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I am a good old public health nurse. Since March 12, 2020, I only go out to essential places, wear an N95 mask when out, sanitize my hands frequently, social distance 6 feet outside, got vaccinated, anticipated variants and the need for boosters, and will skip my high school and my family reunion. It's really not a bad life -- it IS a life, afterall.

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founding

What is to figure out? You went to a party in Provincetown, Massachusetts, where 'mostly' those in attendance were vaccinated. How many of those unvaccinated attendees brought along substantial viral loads that they passed around like party favors. I do not want to cast aspersions, but a Provincetown party would be the last place I would want to be during a pandemic. Forty years ago, when the principal reasons that HIV spread like wildfire was precisely because large numbers of mostly young men threw caution to the wind, when their need for romance and companionship overwhelmed common sense and common decency. Not surprisingly, Anthony Fauci, then a young epidemiologist, got his first taste of what it was like to deal with noncompliant populations of ostensibly healthy young men who could not keep their hands off one another, whether it was there in Provincetown, in Soho, or in the bathhouses of San Francisco. I first came across Dr. Fauci's name in a book that I read in the late 1980s titled, "And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic, by Randy Shilts. And here we go again. This time, instead of an opportunistic autoimmune disease, we have an airborne aerosol-spread virus that is every bit as deadly as AIDS. But the insouciance and sheer stupidity of people at risk for the disease is right up there with the AIDS-deniers of the early 1980s

By some miracle, scientists and epidemiologists have been able to cobble together a collection of antiviral vaccines that so far have proven effective in reducing the severity and lethality of the coronavirus; but, like the difficulty in closing down the bathhouses, we are running into obstacles in getting people to get vaccinated, despite the deaths of some 630,000 people over the past two years, and with the death rate still climbing. The only difference seems to be that instead of Gay Pride and Liberation, the resistance centers on paleolithic-Republican rednecks, proto-Christian shamans, and an assorted collection of wizards, magicians, grifters, and assorted fraudsters and reality deniers.

I have no idea where we go from here. I think our only recourse is to shun those who refused to mask up and get vaccinated. Treat them like the medievals treated lepers. That is the only way we save ourselves. These people can rejoin society by taking sensible precautions; but if they refuse to do that, I have no sympathy for them. Trying to reason with them, cajole them, bribe them, beg them, and lecture them has proven to be wholly ineffective. It is an apocalyptic vision, but they leave us few alternatives. They have to want to save themselves, but allowing them to drag us down because they are too stupid or too stubborn to pay attention is off the table. Making vaccination a condition of employment might induce some of them to shape up and get with the program, but my gut tells me a large fraction of them would prefer to be homeless and naked in the streets rather than lift a finger to save themselves.

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If anyone had been watching this from afar (such I was) the Delta variant ravaged with impunity the country of India, which is still going through the throes of it, but on lesser scale.

Of course we were talking about an unprepared and totally destroyed hospital and health care system in India, so we all shrugged and said, "That really sucks" and went back to doing whatever it was that kept us safe for the moment.

Then the monster landed here and still people were saying, "There is no such thing as Covid," "I'm not masking up," and likewise.

Then we wake up one day and see people dying from it because they neglected to get vaccinated.

But we, the vaccinated, now have to worry about not only getting it, but passing it on to some other smuck who isn't vaccinated.

It's just a never-ending clusterfuck and we're going to be doing this a lot longer than we believed at first.

I don't even bother to keep up. I keep my head down, my mask on and distance away from anyone like a former co-worker who was anti-vaccine, just barely wore a mask (with the appropriate cursing at our governor) and just recently came in to buy a Covid testing kit.

I'd be laughing at the schadenfreude if I wasn't so terrified of getting infected. Can't laugh too hard because you might be laughing last, and then on the ventilator.

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This is going to be entirely anecdotal.

I was referred to the ER last Friday by my doc for Covid testing and pneumonia testing. I have had both Moderna shots - in January and February. I NEVER leave my house without a mask on and I seldom, if ever, even leave my house. I have had TWO personal contacts in the past few months, both with friends who have been vaccinated and who religiously wear their masks. Fortunately, I tested negative on both counts, but was prescribed a ZPac, Prednisone and Benzonatate, treatment for bronchitis and sinusitis. The ER doc told me that he was seeing and treating numerous cases of RSV, which typically is dangerous for infants, but which is now showing up in seniors. With seniors, it is life threatening because it morphs into pneumonia.

The drugs have worked their magic, but yesterday I called my doc and asked to be placed on his list for a Moderna booster. I was told that they were still "studying" the situation and that it might be October before that list is available. (With the way things are going now, I doubt it will be that long.) The nurse advised me to get a PDAP shot in the meantime...you know, the one that is given to infants and their grandparents?

Whatever the hell is going on surely FEELS like an alien invasion. I've done every single thing advised, including self quarantining for months on end and STILL that "thing" is finding a way into my system.

