COVID-19 Megathread 6: Return of the Omicron

[Former President tack50]

It's pretty similar to March though in that there's widespread community transmission. Schooling is important, but there's no way it'll be safe with the situation being as it is currently. And the way to get case numbers down quickly enough to start reopening some stuff and not to have an agonising drawn-out economic & health disaster is to go for a hard lockdown.

America had a hard lockdown for 2 months. It didn't work.

That was not a hard lockdown. That was 50 states doing 50 different things.

Do you think Spain had a hard lockdown?

Spain did actually drive down their case curve pretty hard and relatively fast. No one policy is going to solve it forever, and it seems Spain made mistakes in recent weeks that caused their case numbers to rise (their case numbers are not more than double the numbers in the first spike, as has been seen in the US though).

If I had to guess what has caused the big spikes here, it seems that what is being blamed the most is nightlife related stuff, so bars, pubs, etc; as well as simply young people meeting by themselves and partying

This data is 5 days old but it still illustrates the point. 75% of spikes in Spain have 10 positive cases or less and can be reasonably tracked.

The remaining 25% (120) have more than 10 cases. Of these, 90 involve family reunions and similar kinds of meetings while 30 involve nightlife.

However, the 30 spikes involving nightlife are a nightmare to track as they involve hundreds of people infected at once; and they account for 1100 positives. Meanwhile the 90 spikes involving family reunions only have 760 positives.

In fairness, with an economy so dependent on tourism (tourism is 16% of GDP) it was inevitable that we had to reopen but it seems we reopened too much

I wonder if that is also the case in Florida; though if so I'd also expect big spikes in other tourism heavy states like California, which does not seem to be the case.

[Former President tack50]

I kinda want to open schools just to spite teacher unions but ik its probably too risky of an idea(by spite teacher unions I mean ones in Oakland that want to limit live online instruction to 2 hours a day)

Putting children and adults at risk of dying to own the libs...

[Former President tack50]

Good grief! I just don't get it.

Of course I think schools should offer online instruction, but I don't understand the fetish for moving everything online when some families want in-person classes. Online schooling is only good as a short-term solution, but it's been going on since March.

Sooner or later - like very soon - we've got to get our schools back open just like normal. When I first voted when I was 18, one of my priorities was education. There's no way an all-online system would have been tolerated back then, even if it had been invented.

I know there's some people who still have some fear, but this is something we as a community and nation are going to overcome.

This does not apply to primary school education (or even to high school though a model like this could be implemented there), though I will note that distance learning is nothing new, especially at the college level.

No idea if there is anything similar in the US, but at least here we've had the chance to do distance education at the college level since the mid 1970s, well before the internet even existed!

Of course, back in the 70s and 80s, instead of getting your lessons through the internet, you got them by watching them on TV or listening to the radio (this university ran a TV program and a radio program); or alternatively you'd get mailed a VHS tape (or later CD-ROM or DVD) with your lessons.

Though it is worth noting that this university did (and does) still use in-person exams. (Well except in 2020 because covid of course)

Still its existance does prove that, even back in the 70s or 80s, distance education was already a thing, albeit implemented differently.


In any case I personally think the US just screwed up in reopening schools way too early. It is still August. I understand why schools can and should be reopened, but the start of the school year should have been delayed?

From what I understand the average school year in the US is worth roughly 180 days of classes (36 weeks). Is it so hard to do a schedule like this?

October: 4 weeks
November: 4 weeks
December: 2 weeks (2 weeks Christmas break)
January: 4 weeks
February: 4 weeks
March: 5 weeks
April: 4 weeks
May: 4 weeks
June: 5 weeks

The school year would run from October 5th to July 2nd. Now, finishing the school year in July and having no spring break whatsoever would suck (you can add 1 week of spring break of course, at the cost of finishing a week later).

