The Politics of Covid 19, mask wearing and the vaccination process

[Lorini]

Since I'm the one who asked that the other thread be moved, I thought it'd be a good idea to start a full blown political thread about Covid, mask wearing and how folks feel about the political side of the treatments, the vaccination rollout, and the masking.

Let us know about how you feel about your politicians and how they've handled all this. Newsom, my governor has handled it about as well as you can, being that he had no practice, nor past to fall back on. Yes it could have been better in hindsight and at the moment the state is under fire for hiding data regarding Covid. They are holding back the data because they think the populace isn't smart enough to understand it, but I suspect it's a small part of the populace they are talking about.

[Daehawk]

I live in TN. Dont even ask how I feel about the politicians here today

[Jeff V]

Politics should have nothing to do with it. It can only slow things down.

[Lorini]

Politics should have nothing to do with it. It can only slow things down.

But it has. The idiots who refuse to wear a mask because of mah rights and the former President who supported them has made this pandemic way worse than it could have been.

[Unagi]

I’m pretty sure the COVID thread in this Religion and Politics forum was actually designed to field this conversation. No?

I mean, it shouldn’t be political, but it was made to be, and hence why we started a thread here, and not just in EBG.

[Unagi]

Actually I take it all back.

This is a thread to focus on the politics. Not really the virus.

The other thread is where we can talk about something (the virus) that was unfortunately made political.

Sometimes it’s hard to distinguish.
Of course, the other thread shouldn’t even need to be in this forum, but it was, and hence I thought we also discussed the politics of COVID in that thread a lot too.

[Kraken]

Gov. Charlie Baker has done a reasonably good job of following the science in setting restrictions and making the hard tradeoffs. They haven't worked especially well; MA has some of the country's higher per capita infection and death numbers, and we're in the bottom half of states for vaccinations (the worst in the Northeast). He just relaxed some of the restrictions (such as ending the curfew and allowing restaurants to stay open later) because our numbers have plateaued and started creeping back downward, even though experts are raising alarms about the threat from the new virus variants.

My opinion of Baker is therefore mixed. His process has been reasonable, but results are disappointing.

I consider myself fortunate to live in a state whose citizens are taking masks and distancing seriously, even if our grumbling is getting louder.

[YellowKing]

All I can say is thank God we had a Democratic governor, because the NC GOP are full on anti-mask, anti-lockdown idiots.

Governor Cooper, I think, has done a pretty good job following the science and acting accordingly. If I had any criticism it is that he sometimes goes a little too far IMO in appeasing the masses, but I understand the difficult position he's in. It's a tricky balance to protect the state's economy and public health at the same time. Given the hostile GOP legislature he's faced and a largely conservative voting population, I think he's done about the best he possibly could. A testament to that fact is that he won re-election despite the state going red for Trump and multiple other seats.

My perspective is a little skewed, as I live on a blue island in a mostly red sea. Our county was the only one in SE NC that Biden won, and we tend to skew younger being a college/beach town. So we see very high adherence to mask mandates, social distancing, etc. I haven't been outside the county since lockdown started, so I have no idea if the rest of the state looks that way.

[Smoove_B]

Ok, I guess I'll just randomly select politicians to highlight. Today, let's look at Oklahoma:

District 7 State Sen. Warren Hamilton, R-McCurtain, filed Senate Bill 352 to stop schools and state or local government from requiring a person to undergo unwanted medical procedure, use any medical device or wear a face covering.

Hamilton said he believes government does not have authority to tell people they must wear face coverings or get a vaccine.

“The government does not have those powers delegated to it under our constitution — they don’t have the authority to do that,” Hamilton said.

[Skinypupy]

Think about how many thousands of (10's of thousands? hundreds of thousands?) lives could have been saved if someone had simply told Trump at the onset that selling MAGA masks would be a huge money maker.

It's somewhat infuriating to consider, really.

