Coronavirus

[johnu]

Texas politician dies of COVID 5 days after posting anti-vaccine meme

 

A Texas GOP official who consistently mocked COVID-19 vaccines and masks on social media, died five days after posting a meme on Facebook, questioning the idea of getting inoculated against the virus.

 

Known for his extreme conservative beliefs and Christian faith, Apley rallied against most COVID-19 safety policies. In May, Apley posted an invitation to attend a “mask burning” at a Cincinnati bar, adding “I wish I lived in the area!”

 

Like many far-right conservatives including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Apley compared mask mandates to Nazism.

 

Some people may feel sorry for his family, but how many people have died or spent days or weeks in ICU because they believed what he was saying?

[Winstonm]

Texas politician dies of COVID 5 days after posting anti-vaccine meme[/

 

 

Some people may feel sorry for his family, but how many people have died or spent days or weeks in ICU because they believed what he was saying?

 

Chalk up another case of natural selection subtracting a dimwit - in a billion years there won’t be any Republicans at all.

[johnu]

Louisiana A.G. Encourages Employees To Undermine COVID Restrictions

 

Louisiana has the country’s highest number of COVID-19 cases per capita and one of the lowest vaccination rates right now. And the situation for hospitals and health care workers has never been worse.

 

State Attorney General Jeff Landry ® is doing his part to keep it that way.

 

On Monday, as the state’s coronavirus death toll topped 11,000, Landry sent an email to state Department of Justice employees informing them how to avoid complying with school mask mandates for children. He also advised how to circumvent K-12 vaccine requirements, though the state doesn’t have any.

 

“I do not consent to forcing a face covering on my child, who is created in the image of God,” the letter requesting a religious exemption states. “Masks lead to anti-social behaviors, interfere with religious commands to share God’s love with others, and interfere with relationships in contravention of the Bible.”

 

I love it when FAKE christians talk about anti-social behaviors. This is a FAKE christian who is a disgrace to all the non-FAKE christians.

[barmar]

What I don't get is this: What do all the politicians fighting mandates, and the people spreading conspiracy theories, get out of this?

 

I could understand Trump's behavior when he was in office -- he's a narcissist, and had to make everything about him.

 

I can even understand a politician not wanting to institute a mandate themselves, because it will alienate some voters who don't like their freedom abridged. And a "one size fits all" approach isn't always appropriate -- rural communities don't have the same needs as urban ones.

 

But why do they go further and try to block local mandates? Supposedly the local leaders know what's best for their communities.

 

Does it make them look like strong leaders, battling against an opposition trying to institute draconian restrictions?

[Winstonm]

What I don't get is this: What do all the politicians fighting mandates, and the people spreading conspiracy theories, get out of this?

 

I could understand Trump's behavior when he was in office -- he's a narcissist, and had to make everything about him.

 

I can even understand a politician not wanting to institute a mandate themselves, because it will alienate some voters who don't like their freedom abridged. And a "one size fits all" approach isn't always appropriate -- rural communities don't have the same needs as urban ones.

 

But why do they go further and try to block local mandates? Supposedly the local leaders know what's best for their communities.

 

Does it make them look like strong leaders, battling against an opposition trying to institute draconian restrictions?

 

The right is making political plays solely. Right wing politicians understand that they do not have to be for anything - all that is required is to be against. Long term it should not work. But if they get it to work short term then they can rig future outcomes to their favor or even eliminate entirely the idea of fair elections. There is a reason Tucker Carlson is in Hungary with autocrat Orban and it is not to simply piss off the left.

 

The attempt to overturn democratic self-rule is growing serious because Trump promoted it as his solution.

[johnu]

What I don't get is this: What do all the politicians fighting mandates, and the people spreading conspiracy theories, get out of this?

 

Fixing your post,

 

What I don't get is this: What do all the Confederate Repugnant politicians fighting mandates, and the right fringe whackjobs people spreading conspiracy theories, get out of this?

 

The answer is obvious. The Confederate racists, seditionists, and insurrectionists want to undermine confidence in American government and democracy so they can stage a coup and restore the New Confederate States of America.

[kenberg]

From WaPo this morning

Mr. Tipple's Recording Studio, a cocktail bar with live jazz in downtown San Francisco, surely didn't intend to be a national leader in public health. But its announcement last month that proof of vaccination would be required for all its staff, patrons and visiting musicians heralded a sea change that has occurred across the country in recent days: America's business owners have had enough of the coronavirus pandemic. Within days, the San Francisco Bar Owner Alliance — with about 500 members — embraced the move, too. "We're a group that's suffered so much the last 16 months," the alliance's founder, Ben Bleiman, told the San Jose Mercury News. "We're just tired of it."

