Just cancel. It doesn’t matter if you are at risk or not. If something isn’t critical right now, just put it off until we can get a handle on things. The only reason anyone should be leaving their house is to get food, care for someone that needs care, deliver supplies, or they have a medical emergency. Other than that, just stay home.

I drink in my garage.

Good, because there is none left in the stores

How did they catch him? Was there a hidden security camera he didn’t notice?

700 posts in 24 hours. This thread is on fire!

I’ve noticed that I can’t even keep up. I have to skip hundreds of posts each time I check the thread.

We can no longer discuss politics civilly. The division has been stoked so deeply that a thread that allowed it would just be a contest of who could get the other side to go away in frustration and anger. Pinside is not the place for it, as it would not end well.

Awwww. Now I'm sad.

I've only played Andromeda once (well, actually about 20 times, but all during the same weekend). And that was at Pinburgh last year. I played it during the competition for the first time. And after the competition, I went back to it. Have you ever had that wonderful feeling of just clicking with a game? Not in the way of playing great, but just that you fell in love with the it? Of course you have, because you are a pinhead, and you're on a pinball site. That was me with Andromeda. I just wanted to play it again and again. Unfortunately after about 5 games on it, the game went down. However, if you have ever been to Pinburgh, you know that the tech staff there is just AMAZING! So the next time I went over there, it was working perfectly again. That meant I got to play it more

The reason I'm sad about it is that I don't think Pinburgh will happen this year, so I won't get to play it again. I realize that won't be a popular opinion, but I'm thinking that it will be just a bit too soon to have a thousand people from all over the world sharing flipper buttons. Oh crap, I was discussing pinball. Sorry guys, back to the end of the world...

Nope. Not right now. And that is a total bummer, because I help support a few mom and pop places. One especially that I would be really bummed about if they are not able to survive the economic hit. But I just can't risk it right now. But what is more important? A Rib Eye & Risotto that is one of the best things I've ever tasted or my health? The best pizza in the world (eggplant and black olive by my local shop) or my health?

This all has to pass before I start letting someone else cook food and handle dishes for me again. I don't mind the normal risks of life, but this one has me spooked. And yeah, someone very close to me (the closest person in the world to me) caught it. So I'm being even more careful now.

Please don’t ever go to a farm. Your sensibilities might get injured.

This is purely just a commentary on the things that happen to animals on farms. I don’t know if that is where his uncle killed these cats, but all animals are just things on farms that eat food and cost money. Pigs are just bacon that hasn’t been harvested yet. Cows are just production machines or steaks.

Sorry for your loss. Cats rule, dogs drool.

I try not to predict the future unless it has already passed. However, I see banana bread in your future.

One of my favorite parts about Times Square is the sea of humanity there. Especially after getting out of a show. That place just gets nuts. My next visit there was scheduled for July, but that’s already off the table. It’s a bummer. No Totto Ramen for lunch, no spaghetti at Scarpetta for dinner. No pinball at Reciprocal... ever again (damnit, still bummed they closed). Hopefully I can just run down for a show in the fall if the world opens back up.

The easiest way is to click on the little guy to the right of your username. Then just scroll through all your posts in this thread. You will see the moderation tag.

Moderation (resized).jpg

Boo. I was going to guess Jumping Jack. Because the two player version is better? No, because I have JJ, I moved on my Jack in the box years ago.

I hate to look at the other side... but I will. This map really needs a second layer of cases overlay on it. As it is, the red areas look like one thing, but are actually another.

The number was chosen to be used in the future. It was meant to be a marker to declare victory against later. Instead of developing it to make informed decisions, it’s going to be used to say how great a job the government did to make it only 80,000 deaths when we have that many. That’s why there is also no timeframe on it. It’s like wanting a Camaro, but telling your wife you want a Audi. She freaks at the price, and then you “settle” for just a Camaro.

I tried to write that without getting political, but if that went over the line, I’ll take my medicine.

This is disgusting. Not your post, the fact that they are going to have people gather in churches like that. People will catch it there. People will die. It really is that simple. I'm not an alarmist. Not everyone will die... but enough will. And then some of the people that care for those sick people will also catch it. And then some of them will also die. I assume at some point the pastors will be charged with manslaughter for each death. Because that is the correct charge when people die from your negligence, right? Or is there enough malice now to consider it murder?

