And now for something new...did the Pandemic change your political ideology?

[thollandpe]

I think you're giving Orange Man too much credit. He was notorious for his lack of, um, intellectual curiosity and it was widely reported that he would hardly skim through briefings/intelligence reports. I, however, do believe he was dumb enough or inarticulate enough to confuse or not understand GUV air disinfection or believe it was a prophylaxis.

It’s pretty consistent with his relationship with the My Pillow guy. Quid pro quo.

Either way, why not clearly and loudly set the record straight after the press conference. "Hey, America, this the way this UV stuff actually works for measles which (shhhh) are airborne like Covid." That kind of thing.

That was the job of the Coronavirus Task Force. ASHRAE has been telling anyone and everyone who would listen. While the fomites - droplets - aerosol evolution as the dominant mode of transmission has seemed like a revelation, the guidance and emphasis on aerosol transmission has been consistent all along.

[Bob Ross]

Are you suggesting that Harris was not being intellectually dishonest?

Does anyone here actually believe that the Americans who now [5/25/2021] still refuse to take, or are skeptical of, the vaccine are still or were at all ever influenced by Kamala Harris' skepticism of the vaccine when she announced "I would not trust Donald Trump" [9/5/2020]?

Or to put it more bluntly: Does anyone here believe there is any overlap between the folks who circa 9/5/2020 may possibly have been influenced by Harris' utterance suggesting one should be skeptical of the vaccine, and those Americans who today on 5/25/2021 are actually skeptical of the vaccine?

The intersection set of those two groups... :::smh:::

[zachateseverything]

Masking and social distancing work but are unsustainable for the working poor without significant investment in social programs via the government. Since PoC are disproportionately represented within the working poor they shouldered a larger burden.

The former president suggested internal use of bleach and light because he's a moron. Full stop.

The only people that had their political views shifted significantly by Covid either didn't have deeply held beliefs in the first place or are dullards that like to use $5 words when $.05 words will do and/or struggle to complete thoughts.

[beeatnik]

Does anyone here actually believe that the Americans who now [5/25/2021] still refuse to take, or are skeptical of, the vaccine are still or were at all ever influenced by Kamala Harris' skepticism of the vaccine when she announced "I would not trust Donald Trump" [9/5/2020]?

Or to put it more bluntly: Does anyone here believe there is any overlap between the folks who circa 9/5/2020 may possibly have been influenced by Harris' utterance suggesting one should be skeptical of the vaccine, and those Americans who today on 5/25/2021 are actually skeptical of the vaccine?

The intersection set of those two groups... :::smh:::

You aren't close to many African-American males, correct?

[beeatnik]

The only people that had their political views shifted significantly by Covid either didn't have deeply held beliefs in the first place or are dullards that like to use $5 words when $.05 words will do and/or struggle to complete thoughts.

Wait, can you articulate that in simple terms? Thanks.

Also, ask TH about the emerging science on 6 feet and the semantic or real world difference between a 5 micron droplet and a 100 micron droplet. This is not a minor distinction:

Over Zoom, they laid out the case. They ticked through a growing list of superspreading events in restaurants, call centers, cruise ships, and a choir rehearsal, instances where people got sick even when they were across the room from a contagious person. The incidents contradicted the WHO’s main safety guidelines of keeping 3 to 6 feet of distance between people and frequent handwashing. If SARS-CoV-2 traveled only in large droplets that immediately fell to the ground, as the WHO was saying, then wouldn’t the distancing and the handwashing have prevented such outbreaks? Infectious air was the more likely culprit, they argued. But the WHO’s experts appeared to be unmoved. If they were going to call Covid-19 airborne, they wanted more direct evidence—proof, which could take months to gather, that the virus was abundant in the air. Meanwhile, thousands of people were falling ill every day

The distinction between droplet and airborne transmission has enormous consequences. To combat droplets, a leading precaution is to wash hands frequently with soap and water. To fight infectious aerosols, the air itself is the enemy. In hospitals, that means expensive isolation wards and N95 masks for all medical staff.

A FEW DAYS after the April Zoom meeting with the WHO, Marr got an email from another aerosol scientist who had been on the call, an atmospheric chemist at the University of Colorado Boulder named Jose-Luis Jimenez. He’d become fixated on the WHO recommendation that people stay 3 to 6 feet apart from one another. As far as he could tell, that social distancing guideline seemed to be based on a few studies from the 1930s and ’40s. But the authors of those experiments actually argued for the possibility of airborne transmission, which by definition would involve distances over 6 feet. None of it seemed to add up.