Still a calendar like this would buy 1 and a half months worth of time to get the pandemic under control and allow for at least primary schools to reopen (with tons of safety measures and social distancing of course)

Accounting for bank holidays the school year might need to be prolonged even more, but still, an October 1st to July 2nd school calendar would be perfectly fine

[Former President tack50]

Very much true, though as I've said, the second category predominates. For example, I had to checkout ~25 customers within the span of half an hour or so yesterday. Out of those 25, only one person was maskless; all the rest were wearing masks. And the previous day, I had a line of four or five customers, with one maskless person in that line. The maskless certainly do stick out these days, and are a reminder that even the most vigorous orders coming from government cannot compel absolute compliance from everyone. You're always going to have those who rebel against the system or deviate from societal norms.

Once the police fine those people a couple of times, they will start complying no problem; even if it is because of fear of being fined rather than because of the COVID prevention. I would personally fall on that category when in the streets; as I wear a mask only because of fear of being fined, not because I think it is useful when in open spaces (in stores and enclosed spaces I do see its usefulness, but it's always been mandatory here in stores anyways)

Even businesses independently putting orders of "no mask, no service" would already do a lot to force people to comply

[Former President tack50]

Very much true, though as I've said, the second category predominates. For example, I had to checkout ~25 customers within the span of half an hour or so yesterday. Out of those 25, only one person was maskless; all the rest were wearing masks. And the previous day, I had a line of four or five customers, with one maskless person in that line. The maskless certainly do stick out these days, and are a reminder that even the most vigorous orders coming from government cannot compel absolute compliance from everyone. You're always going to have those who rebel against the system or deviate from societal norms.

Once the police fine those people a couple of times, they will start complying no problem; even if it is because of fear of being fined rather than because of the COVID prevention. I would personally fall on that category when in the streets; as I wear a mask only because of fear of being fined, not because I think it is useful when in open spaces (in stores and enclosed spaces I do see its usefulness, but it's always been mandatory here in stores anyways)

Even businesses independently putting orders of "no mask, no service" would already do a lot to force people to comply

Well, it's highly unlikely that fines over mask-wearing come to Colorado. When Polis issued his mask mandate back in July, several of our country sheriffs-including the Sheriff of El Paso County, where I live-stated that they would not enforce his mandate, and that they would only respond to trespassing, not mask violation, calls from local businesses. And my own workplace (Home Depot), has told us not to confront or deny service to maskless customers, as I've noted before. At work today, I saw at least a dozen maskless customers in one hour. 85-90% of people are still complying with the mask mandate, but it seems like the numbers of maskless may be back on an upwards trajectory as we enter September. I'm aware of how your native country (Spain), has been among the harshest in terms of dealing with violators of your mask mandates.

Yeah I guess if police don't enforce the mandate, then it is not going anywhere. Though given El Paso County seems to be a very Republican county I wonder if things are different in say, Denver or something

As for stores individually not doing it I guess it is probably not worth it for the 10% or so of maskless people

[Former President tack50]

Data from Europe, but should be same'ish in US as well.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-deaths-in-europe-are-overwhelmingly-among-those-over-60-11606053600
Covid Deaths in Europe Are Overwhelmingly Among Those Over 60
Survival rates improve modestly, but disease still takes the elderly, and more men

LONDON—Europe’s older citizens are bearing the brunt of the coronavirus pandemic’s second wave in the region.

People over 60 make up more than nine in 10 fatalities linked to Covid-19 since the start of August, figures show, with more men than women succumbing to it. The virus has now claimed more than 1.3 million lives world-wide.

The pattern, similar to that observed in Europe’s first wave of the pandemic as well as in the U.S., highlights the danger the virus continues to pose to older age groups and the difficulty of shielding the most vulnerable if the pandemic spreads more broadly, researchers say.

The policy conclusion: If the virus gets out of control in the community, there isn’t a practical way to prevent older people from catching it.

Doctors say they are seeing modest improvements in survival rates among all age groups, as their armory of treatments expands and their knowledge of the disease deepens.