This isn't the US. This is a private website. You may want to familiarize yourself with Pinside.

https://pinside.com/pinball/help/pinsidecom-community-rules

Every time I see this rolling average I get a little more freaked out. Just because I know where the data went from there. The US is going to be number one with a bullet in a week. Every number we have reads that it takes a couple weeks after a “stay at home” to start slowing progress. So states that don’t have them, or have massive exceptions like Florida are going to have a rough time of it 2 weeks from now.

In trying to make things seem better in America, we are making them much worse.

It depends on the industry. If you work in a skilled nursing facility, yes. You can’t walk in the door without having your temperature taken. No honor system, someone takes it right there.

Some SNFs (pronounced Sniff for those that don’t know) have stopped allowing that. A large one near me has laid off all per diem staff that worked at more than one facility to prevent cross contamination. My first reaction was surprise, followed a second later by “wow, smart”.

What did you do tonight?

I played competitive pinball for the first time in a month (and got my ass kicked).

So this is slightly on and off topic. But I’ve been cooped up for a long time, and it’s been getting too me. I couldn’t hang out with my friends. League is on hold until we can all get back together. My girlfriend caught Covid (recovering thank goodness). And I’ve been missing pinball. Sure, I’ve been playing. I’ve even tried my hand at streaming (Pandemic Pinball). But I’ve missed playing pinball with friends.

So tonight Knoler and I started up a FaceTime chat. We are friends in real life, and we both own Stern Star Trek. We bought mounts for our iPads.

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And then we started competing. The first few games were for score. We shut off all ball savers, and we took turns just like normal play. We did have to adjust our volumes to get it right, and then the trash talk started.

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That was just a blast. Because we were taking turns and I playing like we would if we were standing at the same game, it felt real.

Then we started objective based for time. This started getting crazy fun. We used stopwatches on our phones for “first to start Klingon multiball”. “First to get a full bank of photon torpedos”. Basically using any objective we could think of that could be timed. “destroy the vengeance” was just crazy fun. We supplemented that one that if the first person failed, if the other person did it, they won no matter the time. But if the second didn’t, the lowest time to burn out after starting it won.

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In the end, this was amazingly fun. I felt like I played pinball for the first time in ages. We drank beers and wine. I was munching on crackers. Besides the fact that he was about 15 miles away, it totally felt like we were in the same room playing pinball. Whether I was saying “nice shot” or “fumble”, just like I would if we actually were in the same room. If you have a friend that had the same game, I HIGHLY recommend trying this. Because you’re friends, the difference between the two games are meaningless. Although we did set them to the same pitch and settings (competition mode) and no ball savers to make it as even as we could.

Very fun times in all this crap.

I always wonder who would benefit the most if California ever did leave. I don’t think it would be California, and I don’t think it would be America.

My game room is a bit overloaded right now, and it’s still a little too cold to crank up the garage. So I’ve been getting that “new pin” feeling by rotating games through the game room. Today 4 Square gets taken apart and will be replaced by MET out of storage.

Another day of Pandemic Pinball with Knoler today.

Today we setup our Metallica’s.

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Again, because we are friends in real life, the differences in the games are easy to account for. In the case, I own a Pro, and he owns a Premium. So yeah, the spinner is an advantage in some stuff. And of course, the super spinner is a big advantage. But we don’t worry about that stuff.

I highly recommend trying this with friends that own the same game. A couple of iPads, mounts for them, and you’re off for a day of fun.

Today’s games were a bunch of games for score. Fastest to start 2x. Fastest to the 3rd level mystery. Fastest to Lady Justice. Fastest to Seek and Destroy. Collect the most band members. Fastest to start Sparky. Fastest to collect a CIU jackpot.

For score we shut off ball savers, 3 balls, and we take turns like Playing normal games with a friend. for The objective based matches we would set the game to 10 balls. The person not playing would time it with a stopwatch. The winner would go first in the next round (a big advantage in the objective based games.

Our next game will be AC/DC, but that will be tougher because the Pro and Premium play so different. But I’m sure we will figure it out.

I can’t recommend this more. This is the social distancing equivalent of having a blast playing pinball with friends. My Sunday flew by because his was so much fun.

A communist regime lied. Someone alert the media.