[Little Raven]

Looking at Europe, I'm skeptical that having Clinton in office would have changed much. The US isn't even in the top 10 when it comes to deaths per million (we're #11, despite being supremely fat and unhealthy) and most of the countries that are ahead of us have governments that have pursued lockdown measures far more consistently and rigorously than we have.

COVID is a wicked problem. Trump was absolutely unhelpful, but it was always going to be bad. Just ask Newsom.

[Anonymous Bosch]

Newsom, my governor has handled it about as well as you can, being that he had no practice, nor past to fall back on. Yes it could have been better in hindsight and at the moment the state is under fire for hiding data regarding Covid. They are holding back the data because they think the populace isn't smart enough to understand it, but I suspect it's a small part of the populace they are talking about.

Even the S.F. Chronicle concedes that Newsom screwed the pooch with the rollout of vaccines in California, and California is still close to last in states ranked by the percentage of Covid-19 vaccines administered of those that have been distributed to them:

Troubled vaccine rollout is an embarrassment for Gavin Newsom

As a deadly surge of COVID-19 began hammering California late last year, Gov. Gavin Newsom imposed new restrictions on personal and economic activities and repeatedly promised that massive vaccinations would soon stop its spread.

“It’s a sprint, not a marathon,” he would say in urging Californians to wear masks, avoid large gatherings and otherwise slow infection rates while the state implemented an ambitious vaccination program.

Weeks later, the disease is still raging uncontrollably, especially in Southern California. As of Sunday, according to a CalMatters tracker, the state had 2,670,962 confirmed cases and 29,701 deaths.

Meanwhile, the vaccination program that Newsom promised is seemingly bogged down. Newsom said Monday that 783,436 doses of vaccine had been administered, 31.6% of the 2.5 million it had received from suppliers. However, that’s below the national rate of 36% and, according to a Bloomberg survey published on Monday, one of the lowest rates of any state.

Although California had spent months planning the vaccination rollout and had adopted a seemingly bulletproof priority list, with health care workers at the top, in practice it has lagged behind expectations.

One factor, apparently, is a software program that isn’t working as expected.

“California’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout is being at least partially slowed by technical problems with a software program used by the state to coordinate vaccine distribution,” the Los Angeles Times reported last week.

“The online software system, PrepMod, is a vaccine management tool used to coordinate waitlists and inventory as well as send email proof of vaccinations to patients. It is unclear how widespread the problem is, but some providers, ranging from public clinics to nursing home operators, say the system is at times limiting access to the much-needed vaccines. The software is hosted on the state’s CalVax website.”

That a state technology glitch is impeding the vaccination program should not surprise anyone, because California is notorious for high-tech systems that promise better and faster services, but fail to deliver — such as those in the Department of Motor Vehicles and the Employment Development Department. In fact, snafus in the state’s infectious disease reporting system led to underreported COVID-19 tests last year.

The stumbling vaccination program is — as it should be — highly embarrassing for Newsom.

“I don’t think Californians can understand why we have hundreds of thousands of doses sitting there, and they’re not being administered,’’ Garry South, a Democratic strategist who advised Newsom’s 2010 gubernatorial campaign, told Politico. “California’s been through nearly 10 months of hell, and now there’s potentially a light at the end of tunnel with these vaccines — but it doesn’t do anybody any good if they’re not administered.”

As he unveiled his 2021-22 budget last Friday, Newsom was peppered with questions from reporters about the lagging vaccination rollout.

He included $372 million for vaccination distribution in the budget, acknowledged the program “is not good enough” and promised that the state would inoculate an additional 1 million Californians over the next nine days.

“I would expect — and should expect — that we are going to see a substantially higher number of vaccines administered in the coming days and coming weeks,” said Newsom, later adding: “Hold me accountable.”

Yes, he will be held accountable, not only for his current nine-day promise but for many days after that. Although a million vaccinations in nine days sounds impressive, at that rate it would take much of the year to administer the lifesaving drugs to 40 million Californians.

Fully vaccinating California is more likely to be a marathon than a sprint.

