On the Herd

[Latrinsorm]

New coronavirus cases have been dropping for the past week - thanks to the public appeals of Dr. Walensky and others, we've turned around the fourth surge. This is good! Deaths remain at a 200k+ annual pace but as they continue to catch up with cases that number will continue to decline. This is also good! Another number that's dropping is coronavirus vaccinations (https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations). This is extremely not good:

https://imgur.com/noiPYvd.png

We're currently seeing a linear decline, which if it continues means we'll top out at 52% of the sixteen and older population vaccinated.
But it will switch pretty soon to an exponential decline as was seen in Israel, which on this track means we'll reach 63% of the sixteen and older population vaccinated.
Notably, both of those numbers are in the 55%-65% (https://www.monmouth.edu/polling-institute/documents/monmouthpoll_us_041421.pdf/) range polling has indicated since the beginning.

The issue is that even if we vaccinate 100% of the younger population, we need 60% of that older population vaccinated to reach the herd immunity target of 70% overall.
Currently of course we have vaccinated 0% of the younger population, but even after the vaccine is approved for them we will definitely fall short of 100%.
So we definitely need more than 60% of the older population vaccinated, preferably a lot more.
And the way we're going we just aren't going to get there.

.

There is a silver lining to our latest self-inflicted dark cloud: even with Israel basically having finished its vaccination of the sixteen and older population and only reaching 60% overall vaccination, they've brought their coronavirus cases to a level that prorated per capita would mean 30,000 annual coronavirus deaths in America. This means that even in our worst case scenario of 52% sixteen and older population vaccinated, it would still be technically possible with 98% vaccination of the younger to reach that level of herd quasi-immunity.

But we don't have to accept 30,000 annual coronavirus deaths.
We don't have to accept 3,000 annual coronavirus deaths.
We don't have to accept 3 annual coronavirus deaths.

Measles is far more contagious than coronavirus, and we haven't had a measles death in America in five years. Not one.
If even a moderately increased percentage of us got the vaccine our nation would enjoy the same invulnerability to the coronavirus.

.

Every shot counts.

Every person counts.

We can end this, once and for all.

[Shaps]

Thank you Operation Warp Speed, President Trump, and the scientists that made this all possible.

[Gelston]

Did it make you feel bad saying cases have been dropping nationwide?

[Latrinsorm]

Did it make you feel bad saying cases have been dropping nationwide?

Every time cases have gone up I've prayed it would be the last time I had to make a post like the completely correct one from a month ago (http://forum.gsplayers.com/showthread.php?128927-On-the-Final-Test), the completely correct one from five months ago (http://forum.gsplayers.com/showthread.php?127274-On-Giving-Thanks), and the completely correct one from ten months ago (http://forum.gsplayers.com/showthread.php?125271-This-is-the-End).

Two of those three times, we've failed to finish the job - I'd call it fumbling on the goal line but it's more like being on the thirty yard line with an open path to the end zone, inexplicably stopping to tie our own shoelaces together, then being shocked, shocked! when we faceplant... and cause hundreds of thousands of easily avoidable deaths.

I get that people like you and Shaps are obsessed with scoring partisan points, and the rest of the echo chamber here leads you to believe everyone is so petty and shortsighted, but out in the real world we have real concerns.

If it does turn out I don't have to make any more of those posts, I will be grateful.

If it doesn't, I won't be surprised.

[Gelston]

Every time cases have gone up I've prayed it would be the last time I had to make a post like the completely correct one from a month ago (http://forum.gsplayers.com/showthread.php?128927-On-the-Final-Test), the completely correct one from five months ago (http://forum.gsplayers.com/showthread.php?127274-On-Giving-Thanks), and the completely correct one from ten months ago (http://forum.gsplayers.com/showthread.php?125271-This-is-the-End).

Two of those three times, we've failed to finish the job - I'd call it fumbling on the goal line but it's more like being on the thirty yard line with an open path to the end zone, inexplicably stopping to tie our own shoelaces together, then being shocked, shocked! when we faceplant... and cause hundreds of thousands of easily avoidable deaths.

I get that people like you and Shaps are obsessed with scoring partisan points, and the rest of the echo chamber here leads you to believe everyone is so petty and shortsighted, but out in the real world we have real concerns.

If it does turn out I don't have to make any more of those posts, I will be grateful.

If it doesn't, I won't be surprised.

I don't care about partisan points. It is more that you're an extremely annoying individual.