“On the ground, the demographic is pretty similar to what it was,” said Tom Wingfield, an infectious-disease physician in Liverpool, England. “But people are having better outcomes,” he said.

Demographic data on all deaths in Europe isn’t available. But an analysis by The Wall Street Journal of around 78,000 deaths in an ECDC database of patients hospitalized with Covid-19 shows that in both the first and second waves more than 90% of deaths were in those age 60 and over.

Those over 80 years old account for a slightly higher proportion of second-wave deaths, with 67% of fatalities in that age group from Aug. 3 to Nov. 15. That compares with 60% for the year through July 31. Men made up 56% of all deaths across both waves.

Statistically, one average death from Covid-19 is probably equal to about 1/5th-1/10th of a death in a normal epidemic in terms of years of life lost.

https://twitter.com/hannah_natanson/status/1331236497308180480
https://twitter.com/hannah_natanson/status/1331238704099291140


And if you think, the kids will catch up... most/large share of the most vulnerable won't. There are a lot of rigorous studies that say that damage will be permanent. It will lead to more drop-outs, worse marks, worse academic and job carrier and overall a worse quality of life for (tens of???) millions kids. It means also shorter life expectancy. And the more time schools are closed, the more damage and the more difficult for kids to catch up.

Especially for poor kids.
Especially for minority kids.
Especially for kids with disabilities.
Especially with Math and English, two arguably most important subjects.

With other words it won't significantly effect the kids of White Wealthy Libs (that is the owners of Democrat Party), but it will effect greatly the kids of the backbone of the Democrat Party.

Remember, it didn't need to be like that. It didn't happen at such large scale in Europe in Spring, despite them being hit much harder than US. And that didn't happen in Europe after summer school breaks at all. Science (at least since May/June) say it should NOT be happening. It was a political decision against Science. All this is due to #resist Bad Orange's call to reopen schools. If you voted for these people, it's on you. No ifs or buts.

Failure rates of 80% are nothing unheard of in college, so at least said students will be better prepared for what their post-HS life will look like when 80-90% of the class fails

Now seriously, Europe at-large is more than enough evidence that schools should have remained open.

[Former President tack50]

Our national debt is at a dangerous level. Therefore, I oppose any new massive stimulus packages.

and we have almost 28 TRILLION DOLLARS of national debt! No more major stimulus packages please. I am done with this bull.

There is literally 0 danger from the "national debt" to anything. The only danger is an imaginary danger that is infecting your mind and causing you to support sabotaging the economy and making people worse off due to insufficient spending power circulating through the economy.

Late, but Greece circa 2013 agrees with this statement

[Former President tack50]

Our national debt is at a dangerous level. Therefore, I oppose any new massive stimulus packages.

and we have almost 28 TRILLION DOLLARS of national debt! No more major stimulus packages please. I am done with this bull.

There is literally 0 danger from the "national debt" to anything. The only danger is an imaginary danger that is infecting your mind and causing you to support sabotaging the economy and making people worse off due to insufficient spending power circulating through the economy.

Late, but Greece circa 2013 agrees with this statement

The key difference you are overlooking is that Greece does not control its own currency and have its own central bank, whereas the USA does. Greece is in essentially the same position as US states and municipalities are in, as well as in the same position as you, me, other individuals, and private companies. You and I (and US states, and Greece) do have financial constraints to how much debt we can take on, but the US government is in a very different position because it has a money printing machine. Do you have a money printing machine? No. If you did though, you could print as much of it as you wanted. That is the position the US Federal government is in. There is no financial constraint to how much money the US government can create. The only constraints on what the US government can do are questions of how much money it is wise to print/create. The risk of creating too much money is that at a certain point, if you make too much of it, there may be inflation. So the US government does and should have to worry about macroeconomic considerations like inflation and the unemployment rate when setting its fiscal policy, but there is no reason to ever worry that the USA will run out of money. Currently, since inflation is low and unemployment is high, that is a signal that it is macroeconomically warranted for the government to run larger budget deficits. Of course, if we spend too much and inflation gets too high (and if the reason it is getting too high is we don't have underutilized productive capacity), then that would call for smaller budget deficits. But that is emphatically not remotely the current situation, and it won't be the situation in the foreseeable future, in particular if the Republicans keep blocking additional much needed stimulus.