[Lorini]

Ok, I guess I'll just randomly select politicians to highlight. Today, let's look at Oklahoma:

District 7 State Sen. Warren Hamilton, R-McCurtain, filed Senate Bill 352 to stop schools and state or local government from requiring a person to undergo unwanted medical procedure, use any medical device or wear a face covering.

Hamilton said he believes government does not have authority to tell people they must wear face coverings or get a vaccine.

“The government does not have those powers delegated to it under our constitution — they don’t have the authority to do that,” Hamilton said.

Since the Supreme Court is the delegated authority (Madison v Marbury) to decide what is constitutional and they decided long ago that public safety could be prioritized over individual rights, he's simply wrong, but you can't expect much factual from the GOP nowadays.

[Exodor]

Think about how many thousands of (10's of thousands? hundreds of thousands?) lives could have been saved if someone had simply told Trump at the onset that selling MAGA masks would be a huge money maker.

It's somewhat infuriating to consider, really.

I wish mask-wearing protected the wearer instead of those around the wearer. Remember the early days of the pandemic when masks were in short supply because they were thought to provide protection? I think the mask "debate" just exposes how incredibly selfish many Americans can be.

[Lorini]

Actually I take it all back.

This is a thread to focus on the politics. Not really the virus.

The other thread is where we can talk about something (the virus) that was unfortunately made political.

Sometimes it’s hard to distinguish.
Of course, the other thread shouldn’t even need to be in this forum, but it was, and hence I thought we also discussed the politics of COVID in that thread a lot too.

Those of us who are fortunate to have gotten the vaccine want to share, and those having trouble with getting the vaccine might want help as well as those who are undecided. I just felt that there needed to a place for them without heavy political overtones. Here we can talk about how our governments, from local on up are doing with containing Covid and getting people vaccinated.

[Lorini]

Think about how many thousands of (10's of thousands? hundreds of thousands?) lives could have been saved if someone had simply told Trump at the onset that selling MAGA masks would be a huge money maker.

It's somewhat infuriating to consider, really.

I wish mask-wearing protected the wearer instead of those around the wearer. Remember the early days of the pandemic when masks were in short supply because they were thought to provide protection? I think the mask "debate" just exposes how incredibly selfish many Americans can be.

They do but anti maskers convince themselves of all kinds of bullshit to justify not wearing a mask. I'm sure a lot of them have been sickened and have died because of their insistence but some would call it evolution in action.

[The Meal]

Colorado has been frustrating. The governor, Polis, has alternated between being tough on virus responses and going lax and being business friendly. It's hard to get a sense for which way he's trying to direct the state.

Additionally, the unemployment process, specifically those on PUA and PEUC, has been turned off since December 27th because the CDLE (Colorado Department of Labor and Employment) has been "coding the new requirements." Going a month (and counting) without any benefit, despite the benefit being available nationally throughout that time is downright criminal. I'm shocked there hasn't been bigger national outrage over the CDLE response.

Finally, I've been told to expect to hear notification from my health insurance company when the vaccine is available to me. I'm FLOORED that it's the folks who control the $$$ who will be telling me when I'll be able to perform my civic duty and receive my shot. For many it will be their employer who tells them their spot in line (that's not an option for me right now), which seems okay for folks in those jobs, but how it's not my my local health department in concert with my GP who determines where I stand in line, I will never understand (or forgive).

I know it could be worse, and many others have larger complaints, but I expected significantly better from this administration.

[Defiant]

We know that Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna have pledged to deliver 200 million doses of their vaccine combined in the first quarter of this year (i.e. through March). This doesn't even count the Johnson and Johnson vaccine, which, if approved, could deliver tens of millions more doses by the beginning of April.
The bottom line is that it's very easy to see how the Biden administration hits 100 million doses in 100 days. We're basically already doing it, and we should have the doses available to keep doing it.