Marr told him about her concerns with the 5-micron boundary and suggested that their two issues might be linked. If the 6-foot guideline was built off of an incorrect definition of droplets, the 5-micron error wasn’t just some arcane detail. It seemed to sit at the heart of the WHO’s and the CDC’s flawed guidance. Finding its origin suddenly became a priority. But to hunt it down, Marr, Jimenez, and their collaborators needed help. They needed a historian.

ON FRIDAY, APRIL 30, the WHO quietly updated a page on its website. In a section on how the coronavirus gets transmitted, the text now states that the virus can spread via aerosols as well as larger droplets. As Zeynep Tufekci noted in The New York Times, perhaps the biggest news of the pandemic passed with no news conference, no big declaration. If you weren’t paying attention, it was easy to miss.

But Marr was paying attention. She couldn’t help but note the timing. She, Li, and two other aerosol scientists had just published an editorial in The BMJ, a top medical journal, entitled “Covid-19 Has Redefined Airborne Transmission.” For once, she hadn’t had to beg; the journal’s editors came to her. And her team had finally posted their paper on the origins of the 5-micron error to a public preprint server.


From:


The 60-Year-Old Scientific Screwup That Helped Covid Kill
All pandemic long, scientists brawled over how the virus spreads. Droplets! No, aerosols! At the heart of the fight was a teensy error with huge consequences.

https://www.wired.com/story/the-teen...ed-covid-kill/

The jury is still out on masking but there's growing consensus on 6 feet.

[Bob Ross]

You aren't close to many African-American males, correct?

Nikka please...

Probably not "many" by any definition of that word; I'll freely admit that among the friends, family, and co-workers I interact with on a regular basis, 20% at most are African-American males.

But I do know for a fact that 100% of the African-American males in my close sphere (not including my wife's great-great nephew, who's 6 years old) are A) vaccinated; and B) discerning enough to understand the context that Kamala Harris' comment re: trusting Trump was made in, and observant enough to see how any mistrust about the vaccine being rushed to production or side-stepping testing protocol/regulatory steps has been mooted by the survival rates of vaccinated individuals...most of which could be gleaned empirically before the vaccine was even available to their age group.

So let me make sure I'm understanding your position. You're asserting that
- there is overlap between folks who currently refuse to take the vaccine, and folks who became skeptical of the vaccine due to Harris' comment re: trusting Trump from September 2020
- that the intersection set between ^^^those two groups is...disproportionately? entirely? ...African-American male
- that these African-American males who were influenced so strongly by Harris' statement (that she wouldn't trust Trump, and therefore was skeptical that the vaccine will have gone through the appropriate rigourous testing) that they continue in May 2021 to be skeptical that the vaccine has gone through the appropriate rigourous testing ...these same African-American males were all somehow not strongly influenced by Harris' vaccination on live television in December 2020

[zachateseverything]

Wait, can you articulate that in simple terms? Thanks.

Also, ask TH about the emerging science on 6 feet and the semantic or real world difference between a 5 micron droplet and a 100 micron droplet. This is not a minor distinction:

Over Zoom, they laid out the case. They ticked through a growing list of superspreading events in restaurants, call centers, cruise ships, and a choir rehearsal, instances where people got sick even when they were across the room from a contagious person. The incidents contradicted the WHO’s main safety guidelines of keeping 3 to 6 feet of distance between people and frequent handwashing. If SARS-CoV-2 traveled only in large droplets that immediately fell to the ground, as the WHO was saying, then wouldn’t the distancing and the handwashing have prevented such outbreaks? Infectious air was the more likely culprit, they argued. But the WHO’s experts appeared to be unmoved. If they were going to call Covid-19 airborne, they wanted more direct evidence—proof, which could take months to gather, that the virus was abundant in the air. Meanwhile, thousands of people were falling ill every day

The distinction between droplet and airborne transmission has enormous consequences. To combat droplets, a leading precaution is to wash hands frequently with soap and water. To fight infectious aerosols, the air itself is the enemy. In hospitals, that means expensive isolation wards and N95 masks for all medical staff.