Ok, if your solution is "money printer go brrr" change that from 2013 Greece to 2013 Venezuela I guess. Or Weimar Germany.

[Former President tack50]

Actually, little known secret - most money is not created by central banks, but by commercial banks, and monetary creation is a prerequisite for economic growth. Point being, at the this moment at time, the pressure is deflationary. When the economy is not turning at full capacity, injecting money won't lead to excessive inflation, as monetary injections would only cause excessive inflation when there is no capacity in the economy to increase production to meet the extra demand generated by an increased monetary supply. That clearly isn't the case at the moment, when the proverbial factory has stopped running and when the commercial banking system's monetary creation isn't working because it has no incentive to risk lending into an economy that is in recession and might therefore not be able to pay back the debt. It's a hell of a different situation to Weimar Germany's inheritance of the war machine or Venezuela's crashing oil prices. You need the state to be putting money into the economy, whether through the central bank or through debt. Inflation is not a worry right now.

As for debt, well you're Spanish, you literally come from the country that had a budget surplus and the lowest public debt in the EU - even better than Germany - in 2008, and still got stung almost as hard as anyone else by a sovereign debt crisis that you did a better job than literally anybody else - again, including Germany - in preparing for. The problem isn't debt, it's being vulnerable, and now is not a time to make yourselves vulnerable by believing in voodoe economics about budget surpluses or discredited monetary policy.

At the risk of deraling the thread...

I mean, yes inflation is low enough that printing money is a decent idea, but it is not one that can be sustained indefinitely.

As for the Spanish comparison, yes, Spain circa 2008 had pretty good finances, but it pissed them all away in absolutely awful stimulus programs that did little to actually stimulate the economy (not to mention the double dip recession that all of Europe went through)

I actually have a positive opinion of PM Zapatero, but his handling of the economic recession was, by far the worst in all of Europe outside of Greece (who was making up its economic numbers so it's not a fair comparison)

[Former President tack50]

Wow, pathetic numbers from the US. The UK beat them and Italy already caught them up. Total losers.

And Spain number 1 as always and as we should be 

/S

[Former President tack50]

https://twitter.com/BNODesk/status/1353436811276775425

Is this legal? Wouldn't it be the sort of issue that is decided state by state or even county by county?

[Former President tack50]

I WANT KIDS BACK IN SCHOOL NOW!!!

I actually took a deep look at US Covid statistics, so I am more confident than usual to answer this I may be doing the math wrong.

The state of Virginia seems to have somewhere around 820 cases / 100k people over the past 14 days (cumulative). That is an extreme level of risk, and even I (who generally support reopening schools) think that is excessive enough to close schools.

In fact, iirc you live in NOVA if I am not mistaken right? Using Fairfax County as the reference (which seems to be doing the best of the 3 main counties), there were 6854 cases reported over the past 2 weeks. That translates to 623 cases / 100k people over the past 14 days (cumulative); which is still not safe at all.

Honestly it is hard to draw a line as to when schools should be closed. My personal gut feeling was that they should be closed when cases exceed 500 cases/ 100k over 14 days. However it seems here they are remaining open with twice, or in some cases even 3 times that; so it's hard to say.

I will still stick with my 500 cases level; which means Virginia schools should remain closed. But it really depends on the level of risk people are comfortable with.

[Former President tack50]

I don’t think the case levels of the entire population of a region should matter very much once the teachers and staff have been vaccinated.

I mean, kids can still transmit the disease to each other, and to their parents. Vaccinations help, but given kids will be the last to be vaccinated (if at all, I think current vaccines aren't authorized for kids) it's still a serious risk

Vaccinations probably increase the thresholds where it is safe, but it doesn't fully eliminate the risks.