Biden's team, if anything, wants to do the exact opposite of what Trump did. They don't want to set a bar that can easily prove impossible to beat. They want a bar that can be met and can potentially be exceeded.
In other words, they may end up under-promising and over-delivering.
Usually, voters reward politicians who do what Biden's team could do. They clearly punished Trump for the opposite.
To be clear, Americans expect Biden to fulfill his promise. The vast majority (70%) of Americans told CNN pollsters that the Biden administration is at least somewhat likely to reach its goal of 100 million does in 100 days.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/24/politics ... index.html

underpromising and overdelivering could help to regain people's trust.

[Default]

If you are white and in management in the PO, there's a 98% chance that you were a trumper. My boss didn't believe it wasn't a hoax until she passed out in the shower with covid and pneumonia. I'm of the opinion that USPS got hit so very hard by COVID-19 because most of management believed President Douchebag until it was too late. There has been zero communication from management on vaccination, so I'm assuming that it is up to me. Unfortunately, the county I live in can't get enough vaccines, so they aren't moving to 1B.
Politically, all the yokels want to ignore public health and open everything up, because, FREEDOM!

[Defiant]

For all the incompetence we've seen by the government in the US, it still seems better than the UK. It seems they're going with a 12 week gap between the first and second dose of the Pfizer vaccine (to try to get more people their first dose) based on a small study of the Moderna vaccine, against the recommendation of Pfizer and doctors. Some of the people who got their first shots, having been told they'll get a second shot in three weeks have later been told that they'll have to wait twelve weeks. Which will make some people more hesitant in getting the first shot if they don't know if they'll get the second shot at the right time.

[hitbyambulance]

in WA state, Gov. Inslee has been following the guidelines and the state went from #1 in the country (the first COVID-19 cases/infections) to #29 in total infections - and for deaths per 100k, #44 out of 50. Seattle has the lowest transmission rates out of any major city in the US. I do have a feeling the sudden and hastened re-opening phases in October were to help his re-election bid - in any case, the 'reopening' plan was overhauled earlier this month to region-based (instead of county-based) and everyone was 'reset' to phase 1.

All of the eight regions begin in phase 1. To move into phase 2, the state will look at four key metrics:

Decreasing trend in two-week rate of cases
Decreasing trend in two-week rate of new hospital admissions
ICU occupancy of less than 90%
Positivity rate of less than 10%

Regions can reopen when they meet certain metrics based on hospital capacity and case data, Inslee said. They also automatically move forward to the next phase when the metrics are met, and do not need to apply to move forward like the previous reopening system.

[Anonymous Bosch]

For all the incompetence we've seen by the government in the US, it still seems better than the UK. It seems they're going with a 12 week gap between the first and second dose of the Pfizer vaccine (to try to get more people their first dose) based on a small study of the Moderna vaccine, against the recommendation of Pfizer and doctors. Some of the people who got their first shots, having been told they'll get a second shot in three weeks have later been told that they'll have to wait twelve weeks. Which will make some people more hesitant in getting the first shot if they don't know if they'll get the second shot at the right time.

Rationed access to care is par for the course with the National Health Service.

[gilraen]

There's something people also don't realize unless you either work in IT for a state immunization registry - or you work in IT for a hospital that's trying to transmit their data to the state registry - or, like me, you work for a software vendor, where our software is used to document vaccines administered to hospital workers (and, in some cases, their families), and then we have to transmit the data to the state.

There have been specs in place for years, for electronically transmitting vaccination records from a medical provider to the state. These specs have been baked into every existing software system. And now every other state has come out with some one-off requirement that was never in place before, and It is an clusterfuck of absolutely epic proportions.