A FEW DAYS after the April Zoom meeting with the WHO, Marr got an email from another aerosol scientist who had been on the call, an atmospheric chemist at the University of Colorado Boulder named Jose-Luis Jimenez. He’d become fixated on the WHO recommendation that people stay 3 to 6 feet apart from one another. As far as he could tell, that social distancing guideline seemed to be based on a few studies from the 1930s and ’40s. But the authors of those experiments actually argued for the possibility of airborne transmission, which by definition would involve distances over 6 feet. None of it seemed to add up.

Marr told him about her concerns with the 5-micron boundary and suggested that their two issues might be linked. If the 6-foot guideline was built off of an incorrect definition of droplets, the 5-micron error wasn’t just some arcane detail. It seemed to sit at the heart of the WHO’s and the CDC’s flawed guidance. Finding its origin suddenly became a priority. But to hunt it down, Marr, Jimenez, and their collaborators needed help. They needed a historian.

ON FRIDAY, APRIL 30, the WHO quietly updated a page on its website. In a section on how the coronavirus gets transmitted, the text now states that the virus can spread via aerosols as well as larger droplets. As Zeynep Tufekci noted in The New York Times, perhaps the biggest news of the pandemic passed with no news conference, no big declaration. If you weren’t paying attention, it was easy to miss.

But Marr was paying attention. She couldn’t help but note the timing. She, Li, and two other aerosol scientists had just published an editorial in The BMJ, a top medical journal, entitled “Covid-19 Has Redefined Airborne Transmission.” For once, she hadn’t had to beg; the journal’s editors came to her. And her team had finally posted their paper on the origins of the 5-micron error to a public preprint server.


From:


The 60-Year-Old Scientific Screwup That Helped Covid Kill
All pandemic long, scientists brawled over how the virus spreads. Droplets! No, aerosols! At the heart of the fight was a teensy error with huge consequences.

https://www.wired.com/story/the-teen...ed-covid-kill/

The jury is still out on masking but there's growing consensus on 6 feet.

You're conflating (intentionally?) multiple factors to try to champion some cause. This is the same thing fascists do to justify oddball and hurtful policy positions.

The fact of the matter is that we saw a decrease in caseloads, deaths, and daily infections once the mask mandates and social distancing rules (which extend beyond just 6 foot guidelines) were instituted last spring and rises in those metrics when people started ignoring them in mid summer and again over the holidays.

[classtimesailer]

I cannot separate the effects of the pandemic and the effects of the very public reaction to recent murders of black people by police. My ideology hasn't changed. Maybe I'm a little more angry. More people are more ignorant than I realized and unless my kids are planning on birthing super heroes, I will be discouraging grandkids.

[davids]

You're conflating (intentionally?) multiple factors to try to champion some cause. This is the same thing fascists do to justify oddball and hurtful policy positions.

The fact of the matter is that we saw a decrease in caseloads, deaths, and daily infections once the mask mandates and social distancing rules (which extend beyond just 6 foot guidelines) were instituted last spring and rises in those metrics when people started ignoring them in mid summer and again over the holidays.

I tried, after my first snarky post, to engage in a real, fact-based discussion with beeatnik.

I think your observation nails it. I'm out.

Thank you.

[suspectdevice]

I got suckered into Libertarianism in Highschool via Ayn Rand essay contests in English class at my private country dayschool and stepped off into liberatory anarchist and marxist thought a few years after college after a few days of getting paid $15 an hour making sconces for Bill Gates and and kitchen tables for Rudy Giuliani and pickling my lungs hand brushing the appropriate patina into yet another POS light fixture for Tiffany’s.

Being spoon fed right wing propaganda and “objectivist philosophy” in Highschool ruined my college experience in lots of ways, and seriously hindered my emotional development as a human for a solid 10 years. Being born privileged made it too easy to believe prosperity myths- being surrounded by very well off people made that even easier.


20 years out from leaving conservative thought behind, I find, constantly new ways to fear for the future of America.

The last 6 years have been sad, and brutal- and I continue to feel like this country is moving ever closer to civil war, and that millions of people are un-redeemable fools.

Last year, the list of local people who I trust or consider friends dwindled down to almost no one-

I’m fully vaccinated and I don’t ever plan to start casually riding with or socializing pre or post ride with other people again here in the VA mountains.