[Former President tack50]

But the truth is that COVID cases went down in TX over the past month. Why are CNN/ABC/WAPO/etc. not reporting about this? Why aren't they saying the truth? They kept telling us that COVID cases would skyrocket. But they didn't. Why are they not giving us the accurate information?

I keep seeing constant segments on these news shows telling me that cases are probably going to skyrocket, that there's an impending disaster... and then cases have remained flat or even gone down...

They also carried water for Andrew Cuomo for months and months despite his super sh!tty record.

The real answer is that news media usually if not always centers on negative events over positive ones. If you want to be extra cynical you can argue that it is because negative news stories generate more engagement/viewership and therefore more profit.

But it's not really "the liberal media"; all media do that.

There is a reason why "No news is good news" is a real thing

[Former President tack50]

Australia's Department of Health has made a significant medical breakthrough in the COVID-19 vaccine rollout.

I know you guys think that because Australia has virtually no COVID-19 virus, we are not able to research the application of the vaccine in terms of the prevention of the virus. But this article proves we are at the pinnacle of medical research:

https://www.health.gov.au/initiatives-and-programs/covid-19-vaccines/is-it-true/is-it-true-can-covid-19-vaccines-connect-me-to-the-internet

"Can COVID-19 vaccines connect me to the internet?
COVID-19 vaccines do not – and cannot – connect you to the internet."

Damn, so much NWO Bill Gates conspiracies and they can't evne make a chip that can connect you to the internet? Big disappointment

[Former President tack50]

https://twitter.com/DavidJollyFL/status/1381741680903262212

This is sheer idiocy by DeSantis.  Cruising is one industry that needs to take every possible safeguard against the virus.

Can't companies just tell Desantis to go f* himself and ask for certificates no matter what?

[Former President tack50]

It's crazy to me that The risk of blood clots from birth control pills is 1 in 1,000 and it is considered a low-risk side effect. Yet Woman takes those pills every year and I don't see anybody going crazy over that

But when 6 out 7 million people gets blood clots from the Johnson and Johnson. That is apparently more than enough evidence for them to pause the Vaccine during a pandemic

I can't believe I'm actually agreeing with Ben Shapiro of all people on this
https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status/1381941944167899146

Anti-vax people have been owned with FACTS and LOGIC 

[Former President tack50]

Strongly oppose pausing J&J vaccinations. Far more people could die as a consequence of not getting their shot. It's out of question the vaccine prevents pretty much 100% of deaths from COVID, which is far, far more than might die from thrombisis. It's not even proven J&J is the cause of said complications.

Science doesn't care about your feelings

Math doesn't either.

Not sure about the J&J vaccine, but per UK studies for AstraZeneca (with similar issues) your chances of getting blood clots are higher than your chances of being hospitalized for Covid if you are above like 30.

So the US (and other countries tbh) might be well served by not using J&J in people under the age of 40 from now on..

However the messaging needs to be clear, rational and consistent which is something all European governments have failed miserably with

[Former President tack50]

Just found out my work is ending all covid guidelines in mid May.

No masks.

No temperature checks.

No social distancing.

Visitors allowed.


I’m glad I got the vaccine in January and February but this makes me extremely worried.  I work in a small space with about ten other people for 12 hours.  Almost all of my coworkers are morons and most didn’t get the vaccine and say they never will.

As long as you and your loved ones got it, there isn't much else you can do. If your coworkers catch covid, well too bad for them and they'll spread it across the office but you yourself should be safe (you could catch a very mild case, but nothing else I think)

[Former President tack50]

Royal Caribbean International is postponing for nearly a month one of the highly anticipated first sailings from the U.S. since the pandemic began because eight crew members tested positive for COVID-19, the company’s CEO said.