[Parkbandit]

Every time cases have gone up I've prayed it would be the last time I had to make a post like the completely correct one from a month ago (http://forum.gsplayers.com/showthread.php?128927-On-the-Final-Test), the completely correct one from five months ago (http://forum.gsplayers.com/showthread.php?127274-On-Giving-Thanks), and the completely correct one from ten months ago (http://forum.gsplayers.com/showthread.php?125271-This-is-the-End).

Two of those three times, we've failed to finish the job - I'd call it fumbling on the goal line but it's more like being on the thirty yard line with an open path to the end zone, inexplicably stopping to tie our own shoelaces together, then being shocked, shocked! when we faceplant... and cause hundreds of thousands of easily avoidable deaths.

I get that people like you and Shaps are obsessed with scoring partisan points, and the rest of the echo chamber here leads you to believe everyone is so petty and shortsighted, but out in the real world we have real concerns.

If it does turn out I don't have to make any more of those posts, I will be grateful.

If it doesn't, I won't be surprised.

It's not over yet, Cupcake.

We will let you know the moment you can come out from under your bed.

[Gelston]

Notice he says "have to make more of these posts" as in it is some sort of requirement that he do.

[Latrinsorm]

Notice he says "have to make more of these posts" as in it is some sort of requirement that he do.

Of course.
If we know a fellow American is about to obliviously walk into traffic, it's our duty to grab them.
If we know our fellow man is unwittingly treading perilously close to a pitfall, it's our duty to not sit back in our comfy armchair but to say "hey buddy, watch it!"
And if we knew the pandemic was going to get worse (as I did), and knew a community was naively blundering into the teeth of it (as people in this bubble were), to say nothing would be simply unconscionable.

Now, again, I recognize that with how blinded you are by politics this kind of thing is incomprehensible, to the point where you'd genuinely assume I'd feel bad about cases going down. This place has you so trapped in an adversarial my team your team system that it literally can't occur to you that other people aren't, and this goes for the other folks in this thread too, it literally can't occur to you that someone (you think is) on the other team would fervently want something good to happen to you. Obviously I'm not going to recommend you literally get out more, but broadly speaking you've really got to get out more. Yours is such a sad, spiteful existence, and it just doesn't have to be.

[Methais]

New coronavirus cases have been dropping for the past week - thanks to the public appeals of Dr. Walensky and others, we've turned around the fourth surge. This is good! Deaths remain at a 200k+ annual pace but as they continue to catch up with cases that number will continue to decline. This is also good! Another number that's dropping is coronavirus vaccinations (https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations). This is extremely not good:

https://imgur.com/noiPYvd.png

We're currently seeing a linear decline, which if it continues means we'll top out at 52% of the sixteen and older population vaccinated.
But it will switch pretty soon to an exponential decline as was seen in Israel, which on this track means we'll reach 63% of the sixteen and older population vaccinated.
Notably, both of those numbers are in the 55%-65% (https://www.monmouth.edu/polling-institute/documents/monmouthpoll_us_041421.pdf/) range polling has indicated since the beginning.

The issue is that even if we vaccinate 100% of the younger population, we need 60% of that older population vaccinated to reach the herd immunity target of 70% overall.
Currently of course we have vaccinated 0% of the younger population, but even after the vaccine is approved for them we will definitely fall short of 100%.
So we definitely need more than 60% of the older population vaccinated, preferably a lot more.
And the way we're going we just aren't going to get there.

.

There is a silver lining to our latest self-inflicted dark cloud: even with Israel basically having finished its vaccination of the sixteen and older population and only reaching 60% overall vaccination, they've brought their coronavirus cases to a level that prorated per capita would mean 30,000 annual coronavirus deaths in America. This means that even in our worst case scenario of 52% sixteen and older population vaccinated, it would still be technically possible with 98% vaccination of the younger to reach that level of herd quasi-immunity.

But we don't have to accept 30,000 annual coronavirus deaths.
We don't have to accept 3,000 annual coronavirus deaths.
We don't have to accept 3 annual coronavirus deaths.

Measles is far more contagious than coronavirus, and we haven't had a measles death in America in five years. Not one.
If even a moderately increased percentage of us got the vaccine our nation would enjoy the same invulnerability to the coronavirus.

.

Every shot counts.

Every person counts.

We can end this, once and for all.

It's a good thing the flu no longer exists, since that typically kills way more than 30k people a year.