I expect communist regimes to lie. I expect them to do whatever they think will keep them in power. Attempting to point out their culpability in this is simply redirection. Hey, look over there, "they" caused this. If you study history, you will find examples of that type of propaganda leading to wars. I'm not saying they are not culpable, I'm asking why you would believe them in the first place other than looking for someone else to blame.

I re-wrote this a couple of times because the first tries would have got me ejected. This version might as well. I just dislike redirection as a tactic unless it is in a fist fight (at which point everything is legal).

New Episode!!!!! Though it is just an aftershow, so I doubt it will be any fun. But I'll still grab some whisky and throw some shot glasses. Yee Haw!

Buy me pizza and I move pinball machines. Never got no pens... Doctors

Then you are out of touch with the people on the ground working to keep people alive.

Want to know what a good day at work for my girlfriend is? Nobody died that day. Those are rare days, and they really aren't that good, because more people will just die the next day. Are the number being pumped? Have your conspiracy theory if you need that to help you sleep. But a lot of people are dying from this every fucking day.

New York reclassified a bunch of deaths. We don’t have enough testing. So people with symptoms don’t always get tested. If those symptoms then turn into pneumonia, they still might not get tested. If they then die of pneumonia at home, well they are dead, so there won’t be a test. They took all of the people that his happened to, and added them to the number of deaths from this if the pattern of death fit the normal course of the virus. Those were all added at once.

I don't know anything about those particular posts, but that is common on Pinside. The moderators have full rights to just clip posts out of existence. And thank goodness they do. A lot of times they are ads, or spam, or so inflammatory and against the rules that the only solution is to delete it. There was a time where Pinside was getting spammed like crazy. A new account would sign up, and then post 100 spam messages before getting the account frozen and the posts clipped. Normal operations on a moderated internet site as far as I'm concerned. I don't know what those posts are, but I'm sure they shouldn't have been there in the first place if a mod deleted them (especially in this thread that is probably as much work as the rest of the site right now).

Yeah, I was watching it. That was a surprise. The next few days should be “interesting”.

That was the EXACT thing I was thinking of when I saw those pictures. I was waiting for Simon Pegg to run by.

I usually like to hold That for the bad stuff. For regular complaints, I choose ignoring them unless they really impact me. My neighbors have elephants, and the elephants are out of school from this. And I’m working from home, so I hear the herd of elephants quite a bit. For some reason elephants run upstairs with logs in their trunks 30 times a day (who knew). However I realize my neighbor didn’t intend for those elephants to be running around right now, and I didn’t intend to be home so much. I haven’t said a word to them about it, because if it’s bad in my place, I can’t imagine how noisy it is over there.

That is hilarious. I needed a good laugh today. Thanks!

What were you expecting them to say? Yes, governments lie. Closed governments lie more. They cover up things that look bad. They don't care about the ramifications of those lies.

So yes, they lied, because that is their job. Is that an act of war? Well, that is a whole nother bag of tacks. Can it be considered an act of war? Sure, because pretty much anything can be. Will we start dropping nukes over it? I don't know because I have no idea what our government is doing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_propaganda

First they came for the "Pinside Troll Phobia1", and I did not speak out—
Because I was not "Pinside Troll Phobia1".

Then they came for the "Pinside Troll Phobia2", and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a "Pinside Troll Phobia2".

Then they came for the "Pinside Troll Phobia3", and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a "Pinside Troll Phobia3".

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

Welcome back from vacation.

Why? Why are any of them wearing masks? They should really be proving their point by not wearing them at all. Show us libtards there is nothing to worry about. Otherwise they are wasting their breath.

PS: Yes, I used the word libtard to describe myself, because I'm in the center. But apparently I can still be mystified by these idiots, which seems to be the current definition of libtard.

Well my first advice would be don't do that. I'm glad you're young and healthy. And if you catch it on purpose, that may change in a way you cannot foresee. I have to admit, I thought the same thing. When my girlfriend of 12 years caught it, I debated giving her a big sloppy kiss. But then I thought about my underlying issues, and I also thought about how many people had died at the facility she works at. In the end, I decided that would not be smart.

You don't sound like you need to completely shelter yourself. And in fact, if you want to take a more risky path, help people. Help get food to people that cannot get out. Figure out a way to increase your risk that isn't just running out and catching it intentionally. But just be aware that your outcome is not guaranteed. Your odds are just your odds. The human body doesn't pay attention to odds, it does what it does.

