AOC...........Do as I say, not as I do. She now has Covid.

Boiler, it is funny Trump's attorneys made the same argument in Federal Court today about not being responsible for his supporters violently storming capital because he didn't tell them to and it didn't go so well for them.

Everybody who loves Trump and hates Biden is an asshole. But not all assholes love Trump and hate Biden.

Since I neither love Trump nor hate Biden, though, I'm not part of either category. Sorry, Davey Dear. Logical error on your part.

Those failures of cognition are happening for you more and more often now. I know it must be terrifying for you and explains much of your constant anger. That and the impotence thing.

In many ways, Trump's being a chickenshit weasel and not owning up to inciting the insurrection is worse than his having incited it in the first place.

Of course, it's also really loathsome when our Trump-lickers try to apologize for him and absolve him of blame.

Aside from everything else he is, Trump's a pussy.

If AOC help sensible thoughts and policy, I would support her in a second.

What you mean is that if you agreed with her policies, you would support her. And for you, "sensible" means "things I agree with."

And please...you'd NEVER support a Hispanic female politician, even if she was a rabid RepubliQ nutjob.

Aren't black people one of the least vaccinated groups?  I'm confused. 

They are watching conservative tv shows?  

That's true. But according to a fairly large number of scholarly studies as well as surveys and polls, the very checkered history of government interaction with the Black community re medical treatment and provision of medical services has led to a substantial amount of mistrust. So when the government tells the Black community they should get vaccinated, that doesn't resonate with them as much as it should.

A large part of this stems from historic events such as the Tuskegee experiment(s), where Black people were unknowingly infected with syphillis and used as unwitting guinea pigs. This was over 50 years ago, but a little bit of betrayal goes a long way in sowing future mistrust.

Another element is that while 13% of the nation is Black, only 4% of its doctors are Black. So it's overwhelmingly likely that a Black person has a White doctor telling them to get vaccinated. Many studies have shown that medical advice from doctors who patients identify with is more likely to be heeded.

Furthermore, as the Black community is poorer than the White community, poverty can be an obstacle to getting vaccinated. It can be something as simple as not being able to afford transportation, or take time off, to go to a vaccination site. Yes, it's relatively easy to get a shot, but the poorest people do fall through the cracks.  Many poorer counties, especially rural ones, have very limited medical facilities.

Lastly, consider that part of the disinformation campaigns that try to keep people from getting vaccinated are aimed specifically at minorities. Some of those efforts have been spearheaded by white supremacist groups (such as Fox News and the Republican party), with the goal of using covid as a tool to reduce the "inferior" population.

All these factors contribute to vaccine hesitancy. None of them are hugely significant by themselves, but in the aggregate, they have dragged down vaccination rates to the extent that the general political bent of minority populations doesn't matter as much as it otherwise would.

I appreciate you at least giving the other reasons Kevin.  

The end of the day, and this is just opinion Mr.Picture before you go on your "source" rant, I think the vaccines are showing some merit for helping lessen the severity of Covid once you get it.  Of course there are outliers and everybody's body is different.  But as far as transmission is considered, the vaccines haven't really appeared to have done much or why would all these vaccinated people be getting it (many now have had it twice even).  Are the vaccines always going to be one step behind the latest variant?  

I live in WI and this is now the second time we have exploded in Dec/Jan and this Dec/Jan is worse than last Dec/Jan and we have 60% vaccination rates this time around.

So your "not really outdoors" could be a parking garage? Or the Fremont Street Experience?

I really don't know, but it's beginning to appear that you are using weasel words here. If so, I'm not surprised.

The vaccinated people die MUCH less often, because when they do contract the virus, their immune systems are better prepared to fight it off. The body's immune system, even at peak strength, takes a day or two to fully respond to an infection. That's why even fully immunized people can feel sick for a few days.

I think you're not realizing that a vaccine does nothing against initial infection (presumably, via contact with an infected person). What it does it dramatically heighten the speed and strength of the body's response. The resulting effect is that the infected but vaccinated person spends less time as a re-transmitter of the virus, because his "viral load" remains in his body for a shorter period. So vaccines only indirectly hinder transmission, and that breaks down when an insufficient proportion of the population is vaccinated.

The reason why even vaccinated people are contracting covid is that the new strains are more infectious. It's an adaptive response on the virus's part in order to keep propagating. And by the way, the Delta and Omicron variants are just the two most successful of what have been millions of mutations since the virus first appeared. Mutations happen randomly and succeed by brute force of numbers. It's Mother Nature's equivalent of a million monkeys on a million typewriters.

The above doesn't obviate the value of the vaccine(s). As I explained above, they deter the propagation of the virus. And they lessen its severity. In a completely unvaccinated population, there will be FAR more mutations and far more successful variants. It's no accident that the Omicron variant came from the world's least-vaccinated continent.

As to why vaccines are always "one step behind"--well, since the vaccines are made from the virus itself, the virus (in its present incarnation/variant) has to exist first. There's no logical way for a vaccine to be made to deal with a variant before that variant exists (and is widespread enough to be recognized as such). The really, really good news is that all the variants use the same basic strategy (spike proteins), so vaccines meant to deal with the Alpha strain are also effective against the variants (so far!).

Wearing a mask (and the people around you wearing masks) lessens the probability of initial transmission, which vaccines do not do. Think of it as masks being a country's border fortifications and the vaccines recruiting that country's army. Invaders that get past the border wall are swiftly dealt with by the national guard, who, to extend the analogy, have been trained and armed by the vaccines.

BTW, 60% vaccinated isn't even close to the minimum needed to significantly slow propagation. If 2 out of 5 of the people you encounter aren't vaccinated, that's not safe enough. (Many studies suggest we might need to hit 90%.) And as I explained above, masks make a difference. 80% vaccinated with half of the population masking is no better than 60% vaccinated with 100% mask compliance.

As I might have mentioned before, in my county, we have 91% vaccinated AND per my infornal observations, at least 98% mask compliance. We're getting hit, but not nearly as hard as most other places. Our hospitals have plenty of room.