I’m not taking my mask off either- I’ve come to enjoy the reduced social interactions face coverings bring, and i love, love, love that my face coverings get “conservative” reactionaries fired up. It was awesome last year being able to identify who the undesirable members of my community were just be observing (lack of) changes in behavior, Covid saved me from forming bonds with people who’s worldview is incompatible with my own.

The pandemic highlighted who the idiots are, and I am thankful for that. The idiots aren’t just conservatives, they are perhaps predominantly just ignorant, selfish, self absorbed people living banal, performative, algorithmically-mandated lifestyles.

If that’s “living your best life” count me out.

[echappist]

I tried, after my first snarky post, to engage in a real, fact-based discussion with beeatnik.

I think your observation nails it. I'm out.

Thank you.

Any engagement with the OP now, after the OP showed us how he thinks, is just indulging his own solipsistic intentions. I'm not actually sure if he is interested in whether the pandemic changed political views of others, but he really is interested in telling most people in this thread how wrong we at following public health guideline without 1) providing any conclusive evidence and 2) without offering an alternative. All that so he can justify why he chafes at the rules implemented.

Poor him, as if he were the only left leaning individual who’s at odds with some aspect of policies espoused by the Democrat Party.

[beeatnik]

You're conflating (intentionally?) multiple factors to try to champion some cause. This is the same thing fascists do to justify oddball and hurtful policy positions.

The fact of the matter is that we saw a decrease in caseloads, deaths, and daily infections once the mask mandates and social distancing rules (which extend beyond just 6 foot guidelines) were instituted last spring and rises in those metrics when people started ignoring them in mid summer and again over the holidays.

.

[beeatnik]

Nikka please...

Probably not "many" by any definition of that word; I'll freely admit that among the friends, family, and co-workers I interact with on a regular basis, 20% at most are African-American males.

But I do know for a fact that 100% of the African-American males in my close sphere (not including my wife's great-great nephew, who's 6 years old) are A) vaccinated; and B) discerning enough to understand the context that Kamala Harris' comment re: trusting Trump was made in, and observant enough to see how any mistrust about the vaccine being rushed to production or side-stepping testing protocol/regulatory steps has been mooted by the survival rates of vaccinated individuals...most of which could be gleaned empirically before the vaccine was even available to their age group.

So let me make sure I'm understanding your position. You're asserting that
- there is overlap between folks who currently refuse to take the vaccine, and folks who became skeptical of the vaccine due to Harris' comment re: trusting Trump from September 2020
- that the intersection set between ^^^those two groups is...disproportionately? entirely? ...African-American male
- that these African-American males who were influenced so strongly by Harris' statement (that she wouldn't trust Trump, and therefore was skeptical that the vaccine will have gone through the appropriate rigourous testing) that they continue in May 2021 to be skeptical that the vaccine has gone through the appropriate rigourous testing ...these same African-American males were all somehow not strongly influenced by Harris' vaccination on live television in December 2020

Let's just agree that it was a political statement. Younger (under 65) African American males unsurprisingly have the lowest rates of vaccination. Whether that's due to systematic racism, low SES, or other factors, her statement was a tiny match cast near a flammable structure. I'm not aware of a similar statement made by a responsible Latinx or Asian politician (two populations which embrace vaccination likely due to immigrant memory).

[beeatnik]

Any engagement with the OP now, after the OP showed us how he thinks, is just indulging his own solipsistic intentions. I'm not actually sure if he is interested in whether the pandemic changed political views of others, but he really is interested in telling most people in this thread how wrong we at following public health guideline without 1) providing any conclusive evidence and 2) without offering an alternative. All that so he can justify why he chafes at the rules implemented.

Poor him, as if he were the only left leaning individual who’s at odds with some aspect of policies espoused by the Democrat Party.

No.

I'm calling attention to a dynamic. This pandemic has produced an intellectual climate where any progressive who questions the (implementation of the) science is instantly shouted down or seen as a conspiracy kook. This reminds of the 90s when I was a regular victim of police harassment and all my liberal white friends would ask, "well, what did you do wrong?" Now these people proudly display BLM signs on their front yards. Starting to embrace what Malcolm X said about the white liberal...well, only the context of this thread.

[Scott G.]

This thread sucks. Everyone go outside.

