Amateur hour in these States? There you go again... Are we giving vaccines away? Are we welcoming other citizens to our country to get free shots? Who paid for all this? Americans.
Not taking an experimental vaccine doesn’t make anybody selfish. It is their choice in the America their tax dollars support. Do we need international flights, tourism, or open borders? Even if an impossible 90% were vaccinated, the wrong variant would still spread like fire and destroy everything- so you suggest lockdown until no cases worldwide? Good thing we didn’t do that with polio.

That your post received no downvotes is worrisome. What is the point of this thread, bash Americans or actually discuss relevant issues of coronavirus? The CDC recommended bleaching everything and wearing masks outside. And they were wrong. Did any of you listen to people who questioned these protocols last year or just mass downvote?

I’m curious how much $ the hospital charged for the shot if you don’t mind posting it.

3 weeks post second shot here, thus I am allowing my avatar to unmask, I however don't trust people so I'll still be shrouding myself when amongst the sheep.

Where exactly is "here"?
Your ID does not list your location.

Where is that?

True, but choosing not to take any of the approved COVID vaccines does.

What happened to my body, my choice? If you are vaccinated and they do what they're supposed to, why are you concerned what others do?

Being outside isn't a barrier to catching COVID, close face-to-face conversations outside put you at risk.

Why do you think this? The currently available vaccines still offer some strong protection against variants, and 75% efficacy is still better than 0%.

What is your suggestion? Do nothing? Open everything up? Close down borders between states? The virus is already here.

Vaccines aren't 100% effective. They're most effective when everyone has them.

Because there isn’t a vaccine known to man that prevents illness 100%.

Because infectious disease prevention is a collective response. We are all in this together even if I reeeealllly don’t want to be.

Because my children can’t get the vaccine yet and your choices affect them.

Because my aunt with cancer is tired of being terrified that the selfish members of society accidentally kill her off before she has a chance to defend herself.

Good idea. I'll do the same and remove the plague doctors mask, cane and briefcase from my avatar when I get my booster shot.

Sooooo....around August me thinks.

It is your choice. I just don't happen to agree with that choice.

I'm concerned because it effects other people. If the only downside to a person not getting the vaccine was that it would increase their chances of getting sick or dying from COVID, then I wouldn't care. Unfortunately, we don't live in a vacuum. We live in a society, and getting vaccinated serves the greater good.

So should the shot be mandatory if people want it or not in your opinion?

I absolutely think it should be mandatory unless there is a legitimate medical reason for not taking it. Unfortunately, that's not how things work in this country.

Just terrible the shortage I keep hearing about up there.
Many of our locations now no longer require appointments, simply show up!

GLWS (good luck with the shot)

A UK update...

70.7% of adults have now had 1st vaccine dose, and 40.3% both doses. In the over 50s and at risk younger adults > 95% have had at least 1 dose (anti-vax a minimal issue here). Vaccine rates have increased and maintaining at 0.5-0.6 million per day. Real world data shows 89% efficacy of 2 AZ doses. Younger people getting non-AZ vaccines.

Indian variant spreads faster but cases not increasing overall (rate of decrease slowed a bit), and death and hospitalisation rates still declining. The vaccines seem to work against the Indian variant. Bear in mind the UK was receiving 40,000+ flight arrivals from India a month, so if it was going to cause another wave it would have done so. It did not, apart from some limited regional spikes, where surge testing and surge vaccinations then done.

Booster (3rd) doses vs variants starting in August/September.

I was talking specifically about vaccine hesitancy, I thought that was pretty clear. The moment you said "experimental vaccine" told me you don't actually care about the science or helping the country reach herd immunity.

I'm not pro-lockdown, I'm pro-vaccine and I want to see Americans join together and fight this virus for the good of our community and the good of our country. I firmly believe anti-vaxxers will drag all this out longer than we need to and the result will be more people will die and we will have far worse economic problems than we need to have. Let's get vaccinated, reach herd immunity, and move on.

Wearing a seatbelt is a personal choice. Vaccination isn't. The point of vaccinations isn't to stop you personally from getting a virus or disease, it's to stop it from spreading. It's a social obligation.

It's strange. First shot 51.00, second shot 85.00. That was for my spouse. I think my charges were slightly different. My guess is the hospital wanted us to pay it and then wait 3 months to get reimbursed, if we complained about it.

