Hope you are well able to get out some. It will help with your attitude.

I"m going to go out on a limb and agree with SDG. I think even if you go back to the threads in the spring, flaunting and ignoring lockdowns has never been a right/left thing. People on both sides have been going out in public. Now masks, I would say have been a bigger issue on the right (though plenty on the left have not worn masks). But just those that went out, go to restauraunts, businesses, stores, movies, etc.. I don't believe that it is a right or left thing. Especially in the younger generation. I've been in full lockdown for what 10 months now. I don't plan to change until me, my wife and my daughter all have been vaccinated. And even then we will still take precautions. Most people I know have done varying levels of true lockdown, though they all claim to have locked down. We go grocery shopping (my wife), once every 3 weeks. We exercise outside, typically alone (I do have one friend with diabetes who I know is as strict as I am), who I ride with probably 1x per month. Even my in-laws are only allowed to visit outside with 10+ feet separating us (3x). We have had 2 workmen in our house to fix the washing machine this year. Other than that no one has been in our house. I call that a lockdown. I don't believe many people in the US let alone around the world have been that locked down.

Clearly you haven't been following my Facebook feed. I think your right in that it doesn't matter much in young people but in my aging friend group, flaunting lockdown rules and right wing politics are 100% correlated.

But talk is cheap. I know the people I know both left and right have been pretty equal in what they actually do. I guess I'm talking about what people actually do vs talk or promote.

Yes, animal vector mutations are a potential concern, but that's why it's so important to reduce the transmission among humans. Dr Fauci, in an interview just now, said "The virus will not mutate if it doesn't replicate, so it's vital that we get people vaccinated as soon as possible."

My argument was exactly that 74 million voters who voted for Trump were more likely to blow off COVID because of dumb things he said. However, I wasn’t arguing that all did. You said that, not me.

You claimed that Americans did a total lockdown in March. That’s a clearly incorrect statement. If you’re wondering who didn’t help with that lockdown, look at the 74 million Americans who voted for Trump. I’d be willing to bet that there is a substantial overlap between those voters and people who chose not to lockdown.

I’d like to be honest about our past efforts to stop COVID. I’d like to be honest about what we’re doing now. We’re constantly receiving new information, and I want to understand how the new information is being used.

I think among young people, flaunting social distancing measures may not be a left/right thing. But I would say among older people, it very much is.

And you're also correct, I believe, that most mask-flaunters are on the right, and we all know why that is. That said, there are plenty of people on the right who do wear masks, and not just because they have to in certain places.

There has also been a lot of spread by those who are essential workers and live in tighter, crowded conditions. These are mostly minorities. I blame them much less than the "intentional flaunters."

Strategy would be to develop a vaccine that takes into account that certain parts of the virus will change/mutate.

Unfortunately until recently, this had been considered ’overkill’ and ‘unnecessary’ by those in charge.
But smart people are working on it.
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We know the answer to that. We know which states lifted the lockdowns early, and which stuck to the White House's own re-opening guidelines.

By the way, those guidelines were of course created by the smart people who understood pandemic control, like Dr Birx and Dr Fauci. But exactly a day after they were published Trump was tweeting "Liberate Michigan!" and "Liberate North Carolina!" I wonder why he chose those states? Could it be they have Democratic governors? Hmmm?

And which states re-opened early? GA, TX, FL, AK, SC, TN ...

an observation:

being in the UK on our second national lockdown, with our local variant raging (but stepping down a bit this week)

i've seen very little news on reinfection, and how that's gone for those so struck. Probably because the data simply hasn't been collated yet.

i don't know if any of the more plugged in folks on this board have seen any data on incidence and severity.

I work military-adjacent, and it's amusing to watch the difference between the Navy and Marine Corps vaccination plans.

On the Navy base I work on there's like this 6-page Vaccination Plan guide that lists all the phases with pages of detailed job descriptions and which type of job goes in which phase, etc. With hundreds of different job descriptions and listing all the different risk levels. And rolling out complex IT systems for reservations, verification that you're in the right phase, etc. They haven't, as far as I can tell, actually started vaccinating yet. They're still making sure all their plans and procedures are in place.

