COVID-19 thread

[Raphael]

I don't know whether to laugh or cry about this:

https://twitter.com/davejorgenson/statu ... 3754664970

Either of these options would probably be healthier than repeatedly banging my head against a wall, though.

[Raphael]

Long Twitter thread from a journalist visiting Taiwan on how they've managed it to keep the whole thing so small:

https://twitter.com/josie_huang/status/ ... 0619072512

Unfortunately, there's some stuff in there that I can't imagine any Western country doing anytime soon. (The thread doesn't mention it, but I guess being physically an island might have helped, too - though there are other places whom it didn't help much.)

[Travis B.]

https://patch.com/wisconsin/across-wi/a ... tional-act

[Raphael]

https://patch.com/wisconsin/across-wi/a ... tional-act

Yeah, that might happen more often. A lot of people are messed up!

[Ares Land]

So vaccination in France is a complete disaster. (The number of vaccinated people is in the hundreds. A headline read, I kid you not: 'The rythm of vaccination accelarates: 5 vaccinated person in Nice")

Just to give an idea of the magnitude of the clusterfuck: Macron(*) is officially doing way worse than Trump and Boris Johnson.

(*) For three years I wondered if Macron actually was an incompetent narcissist or if he was really playing fourth-dimensional chess. I guess I have an answer.

[MacAnDàil]

On top of that, an unfortunately rising number (now majority) of French people refuse vaccination. https://www.francetvinfo.fr/sante/malad ... l_VRCJDFqw

This includes a majority of the general population, especially the young, the rural and the workers. At least, it's also a majority of the voters for LePen.

[alice]

THE POWER OF ROCK!!!

[Moose-tache]

What prevents European countries from just forcing everyone to get vaccinated whether they want to or not?

[Ares Land]

In Europe, I don't know, but in France it comes down to one of these, I think, or possibly all of these:
a) there's a significant demographic overlap between antivaxxers and Macron voters
b) they're nowhere near ready for a mass vaccination campaign. Keeping antivaxxers in the spotlight allows them to buy some time.
c) Macron is mates with a few higher-ups at pharmaceutical firm Sanofi. Unfortunately, Sanofi is a year late in producing a vaccine. Of course American stuff like Pfizer's must have all sorts of weird side effects.

[Creyeditor]

In Germany, I think one reason is that the bad experiences with forced medical treatments are still present in the collective memory. Even people that want to get vaccinated, do not want it to be mandatory.

[doctor shark]

So vaccination in France is a complete disaster. (The number of vaccinated people is in the hundreds. A headline read, I kid you not: 'The rythm of vaccination accelarates: 5 vaccinated person in Nice")

Just to give an idea of the magnitude of the clusterfuck: Macron(*) is officially doing way worse than Trump and Boris Johnson.

(*) For three years I wondered if Macron actually was an incompetent narcissist or if he was really playing fourth-dimensional chess. I guess I have an answer.

I dunno, better a complete disaster than totally nonexistent, as is the case here in the Netherlands: no vaccinations as of today. Zero. But maybe politicians like Macron don't surprise me so much anymore, especially in comparison to a lot of US politicians. Maybe cut from similar cloth with marginally more competence.

What prevents European countries from just forcing everyone to get vaccinated whether they want to or not?

In the Nether Regions, you also have some fairly substantial religious parties and religious factions opposed to vaccination, not to mention the government here has been pretty... well, "lax" might be a word. "Negligent" might be another. For example, we just now are in the first full lockdown since the pandemic started. Masks didn't become compulsory until 1 December.

You also have a number of elections approaching, so maybe that's a thing. The Netherlands' parliamentary election is scheduled for mid-March, for example, and Germany has Federal elections in September...

[Creyeditor]

You also have a number of elections approaching, so maybe that's a thing. The Netherlands' parliamentary election is scheduled for mid-March, for example, and Germany has Federal elections in September...

Yes, the election are definitely another reason. Mandatory vaccinations have been predicted and opposed by conspiracy theorists in the extreme right AfD and nobody wants those guys to gain any votes.

[Ares Land]

In Germany, I think one reason is that the bad experiences with forced medical treatments are still present in the collective memory. Even people that want to get vaccinated, do not want it to be mandatory.