- CDC requires that race and ethnicity of the vaccine recipient be transmitted (very few non-inpatient systems collect this information, certainly not for occupational health, as it's considered discriminatory)
- Some states require that the county of residence of the recipient be transmitted.
- Other states require that the county of *where the vaccine was administered* be transmitted. One of those states has literally come out with that requirement some time in the past 2 weeks, because apparently they were under fire for not distributing the vaccine promptly enough. We have a hospital client that has already administered over 50k vaccines, and every single one of those has been rejected by the state, so the numbers for the state do not reflect that these doses were ever given to people.
- We have another client in a different state, that administered over 5k vaccines, and the state showed that their inventory had not been depleted. It jeopardized the hospital's ability to get the next shipment of vaccines. All because someone at the state registry forgot to flip some switch to start deducting inventory (it was never needed before; state was not managing this hospital's inventory, since it was not paid for by public funds).
- Some state registry servers simply buckled under the load. Nothing like my Outlook trying to churn through 23k error alerts, because one of our interfaces had been trying to connect to the state all weekend, unsuccessfully, and sending an alert every 10 seconds.

Those are the numbers that are being used to determine how many vaccine doses each state has, how many doses were distributed, and how many doses were administered. From my anecdotal evidence, for many states those numbers are simply wildly wrong (California being one of those states).

[malchior]

Looking at Europe, I'm skeptical that having Clinton in office would have changed much. The US isn't even in the top 10 when it comes to deaths per million (we're #11, despite being supremely fat and unhealthy) and most of the countries that are ahead of us have governments that have pursued lockdown measures far more consistently and rigorously than we have.

COVID is a wicked problem. Trump was absolutely unhelpful, but it was always going to be bad. Just ask Newsom.

This is not a great way to look at it IMO. 3 of the top 10 are essentially tiny city-states. Very few of them include a rural, suburban, urban mix like we have. And Included are Belgium and Italy which were hit hard early. I don't have a time series on it but I'd bet real money that generally speaking most of the deaths in the top 10 were skewed heavily to "Wave 1" - I'd exclude the UK and Brazil there since they performed badly throughout. Most of the "top 10" probably compare with NY/NJ in the sense that early we didn't know how it spread, how to treat it, who was at risk, etc. The US has been plagued by ongoing failures though. A great majority of our deaths happened after Wave 1. The only ones similar in that regard are again probably the UK and Brazil.

[Little Raven]

This is not a great way to look at it IMO. 3 of the top 10 are essentially tiny city-states. Very few of them include a rural, suburban, urban mix like we have.

That's just it. It should be even EASIER for states like that to respond. But they've struggled just as much. I mean, look at Belgium. Very modern, well run government. Very health population. Tons of lockdowns and restrictions - still struggling.

Don't get me wrong, Clinton would have been better than Trump. But that's a super low bar. We still would have had massive problems if Clinton had been in office. It's not like the MAGA crowd would have listened to anything she had to say.

The biggest lesson from COVID appears to be that authoritarian governments are good, at least when it comes to published disease metrics. The more authoritarian the better. That or live on an island. For everyone else, it's tough going. (unless you live in Africa. COVID just bounced right off that continent.)

[dbt1949]

I thought wearing masks and the lockdown weren't supposed to stop the spread but merely to slow it down. I follow the rules and always wear a mask in public but as most of you know I am not convinced that the masks are all that effective.
So all these talks of how the government could have handled this a lot better I fail to see how.
The current lockdowns are not working but what else can be done? Voluntary wearing of masks is not getting it done.
So what could the government done a year ago to make the situation better? What are they doing now to make things better? All this free money is fine but what are they doing to stop the virus itself? I know they have vaccines but what about all the millions of people who have to wait before they get it? Even then the new variations of the disease seem to be getting to the point that the vaccine may no longer be valid.
I know I'm being very negative here but I don't see how any government is or could going to make this much better.
And don't get me started on the incompetence of the government in distributing the vaccine.

[malchior]

This is not a great way to look at it IMO. 3 of the top 10 are essentially tiny city-states. Very few of them include a rural, suburban, urban mix like we have.

That's just it. It should be even EASIER for states like that to respond.

How? It is pretty illogical to think that a highly contagious disease is going to be easier to contain in a much denser population (~10x more dense the United States). Policy can only go so far when people have to interact to survive. Stiil, I don't have the time series available. I'd be *very surprised* to see that Belgium didn't do much, much better after Wave 1. (Edit: See the point below - they had practically no deaths from June to mid-Oct).