My other hobby is photography. This is called compression. It happens when you use a telephoto lens. Background objects end up appearing larger and closer to the foreground. So from a long distance away, and a long telephoto, it will make this look much more crowded and people will look much closer together than they actually are. Compression can trick the eye into thinking to people are right next to each other while they are 30 feet apart.

I’m NOT saying they shouldn’t be there (they shouldn’t). But I’m saying that this photo makes it impossible to tell if they are actually practicing social distancing or not. Either way, I’m irritated at them because they are making this take longer to resolve, and I’m sick of being home.

Pardon my crappy scientific rambling. My sample size of 1 is useless. My sample size of 20 is useless. However, my girlfriend works in a facility, and most of the staff caught it (including her). Most of them (excluding the staff member that died from it) are back to work. They are still around patients that have it every day. Yet no staff member has caught it a second time. I’m not going to conclude having it gives permanent immunity, but it definitely gives at least temporary immunity.

I hate to even reply to this... but I will anyway.

100,000. People are straining against the "Stay Home" stuff. Part of that is obviously rabble-rousing, groups of people that are being "directed" to protest by external influence. But even without that, people are sick of staying at home and are going out more. As we stupidly open up too early, I am expecting lots more infections, and therefore lots more death. So I think that will hit hard in a couple weeks.

I wear gloves. They are simple and quick. I keep them in my pocket, and put them on when I have to do something I'm not comfortable with. Pumping gas, using my atm card and having to touch the buttons. I haven't spent paper money in over a month, so no worries about change. And I avoid situations where I need them as much as possible. But sometimes you need to touch things.

... and know how to take them off. It is easy to do it correctly, and easy to do it wrong.

According to the CDC, it was about 61,000.

From: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden-averted/2017-2018.htm

The "flu season" is around 5-6 months, and varies from year to year. Some years it is short, some years long. Even though flu is around all year, the season is when it is most active.

So that averages out to about 10,000 deaths a month.

So I agree, this is not an order of magnitude worse. Right now I think there are about 2000 deaths a day. Which compares to about 333 deaths a day in the flu season. However I think current estimates are about 3000 deaths a day around June 1st. So at that point, yes, we will be getting very close to an order of magnitude worse.

The big difference with this one is how contagious it is, and how deadly it can be. Usually when you get the flu, you get sick pretty quickly. But with Covid-19, you take longer to start feeling the effects. So instead of being in bed sick, you are out and about in your normal life spreading it. After getting it, it seems to be luck as to what happens. But you don’t make your own luck here. Some factors play into it. Blood pressure, diabetes, overweight, asthma, other conditions all can contribute to your outcome, but you can’t predict it 100%.

Again, using my partner as an example, she came through it fine. Another person at work, dead. Patients at work, they were dying at a rate of 2 or 3 a day. They have never had something like this from flu. This is not the same. And it baffles me that people think this is the same unless they are seeing this level of death with their own eyes. The frigging National Guard had to come in there for testing everyone. Not. The. Flu.

Oh be really skeptical there. Every time I see something like that I give it the old 50/50 treatment. Could be true, could be fake. I try to act like both are true. I'm not saying Costco didn't say that, but I would have to see the feed and verified users before swallowing it wholesale.

I disagree that both sides have a legitimate argument. If we ignore everything that has happened in the past few months and just look at where we are now, we are facing a pandemic. Our response to that is to open up the country and allow it to spread faster. We are trying to ignore it, like that will save people from dying from it. But lots of people will die from opening like this. When any guideline has not been met, our reaction is to just remove the guideline rather than try to get into compliance with it.

We know more about how a virus works than they did 100 years ago, yet we seem to have learned nothing. When one of the arguments is to kill your constituents to make sure your donors make money, I cannot consider that a legitimate argument.

There are currently about 2000 deaths a day from Coronavirus. 9/11 killed 2977 in a day. I think we are heading towards having a 9/11 every day. The answer to that cannot be to attack the numbers as being wrong because you don't like them. That isn't legitimate.

And yes, I understand people die every day. Thousands and thousands of people die every day from all kinds of causes. As has been said over and over, I won't catch a car accident by sitting in a room with someone that had a car accident.

