Honestly, I feel like the pandemic politics predated all the right wing conspiracy theories emergence. The democrats/progressive left/resisters decision to make Covid the central issue to oust Trump is the more likely genesis. Very early on (Jan/Feb 2020) everything the Trump administration was doing was met with immediate 180 degree resistance from the progressive left and the left-leaning media. Including things they later supported—Travel bans, social distancing suggestions and yes, even the vaccine too.
Before I get accused of being a conservative or a Trumpie…I’m not and far far from it. But…I am not willing to excuse problematic approaches that have negative downstream unintended consequences even if the initial intention may have been positive.
Blaming the right is akin to being mad when the person you punched in the nose decides to fight back. How dare they!
Your comment history betrays you.
Just because I don’t hold the established dogmatic progressive opinions on every topic doesn’t mean I am conservative or supported Trump. Don’t make politics a religion.
> I suspect that if this omicron had emerged in 2018 at least with the symptoms and lack of severe disease that we have seen so far…it would likely have been described as a virulent common cold and may have gotten an occasional news mention, but zero public and government panic.
This is so wholly inaccurate, it's beyond the pale. Our average daily death rate from Omicron has already exceeded Delta. Omicron 'seems' milder overall due to the high level of vaccinations which prevent hospitalization and death and decrease transmission. If Omicron came out first, our overall death rate would be far beyond the 870,000 US deaths we've seen so far. And there would have been far more refrigerated morgue trucks at the hospital down the street from me in the initial wave.
This smacks of a “believe exactly what my church believes or you are going to hell you evil sinner” Zealotry at its finest.
As for your comments about the deaths attributed to omicron… post some statistics. Because what you are saying here doesn’t jive with what I am reading AND more importantly doesn’t jive with what a lot of countries are doing in regards to Omicron. Most notably and recently being Denmark.
The overall lower deaths and hospitalizations due to Omicron are due to the vaccines. Generally, if you're vaccinated and boostered, your case of Omicron is relatively mild. Though not always, as my sister's Father-in-law found out winding up with afib in the hospital. If you're unvaccinated, you're not so lucky. Currently 2,000-3,000 daily deaths in the last 7 days in the US as per the CDC [2]. And that's with ~64% of the US population fully vaccinated. If this happened in 2018 with none of the population vaccinated, no knowledge of the spread or how to prevent it, etc... it would have been very bad.
[1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/omicron-deaths-in-u-s-exceed-de...
[2] https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#cases_totaldeaths
For what it’s worth here is the quote in its entirety. If you read the parent thread it was speaking to cloth vs N95 efficacy:
“Personally I think cloth masks are worthless for anything but the most casual exposure to the virus, and then for it to maintain any reasonable protective effect, you would need to remove and dispose of the mask as those luckily trapped virus particles can dislodge and infect. Continuing to wear a cloth mask that has accumulated virus particles in it just turns a chance casual exposure into a long term one.”
Now, explain how that opinion is in conflict with this CDC mask guidance which is less than one week old:
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-si...
Here’s the NYT reporting on the change in CDC masking guidance:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/14/health/cloth-masks-covid-...
Here is WebMD making the argument against against cloth masks due to their lack of efficacy:
https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20211229/cloth-masks-vs-surg...
Or this lovely gem from the CDC which basically tells me that, because of my choice of facial hair, pretty much all masks short of a space suit are worthless:
https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/npptl/pdfs/facialhairwmask11282017...
If you are going to assume my quote about the worthlessness of cloth masks makes me a conservative trumpie, then you better stop listening to the CDC, stop reading the NYT, maybe boycott WebMD for good measure too. Damn right wing organizations, them.
Also not that it matters, but in terms of public figures, my politics are probably closest to Bill Maher. If you think he is conservative or a Trumpie, well…I suspect anyone short of Bernie Sanders or AOC fails your acid test.
And yes, the NY Times headline "C.D.C. concedes that cloth masks do not protect against the virus as effectively as other masks" is exactly what I just posted above. We know that. We've known that. And I'll post the exact same thing again. A well fitting cloth mask is far better than nothing but less than a surgical mask which is less than an N95. It's not worthless.
Damn…40 years of undercover work wasted.
My friend's sibling just died two months ago. Otherwise healthy and everything. Not old. But in a red county with lots of Fox News watchers, so they'd avoided the vaccine. Sad thing is, the rest of the family finally talked them into getting it and they were scheduled but got Covid the week before. Dead a month later.