But they've struggled just as much. I mean, look at Belgium. Very modern, well run government. Very health population. Tons of lockdowns and restrictions - still struggling.

They have not struggled as much. I knew people in Europe who went on vacation this summer. Belgium had barely any post-Wave 1 coronavirus deaths until *their wave 2* started in mid-October. So half of their deaths in mid-March to mid-May. Nothing through the summer. And basically doubled it again from mid-Oct - mid-Jan (an improvement over Wave 1). They are already tapering off unlike the United States which is still linear up to the right.

Anecdotally, I'm in near daily contact with people in the Netherlands, Germany, and France. They've had issues but it is *nothing* like it is here. Then again they've seen more controls than here and more people are alive now because of it.

The biggest lesson from COVID appears to be that authoritarian governments are good, at least when it comes to published disease metrics. The more authoritarian the better. That or live on an island. For everyone else, it's tough going. (unless you live in Africa. COVID just bounced right off that continent.)

Africa is a bizarre tale. My NIgerian friend has a sorta tongue in cheek theory. It is akin to "we grew up with malaria and other scary stuff our whole lives. This is nothing compared to that." Back in reality the authoritarian governments are lying. And ours would have too if it was left up to Trump.

[Defiant]

For all the incompetence we've seen by the government in the US, it still seems better than the UK. It seems they're going with a 12 week gap between the first and second dose of the Pfizer vaccine (to try to get more people their first dose) based on a small study of the Moderna vaccine, against the recommendation of Pfizer and doctors. Some of the people who got their first shots, having been told they'll get a second shot in three weeks have later been told that they'll have to wait twelve weeks. Which will make some people more hesitant in getting the first shot if they don't know if they'll get the second shot at the right time.

Rationed access to care is par for the course with the National Health Service.

The problem is less one of rationing and more one of making unscientific assumptions. The same way the leadership in the UK tried to pursue a herd immunity strategy at the start of the pandemic.

(And misleading people is another problem).

[malchior]

For all the incompetence we've seen by the government in the US, it still seems better than the UK. It seems they're going with a 12 week gap between the first and second dose of the Pfizer vaccine (to try to get more people their first dose) based on a small study of the Moderna vaccine, against the recommendation of Pfizer and doctors. Some of the people who got their first shots, having been told they'll get a second shot in three weeks have later been told that they'll have to wait twelve weeks. Which will make some people more hesitant in getting the first shot if they don't know if they'll get the second shot at the right time.

Rationed access to care is par for the course with the National Health Service.

The problem is less one of rationing and more one of making unscientific assumptions. The same way the leadership in the UK tried to pursue a herd immunity strategy at the start of the pandemic.

(And misleading people is another problem).

This. They decided to go off into the wilderness to try to fix a supply issue with more unscientific efforts. Maybe it'll pan out but the scientific decision making in Johnson's government has been iffy at best.

[Anonymous Bosch]

For all the incompetence we've seen by the government in the US, it still seems better than the UK. It seems they're going with a 12 week gap between the first and second dose of the Pfizer vaccine (to try to get more people their first dose) based on a small study of the Moderna vaccine, against the recommendation of Pfizer and doctors. Some of the people who got their first shots, having been told they'll get a second shot in three weeks have later been told that they'll have to wait twelve weeks. Which will make some people more hesitant in getting the first shot if they don't know if they'll get the second shot at the right time.

Rationed access to care is par for the course with the National Health Service.

The problem is less one of rationing and more one of making unscientific assumptions.

Perhaps. But having lived there and personally experienced it, I'm more inclined to believe it's a hefty dose of both. YMMV.

[Jeff V]

Politics should have nothing to do with it. It can only slow things down.

But it has. The idiots who refuse to wear a mask because of mah rights and the former President who supported them has made this pandemic way worse than it could have been.

It should not be a criminal offence to whack anyone with a baseball bat who is sporting an unsheathed schnozz in public.