COVID saved us from the flu!

https://media1.giphy.com/media/3o6ZsSEhYdsQOKZnAQ/200.gif

[Neveragain]

Every time cases have gone up I've prayed it would be the last time I had to make a post like the completely correct one from a month ago (http://forum.gsplayers.com/showthread.php?128927-On-the-Final-Test), the completely correct one from five months ago (http://forum.gsplayers.com/showthread.php?127274-On-Giving-Thanks), and the completely correct one from ten months ago (http://forum.gsplayers.com/showthread.php?125271-This-is-the-End).

Two of those three times, we've failed to finish the job - I'd call it fumbling on the goal line but it's more like being on the thirty yard line with an open path to the end zone, inexplicably stopping to tie our own shoelaces together, then being shocked, shocked! when we faceplant... and cause hundreds of thousands of easily avoidable deaths.

I get that people like you and Shaps are obsessed with scoring partisan points, and the rest of the echo chamber here leads you to believe everyone is so petty and shortsighted, but out in the real world we have real concerns.

If it does turn out I don't have to make any more of those posts, I will be grateful.

If it doesn't, I won't be surprised.

https://i.imgur.com/mCmZPM4.gif

[Methais]

Every time cases have gone up I've prayed it would be the last time I had to make a post like...

Protip: You don't HAVE to post anything. Nobody is forcing you. You should stop actually.

You and Shaps have created more pointless threads on the PC in the past few months than total combined threads created by everybody since the PC started in 2003.

The above statement may have been slightly exaggerated.



https://media2.giphy.com/media/NMHpkm0MPar2U/200.gif

You just learned how to buy cold cuts from a grocery store in your 30s. I think everyone here will be ok without your insane COVID religion preaching.

[Shaps]

Protip: You don't HAVE to post anything. Nobody is forcing you. You should stop actually.

You and Shaps have created more pointless threads on the PC in the past few months than total combined threads created by everybody since the PC started in 2003.

The above statement may have been slightly exaggerated.



https://media2.giphy.com/media/NMHpkm0MPar2U/200.gif

You just learned how to buy cold cuts from a grocery store in your 30s. I think everyone here will be ok without your insane COVID religion preaching.

Hey don't bring me into this. What are you the forum police?

That's like me saying... "Methais has posted more idiotic shit than anyone ever in the history of the PC since it's creation in 2003."

But I would never do that. Because I believe in free speech, and you are free to speak.

[Methais]

Hey don't bring me into this. What are you the forum police?

That's like me saying... "Methais has posted more idiotic shit than anyone ever in the history of the PC since it's creation in 2003."

But I would never do that. Because I believe in free speech, and you are free to speak.

I just wanted an excuse to post this.

https://i.imgur.com/igoaVev.png


For the record though...


That's like me saying... "Methais has posted more idiotic shit than anyone ever in the history of the PC since it's creation in 2003."

I probably wouldn't disagree with this...

[Parkbandit]

Of course.
If we know a fellow American is about to obliviously walk into traffic, it's our duty to grab them.
If we know our fellow man is unwittingly treading perilously close to a pitfall, it's our duty to not sit back in our comfy armchair but to say "hey buddy, watch it!"
And if we knew the pandemic was going to get worse (as I did), and knew a community was naively blundering into the teeth of it (as people in this bubble were), to say nothing would be simply unconscionable.

Now, again, I recognize that with how blinded you are by politics this kind of thing is incomprehensible, to the point where you'd genuinely assume I'd feel bad about cases going down. This place has you so trapped in an adversarial my team your team system that it literally can't occur to you that other people aren't, and this goes for the other folks in this thread too, it literally can't occur to you that someone (you think is) on the other team would fervently want something good to happen to you. Obviously I'm not going to recommend you literally get out more, but broadly speaking you've really got to get out more. Yours is such a sad, spiteful existence, and it just doesn't have to be.

Imagine, hiding under your bed and telling someone else they need to get out more.

You need stronger medication to deal with your fear of everything.

[Methais]

Of course.
If we know a fellow American is about to obliviously walk into traffic, it's our duty to grab them.
If we know our fellow man is unwittingly treading perilously close to a pitfall, it's our duty to not sit back in our comfy armchair but to say "hey buddy, watch it!"
And if we knew the pandemic was going to get worse (as I did), and knew a community was naively blundering into the teeth of it (as people in this bubble were), to say nothing would be simply unconscionable.

