Free in home covid tests

[mister_coffee]

I really can't ever get the argument here.

It is well-established in law that the state can require you to get a vaccination (Jacobsen v. Massachusetts). We also routinely imprison people who have HIV or tuberculosis and refuse to take medication (or sometimes even wear a mask).

So my question is, "why is COVID different?" You can't rationally argue because COVID has a lower death rate, because even with that lower death rate COVID kills far more people in a month than HIV or tuberculosis kill all year.

So what exactly is the fundamental freedom that is being infringed? The right to die from a disease? The right to give that disease to others and possibly kill them?

[PAL]

Well, gee gosh by golly by cracky, maybe the Bloomberg article is just relaying some knowledge and common sense approaches to disease.
Ken you seem to be so threatened by all of this. You are so afraid and uptight about someone suggesting good hygiene measures against a wiley virus they still don't know that much about. They admit it. Because it changes so rapidly. You ought to know, since you had it twice. And probably will again. And I hope you are lucky and it does not devlep into long Covid. But they have studies that is does affect the grey matter of the brain. Good luck.

[Rideback]

From Bloomberg:

'
Will the vaccine protect me from long Covid?
I’m over 70 and I’m vaccinated, boosted and received my bivalent booster a couple of weeks ago. I’m one of the lucky ones who hasn’t contracted Covid-19 or any of its variants. My question is: If a person contracts Covid now, do vaccination and boosters help prevent long Covid – or is that just the roll of the dice? Cindy, Washington

The answer is yes — to both scenarios.

“Yes, vaccinations and boosters help prevent long Covid, and yes it’s also a roll of the dice,” says Jessica Justman, an infectious diseases specialist and epidemiologist at Columbia University.

SARS-CoV-2 has been steeped in uncertainty from the start, and there is still so much we don’t know about the virus and its effects on humans. That applies here, too. The diverse array of lingering symptoms that have come to be commonly known as long Covid might, in fact, be one of the biggest mysteries associated with the disease.

But we can safely presume that you won’t get long Covid if you’ve never been infected with Covid.

Stopping any disease totally is tough, but there are preventative measures that lower your risk of infection, Justman says. Those include “vaccination, masking, social distancing, hand hygiene and using rapid tests before large family gatherings.”

These practices are especially important during the holiday season, which coincides with the season of winter illnesses. They can also reduce the chance you’ll become severely ill if you’re infected, which also makes long Covid less likely, Justman says.

A few published studies have suggested long Covid occurs less frequently among those who had Covid after being vaccinated. At least one study has shown rates of long Covid decreasing with every additional round of shots. But there is a lot of work left to understand the illness. And vaccines don’t offer perfect protection.

“This is where the roll of the dice comes into play,” Justman says.

If you have certain conditions that put you at increased risk of long Covid, such as allergies and certain lung diseases, limiting exposure the disease is also important, she says.

So now that the holiday season is in full gear, make sure to stock up on hand sanitizer, masks and rapid tests alongside the bubbly and blinis. — Kristen V. Brown

[dorankj]

Gee, gosh, why would someone who has worked in municipal government for over 25 years (and still does) warn about overreach, giving away personal autonomy, and the often mindlessness of ‘official’ bureaucrats with too much power? Think real hard!

[just-jim]

Yeah, who wants rights? Government will care for us!

Hearing someone - who held a government job for many years (and might still get a pension from them) - continually whine and moan about ‘rights’, ‘big gubmint’, gubmint over-reach, etc, etc is not just the ultimate hypocrisy. It is laughable.

[PAL]

Ken, when will you be eligible for Social Security or Medicare? If you feel this strongly about government interference you should forfeit yours to give to someone who really needs it.
No, there's no mandate, only people using their best judgement now.
The government didn't care when Trump was in charge. He said there were only 5 cases, it would go away, there will be a miracle. Try bleach in your veins. He said this, He said this sh--t. I heard him on live TV. He knew nothing and he didn't care one whit. Birx and Fauci gave him looks when he mentioned the bleach treatment.
I sure want rights, but you support taking them away. Women's rights, reproductive rights. Your belief system imposed upon others who don't think like you.

[dorankj]

Yeah, who wants rights? Government will care for us!

[mister_coffee]

Best estimate is that of approximately 1 million covid deaths in the United States, approximately one third could have been prevented by people just taking the damned vaccine. So if you were opposed to mandatory vaccination in my view you own those deaths.

https://www.npr.org/2022/05/16/10990704 ... toll-worse

If you argue that not getting vaccinated was an exercise of your rights, and you died because you weren't vaccinated, I suppose I can at least respect that. But expecting others to die for your rights is just foul.

[dorankj]

But no mandate! My oh my.

