I was chatting with a pilot friend who returned to his native Germany recently and reported that he’d been unable to get into restaurants. “They refused to accept my CDC card as proof of vaccination,” he said, “because they said it was too easy to forge one.”
I mentioned this at a pilot gathering in Palm Beach and one of the guys at my table said, “the same thing happened to me in Switzerland. Nobody would accept the CDC card.”
What papers do you need to show? “It’s called a European vaccine certificate,” my German friend explained. “You get this from a pharmacist [QR code with some text] then load in app or if you are old show on paper. It’s tied to a Europe-wide database and issued by the local CDC equivalent. It can only be put into the database by authorized pharmacists and some other designated officials, but not doctors.”
So enjoy your trip to Europe, but if you got vaccinated in the U.S., don’t plan to be indoors at museums, restaurants, etc.
CovidActNow, a Web site for Shutdown Karens (‘We support data- and science-backed policies and decision-making’), starts with a map of “Vaccination progress” by state:
The primacy accorded the vaccine percentage is a good reflection of where America’s Shutdown Karens are mentally right now. The virus itself is no longer that interesting, even if it manages to kill someone (“Thank Fauci he/she/ze/they was vaccinated and therefore died in a state of grace” will become part of our standard eulogy for anyone killed by Covid?). If the reader is interested enough to scroll down, the page includes a map of states color-coded by risk:
The map reminds us to stay in our bunkers because, of course, nowhere is safe. There is no “low risk” state to be found (“risk” is a function of “daily new cases per 100K (incidence), infection rate (Rt), and test positivity”). But there is one state that is only “medium” risk: Florida! The state that explicitly rejects science (at least according to the NYT) has the lowest current COVID-19 risk (if we go beyond the mainland, Hawaii has a slightly lower daily new case rate and soon-to-be-a-state Puerto Rico (Senator AOC!) is substantially lower).
Separately, who can see a correlation between vaccine virtue and risk level? Pennsylvania, for example, has a high vaccination rate and also a “very high” risk level. Is this a Paging Dr. Ioannidis situation? (current COVID-19 vaccines are somewhat effective, but vaccinated people will go out and party more, thus eliminating most or all of the benefit, at least when it comes to infection and transmission; see “Benefit of COVID-19 vaccination accounting for potential risk compensation”)
Related:
states ranked by COVID-19 death rate (the Florida Free State now tied with fully-masked and often-shut Maskachusetts, but these data are not adjusted for percentage of population over 65, in which case FL would look much better (not that Floridians would care; they don’t measure the overall success of a society by the COVID-19 death rate))
An immigrant friend has slender athletic children in high school. Their statistical risk from COVID-19 is negligible, possibly smaller than the risk of being injured or dying in a car accident on the way to the vaccine clinic (a handful of children are harmed by COVID-19, of course, but most were vulnerable due to obesity or previously identified disease). He vaccinated his children, despite his belief that they were not at risk and that the vaccine had no value to them. They live in Maskachusetts so they still have to wear masks at school. If they want to travel internationally, they’re still subject to testing hassles.
How about altruism? Maybe the former Soviet wants to help Joe Biden shut down coronavirus as promised during his election campaign? That’s can’t be the explanation. He doesn’t believe that the currently available vaccines have any public health benefit due to the fact that people who are vaccinated can still get infected and be contagious and also due to the fact that SARS-CoV-2 will evolve its way around the current vaccines (potentially mutating into something wildly more deadly, as happened with the Marek’s Disease vaccine). So he didn’t inject his children with the idea that their stimulated immune system would be helpful to an 82-year-old somewhere in Massachusetts.
Earlier this year I asked him to explain his decision and he responded with the following:
Because I know how collectivists think and act. Back in the USSR, we had this saying roughly translated as “Don’t separate yourself too far from the collective, or the collective will separate you.”
This week he has been vindicated. A text message:
The United States Fencing Federation voted for a vaccine mandate for everyone at national events, including kids.
(Said kids still have to wear coronarags under their fencing masks, despite everyone in the arena having been injected with a vaccine that is advertised as miraculously effective.)