Good luck, everyone! I'm not going to fight the medical experts on this one...I'm just going along for the roller coaster ride and hoping to survive. I know you are too.

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So, you see, the vaccine was never going to prevent infections or transmissions - although it did seem to do some of that - but what it does do is prevent SERIOUS, GO TO THE HOSPITAL AND DIE, GASPING AND ALONE cases. And you know what - I’m good with that. I’ve been ill, I’ve had chicken pox and mumps and the flu and felt pretty darn horrible for days on end - and apparently even “mild” COVID is like the worst of those - but I did it and I survived and don’t even have bad dreams about it. But I really don’t want a COVID death. So up with the sleeve, on with the mask, and grateful for the protection

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I just read that the rising Delta infections in England have suddenly stopped and reversed course. Infections dropping precipitously. There again, school is out for the summer which may have contributed. (Plus no Republicans there discouraging precautions :)

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Who’s on first?

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Dr. Fauci should hold a news conference and say, "The future is lost, I am resigning today and retreating with my wife to a small village in Northern Italy." And the President Biden should announce, "There is no hope, we are all going to die" (Actually true) and the retreat to Camp David with his family. Speaker Pelosi should announce that the country has entered the final days and then retreat to San Francisco. Fox News will freak out and Republicans will refuse to die and most will get the vaccine. The point of this is that everyone is tired of covid. Enough! I'm going to retreat to my bed and listen to the seven symphonies of Sibelius.

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I'm putting my mask back on in public. It's a minor inconvenience, and I'd like to be part of the solution, rather than prolonging the problem. I believe that the freedoms offered by our society come with a commensurate responsibility to act in the best interest of it.

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The P-town numbers are wild. As of yesterday (7/27) evening, 765 cases from that one cluster, according to www.wcvb.com -- but only 3 hospitalizations. That story doesn't say anything about how many were vaccinated, fully or otherwise. If 74% of the 469 MA residents were fully vaccinated, that still leaves over 400 with unknown vax status. Here in Dukes County (aka Martha's Vineyard), our case total since the beginning of the pandemic is roughly twice P-town's from that one cluster, about 1,450.

Fwiw, I've got several masks on the dashboard of my car, and there's always one in my hip pocket for when my dog and I walk through the woods to the PO and grocery store. Oh yeah, and one in my backpack, but I don't use that one much.

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I read today that 167,000,000 have been successfully vaccinated. The vaccine hasn't worked on about 113,000 because they've come down with the sickness. Just doing the math it appears that the vaccine is working, just not at 100%. More like 90% or so. I have three friends who were vaccinated and all three were quarantined. I was with them and for some reason I didn't get the virus. The movie they were shooting was shut down because you can't do a movie without a director and star who are infected, sick and sequestered. The whole thing is a mess, Lucian. They had C-19 guys on set testing every day. I was tested every other day. When I left I could not leave Mexico without a certificate stating I was C-19 free/negative. My friends were not so lucky.

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Even though as you say, no one has announced it I believe you are right that the delta variant could be one of many to come, and perhaps each more potent than the last to the point that

even booster shots don't work and as you say a whole new vaccine may be needed. Let's hope this will not be the case but if even if only one or two more powerful variants show up, still a big problem .It may be that herd immunity will require more than 70% of the population be vaccinated. I see recent laws that forbade local authorities from mandating mask wearing are being reconsidered. Ironically I read that some countries that had low vaccination rates but very strong mask wearing rules actually at the Covid infections under control. But try telling that to what has to be the dumbest people in the country, the anti maskers, like the ones who just had a mask burning ceremony. DeSantis incorrectly claimed " that data showed Covid-19 was not a serious risk to healthy children but that they were at risk of bacterial infections from masks and from difficulty breathing. The statement contradicts CDC evidence that shows more children have already died from the disease, 517 so far, than even in a bad influenza year. Pushaw also retweeted a Fox News story in which she insisted the new CDC schools guidance "isn't based in science."

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founding

I’m an eternal optimist and limit my obscenity but I say we’re fucked.

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Today’s NY Times article “Where People Are Most Vulnerable to the Delta Variant” notes that Taney County, Missouri, home of Branson, has a fully-vaccinated rate of 28% and a surge of COVID patients, “higher than ever.” Not unremarkably, the county is named for that most undistinguished jurist, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Roger B. Taney, who famously wrote the Dred Scott decision. Some things just don’t change.

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Dude, there is an Epsilon isn't there? Coming out of Peru.

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It’s not so different from Climate Change…or Gun Control: We doggedly following LIES from Republicans who are hell-bent on making money at ANYONES’ expense.

What astonishes me is the lack of outrage from parents whose unvaccinated children are most vulnerable. . . but Affordable Childcare is at the heart of today’s families, and that basically amounts to public schools (another Repug target).

Well, we’ll just all have to suffer from one obstructive Repug stance to the next until Life itself becomes impossible.

What a stupid country we’ve become. No “can-do” spirit here.

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