The brand-new Odyssey of the Seas was to set sail from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on July 3 but is now postponed to July 31. Royal Caribbean International’s CEO Michael Bayley said late Tuesday on Facebook the decision had been made “out of an abundance of caution,” adding the company is also rescheduling a simulation cruise scheduled for late June.

https://www.ajc.com/news/nation-world/covid-19-cases-delay-long-awaited-royal-caribbean-cruise/XU54SBDBI5BCTC2OGMGHA2A5BY/

There's no excuse for this to be happening with a vaccine widely available at this point. Goodness gracious.

From my understanding, the cruising industry is one of the hardest if not the hardest to make work with Covid. It's pretty much impossible to not get people infected onboard, no matter how hard they try (I think some cruising attempts were tried last summer when covid was at its lowest and they still didn't work)

With vaccines it should be possible and this is the fault of the company or the employees, but a vaccine will almost certainly be required for everyone on board, no exceptions whatsoever.

[Former President tack50]

Honestly at this point I think nature is deliberately trolling humanity with all the variants

[Former President tack50]

There's a large segment of the population in this country that remains unvaccinated, not to mention those that are under 12 and cannot get the vaccine. This is only allowing for new mutations and variants to develop as the virus gets an exponential chance to keep replicating. It's apparently not common sense that stopping transmission stops replication. Every day and every chance this virus gets to mutate is one that could render our vaccines useless or even just far less effective.

Why don't you have this concern for the flu? Every person it infects is a chance for it to mutate into something deadlier that evades all our vaccines. Right?

I have some understanding of virology. Coronaviruses and influenza viruses are very different. These vaccines we currently have are the first vaccines to ever be used against a human coronavirus. We should all be lucky they are as effective as they currently are. Influenza vaccines are generally made in advance of the upcoming season and often have a fairly low efficacy rate. (So far, we're lucky that the highly lethal avian strains haven't passed from human to human. They appear to be harder to vaccinate against. From what I recall, something in either human respiratory physiology or the shape of the virus makes it currently virtually impossible to pass from person-to-person. That prospect does scare me.) In recent years, influenza vaccine efficacy rates have varied from 10-60%. However, the flu is of highest concern among the elderly, the very young, and the immunocompromised. Vaccines in general may either be problematic or not even work for those that are immunocompromised. As for coronaviruses in general, this virus (SARS-CoV-2) is the third known fatal coronavirus in humans. Its predecessors were SARS (SARS-CoV-1) with a fatality rate of about 10% and MERS (MERS-CoV) with a fatality rate of about 35%. Generally, viruses trade off virulence for transmissibility. However, that are many instances of viruses becoming more virulent with time (examples include Ebola, West Nile, and the Spanish flu).

Right now, we have a virus running rampant across the world and replicating exponentially in every new host. So far, the vaccines are holding up, although not as much as when they were first released to the general public. But we're always one mutation away from something that will render our vaccines either useless or far less effective. I believe in erring on the side of caution. Wear masks in most indoor places when you're with strangers and maintain a certain distance from those you don't know. In restaurants, go ahead and eat normally if you're vaccinated. I plan on going to the movies soon and I'm not going to wear a mask watching the movie (but I'll still wear it other indoor public places). I want businesses to be open, but considerations need to be made, particularly in restaurants (such as reduced capacity or working to space people apart more effectively or asking for vaccine status). I think this is all a matter of risk mitigation and balancing.

Since you seem more knowledgeable than others on the issue, I have to actually ask a question. Given the extremely high risk of a mutation rendering the vaccines useless, I've long asked myself the question of: Would humanity actually be better off if a vaccine had not been developed?

My reasoning here is quite similar as to why the excessive use of anti-biotics is allowing the creation of anti-biotic resistent bacteria. People taking needless antibiotics means the bacteria can somehow "learn" how to defeat the antibiotics and create a mutation that makes it anti-biotic resistance.

So similarly, is the fact that covid is spreading to vaccinated people, and in some cases being able to infect them and what not creating a vaccine-resistant strain of covid?