Now, again, I recognize that with how blinded you are by politics this kind of thing is incomprehensible, to the point where you'd genuinely assume I'd feel bad about cases going down. This place has you so trapped in an adversarial my team your team system that it literally can't occur to you that other people aren't, and this goes for the other folks in this thread too, it literally can't occur to you that someone (you think is) on the other team would fervently want something good to happen to you. Obviously I'm not going to recommend you literally get out more, but broadly speaking you've really got to get out more. Yours is such a sad, spiteful existence, and it just doesn't have to be.

https://i.gifer.com/Ksqj.gif

My only hope for you is that you're some sort of grandmaster troll.

[Latrinsorm]

It's a good thing the flu no longer exists, since that typically kills way more than 30k people a year.

COVID saved us from the flu!



That the common sense public health approach most of us have participated in has completely destroyed the flu is a welcome bonus, and reason to promote it even in the unlikely scenario where we eradicated SARS-CoV-2 (and SARS-CoV-3 hadn't yet appeared). I'm not sure what you mean by "way more" but for your information there's only been one flu season in the past ten years where we lost more than 60,000 American lives - 30,000 is about the average.


Protip: You don't HAVE to post anything. Nobody is forcing you. You should stop actually.

You and Shaps have created more pointless threads on the PC in the past few months than total combined threads created by everybody since the PC started in 2003.

The above statement may have been slightly exaggerated.

You just learned how to buy cold cuts from a grocery store in your 30s. I think everyone here will be ok without your insane COVID religion preaching.

It is precisely the point of ethics and duty that nobody forces you. As you have learned on this very forum, there is no law of nature that stops you from behaving badly, and even the laws of man have a limited reach and tenuous grasp. To some folks, this discovery of the Ring of Gyges means there were never morals in the first place, that it was all some trick, that the absence of punishment means open license. To others, duty still matters. Kinship still matters - and we are all akin. H*ck, plain decency still matters.

With some perspective, you could see that my posts urging people to wear masks contact their representatives and get vaccinated are objectively innocuous and modest. That that appears to you as an "insane religion" would be deeply disturbing... but again, this would require perspective, which the time you spend in this environment has long since pushed beyond your recall or desire.

[Latrinsorm]

Imagine, hiding under your bed and telling someone else they need to get out more.

You need stronger medication to deal with your fear of everything.

Two more things getting out of your little bubble would help you with are how helpless you are against your emotional impulses, and the thoughtless slurs that inevitably result.

But of course that's what makes bubbles so seductive, you're around people who cheer on these silly behaviors of yours and never even hint at how much more you could become.

And so you remain, comfortable, wasting your potential day after day.

Which is a shame.

[Methais]

It is precisely the point of ethics and duty that nobody forces you. As you have learned on this very forum, there is no law of nature that stops you from behaving badly, and even the laws of man have a limited reach and tenuous grasp. To some folks, this discovery of the Ring of Gyges means there were never morals in the first place, that it was all some trick, that the absence of punishment means open license. To others, duty still matters. Kinship still matters - and we are all akin. H*ck, plain decency still matters.

With some perspective, you could see that my posts urging people to wear masks contact their representatives and get vaccinated are objectively innocuous and modest. That that appears to you as an "insane religion" would be deeply disturbing... but again, this would require perspective, which the time you spend in this environment has long since pushed beyond your recall or desire.

The part where you think anyone on here will be like "Latrin is right, I've been wrong about everything this whole time and I'm going to start doing XYZ from now on." indicates that you think everyone here is clueless without your "guidance," as evidenced by your belief that you "have" to post these retarded updates, all while showcasing your already well known all around general cluelessness.


That the common sense public health approach most of us have participated in has completely destroyed the flu is a welcome bonus, and reason to promote it even in the unlikely scenario where we eradicated SARS-CoV-2 (and SARS-CoV-3 hadn't yet appeared). I'm not sure what you mean by "way more" but for your information there's only been one flu season in the past ten years where we lost more than 60,000 American lives - 30,000 is about the average.

Speaking of cluelessness, I was joking about the flu thing. But I really shouldn't be surprised that you would believe that whole "we eradicated the flu!" narrative in a society where people dying in motorcycle wrecks get labeled as COVID deaths.

All while legitimately believing you're some sort of PC shepherd.

[Fortybox]

Someone please tell me Latrin is a troll. Who decides out of all places to post about this on an anonymous forum for a 30-year old text-based game? Besides time4dumb that is.

[phantasm]

Only speaking for myself here, but I come to the gemstone players corner to get my coronovirus updates, I don't trust any fake news sources.

