Oso planning to go pro
Brother Pakuni,I don't take political advice from my doctor.I don't take medical advice from my politicians. When it comes to Covid-19, I seek advice from people I trust. My wife, my pulmonologist in Florida who leads the Covid-19 remediation efforts at one of Cleveland Clinic's Florida hospitals. My doctor in Chicago who has treated me for 27 years. When I get a consensus, I act.NBC News, Fox, CNN, MSNBC, Talk Radio and Facebook are the LAST places I'd look for help in deciding on a vaccine.
Why aren't every one of the Frontline Doctors and anyone associated with SpeakWithAnMD in jail right now and their medical licenses revoked.
Part of me gets more pessimistic regarding COVID every day. It has fallen into the typical political pattern. Recognition that an event may impact peoples lives: Pick a side and blast the media with your stance (GOP: Hoax/Freedom/JustTheFlu; DEM: Health/Lives/Science), divide the nation as best as possible. Divide, divide, divide. Then use it as a political wedge to define your side; go to the extremes with purity tests to have a defining position for election purposes. The result ends up being that really neither side wants it completely solved, because then it can't be used as a political wedge. In the interim, people suffer and die, the economy suffers, everyone loses except for the politicians. Right now, the people in charge (DEMs) have more of a motivation to solve this, so are more likely to fall on the side of mandates; but in the end, they can also simply blame the other side for the problems and use that as political capital to potentially gain more seats/power.This could be solved already, or still now. Governors should be mandating vaccines across the board. Mask mandates in the interim until vaccines are fully executed. We could have effectively wiped out COVID in the US; and still could if these simple ideas were executed. But they are not done. Not because legally they can't, but rather an issue of political capital, and fear of losing a divisive issue that can be exploited for election purposes.It is really a sad, and depressing illustration of the state of American politics. Even in the case of saving lives, we cannot come together, but instead view it as another way to divide the nation for political gain.
That seems a very wise approach, dgies, but why are you telling me this?
Because I don't rely on my governor, be it JB Pritzker in Illinois, Ron DeSantis in Florida (or anyplace else I've lived), for medical advice. It seems like too many people are blaming governors for this mess.The notion that Governor Pritzker, Governor DeSantis, or any other elected official is responsible for the stupidity of a portion of its residents is not reasonable.
Recognition that an event may impact peoples lives: Pick a side and blast the media with your stance (GOP: Hoax/Freedom/JustTheFlu; DEM: Health/Lives/Science), divide the nation as best as possible. Divide, divide, divide. Then use it as a political wedge to define your side; go to the extremes with purity tests to have a defining position for election purposes.
So that's how we ended up here.Ivermectin fans on Facebook, complaining about wait times and high drug prices, got fed up with America’s Frontline Doctors, who sold them conspiracy and the fake cure.So they went to the feed store, to eat the horse goo, because it's cheaper.
The problem with your frequent "other people's stupidity" line that you continually ignore that in the case of COVID, that stupidity can - and does - harm others. It risks exposure. It increases the likelihood of new variants. It shuts down schools. It makes getting proper medical care more difficult.People who refuse to vaccinate and take other public health precautions aren't the same as those eating too many Big Macs or smoking. They're the people getting sloshed at the bar then driving down the interstate in a Ford Explorer.
We got a hold of the intake form for a SpeakWithAnMD doctor.One part of the questionnaire asks: “What medication do you prefer?”The user is then presented with three options: ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, or not sure.This got out of hand fast. SpeakWithAnMD now hits you with a prompt warning of long wait times due to "overwhelming demand."Antivaxxers were worried about family members dying of COVID, and they were told ivermectin cured it.They were getting really impatient.
But the harm done if you're vaccinated is comparatively minor. A few days and wham, it's gone for most Americans.
At some point, the stupid have to be stupid and we can't do anything about it unless we want to violate their Constitutional right to be stupid. We take steps to protect ourselves in concert with our doctors, nurses and other health care providers. We move on... which is what we need to do here.
Check out the Covid rates in the counties around Sturgis. Blindly letting the stupid be stupid kills people. By your reasoning, there should be zero punishment for bad/ drunk drivers. Just let ‘em be stupid.
Gosh, if I had you for a logic student, yikes!The right of free assembly, free passage etc., is guaranteed in our Constitution. The right to operate a motor vehicle, or operate a motor vehicle while impaired, IS NOT!It's about the rule of law and the guarantees each of us have as a United States citizen. Yeah, if I was Czar of America, I'd mandate vaccines for everyone. But I'm not and neither is the President, the Governor or, for that matter, the legislature. Sometimes, as we have seen at various times through the years, following the law is painful. It's why sometimes folks on the far right or the far left want to burn the country down and start over. But we don't because we recognize that even with its faults, America is the best deal going anywhere.By your logic, we wear masks and separate and avoid any social contact until either the virus is gone or everyone in America voluntarily is vaccinated. We ban automobiles because some idiot might get in one and hurt somebody. We don't fly airliners because one might crash -- after all, every now and then they do. We don't go outside because, gee, it is possible we might get hurt.In short, by this logic, we regulate for the extreme, six to nine standard deviations to the right of the mean!Brother Jockey, it's a free country. You have the right, as many of my wife's friends in Florida actually did during 2020, to bunker down in your house, have your groceries, pharmaceuticals and other staples of life delivered and to never come out. If you make sure you get a very good, very effective filtration system, you can make sure those nasty little Covid-19 bugs bother someone else. You can lead a life that many of us, myself included, would find incredibly unfulfilling.Heck, even in the evil Kingdom of Florida, you have the right to walk our streets, drive our roads and enjoy our natural beauty with a mask on. The Evil King and his Minions never forbade you -- or anyone else for that matter -- from wearing a mask.
The crux of this whole problem is that you are a Cardinals fan. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.