Our new religion, in which God is replaced (“In Fauci We Trust”):
Source: A Deplorable immigrant friend (Joe Biden couldn’t bundle him onto one of the Haitian deportation flights, but would surely love to!). Location: Cambridge, Maskachusetts (a $5 million house as measured in Bidie Bucks?).
During four years of tyranny, anyone who posted a criticism of Donald Trump on Facebook or Twitter was boldly #Resisting. Example from my late friend Mike Hawley (the below was liked and loved 119 times by the righteous):
Successful alimony and child support plaintiffs relaxing in our old Maskachusetts neighborhood displayed lawn signs kind of like the below (“A Woman’s Place is in the Resistance”).
Before we moved to Florida, it was common to see cars with “RESIST” bumper stickers amidst the overall forest of social justice and political bumper stickers.
By contrast, how do we characterize those who refuse to follow orders from Dr. Joe Biden, M.D., and state governors to get vaccinated against COVID-19? In addition to being Deplorable (obviously), are these people bold examples of resistance? After all, those who merely disagreed with Donald Trump’s words were bravely resisting. Actually…. no. It seems that refusing to do what the government tells you to do is an example of weak hesitation. Google returns 152,000 results for “vaccine hesistant” within News and only 23,500 for “vaccine resistant” (most of which relate to the muscular SARS-CoV-2 virus itself, not to any humans).
Thousands of New York City school staff were barred from returning to work Monday for failing to comply with a vaccination mandate that took effect Friday afternoon.
Under the terms of the mandate, all school employees needed to show proof by Friday afternoon that they received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine to avoid being placed on unpaid leave.
(It’s a “mandate,” not an “order”)
These employees aren’t fired, but are only on “unpaid leave.” Does that mean they’re unable to collect unemployment insurance? Is this a brilliant Catch-22 strategy by the city government? People can’t collect unemployment unless they’re fired. The infidels #Resisting the Church of Shutdown haven’t been fired. But on the other hand, there is no way for them to get a paycheck unless they accept Saint Fauci as their personal savior.
Have we created a society where a lifetime of government assistance (means-tested public housing, Medicaid, SNAP/EBT, and Obamaphone) is available to folks who say “I need to spend 24/7 drinking, smoking dope, and consuming opioids” but nothing is available to those who say “I’m a healthy 25-year-old, already had COVID-19, and don’t think the risk-reward of a COVID-19 vaccine makes sense for me”?
Separately, given that NYC, if it were its own country, would be right near the top of countries ranked by COVID-19 death rate, shouldn’t we expect that most of the unvaccinated have been exposed to SARS-CoV-2 and therefore have at least as good immunity as the vaccinated? (Nearly all of my friends in NYC eventually got either a positive COVID test result, some symptoms, or both.)
Related:
“Won’t Get The Covid Vaccine? If You’re Fired, You May Not Get Unemployment Benefits” (Forbes): … there’s one big, new exception that could block your eligibility to get unemployment benefits: You get fired because you’re not vaccinated for Covid-19. … In short, probably not. If an employer terminates you because you don’t follow its policies, it has “cause” to fire you. And if you’re fired “for cause,” you may be ineligible to claim unemployment benefits. … Some states have made it clear that people terminated for not adhering to vaccination policies are likely precluded from receiving benefits. Oregon is one example of a state that has mandated health care, education, and government workers to get vaccinated. The head of the state Employment Department has said eligibility will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis, but those terminated by public or private employers for refusing to get vaccinated probably won’t be eligible.
Vaccination of Head Start staff is essential as we work together to build back out of the COVID-19 pandemic and move toward fully in-person services. On September 9, 2021, President Biden announced a plan requiring all Head Start program staff and certain contractors to be vaccinated. This action will help more programs and early childhood centers safely remain open and provide comfort to the many parents and guardians that rely on them every day to keep their children safe.
Beginning January 2022, all Head Start teachers and program staff will be required to be vaccinated to help ensure the health and safety of children, families, and their communities.
COVID-19 is an emergency requiring unprecedented suspensions of what had been considered Americans’ rights. At the same time, it is not such a serious emergency that people need to be vaccinated sooner than four months after the President/Physician-in-Chief’s order.