We lost a co-worker to covid a few days ago. He was about 2 years from retirement. Late 40's.

I'm not sure what his vaccination status was but it's been discussed that he most likely got it from his kids. Who most likely brought it home from school.

This one hit everyone hard.

Absolutely someone is paying for it.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/21/business/covid-vaccine-billionaires/index.html?utm_source=morning_brew

713EC781-B940-4908-B8B5-EF6070DA5390 (resized).png

They’re probably anxious to get the next round of billions for COVID-23

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/05/two-more-coronaviruses-can-infect-people-studies-suggest

DF2C7401-1D26-4A23-8510-1B827B269F2B.jpeg

Does this change anything?

"In conclusion, our study suggests that asymptomatic cases are unlikely to contribute substantially to the spread of SARS-CoV-2. COVID-19 cases should be detected and managed early to quarantine close contacts immediately and prevent presymptomatic transmissions."

https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/27/4/20-4576_article

Down here in New Orleans...RIP pandemic?!

C5B1C12C-4BA5-4A97-9ED0-83511C2B5826 (resized).jpeg

C7BFB683-9E34-4D02-A913-9F12A5D9C83B (resized).jpeg

Couple quick thoughts:

Study was for one small cluster in Germany in February 2020. Findings consistent with some other studies at the time, but may no longer be relevant.

I am assuming this was the euro strain. The current predominant strain in USA is British (Kent) strain. We know the British strain spreads much more readily and it spreads rapidly in children. The Indian strain that is starting to establish here spreads even more readily. How bad? TBD.

One of their points was properly classifying pre-symptomatic vs asymptomatic. They found those they classified as Pre-symptomatic spread the virus very readily. Those they define as as asymptomatic not at all. (I’m curious and will need to read further about what tests they used to find cases and what the false positive rates of those tests are and whether they factored that in).

Many other folks are not as careful defining pre vs asymptomatic. So colloquially they tend to get lumped together resulting in the “you can spread it without even knowing you have it” line of cautions.

In practice, it changes nothing for me. You can still spread the near original strain of covid while you still feel great. And at this point the virus has evolved well beyond vanilla.

I occasionally watch a streamer from Japan who visits the sights around Tokyo and chats etc.

They're not up to speed on vaccinations yet and Tokyo is currently under 'lockdown'. They can go out and about, but masks are mandatory in public, inside and out, and it looks like most follow the outdoor mask rule unless their eating or drinking. Also, Tokyo bars are closed and restaurants close at 8pm, and are not allowed to sell alcohol. Pretty sure liquor stores are open to get booze for home.

It seems like a good idea to keep customers from drinking so things stay under control with mask usage, but I can't imagine trying to make or follow a rule like that in other countries. I imagine my fellow Americans would loose their minds if you told them no booze at restaurants.

Maybe I'm still being a little cautious yet indoors. Its essentially the "Honor" system out there. The US only 39% fully vaccinated and 49% have one jab. There's a good chance someone is fibbing or not who they say they are On average there are still 500 deaths a day here which if we weren't numb to it all would be unbelievable and unacceptable.

The-Thing-Blood-Test-Scene (resized).jpg

People are gonna lose their collective minds if this turns out to be man-made or a bio attack as some alleged last year...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanponciano/2021/05/23/report-wuhan-lab-staff-hospitalized-covid-19-symptoms-virus-origins/?sh=2e45e4934bd9

Crucial Quote

Asked earlier this month whether he was confident Covid-19 developed naturally, Dr. Anthony Fauci, one of the nation's top infectious disease experts, responded: "No actually... I am not convinced about that. I think we should continue to investigate what went on in China until we continue to find out to the best of our ability what happened… Certainly, the people who investigated it say it likely was the emergence from an animal reservoir that then infected individuals, but it could have been something else, and we need to find that out.”

In my state they closed all indoor drinking and dining for months, it all moved outdoors and you'd only go into the establishment if you were wearing a mask to use the restroom or sometimes to order at a counter. Not that many people felt safe going out then because it was when the infection rate was highest, so those that did were just grateful some places were open for outdoor dining and drinks and that they could support those businesses.

