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. This is extremely not good:



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% 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, the completely correct one from five months ago, and the completely correct one from ten months ago.

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, the completely correct one from five months ago, and the completely correct one from ten months ago.

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, the completely correct one from five months ago, and the completely correct one from ten months ago.

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. This is extremely not good:



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% 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!

[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, the completely correct one from five months ago, and the completely correct one from ten months ago.

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.