 

And so it is that a pandemic that first saw the boldest actions taken at the most local level — restaurants and businesses — seems set for one of its final chapters to be written by private companies fed up with inaction by the federal government and the stubbornness of customers and workers who are risking the nation's hard-won economic gains by refusing to get vaccinated.

 

 

It's good to see and I hope it works. Sometime back I recommended the approach hand to be "I can't make you get vaccinated, but if you won't then stay away from me". These business owners reflect the same sort of thinking. "We're just tired of it" sounds right. Tired of listening to people speaking as if vaccines are a plot, tired of hearing people say that masks intrude on their constitutional right to spread disease, just tired of it.

 

Perhaps someday some of those who prattle on about their rights being invaded as we attempt to cope with the worst public health crisis of my lifetime will realize how irresponsible, and how ridiculous, they have been, but I am tired of waiting for this obvious conclusion to occur to them.

 

Yep. We're just tired of it.

 

 

 

 

[johnu]

Ex-Newsmax Host Who Attacked ‘Lying Freak’ Dr. Fauci Over ‘Scamdemic’ Has Died Of COVID

 

Farrel — a right-wing shock-talk pioneer born Farrel Austin Levitt in Queens — was a fervent Donald Trump supporter who railed about COVID-19.

 

In early July, he called the vaccine “Bull Shid” in a Facebook post. Later he wrote: “Why take a vax promoted by people who lied 2u all along about masks?” He claimed Democrats were plotting to make it seem like the pandemic was ongoing as part of a power grab. He called COVID-19 a “scamdemic.”

 

Raise your hand if you will shed a tear for an anti-masker, anti-vaxxer, pro-Covid whackjob who probably had a hand in countless Covid deaths of followers who believed his Covid bullsh*t. The US needs laws so that people like this can be sued for everything they have and will ever have for promoting dangerous misinformation that results in the deaths of others.

[Winstonm]

Ex-Newsmax Host Who Attacked 'Lying Freak' Dr. Fauci Over 'Scamdemic' Has Died Of COVID

 

 

 

Raise your hand if you will shed a tear for an anti-masker, anti-vaxxer, pro-Covid whackjob who probably had a hand in countless Covid deaths of followers who believed his Covid bullsh*t. The US needs laws so that people like this can be sued for everything they have and will ever have for promoting dangerous misinformation that results in the deaths of others.

I have run out of sympathy for anyone who chooses not to vaccinate.

[Chas_P]

I have run out of sympathy for anyone who chooses not to vaccinate.

I'm sure all those who were seeking your sympathy will be devastated.

[pilowsky]

There's a lot of talk in the US and in Australia about whether or not workplaces can mandate vaccination for their staff.

In Australia, it looks like the workplace laws will mean that employers may be liable for 6-7 figure fines if they do not require staff to be vaccinated.

I'm not sure why this is such a big deal - or surprise - since pre-SARS we were required to have completed vaccinations for all kinds of employment.

What I would like to see is businesses - such as restaurants - certifying themselves as fully vaccinated workplaces.

I would be keen to redirect my business (such as it is) on the basis of this type of Knowledge.

Who wants to buy food from Typhoid Mary?

Who was arrested - more than once - in the USA for violating a public health order.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Mallon

Soper notified the New York City Health Department, whose investigators realized that Mallon was a typhoid carrier. Under sections 1169 and 1170 of the Greater New York Charter, Mallon was arrested as a public health threat. She was forced into an ambulance by five policemen and Dr. Josephine Baker, who at some point had to sit on Mallon to restrain her. Mallon was transported to the Willard Parker Hospital, where she was restrained and forced to give samples. For four days, she was not allowed to get up and use the bathroom on her own. The massive numbers of typhoid bacteria that were discovered in her stool samples indicated that the infection center was in her gallbladder. Under questioning, Mallon admitted that she almost never washed her hands. This was not unusual at the time; the germ theory of disease still was not fully accepted.

[hrothgar]

I'm sure all those who were seeking your sympathy will be devastated.

 

This discussion doesn't involve you and the discussion isn't with "them".

 

The grown ups in the room are discussing whether vaccine passports are sufficient

or whether actual vaccine mandates will be required.