Meanwhile with no vaccine, humanity would be worse off in the short term, but covid would be unable to "learn" how to become vaccine resistant (since there would be no vaccine) and eventually it would be gone in 3 years or so (much like every other epidemic in human history).

Basically my fear is that partial vaccination might somehow drag on the pandemic (meaning instead of lasting for 3-4 years it lasts a whole decade) as well as giving the virus more chances to mutate and create a worse version of itself.

Note I am borderline biology-illiterate given I dropped that class in year 7 or so so perhaps I am just saying stupid things.

[Former President tack50]

At this point, Donald Trump is one day less than six months away from "still being President", and the Delta mutation of COVID-19/SARS-2 is giving an unwelcome resurgence to a horrid disease. I suggest starting a new thread to this effect and closing this one, with the caveat that the infection and death counts be allowed to migrate to (COVID-19 Megathread 7.

Yes.  It's insane that this thread is now over 200 pages long.  I'd have to imagine it's by far the longest thread on this site and the name is just utter nonsense.  I really don't understand the mods' stubbornness on this.

COVID-19 Megathread 7:  Delta takes over

It's really that simple.

While I'd support a new thread, it is worth noting this thread does not even crack the top 10 longest threads list! (although it might eventually breach into it)

Longest thread in the history of the site is actually the 2020 election night thread, at 820 pages. The fact that such a thread was able to exist when Atlas tended to collapse on election night is a testament to Virginia's improvements to the site over the past 4 years (I still remember election night 2018 where, while the site was still up which was already a first for the site, it was too slow to be usable)

https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=409870.0

The 2nd longest thread is the Obama approval ratings thread during his 1st term, at 410 pages long. In one of his very few direct interventions, Dave closed it since it was lagging the site

https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=91754.0

I will say that the 10th largest thread stands at 212 pages, so this thread is about to get into the top 10 anyways (and starting from there there are a bunch of threads in the high 5000s, so if we can get this to 6000 replies or 240 pages we'd get to the 6th longest thread.

If we combined all the Covid megathreads this would be the 2nd longest thread ever at 710 pages or so, only behind the 2020 election night thread, but dwarfing the Obama approval ratings thread

[Former President tack50]

WSJ: EU Set to Recommend Halting Nonessential Travel From the U.S.

This is just embarrassing. They obviously have to do what's necessary to keep their people safe, so I don't fault them, but it's still humiliating for all the anti-vaxxers to be dragging us down. COVID is going to be the straw that broke the camel's back for US-EU relations.

The U.S. is more vaccinated than many EU countries. 

Let's fact check this. As of now, the EU has 64% of its full population vaccinated with one dose; and 56% fully vaccinated. The US has a very comparable 62% and 53% respectively; so just slightly behind.

So this is correct; although I will note that "many EU countries" refers here exclusively to Eastern European countries; since other than Austria (which is narrowly behind the US at 61%/52%) and Greece if you want to count them, every single Western European country has a better vaccination rate than the US (although in many cases the difference is barely significant)

For what is worth variation between EU countries is much higher than between US states although that is to be expected. Sadly not everyone can be Portugal (which has an insane 69% of the population fully vaccinated, 82% with one dose. That is equivalent to 94% and 82% of adults over 18)

[Former President tack50]

It's official: 1 in 500 Americans has died of COVID.

Wut about muh aborshun?

I am pro-choice but come on.

Anyways if you care (you don't and were just looking for a cheap shot presumably) in 2018 there were 620k abortions in the US. Assuming it has remained constant and linearly scaling to 18 months would imply 930k abortions since the start of covid.

Since the start of the pandemic meanwhile 664k Americans have died. Of course this doesn't get into the whole excess deaths debate.

So the number of Americans killed by Covid and the number of would-be Americans killed by abortion (if you thought abortion is murder; which I don't) is at least roughly in the same ballpark; with abortions probably being higher