Coronavirus

[Langue_doc]

Masks are recommended indoors even for the vaccinated.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/29/health/coronavirus-delta-variant-masks.html

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

Masks are recommended indoors even for the vaccinated.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/29/health/coronavirus-delta-variant-masks.html

I read about this today. I'm not sure it will go over well down here.

[Langue_doc]

Masks are recommended indoors even for the vaccinated.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/29/health/coronavirus-delta-variant-masks.html

I read about this today. I'm not sure it will go over well down here.

It isn't going to go over well here either, especially with a mayor who thinks that democracy has been restored with the removal of restrictions.

[nebo113]

I continue to mask indoors.  Fewer than 40% of folks in my area are fully vaccinated.  I am concerned about variants, too, given that low number.

[Caracal]

Masks are recommended indoors even for the vaccinated.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/29/health/coronavirus-delta-variant-masks.html

The actual text of that article belies that summary. The WHO serves all kinds of useful purposes, but it isn't designed to give personalized health advice. Bottom line is that two doses of vaccines seem to work just about as well against Delta as against any of the other variants. Nothing wrong with taking extra precautions, but there's no reason for vaccinated people to worry more now.

[Morden]

Canada seems to be improving as more people get vaccinated, but US rates are going up again in many places. Is it overall vaccination rates or variants?
https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/covid-19-in-the-u-s-how-do-canada-s-provinces-rank-against-american-states-1.5051033

[mamselle]

Or unvaccinated maskless numbskulls?

M.

[Hibush]

Canada seems to be improving as more people get vaccinated, but US rates are going up again in many places. Is it overall vaccination rates or variants?
https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/covid-19-in-the-u-s-how-do-canada-s-provinces-rank-against-american-states-1.5051033

Trudeau said today that things may be so under control in a month or so that it'll be possible to let in the restless hordes south of the border.

[apl68]

We're rushing into a new surge in our state.  Nursing homes and the like are starting to isolate again.  Looks like vaccinations are starting to trend up a bit, so maybe the deteriorating situation is starting to get people's attention.  It didn't have to be this way, though.  Our governor has been consistently urging vaccination all along.  Contrary to what some around here might imagine, he is very much a Republican, BTW.

[the_geneticist]

I want us to follow France's model: want to go inside restaurants/theaters/clubs/etc.?  Then, you MUST be vaccinated & show proof.
I don't know what their plan is for the 16 and under crowd though.  Maybe prove that you're too young to be vaccinated yet?  Mandatory masking?

I think the start of the K12 school year is going to be a rough transition.  I hope the vast majority of folks who can get vaccinated will do so.

[kaysixteen]

Are there any countries in the world, or parts of any countries, that are actually requiring citizens to vax, excepting those who would have a medical reason not to do so?

[apl68]

Are there any countries in the world, or parts of any countries, that are actually requiring citizens to vax, excepting those who would have a medical reason not to do so?

I haven't yet heard of any.  It's worth noting that vaccine hesitancy is a problem in many countries.  It's not just an American phenomenon.  Our particular partisan politics may influence what vaccine hesitancy looks like here, but a phenomenon this widespread globally clearly wasn't created by them.

[dismalist]

Yeah, 'tis important to not ascribe vaccine hesitancy to political persuasion. Correlation is not causation.

-People have different information. I don't see that governments have been good at spreading information about the risk of getting Covid.

-People have different attitudes toward risk. Some are gamblers, and some are like me and the others on this board who don't like risk and get vaccinated.

-People in different age groups are subject to different costs, such as death. Before judging people's decisions on average, 'twould be good to know the distribution of the unvaccinated by age.

In addition, if the younger individuals, less subject to cost, are unvaccinated and get Covid, they will contribute to herd immunity. At least in the US, there is no shortage of the vaccine, and anybody who thinks the risk is too great can get vaccinated at zero monetary cost.

[Stockmann]

Are there any countries in the world, or parts of any countries, that are actually requiring citizens to vax, excepting those who would have a medical reason not to do so?

Yes, Russia. Moscow Oblast is imposing some pretty serious fines for those in certain categories that don't vaccinate (and years behind bars for using forged vaccine certificates), and certain categories, like some retail workers, can be fired for not being vaccinated. This was done after bribery (paying people to be immunized) failed. I'm no fan of people's alleged right to make others sick, so to me this (after purely voluntary vaccination and bribery both failed) seems to me like a no-nonsense approach.

This actually ties in with something that I find deeply worrying - the overall (including both initial containment and immunization) best Covid response on the planet was surely that of Singapore, which had pretty good containment via social distancing, contact tracing, travel restrictions etc, and a rather rapid immunization program. Authoritarian Singapore beat basically every democracy on the planet. Chinese propagandists are probably having a field day portraying democracies as choosing to have dead voters instead of inconvenienced voters, particularly as immunization stalls in some democracies and given India's catastrophic second wave.
The EU in particular has been a spectacular failure, both at a central EU level and in the performance of quite a few member states. Initial containment in several member states was among the worst in the world, and far behind authoritarian developing countries like China and Vietnam (also worse than democracies like Taiwan, to be fair). Scenes of the Dutch setting testing centers on fire may be the epitome of the failure, but hardly the only symptom. Then immunization got off to a disastrously slow start, soon lagging behind Chile and Serbia, while a feudal state, the UAE, rolled out the second-fastest vaccination program in the world. Finally, and perhaps most surprising, there's the vaccine-development failure. The US, Germany, India (well, allegedly democratic) and the UK are the only democracies that have developed their own vaccines - and those are all rich (UK, Germany), huge (India) or both (the US). Except for Germany, every singly EU country lags in vaccine development behind India, Russia, China and Cuba. The case of Cuba is particularly dramatic, as a single-party state island too poor to provide its citizens with flour beat the entire Western Hemisphere save for the US alone in vaccine development. In contrast, plenty of wealthy democracies, like Japan, Switzerland, Australia or South Korea are MIA in vaccine development. The case has sometimes been made that in the long run R&D requires democracy to fluorish,  but covid vaccine development stands as a pretty strong counterexample, while giving Russia its biggest soft power victory since Yuri Gagarin. Given democracy was already under assault or already rolled back in quite a few places before the pandemic, none of this bodes well for democracy around the world.

[Caracal]

In addition, if the younger individuals, less subject to cost, are unvaccinated and get Covid, they will contribute to herd immunity. At least in the US, there is no shortage of the vaccine, and anybody who thinks the risk is too great can get vaccinated at zero monetary cost.

Vaccination immunity is more protective. Although, actually it appears that getting the virus and then being vaccinated provides the strongest protection.