[PAL]

https://www.wenatcheeworld.com/news/cas ... 25%2c+2022

This is how it's done. Evaluate the situation anc act on it.

[mister_coffee]

There is also a universal pan-coronavirus vaccine in human testing. Since there doesn't seem to be the perceived urgency for rapid availability it probably won't be available to the likes of us for several years. But it is on the way.

[Rideback]

Long covid symptoms are changing as the different variants move through a population. Here's a piece from Australia where they're trying to piece together the puzzle of long covid.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/health/2022 ... QN0vMXZh9A

[just-jim]

I agree with you, MC! The willful ignorance is appalling.

An interesting development in vaccines…..

“A universal flu vaccine that protects against all strains of the virus could be available in the next two years, according to a leading scientist.

An experimental vaccine based on the same mRNA technology used in the highly successful Covid jabs was found to protect mice and ferrets against severe influenza, paving the way for clinical trials in humans.

Prof John Oxford, a virologist at Queen Mary University in London, who was not involved in the work, said the vaccine developed at the University of Pennsylvania could be ready for use the winter after next.

“I cannot emphasise enough what a breakthrough this paper is,” Oxford told the BBC’s Radio 4 Today programme. “The potential is huge, and I think sometimes we underestimate these big respiratory viruses.” “

https://www.theguardian.com/society/202 ... -scientist

[mister_coffee]

It is obvious that the right-wing kooks have a broken risk evaluation system.

Think about it. The 100-year average for fatalities from grizzly bear attacks is about 1 person per year. And for the vast majority of the population the is at zero risk for a grizzly attack. Contrast that with covid, which has killed on the average more than 300,000 Americans per year over the last two years, and you can't choose to move to Florida or Texas to get away from the risk.

So a reasonable and intelligent person would be approximately 300,000 times as concerned about COVID-19 than Grizzly Bears. But we see the opposite amongst right-wing kooks. In the face of that risk, low-cost interventions like wearing a mask, getting vaccinated and boosted (your risk of croaking from COVID is about 12 times higher if you are unvaccinated than if you are vaccinated and boosted), and getting a test and isolating if you have symptoms are what intelligent and reasonable people would do.

[PAL]

I'm not telling people to mask. I'm pointing out that some of us do not want to get the virus.
Rideback makes a good point. People don't stay home because they have the sniffles and most don't wear a mask if they do. I was in a store a couple of days ago and someone had a big bad deep cough. Was I glad I was wearing my mask? You betcha. That's not to say that maybe it was a smokers cough or they may have had lung cancer. I don't know. I only know I was glad I was protected.
It's up to me. I don't go around tellng all those unmasked people to mask up. They don't want to. If they want to get the virus and suffer the consequences they can.
I was just pointing out there is a solution to keep from passing disease.

[Rideback]

The difference in your statement is that people who mask up are at the front end of prevention, not giving it to someone else and then if they wear a N95 or K95 having a good chance of not breathing in the virus that infects themselves. Staying at home to isolate is critical but not the same and I always wonder how many people knowingly have the virus and are not wearing masks that would protect other people from getting the virus from them.

[Jingles]

Or instead of telling everyone else to mask up if people would actually keep their sick a$$e$ home when they are experiencing symptoms of an illness be it the Fauci Flu, seasonal flu or just a common cold. But that would mean people actually had common sense and courtesy

[PAL]

I still mask, especially now with the influx of visitors to the Valley. We know who the checkers at Hanks are that mask. So much contact with many people. Now there is the flu and RSV to add to the mix. Oh yes, it's true we have lived with many viruses in our life times. Polio was a bit scarry wasn't it? But the Covid virus is a game changer because of long Covid, because of the possilby losing taste and smell.
And here is something:
"China's problem is they won't admit their vaccine doesn't work and they won't accept the vaccine the USA has offered them.

"In the previous 24 hours, the number of new COVID cases rose by 31,444, the National Health Commission said Thursday. That’s the highest daily figure since the coronavirus was first detected in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019."

Eh, let us mask if we want to. There is much hand wringing about the triple threat. It wouldn't be such a threat if people would willingly mask up in crowds. But they won't, so hospitals will continue to be crowded.
And do remember that some people, are immunocompromised through no fault of their own. We have a relative that can't get the vaccine because of his condition. He did get Covid because the home health care worker coming into the house gave it to his mother-in-law(who did die in the hospital from it) He lost his taste and smell and still hasn't regained it back from last year. He does not want to get Covid again, so will continue to mask.

[Rideback]

No.

[Jingles]

You bet. My best friends parents just died from it. The new variant is more resistant and has higher stats for long covid.

Rideback sorry to hear about your friends parents truly I am, however it raises a question for me, were they also vaccinated and had their boosters?