Well, I found that article fascinating. It was just written for people instead of doctors. By far the most interesting parts for me were the analysis of the restaurant and the call center. The part about why meat packing plants can be hit so hard was also interesting. Thanks a bunch for posting it.

Wait a tick. That’s only $1199.40. So you save 59 cents if you choose the payment plan? It’s a Pandemic Miracle.

I hope your actual name is Rick, Glenn, or Maggie, because I’m going to need a squad. If your name is Shane, you are needed, but only for a little while...

Could you explain your math on that? Just the basic numbers you used to arrive at a 0.000002% chance of death.

You are a chicken. Seriously, you have to look at this from my point of view. I need people out there to test the waters for me. There is absolutely no way I'm going out when things open back up. Not for at least a month so I can watch the trends to see what happens. If everyone felt like you did, I wouldn't be able to go out because there would not be any guinea pigs to prove it is safe. Think of the DaveH's!

But they only sang "Happy Birthday" once while washing them, so... not over.

Sweden's response to the coronavirus was... let's go have some meatballs. There were no lockdowns, there were no restrictions that I'm aware of. I believe their per capita death rate is among the highest for the virus. They were basically attempting to get to herd immunity quicker by letting more people get infected. Unfortunately that led to more dead people so far. HOWEVER, the experiment is not over, because coronavirus is not over. Six months from now we might find out that what they did was a better way to handle it in the long run. Or they may have even more dead people than they would have if they locked down.

I guess that is still the problem with this. Lots of ideas on how to handle it, and nobody is 100% sure how it will all turn out. That is the big reason I still lean towards being cautious. If I'm wrong, I'm labeled a nervous Nellie. And if I'm right... I might live longer. That makes it an easy choice.

After it, those 20,000 people will go back to their homes. I don’t pretend to know the demographics of them, but I assume some of them are coming from a pretty good distance. My point being that if they catch it there, they will carry it across the country. So if it happens, it won’t just be a local spike.

My biggest worry about the event is that I think people will be shamed into not wearing a mask. But that’s their choice.

But what about people that quote debate techniques with no data?

What I've learned from all this is that I cannot definitively prove anything that uses science or math as a basis anymore. That frightens me as much as Covid does.

Thank you.

The "White House Gift Shop" that is selling these has no connection to the actual "White House". It is a privately held company owned by Giannini Strategic Enterprises.

Part of the argument against science is the tactic of wearing you down until you give up and go away. I'm sure there is a name for that debating tactic, but I don't know it off the top of my head. The most knowledgeable people are impacted first, because they are not used to people arguing obvious things. It gets to the point where you can't even explain what day it is. Eventually the grip of that argument tightens until the knowledgeable people stop arguing and walk away frustrated. Next the people arguing against science go after folks that are smart, but not experts in the subject with the same tactic. Eventually they also walk away frustrated. This continues until there is nobody knowledgeable left, and the science denier is the only voice left in the room.

So you are correct, you will never ever change the deniers viewpoint. But you should still bother trying and speaking rationally. Because when smart people stop speaking rationally out of frustration, society crumbles. And I realize some people will think that is hyperbole. But we have people passing laws and signing orders against requiring facemasks... during a pandemic... in 2020. I think we have reached the point where saying that society could crumble isn't really that far out there.

The "flood the field" argument is known as a Gish Gallop. The premise is that it is easier to knock everything off a table than it is to set it up. The main point of it is to never let someone else set the table back up fully. When they get close to finishing an explanation, turn to the next table and knock everything off that one. The segue statement is "Yeah, but what about..." and they move on without allowing you to finish the first explanation. We've all experienced this with others. They say something crazy, and you spend all the time explaining why it is crazy, and rather than accept it, they move on to something else. It is built up just to frustrate the other person, as opposed to actually trying to gain knowledge. Once you understand that, it makes the discussion more clear.

Me! I will be with my immediate circle (4 people), but it will be no normal Thanksgiving. I am making up care packages of a full turkey dinner and fixins that will be on the curb for my sisters to pick up. But we will not be crossing our circles. No hugs, no nothing. And it sucks. But I'm an adult, and I can handle it.