Related:
Cambridge, Maskachusetts back under a mask order (September 3, 2021): It’s an emergency situation. COVID-19 is on a rapid (presumably exponential) rise. We have at our disposal a critical measure that we know will save lives. So… let’s wait a week before applying this critical measure!
“Biden says U.S. will seek to ‘end cancer as we know it’ after Covid pandemic” (CNBC, February 19, 2021): “I want you to know that, once we beat Covid, we’re going to do everything we can to end cancer as we know it,” Biden said in a speech after touring Pfizer’s massive coronavirus vaccine manufacturing site in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
“Head Start: A Tragic Waste of Money” (CATO, 2010): Created in 1965, the comprehensive preschool program for 3- and 4‐year olds and their parents is meant to narrow the education gap between low‐income students and their middle‐ and upper‐income peers. Forty‐five years and $166 billion later, it has been proven a failure. The bad news came in the [Obama administration] study released this month: It found that, by the end of the first grade, children who attended Head Start are essentially indistinguishable from a control group of students who didn’t. … In fact, not a single one of the 114 tests administered to first graders — of academics, socio‐emotional development, health care/health status and parenting practice — showed a reliable, statistically significant effect from participating in Head Start.
“The Head Start CARES Demonstration: Another Failed Federal Early Childhood Education Program” (Heritage, 2015): The two small-scale studies—of the High/Scope Perry Preschool Project begun in 1962 and the Carolina Abecedarian Project begun in 1972—that were used to demonstrate the effectiveness of such interventions are now outdated. Their results have never been replicated.
coming to the opposite conclusion (i.e., give them more money) … “The Never-Ending Struggle to Improve Head Start” (Atlantic, 2016): The federal government has invested billions in preschool, but there’s still lots of room to grow. No rigorous research project followed the children Johnson was talking about to determine whether now, in their mid-50s, the 1965 Head Start graduates are living the productive and rewarding lives predicted for them. Critics charge that Head Start is a big federal program spending billions of tax dollars on a pipe dream: that the effects of being born into poverty can be averted for a lifetime with a few hours a day spent in a classroom at age 4. On the other hand, its champions argue that everything Johnson predicted is still possible, if only the country gives the program the resources it needs to succeed. … Despite its evidently strong program, there is scant empirical evidence supporting Portland’s success at improving the academic futures of its graduates beyond that first year of kindergarten entry. The same is true of Head Start as a whole.
Note the lower left section in which I am exhorted to be virtuous:
Add a COVID-19 vaccine frame to your profile picture We can all play a part in ending the pandemic. Add a frame to your profile picture. Your new picture will be shown to your friends to inspire them to get their vaccines as soon as they can.
You might think that the robots at Facebook would have figured out that 95 percent of my friends are Democrats (most are in academic, pharma, or medical jobs where a bigger government means they’ll enjoy a higher income, or they’re in Silicon Valley where expressing skepticism regarding Joe Biden would mean ostracism) and that the majority are already vaccinated (they’ve posted pictures of themselves getting shots, added their own vaccine frame, etc.). What is the rationale for asking me to celebrate my now-stale vaccination with a frame? That Facebook friends who’ve resisted 10 months of intensive propaganda from the government, the media, and Facebook itself will suddenly be convinced? Remember that most of the unvaccinated folks I know live in Massachusetts and are exposed to demands that they comply (“play a part in ending the pandemic”) every few miles while driving, every few minutes when walking in an urban area, etc. A vaccine frame from me would increase their exposure to pro-vaccine propaganda by less than 0.1%.
How long do we keep up the vaccination virtue signals?
[Separately, my father’s experience is not the best advertisement for COVID-19 vaccine safety. He went into a steep decline and died one week after receiving his second injection of Pfizer.]
American hospitals are packed. People are literally dying for want of a hospital bed. (“Americans are dying because no hospital will take them” (Vox, September 14, 2021): The country’s pandemic failures have sometimes led to deadly health care rationing. … America, the richest country in the world, is not supposed to be a place where patients are left at the door to die. Yet that is exactly what’s happening now — 18 months into the pandemic.; “American Hospitals Buckle Under Delta, With I.C.U.s Filling Up” (NYT, August 17, 2021): “Outside some hospitals, officials are erecting large tents to house everyone.”