[Latrinsorm]

The part where you think anyone on here will be like "Latrin is right, I've been wrong about everything this whole time and I'm going to start doing XYZ from now on." indicates that you think everyone here is clueless without your "guidance," as evidenced by your belief that you "have" to post these retarded updates, all while showcasing your already well known all around general cluelessness.

Speaking of cluelessness, I was joking about the flu thing. But I really shouldn't be surprised that you would believe that whole "we eradicated the flu!" narrative in a society where people dying in motorcycle wrecks get labeled as COVID deaths.

All while legitimately believing you're some sort of PC shepherd.

It's an empirical fact that we're having less than 2% of the flu cases this season as we were in seasons past, and while less than 2% is bad for milk it's great for saving tens of thousands of lives. Everyone has the ability to find this out, it's a simple division, but people like you don't have the inclination to do so. I don't think it's relevant or interesting whether that's "clueless" so I'll leave that up to you. As with everything I've posted about the coronavirus pandemic, I've given you the truth that would have otherwise been in perilously short supply for you - that's how bubbles work, that's the whole point.

It's your choice what to do with that truth.

[Methais]

It's an empirical fact that we're having less than 2% of the flu cases this season as we were in seasons past, and while less than 2% is bad for milk it's great for saving tens of thousands of lives. Everyone has the ability to find this out, it's a simple division, but people like you don't have the inclination to do so. I don't think it's relevant or interesting whether that's "clueless" so I'll leave that up to you. As with everything I've posted about the coronavirus pandemic, I've given you the truth that would have otherwise been in perilously short supply for you - that's how bubbles work, that's the whole point.

It's your choice what to do with that truth.

You believe that without your "guidance" everyone here is doomed.

This is not the case.

I work from home and pretty much stay home, so it's all of you who are part of the problem anyway.

I saved your life Latrin. You should be thanking me.

[Gelston]

It's an empirical fact that we're having less than 2% of the flu cases this season as we were in seasons past, and while less than 2% is bad for milk it's great for saving tens of thousands of lives. Everyone has the ability to find this out, it's a simple division, but people like you don't have the inclination to do so. I don't think it's relevant or interesting whether that's "clueless" so I'll leave that up to you. As with everything I've posted about the coronavirus pandemic, I've given you the truth that would have otherwise been in perilously short supply for you - that's how bubbles work, that's the whole point.

It's your choice what to do with that truth.

No one comes to the PC to read your "truths". You're not a virologist. You aren't even a janitor at a hospital. You are regurgitating information from other places. Hell, I have more medical training than you do.

[Methais]

No one comes to the PC to read your "truths". You're not a virologist. You aren't even a janitor at a hospital. You are regurgitating information from other places. Hell, I have more medical training than you do.

I have it on good authority that Latrin's mommy once told him that he's a very smart little boy.

[Latrinsorm]

No one comes to the PC to read your "truths". You're not a virologist. You aren't even a janitor at a hospital. You are regurgitating information from other places. Hell, I have more medical training than you do.

All I have claimed is that the truths I relay were absent from this community - not that you didn't have the training to uncover them, or the ability to simply read them, but that they weren't here in the first place for you to do so.

That every time I've turned out to be incontrovertibly right but received a right ol' heap of controversion in the moment makes this clear.

When you walk out of a cave into the light, it's uncomfortable, it hurts.

But the truth is still better.

[Gelston]

All I have claimed is that the truths I relay were absent from this community - not that you didn't have the training to uncover them, or the ability to simply read them, but that they weren't here in the first place for you to do so.

That every time I've turned out to be incontrovertibly right but received a right ol' heap of controversion in the moment makes this clear.

When you walk out of a cave into the light, it's uncomfortable, it hurts.

But the truth is still better.

That's because this "community" isn't a fucking CDC/Health community. It is a bunch of players and hangers on for a 30+ year old text based game. If we want actual science and medical research, we'll go to a site that provides actual science and medical research. We don't come here to be lectured on by a 35 year old man-child that just learned how to buy cold cuts.

[Methais]

All I have claimed is that the truths I relay were absent from this community - not that you didn't have the training to uncover them, or the ability to simply read them, but that they weren't here in the first place for you to do so.

That every time I've turned out to be incontrovertibly right but received a right ol' heap of controversion in the moment makes this clear.

When you walk out of a cave into the light, it's uncomfortable, it hurts.

But the truth is still better.

Would you recommend to anybody that they should take COVID advice from posts on a 30 year old text game forum?