As I watch and read the news of this, I am continually stunned at how we are acting. I've said it over and over again, this sucks. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday (by far). I usually go to multiple family gatherings. On the weekend after, we gather extended family from multiple states for a wonderful day of catching up, football, food, fun, support, walks, the stuff I've had every thanksgiving of my life. And this year all I get is a Zoom meeting, and the honor of cooking turkey dinners and dropping them off at the curb of some relatives (no hugs, no chat, no see).

I realize that as a society, we have given up trying to contain this. The crowd that thinks wearing a mask is an infringement of their human rights have won the argument. And I realize that may sound inflammatory and stupid, however just look at all the people in airports and travelling to family gatherings right now. But that doesn't mean my family has to do the same. I want them all to be here next thanksgiving.

Seeing this got all the way through post approval, ZeroHedge shouldn’t be considered a trusted news source. I’ll leave it up to the reader to decide that on their own. But this article was written by Tyler Durden, the renowned founder of Fight Club. You may think his real name would of course be Jack, but instead it is Данаил Иванджийски. (See what I did there? I wrote the name he was born with instead of his Americanized current one)

Correlation is not causation. I’m pretty sure that if I ran a study of putting a single drop of water on the toenail with 30,000 people, many of them older in their 70s and 80s, some of them would die. People just happen to die in studies, and it is the job of the people running them to figure out the actual causes. Calling it “unknown but suspect” with no actual knowledge about either of them just gives conspiracy theories fertilizer to grow.

The thing I always think of when people say this is a video I saw on transmission a few months ago. Any mask is better than no mask. Sure, it would be great if we were all in the best masks possible, and I agree they should be readily available by now. But something is better than nothing. With 2 people around each other, 1 mask cuts down transmission a bit. 2 masks cut it down much more. Proper usage and wearing cut it down more. Distance between people cuts it down more. Better masks cut it down more. Being near less people cuts it down more.

In the end, it's just a virus that transmits really easily. Each barrier, even if it is cloth, helps decrease the odds of that transmission.

Nothing? I realize I am on the far opposite side of this coin, but I still find it surprising when people say this is nothing.

I'm actually curious how this whole experiment works out. I don't gather in large groups, and I don't eat at restaurants right now. But you sounds like you are pretty sure the infection rate of the group will remain zero. So I hope you will continue to report the results of the entire group. Because the experiment goes against recommendations in Minnesota, I have to assume the entire group will bring the same cavalier attitude to everything. Therefore any case really is related, even if it was acquired separate from the group. Let us know how it works out.

Actually, I'm thinking about just continuing to use masks after this whole thing ends. I haven't had a cold all year. Yeah, it will make eating pizza at pinball league more difficult, but that's my problem.

I don’t think the data is screwed, I think all of us in Boston are. But this was completely expected. The data is Boston, but I’d think this would be the same in most areas. Two weeks after so many stupid people gathered with family and friends, you would expect spikes on all the scales. Two weeks after that, right around Christmas, I’d expect deaths to also spike. It’s probably just due to the highly contagious virus.

(Ok, I got a bit snarky in that last sentence. I’m still upset that I couldn’t see my family at thanksgiving, and I’m angry people still won’t take simple measures to help contain this.)

I know this sounds lazy, and yes, I know how to google. However, when people drop things like that, can you add a little starter link to a story about it? Thanks.

My father in law died of Covid Saturday. It was 9 days from onset of symptoms to death. I waited a couple days to say this so I could calm my anger a little bit. If you would like to know his underlying health issues, fuck you. If you’re not taking Covid seriously, fuck you. If you’re not wearing a mask in public, fuck you. If you are saying 99.whatever% survive, fuck you. If you need to politicize this pandemic, fuck you. If you have a cavalier attitude about Covid, fuck you.

He was a good man, and now he’s dead. He’s dead because people pretend doing the things needed to control this pandemic infringe on our rights. He’s dead because people reject science. He’s dead because people are dumb. We’ve known about this virus for a year, but we just haven’t been able to do what was needed. If we as a society had acted like civilized people, he wouldn’t be dead. Our stupidity as a society is more to blame for his death than the virus. If he had died 7 months ago, it would have been the virus, but now it’s us.

Fortunately the age old question, Ginger or Mary Ann was answered well before she died.

Or outright dishonest. We shouldn’t exclude malevolent intentions as we discuss conspiracy theorists.