To be fair, I don't think vaccination should be mandatory. Just a little annoyed at the coddling anti-vaxxers get here.
We should just ignore the anti-vaxxers: answering their objections just adds fuel to the file.

[doctor shark]

Here in the Netherlands, while the vaccination program is underway (and they're saying that general vaccinations should start in April, assuming that a third vaccine is approved for use!), they're talking about extending the already in-place lockdown by at least three more weeks, if not longer. (It's currently set to expire on 19 January.) Tuesdays are the press conference days, so we'll see what happens then... but, to be honest, while the numbers are going down, they're not going down quickly enough.

I still am a bit hopeful that things will approach semi-normal again this summer, but... well, I've been hopeful several times before, and that didn't work out.

[Ares Land]

Well, good luck! We'll see the end of this -- hopefully sooner rather than later.

[doctor shark]

So, despite being in the midst of the lockdown, the government here has decided that a curfew might be in order (in addition to tightening the number of permitted visitors in a day from 2 to 1, though this is, notably, a "strict recommendation" rather than a legal requirement. Still won't be hosting visitors.)

Thing is, though, the current government is a demissionary cabinet acting as a caretaker because the cabinet fell over the tax and benefits scandal, so their powers are very limited. This means that the curfew proposal has to go before parliament before enactment, which is set to happen tomorrow. This could be interesting, because the outgoing government only had 75 out of 150 seats in the Tweede Kamer (not a proper majority), and rumor has it not all the members of the current PM's party are fully in agreement with a curfew. So... will be interesting to hear.

This could be a long winter.

[Ares Land]

According to the rumor mill (which has been surprisingly reliable since the beginning of the crisis!) we'll get into a new lockdown in March.
The curfew has been moved to 6PM everywhere. Bars would probably stay closed until June (and probably later than that)

The general feeling is that of complete failure. The various restrictive measures have most of the negative consequences of an actual lockdown, but little success at fighting the pandemic. The vaccination campaign is so far a disaster. There's of course the additional worry of new variants.

On that last bit, it looks like current vaccines are indeed inefficient against the South African variant. (Which makes the general slowness of the vaccination campaign even less forgivable, given that this gives more time for resistant variants to develop...)

I mean, I know we'll come of it eventually but dear god is this depressing.

[Linguoboy]

I wish I could say things looked better over here, but I can't really. Now that we have adults running the country again, they've found that they basically have to start over from scratch with our COVID-19 response. Last week it was revealed that the government's vaccine reserve, which states were depending on for second doses for many of their residents, doesn't exist; they had to tap into it earlier than planned and didn't inform anyone. The vaccine rollout has been disappointing in every way. Distribution has been wildly inequitable, even health workers are refusing to get jabbed, and there have been reports of thousands of doses being discarded for everything from being deliberately allowed to spoil to not finding enough recipients.

Here in Chicago, there are way more people who want a dose than can get one. The City is restarting in-person classes with inadequate precautions even though they haven't been able to immunise the teachers and staff, let alone the students, and the Mayor is pushing to reopen restaurants for indoor dining even while our number of new cases continues to grow (albeit more slowly than last month).

[Torco]

we're, after a long period of veery stable numbers, starting our SecondWave(tm). to a large degree, at least amongst the people I hang out with, the mood is that of "ah, fuck it, the vaccine's probably coming this year and I'm sick of my house".

also, people are buying 5000m^2 plots of land outside of the city like crazy, it seems. possibly that's what happened to the mayans, has anyone found archeological evidence of masks in mesoamerica?

[Ares Land]

we're, after a long period of veery stable numbers, starting our SecondWave(tm). to a large degree, at least amongst the people I hang out with, the mood is that of "ah, fuck it, the vaccine's probably coming this year and I'm sick of my house".

also, people are buying 5000m^2 plots of land outside of the city like crazy, it seems. possibly that's what happened to the mayans, has anyone found archeological evidence of masks in mesoamerica?

There are a number of references to Wak' Sin in engravings at Calakmul. We don't know what it was but apparently there wasn't enough of it.

The government was testing the waters (I think that's what they were doing) this weekend with rumors of a third lockdown doing the rounds. They later relented, which suggests it wouldn't have gotten over well, with a fair likelihood of violent reactions.

(I'm pretty glad to live in the city. Having a semblance of life around, though not as we know it, has helped a lot.)