartthed

I'm fully vaccinated and I mostly wear a mask outside out of convenience. I have no problem walking around outside without a mask, and I spent plenty of time in outdoor settings last year without a mask, well before the CDC confirmed what was pretty obvious. But most of the time when I'm outside I'm in transit from one situation where I'll need to have on a mask to another where I'll need to have a mask on.

I tend to just pull it down when I'm outside, and up when I have to go inside. I have masks that tie in the back, so it can just hang by my neck and easily be pulled up when necessary.

I have found myself missing the outside masks at times. I have to be much more aware of how I'm reacting to the shit I see while walking, and I can't curse people out under my breath anymore without looking like a crazy person

[Pedestrian]

The ultimate protection at Walmart:


https://notthebee.com/article/a-quic...e-were-at-with

[jtown,man]

NPR this morning said the flu kills an average of 200 kids a year. Covid killed somewhere like 600 kids.

Parents have NEVER freaked out over a bad flu season, yet politics and the media have scared parents so bad that they are literally making their kids dumb as shit keeping them home from school.

This country is full of idiots.

[iheartthed]

Hopefully this is the swan song of the pandemic in America:

Updated CDC guidance says people vaccinated against Covid-19 can go without masks indoors and outdoors

(CNN) - People fully vaccinated against Covid-19 do not need to wear masks or practice social distancing indoors or outdoors, except under certain circumstances, the director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Thursday.

"If you are fully vaccinated, you can start doing the things that you had stopped doing because of the pandemic," Dr. Rochelle Walensky said during a White House Covid-19 briefing. "We have all longed for this moment when we can get back to some sense of normalcy."

Walensky said the science supports the new recommendation that "anyone who is fully vaccinated can participate in indoor and outdoor activities -- large or small -- without wearing a mask or physical distancing."
She cited three studies -- one from Israel and one from the United States -- that show vaccines work.

The Israeli study, which was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, showed the vaccine was 97% effective against symptomatic Covid-19 and 86% effective against asymptomatic infection in over 5,000 health care workers.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/13/healt...ted/index.html

[homebucket]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Hopefully this is the swan song of the pandemic in America:

But what’s to prevent someone that isn’t vaccinated from entering a business and just lying that they are vaccinated? Might as well just say no masks for all regardless of vaccination status.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by homebucket

But what’s to prevent someone that isn’t vaccinated from entering a business and just lying that they are vaccinated? Might as well just say no masks for all regardless of vaccination status.

I think it's aimed at bringing workers back into offices.

[homebucket]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

I think it's aimed at bringing workers back into offices.

But what’s to prevent someone that isn’t vaccinated from entering an office and just lying that they are vaccinated? Might as well just say no masks for all regardless of vaccination status.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Hopefully this is the swan song of the pandemic in America:

I don't think it means much about the pandemic one way or the other. I think what it means is that the people arguing that getting vaccinated needs to be "rewarded" more with more freedoms and a greater return to normality are winning the argument. I think the CDC has decided to encourage vaccination to the maximum extent it can by telling everyone vaccinated folks can go back to "normal" but not so much unvaccinated ones.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by homebucket

But what’s to prevent someone that isn’t vaccinated from entering a business and just lying that they are vaccinated? Might as well just say no masks for all regardless of vaccination status.

Nothing and the policy in businesses will still be up to the management, taking that into consideration. This is more about private assemblies, get togethers and, yes offices.

When it comes to businesses, I think government is going to withdraw from the issue and let businesses decide for themselves. A lot of customers including me are still not going to feel comfortable in crowded places like supermarkets if there are lots of the unmasked present because we all know too many of them are still unvaccinated at this point. I will continue to try to avoid such places and the proprietors are basically faced with deciding which is better for business: Allowing those who demand to go unmasked carry the day or those their presence will drive away.

[homebucket]

I would've changed it to something like:

If your county has reached herd immunity, defined as 70% first dose or greater, or 50% fully vaccinated or greater (ideally it would be 70% fully vaccinated or greater but we're not quite there yet), then masks are not required in any setting, regardless of vaccination status.

Because there's no way to enforce proof of vaccination. Might as well reward the counties that have good vaccination rates. And it'll incentive areas that have low vaccination rates, although these areas probably aren't enforcing mask mandates anyways.

[10023]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

I don't think it means much about the pandemic one way or the other. I think what it means is that the people arguing that getting vaccinated needs to be "rewarded" more with more freedoms and a greater return to normality are winning the argument. I think the CDC has decided to encourage vaccination to the maximum extent it can by telling everyone vaccinated folks can go back to "normal" but not so much unvaccinated ones.

The CDC has no power to allow or disallow anyone from doing anything.

There will be a point, hopefully soon, when normal people stop wearing masks and it won’t matter whether they are vaccinated or not.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by homebucket

I would've changed it to something like:

If your county has reached herd immunity, defined as 70% first dose or greater, or 50% fully vaccinated or greater (ideally it would be 70% fully vaccinated or greater but we're not quite there yet), then masks are not required in any setting, regardless of vaccination status.

Because there's no way to enforce proof of vaccination. Might as well reward the counties that have good vaccination rates. And it'll incentive areas that have low vaccination rates, although these areas probably aren't enforcing mask mandates anyways.

It's definitely open to abuse, but I get why they did it. At some point it goes beyond the scope of government. They've given everyone the tools to protect themselves, and those who shun the solution are on their own.

[Camelback]

The CDC is now saying fully vaccinated people don't have to wear a mask (common sense has always told us that the risk to fully vaccinated people was close to 0, similar to anybody under the age of 24). This new guidance is a U-Turn from what they said 2 weeks ago.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by 10023

The CDC has no power to allow or disallow anyone from doing anything.

Not directly but indirectly they do. Many local governments and their health departments take their direction from the CDC pretty faithfully.

The issue is as fine-grained as that the amenities such as the gym in my condo building are all closed because the San Francisco Dept of Health says to open they would need to have a full time staff member monitoring mask use and in that they are following CDC guidance on indoor masks. If the CDC guidance changes, the Health Dept. policy will probably change and my gym bunny neighbors may finally get to work out and stop whining (I know you understand about that).

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by Camelback

The CDC is now saying fully vaccinated people don't have to wear a mask (common sense has always told us that the risk to fully vaccinated people was close to 0, similar to anybody under the age of 24). This new guidance is a U-Turn from what they said 2 weeks ago.

Right--because, like I said, more and more "experts" have been saying publicly that there needs to be behavioral incentive to get vaccinated. Former FDA Commissioner Scott Gotlieb has been prominent among them and he is widely respected but there have been others and I think their argument has carried the day at CDC.

[the urban politician]

I went to Kuma’s Corner in Vernon Hills to pick up their delicious burgers.

I entered and removed my mask.

Plain and simple. God bless science