That is the reason it is two shots. The first one contains the chip, and the second one contains the batteries to activate the chip. When they tried to get both into one shot, it interfered with the behavioral control chip they inject as part of the MMR vaccine. /s

It isn't a mandatory mask mandate. It is a mandatory mask mandate for being inside federal buildings. That is a big distinction. Of course, it comes along with recommending wearing a mask, but the same people who didn't wear one before still won't (unless they are inside a federal building). And that means the virus will still spread.

My doctor's office is sending out bulk emails asking people to stop calling about when we might be able to get one. I was one of the people bugging them.

I look towards our leaders in Congress to really see how people that downplay the virus react when they actually have a chance to get the vaccine. They instantly rolled up their sleeves and got it. There were a few that rejected it saying that healthcare workers should get it first, and others that already had Covid, so they could pretend to be moral. But overall, almost all got the jab. It is my opinion that 95% of the "anti-vaxxers" will also jump at the chance to get it once they actually can. They won't let their agenda get in the way, and right after getting the jab, they will pretend they didn't.

Thanks guys. On top of the pandemic, now I have to shop for a damn waffle maker. I need to stop reading Pinside when I’m hungry.

I think that was laid to waste about 400,000 US deaths ago. Give or take.

You guys are weird down there. Using logic to respond to a medical emergency? Strange (I’m jealous).

You left out “DaveH wants the DaveHs to be at the head of the line”. It’s not selfish, and I feel all the DaveHs should be there, not just me. That’s the plan when my state hits Phase 3.14159

From the article:

“There is reason to think the country is racing toward an extremely low level of infection,” Makary wrote. “As more people have been infected, most of whom have mild or no symptoms, there are fewer Americans left to be infected. At the current trajectory, I expect COVID will be mostly gone by April, allowing Americans to resume normal life.”

I’d put more stock in it if he had quoted some type of study or defined reasoning rather than just what sounded like wishful thinking. Experts usually tend to back up what they say with expertise, but it sure sounded like he was saying “cases are going down, so I think they will go all the way down” (my paraphrase of the article, not an actual quote).

There are a lot of factors that could change the current trajectory, which is going down. Even the simple ones like people seeing the rate go down start venturing out, giving more fresh hosts to the virus.

I always take issue with this type of comment. Mostly because someone close to me died of Covid two months ago. And yes, he had an “underlying risk” that was 100% medically controlled. And that underlying issue had nothing to do with Covid filling up, and then ripping up his lungs. His age made the decision to not put him on a respirator easier, but it was Covid that killed him in less than 2 weeks. He would be alive and I would have seen him yesterday if it wasn’t for this pandemic. His death made the pandemic very simple for me. I switched from leading a very “low risk” lifestyle to a “no risk” one. Statistics are fine, right up until they kill someone you loved.

Sorry if this sounds harsh. I tend to get bitter when someone I love dies, and I’m still a bit toasty from that one.

Does it get complicated? I don't think it does. Every time it actually comes down to personal choice vs the obligation to society, it seems to come down on the side of obligation to society. Maybe I'm just not thinking it all the way through, but I think almost all of them come down on societies side. I can drive through the center of my town at 100 mph, but society chose to make that a crime due to the danger of it. I'd like to fly without the government knowing exactly who I am and where I'm going, however that is now not allowed. I'm going to skip all the violent things that society has decided shouldn't happen, but I'm sure you could come up with your own examples.

As far as I'm concerned, this is a false dilemma. Obligation to society controls what you can do every day. It only gets complicated when we politicize those decisions. My favorite commercial was from a phone company that had a bunch of firemen running government. The person running it said "Do we want clean water Guys?", and the response was "yeah". Personally I'd like the country to open up again, and the only way we will do that is by having the pandemic under control. And the only way we will do that is with vaccines in arms.

And my justification of that is the same as most of my societal justifications. You should be able to do whatever the heck you want, right up until the point that it impacts others. You can drive 100 mph on a closed track, but doing it in the center of my town might kill someone else. You should be able to shoot yourself in the foot, but you can't do that to others. And you should be able to reject any medication you want... up until it is a disease that kills other people. That is the line this crosses.

And I realize the hypocrisy of what I just said. I said "you should be able to do until it impacts others" immediately followed by why I think society should impact others choices. Not to sound like a drama queen, but if a society didn't force that once in a while, it couldn't survive.