On the Marine Corps base I often work on as well, any Marine, base employee, or immediate family member goes into the cafeteria and gets jabbed with a needle and handed a card. No one is asked what age they are, or what job they have. They've vaccinated at least in the thousands so far.

Based on this and also what we've seen in the civilian world, I'm starting to think we should mostly wad up and toss out all the "phases" and just start sticking people. I think old people and front-line workers should definitely get priority - free pass to the front of the line at the cafeteria, etc. But other than that, just line 'em up and go like the Marines.

Not arguing your earlier point, just pointing out the US is already the greatest in the world at this. I'm not sure how we could win any harder than we already do. Lol.

Agreed, COVID definitely didn't start it but has helped push it along faster than probably normal. We are a fat bunch of MFER's as a people.

Lockdown/self-isolation is a religion now. Read this - pretty illustrative. It's like a corporal mortification in a way.

I always wore two masks at work. I was alone in a studio that only I used.


I hold my breath when passing people on the street. I wear two masks.


And then the disaster strikes - he gets sick. For 3 days. Gets better. And proceeds to conclude:


Masks and isolation are nobody's idea of a good time, but I can say unequivocally that they work.


Maybe the author should have held his breath a bit longer - I'd say 90 seconds or more. Perhaps he could Lysol his dogs too.

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The point of this thread was to think about mutations and vaccine effectiveness.

Does learning about mutations, which might lessen the effectiveness of vaccines, make you any more interested in reducing infections?

Does new information impact your thinking?

You have some new information? Fancy.

But really, no. You know why? Because you have no idea what you're talking about. Fathom this - people who had the original SARS are still showing strong immune response to COVID. COVID only shares about 80% of the genetic makeup with SARS-v1. These mutations are what - 0.02 percent differentiated from the original wuhan strain? Yeah.

Oh and your pseudo-lawyerly manner of communicating is annoying af. Has anyone mentioned this to you before? If not, there it is.

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Flout, not flaunt. (Not trying to be the diction police, but the two of you are too smart to keep using the wrong word.)

Nice, but really? That 'Fathom' of yours is more like a 'Phantom':

Enjoy the frequent use of the word: 'Transient':


https://www.nature.com/...67-020-18450-4#Sec10

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From your paper:

These results suggest a measurable impact of immunity to coronaviruses on future risk, but this protection may be transient.

Meaning - we do not really know. There really is not anything precise in the field of epidemiology. It is all about educated guesses. They mention that the immunity remains effective for one year or more, which is expected as viruses mutate and change. That's normal.


But continue to advocate for the others to suffer the lockdown consequences just because you're probably in a vulnerable segment of the population.

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I think most understand the definition of the word 'transient' pretty well.

So I take it you can't back up your claim that "people who had the original SARS are still showing strong immune response to COVID".

B.T.W.:
Why do you assume I am in a vulnerable part of the population, am not suffering from lockdown and incurring financial losses?
Oh well, forgot, you don't know much.

I can't? Did you know that 51% of the population of Singapore was able to manifest pre-existing T cell reactivity against SARS-CoV-2? Ref here
What do you think is the reason for a significant inverse correlation that has been observed between the levels of pre-existing T cell reactivity against SARS-CoV-2 and mortality rates in different countries? Did it come from eating lots of fish or something? Don't be daft.

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It sounds like he realizes that evaluating a global pandemic based on his n=1 personal experience makes no sense at all.

Well, thanks for actually being honest and walking your original sensational and hyperbole statements back to what’s factual data.
You playing that irrelevant 0.02% difference card doesn’t sit well. It’s purposely misleading.

And have you looked at the latest #s from those ‘SARS-protected’ countries?
Up, up and up.
So something doesn’t add up there either.

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Misleading? Irrelevant?

Several studies identified SARS-CoV-2 reactive T cells in uninfected individuals or people without exposure to the virus in various countries. The likely source of this phenomena is the immune cross-reactivity between human common cold coronaviruses, the original SARS and SARS-CoV-2.

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