[hitbyambulance]

people can say they can't wear a facial covering for 'health reasons' but do there actually exist _any_ valid health reasons for not doing so?

[Madmarcus]

I know I'm being very negative here but I don't see how any government is or could going to make this much better.

More mask wearing and voluntary (non-lockdown) social distancing are good but, as you said, simply slow things down. The big things that a government can do that seem to work to stop infection is strong quarantine on entry (and potentially on moving within the country like Australia) and strong contact tracing with quarantines for contact.

[Lorini]

people can say they can't wear a facial covering for 'health reasons' but do there actually exist _any_ valid health reasons for not doing so?

Doubtful there's no reason not to wear a shield as it gives you plenty of air and the places I go to will accept you with a face shield instead of a mask. It's not nearly as effective but it's better than nothing.

[Sudy]

Both my cousin's spouse and a co-worker's fiancé appear to be heavy skeptics, if not outright truthers. I don't have deep relationships with them, but I run into them on Facebook occasionally and I just don't know how to engage with them. I really don't expect to see this kind of thing here, but then I realize it's actually quite prevalent in the more rural and coservative/anti-government populations. Not that I'm not considerably skeptical of the current provincial and federal governments and some of the actions they've taken in response to covid, but disputing the science and brazenly declaring that half of all infection numbers are incorrect or falsified is another, bizarro matter.

Calculated evil is real. But incompetence is far more common. The scariest thought isn't that we're being controlled; it's that no one's at the helm. Or at least that those who are are just as unconfident as we are. Or worse, that their strong convictions are unfounded.

[YellowKing]

I've been following the anti-vaxx nutjobs on NextDoor in my area, and we had one get shut down hard.

She was raising suspicion because our local hospital had claimed they had processed 1400 vaccine appointments in 45 minutes. She then goes on this long diatribe with math showing that this was "physically impossible" and expressing suspicion that they were just making stuff up.

Of course, this dumbass was mistaking "processing vaccine appointments" with "actually giving people the vaccine." What the hospital was referring to was scheduling appointments through our online portal, which can easily accommodate 1400 requests in 45 minutes. As far as actual vaccinations, we were doing 1500 a day (which had also been clearly communicated to the media - Fox News even did a story on it, no less!)

At any rate, people immediately came to the hospital's defense and shut her down. It's been kind of fun watching the community play whack-a-mole with these whack-a-doodles. I am encouraged that the vast majority of my neighbors are pro-vaccine and very complimentary.

[malchior]

I've been following the anti-vaxx nutjobs on NextDoor in my area, and we had one get shut down hard.

This is very different from what I am seeing in my neck of the woods in central NJ. The nut jobs make posts and they are pretty much ignored. Maybe a couple of 'angry' faces or 'thumbs up' but the trend here is non-engagement. I don't think either approach is inherently better just more of an observation.

[pr0ner]

Politics should have nothing to do with it. It can only slow things down.

But it has. The idiots who refuse to wear a mask because of mah rights and the former President who supported them has made this pandemic way worse than it could have been.

It should not be a criminal offence to whack anyone with a baseball bat who is sporting an unsheathed schnozz in public.

That would only make the problem worse.

[ImLawBoy]

Politics should have nothing to do with it. It can only slow things down.

But it has. The idiots who refuse to wear a mask because of mah rights and the former President who supported them has made this pandemic way worse than it could have been.

It should not be a criminal offence to whack anyone with a baseball bat who is sporting an unsheathed schnozz in public.

That would only make the problem worse.

I'm fairly certain that Jeff was being hyperbolic.

[pr0ner]

Politics should have nothing to do with it. It can only slow things down.

But it has. The idiots who refuse to wear a mask because of mah rights and the former President who supported them has made this pandemic way worse than it could have been.

It should not be a criminal offence to whack anyone with a baseball bat who is sporting an unsheathed schnozz in public.

That would only make the problem worse.

I'm fairly certain that Jeff was being hyperbolic.

It's hard to tell with Jeff sometimes.