Masks are still mandatory here inside unless you are seated at a table eating or drinking and tables must be at least 6 feet apart. People are starting to ease up on wearing them outdoors in neighborhoods and parks, but still alot of people are wearing them. And on busy city streets about everyone is wearing a mask still because they can't stay 6 feet apart. At least here, there are still alot of people that want the vaccination, but aren't quite through their 2nd dose 2 weeks, especially kids in the 12-15 range, but I know a lot of people that just got their second dose. Our mask rules are still in place until June 30th unless the infection rates drop below a certain threshold, which they may, they have really plummeted. Seattle is down to a rolling 7 day average of around 18-20 new cases a day, but the rest of the state is behind because they have more vaccine and masking hesitancy.

I've given China the benefit of the doubt about their narrative that it came from a bat via a wild animal market like SARS to this point. However, there have always been legitimate questions around the exact origin of Covid given the fact the virology lab is in Wuhan.

I personally do not believe a lot of what comes from China's government and state media. So much of it is propaganda designed to always paint the CCP and government in a positive light on everything, it becomes untrustworthy.

We visited China in April 2019 and the two times we flew China Eastern, they gave away their state sponsored newspaper, the Global Times (in English) when we boarded. I'm not joking when I say that paper reads like something out of Josef Goebbels WWII office the propaganda was so bad and ridiculous.

The US State Dept. intel is now confirming reports of Covid surfacing in October '19 and China didn't alert the WHO or world about it until roughly Jan. 10. Regardless of the origin of the virus, China owes the world a big explanation regarding their complete lack of timely transparency.

Perhaps he is feeling the heat...

I've felt for a long time that it is highly likely that the virus came from a lab and not from an animal. I don't think it was developed as a bio weapon, though. I just think it accidentally escaped from a lab where it was being studied/manipulated. I've listened to some very smart people talk about this subject, and there is plenty of evidence that SARS-CoV-2 is a supercharged virus which is much more aggressive and virulent than you would normally see in a strain that just randomly hopped from one species to another.

I think there was something in the news early on regarding lab workers getting caught selling lab animals for consumption at the market. I don't believe it was intentionally released, but I do believe it could have been tweaked in a lab. And why not for bio-weapon research? It certainly effed up the world economy. I think any heavily sanctioned country with the means to develop such a virus is paying close attention to how this plays out.

That just sounds unreasonable and made up. Selling lab animals as meat. Not buying that, no pun intended.

Here's what appears to be an intelligent discussion with some links to Chinese articles and court docs. There appears to be some precedent.

https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/47531/did-a-chinese-researcher-sell-his-lab-animals-to-street-food-vendors

Yep. Of course the people that were claiming last year that Covid was lab-created didn't have any actual evidence, just hunches and conspiracy theories. So if they turn out to be right it may look less like vindication than coincidence (even stopped clocks are right twice a day, etc). That said, if there's actual evidence to back up a manmade origin for Covid that will be a huge story, and China will have some serious explaining to do.

It could have been developed in a lab however I don't think it was intentionally or maliciously leaked though. I cant wrap my head around the thought of it possibly being deliberate but that is also a possibility. Virologist do work with deadly and infectious viruses all the time. They try to accelerate virus evolution to study how they infect animal/human cells. A Scientist may have unintentionally broke a protocol which infected him/herself and the rest is history.

Went out to eat at a restaurant (indoors) yesterday for first time since start of covid.
Wife and myself are both vaxed, since April.
Place was only allowing 50% capacity and wait staff wore masks whole time.
Tables were >6-10ft apart.
Still felt a little uneasy, but with time may get used to mingling with general public again unmasked.

its the killer Bees from Brazil all over again

No need to worry, I've been doing that since last June. Nice that masks weren't required since last November in Florida restaurants.

I went on a plane and also ate at an airport restaurant last week. These were the first non-takeout restaurant eating and densely populated activities we have done since March 2020.

Thank you Pfizer/Moderna/J&J.

If it does indeed turn out that it came from a lab, I don't think anyone will blame China for working with the virus. As hAbO already pointed out, there are labs all over the world that do similar research. If, however, China knew exactly what it was from the beginning and didn't share that information with the rest of the world, that would be indefensible.

It wouldn’t surprise me if COVID was accidentally released from the Wuhan lab, I don’t think it was being developed as a bioweapon though. COVID doesn’t work very well as a bioweapon, it spreads too slowly and isn’t lethal enough.

I do think there is an active misinformation campaign going on in the US from China and Russia regarding COVID and vaccines. What better way to keep the US struggling economically than keep COVID going here?

Be careful what you read on the internet.