Doctors and nurses have quit because it is exhausting to work in a hospital overflowing with patients. (“Covid has made it harder to be a health-care worker. Now, many are thinking of quitting” (CNBC, May 30, 2021): According to recent studies, between 20% and 30% of frontline U.S. health-care workers say they are now considering leaving the profession.)
Therefore, it is critical for hospitals to invest heavily in every possible form of advertising for new patients.
If you weren’t familiar with the wisdom of the ancients, you might naively wonder “How is it that hospitals are so anxious for our business if their rooms are packed while their staff has figured out that the U.S. is a work-optional society?”
Do airports and FBOs in South Florida advertise seeking hangar tenants? No. Why not? They’re actually full. If there is a waiting list of 190 people for 300 hangars (F45, truly in the middle of nowhere), why waste money trying to get a 191st aircraft owner to sign up?
One could argue that the billboards and ad spots were purchased prior to COVID-19, but we’re approaching the second anniversary of the disease. Surely that is enough time for hospitals to turn over their ad space to “essential” (in Massachusetts) marijuana and liquor stores and other businesses for which the media hasn’t informed us of any difficulty with worker retention.
the “supportive care” provided by hospitals to most COVID-19 patients can be just as easily delivered at home (NYT)
Massachusetts family law plus “Child Support Litigation without a Marriage” (having sex with two physicians can pay just as well as going to medical school and working as a physician; having sex with a specialist physician can pay just as well as going to medical school and working as a primary care doctor)
Friends and neighbors in Massachusetts who were Shutdown and Mask Karens (i.e., nearly all of my friends and neighbors who weren’t pilots, doctors, or medical school professors!) reported that, in their personal experience, the shutdowns and masks had beaten the common cold. A full year of school closure (Boston Public) and more than a year of mask orders from the energetic governor had shown the rhinovirus who was boss. Yes, adults were still meeting at bars, on Tinder, and in marijuana and liquor stores (“essential”), but a cold is no match for a full glass of vodka combined with healing marijuana smoke.
As cases of influenza and other respiratory viruses plummeted during the COVID-19 pandemic for kids and adults alike, rhinovirus and enterovirus continued to infect children at typical rates, a multicenter study suggested.
In a surveillance analysis involving more than 35,000 children who presented to emergency departments or were hospitalized for acute respiratory illness, 29.6% tested positive for enterovirus or rhinovirus in the March 2020 to January 2021 season, similar to rates for two prior seasons (30.4% for 2019-2020 and 29.0% for 2017-2018), reported Danielle Rankin, MPH, CIC, of Vanderbilt University in Nashville.
And the combined positivity rate of influenza, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), and other respiratory viruses (39.5%) was significantly lower in 2020-2021 compared to each of the prior three seasons (P<0.001):
2019-2020: 75.4%
2018-2019: 71.3%
2017-2018: 69.4%
“It has been previously shown that mitigation measures, like mask wearing or social distancing, which were introduced to limit the spread of SARS-CoV-2, also limited the spread of influenza, RSV, and some other respiratory viruses,” Rankin said in a press release. “This study showed rhinovirus/enterovirus slightly decreased in March 2020, but shortly after resumed and persisted.”
Could the confidence of my friends in Maskachusetts that the common cold had been vanquished be an example of wishful thinking/confirmation bias? Or do we think this research result is another example of “Why Most Published Research Findings Are False”? I personally have a tough time believing that shutting schools and chaining children to their TVs and computers indoors for a year didn’t reduce transmission of the common cold. One can argue whether it makes sense to deny children an education in order to protect them from a virus that kills 82-year-olds, but I would have been confident in predicting that denying children an education would reduce their likelihood of catching a cold. (On the third hand, we could argue that my shutdown- and mask-advocating friends and neighbors in MA were a non-representative sample. Nearly all were able to work from home, for example, and nearly all lived in spacious suburban houses (see The social justice of coronashutdowns for the shutdown/mask views of a guy who lives in 8,000 square feet).)
Photos from the tiny strip mall at the heart of our former suburb, August 2021, reminding folks that COVID-19 is deadly, but so are leaf blowers (“toxic tornados” [sic]):