This is what happens when you glue tubulars with the windows closed,
airborne transmission.

[beeatnik]

This is what happens when you glue tubulars with the windows closed,
airborne transmission.

Now that's a conspiracy I can endorse. If I were riding tubulars I truly would be a kook.

[j44ke]

No.

I'm calling attention to a dynamic. This pandemic has produced an intellectual climate where any progressive who questions the (implementation of the) science is instantly shouted down or seen as a conspiracy kook. This reminds of the 90s when I was a regular victim of police harassment and all my liberal white friends would ask, "well, what did you do wrong?" Now these people proudly display BLM signs on their front yards. Starting to embrace what Malcolm X said about the white liberal...well, only the context of this thread.

I think this whole thread reads to many here as a trick question. An enticement to self-implicate and then be cast as The Problem. And you are difficult to understand in writing - I can’t say I understand entirely why. When people make an attempt to understand by their response, the sense is that you shift away from their attempt. Then when others disagree with your arguments, that’s taken as proof that your views are being oppressed. I’m not afraid of being challenged by ideas different from my own, but I don’t understand the impenetrability of your rhetoric. If people disagree with you and demonstrate their reasons through fact and experience, some of it professionally earned, where is the space for that disagreement here?

[beeatnik]

I think this whole thread reads to many here as a trick question. An enticement to self-implicate and then be cast as The Problem. And you are difficult to understand in writing - I can’t say I understand entirely why. When people make an attempt to understand by their response, the sense is that you shift away from their attempt. Then when others disagree with your arguments, that’s taken as proof that your views are being oppressed. I’m not afraid of being challenged by ideas different from my own, but I don’t understand the impenetrability of your rhetoric. If people disagree with you and demonstrate their reasons through fact and experience, some of it professionally earned, where is the space for that disagreement here?

I guess the problem is I'm not trying to speak with scientific certainty. I'm articulating the challenges of a lay person to understand a complex event. As I mentioned in my post which you deconstructed, my framework for the virus relates to other public health issues in my community, ie, pollution. Is it possible, as some epidemiologists have suggested, that the pandemic can be better understood as many local epidemics or crises.

So much circular logic here:

1. Universal mask use in a vulnerable community, 50% plus infection rate...success!
2. Universal mask use in a higher SES community, 5% infection rate...success!

Is it logical to conclude that masks were an "important" mitigation both in a place where most of the population was infected and in a place where infection rates were going to be low regardless. Texas post-mask mandate seems to show that the infected will be infected and the isolated-sheltered-distanced will avoid infection. Apologies if I can't more elegantly phrase that question.

Also, saying that all the evidence isn't in does not equate with denying facts. See the lab leak hypothesis.

Finally, VS does not reflect diversity (not a bad thing) which is precisely the reason I started the thread here. But while VS skews one way, it also seems to be a place where opposing views are clearly articulated, ie, the occasional conservative post. In essence, I was wondering if the tiny shifts in alignment we would see from the Trump Era Pandemic would be more impactful in conservatives v. democrats. For every 1000 conservatives maybe 2 shifted left, for every 1000 progressives 1 shifted right...that kind of thing.

[johnmdesigner]

Oh for God sake.
No one demanded that you wear a mask. They just asked.
Wear it, don't wear it, I don't give a shit.
I'm keeping mine on because it is a cheaper alternative to 30K in dental work.
And with my pretty eyes I'm getting more attention from everyone.

[j44ke]

First, I don’t know what SES stands for.

Secondly, I understand the 5% and 50% numbers to be made up for use as an example, correct? So I understand that as an example. I would also understand if the measurement %-wise was based on projected expectations. A crowded environment with old and young people mixed together, employment primarily in the service sector and trades, low rate of health care, high rate of co-morbidities, the expectation might be for an 80% infection rate, but the rate was “only” 50% with the use of masks. And similarly the 5% group was expected to be 8% but masks mean that it was “only” 5%.

Similar declines in infection rate but with different starting points. Then the debate becomes what we mean by “success” and how that definition is influenced by racism and chronically low expectations for health and well-being among certain communities, and valuation of individuals by governments depending on where they live.

I see then the situational analogies to pollution and other similar forces that are not in and of themselves inequitable, but are made so through the application of policy and statistics and the determinations of “allowability” that result.

Am I getting close?