[kenberg]

Ex-Newsmax Host Who Attacked 'Lying Freak' Dr. Fauci Over 'Scamdemic' Has Died Of COVID

 

 

 

Raise your hand if you will shed a tear for an anti-masker, anti-vaxxer, pro-Covid whackjob who probably had a hand in countless Covid deaths of followers who believed his Covid bullsh*t. The US needs laws so that people like this can be sued for everything they have and will ever have for promoting dangerous misinformation that results in the deaths of others.

 

A while back there was a story in WaPo about a woman who had been an anti. I forget the exact details but they were approximately this: Her husband had now died of covid, her son was on a ventilator for covid.

 

She was of course hoping for the best for them, but she also wanted to go public acknowledging that she, and they, had made a tragic mistake. She quoted her son as saying "This isn't a hoax".

 

I don't cheer when people die, that's just not in me, but I do wish they would acknowledge error before passing on. And accept some responsibility, as the woman in the WaPo story was doing.

 

I don't passively accept the judgment of experts, experts can be wrong, but then I have to use some judgment because generally experts as your best, if fallible, source of guidance. Long long ago I was invited to a party, and after a bit I thought things were strange there, and after more of a bit I got up and left. There was strong urging to stay, but I left. The next day the place where the party was held was written up in the paper as a Moonie recruitment center. Not the same thing as antivaxxers, of course but there is this: A person has to be able to spot a conster when they see one. Many of these guys, and I have always included Trump in this, are such obviously bad people. Just listen a bit and how can you miss it? Details aside, I can't see why anyone trusts them for a moment.

 

Anyway, I am guessing that this guy from the obit went his way w/o acknowledging error. Iy's all like a bad horror movie.

[pilowsky]

It's incredibly sad.

In the real world, where more than half the population don't understand how to weigh up risk, they rely on concepts such as 'faith', 'hope' and the 'wisdom' of people they have been brought up to trust.

The excruciating banality of what passes for 'success' in the world where the ability to attract followers or sound like you know what you are talking about is more important than actual knowledge is terrifying.

[pilowsky]

It will come as no surprise to anyone that there is now an academic literature and a 'disbelief scale' in relation to COVID19.

This paper discusses religiosity and fear on intent to vaccinate: https://bit.ly/COVID19disbelief

[jillybean]

New Zealand has detected the first case of Covid D variant in the community and we are it total lockdown from midnight tonight.

I'm due to fly back to Canada in 2 days, oh joy.

[Winstonm]

New Zealand has detected the first case of Covid D variant in the community and we are it total lockdown from midnight tonight.

I'm due to fly back to Canada in 2 days, oh joy.

 

When you are allowed to fly, get yourself an N95 mask and wear it throughout your trip back to Canada. That will be a long flight in a closed environment.

[jillybean]

When you are allowed to fly, get yourself an N95 mask and wear it throughout your trip back to Canada. That will be a long flight in a closed environment.

 

Thanks, I discovered that international flights are not affected so everything will go as planned, well almost.

We have N95's, and are fully vaccinated, I am not worried about the return trip at all.

[Gilithin]

Thanks, I discovered that international flights are not affected so everything will go as planned, well almost.

We have N95's, and are fully vaccinated, I am not worried about the return trip at all.

Except....do you have a contingence plan if NZ decides to close its borders again?

[jillybean]

Except....do you have a contingence plan if NZ decides to close its borders again?

NZ borders have been closed since 19 March 2020. Only NZ Residents and "essential workers" (and the rich or famous) have been allowed in, via the Government run 14 day Hotel Quarantine.

Borders were opened temporarily for the short-lived bubble with Australia.

 

I'm flying out of NZ and it appears that outward travel is unaffected and one only needs to comply with requirements in destination country.

[Winstonm]

And another one bites the dust:

 

A religious radio broadcaster who spread disinformation about the coronavirus vaccines was killed by the virus Sunday. Dr. Jimmy DeYoung Sr. had been admitted to the hospital Aug. 7 with COVID-19 complications, according to his wife Judy, who also contracted the virus.

[pilowsky]

And another one bites the dust:

 

 

What did Dr. stand for?

[Winstonm]

What did Dr. stand for?

PhD I’m sure. most likely a doctorate in religion

 

Ps: two doctorates Tennessee Temple University and Louisiana Baptist

[johnu]

PhD I’m sure. most likely a doctorate in religion

 

Doctor of Quackery

[thepossum]

PhD I’m sure. most likely a doctorate in religion

 

Ps: two doctorates Tennessee Temple University and Louisiana Baptist

 

According to Twitter over the last 12-18 months PhD was equivalent to being a Doctor

 

So I have been taking all their advice accordingly