The one crowning achievement that T**** can take some credit for is the vaccines - however, his followers boo any mention of it.
From Alex Jones
On his Infowars show, Jones made the following statement:
This is an emergency Christmas Day warning to President Trump. You are either completely ignorant about the so-called vaccine gene therapy that you helped ram through with Operation Warp Speed, or you are one of the most evil men who has ever lived to push this toxic poison on the public, and to attack your constituents when they simply try to save their lives and the lives of others.
The very concept is absurd. When I was a child the Salk and Sabin vaccines for polio were discovered and given to us in school. I was too young to follow politics( yes, there was such a time) but I have never heard of any "politics".
They lined us up at elementary school (1950s) for all kinds of shots/doses (anyhow, the ones we had then, DPT and then polio, any others?). Wow, so respectful of parents' and pediatricians' time, so easy to reach all kids, and had to be dirt cheap too. Also on entering university there was a military-style(? no personal military experience here) physical that included at least one shot. I don't remember any of this for our kids (SOMSD 1990-2005, and then colleges).
Public health? What public health? Somewhere in there, we got really complacent, esp. about communicable disease, imo.
Vaccine hesitancy and vaccine refusal certainly existed before the pandemic, but my sense is that it did not align with partisanship. I think Trump's response to covid changed this, turning this into a partisan issue which has greatly increased the amount of vaccine refusal (with potentially worrying implications for other vaccines, not just for covid) and hardened attitudes. I doubt Trump can change this, even if he wanted to (and he has done some pro-vaccine callouts, even if its far too late and far too little) at this point.
The younger generation, those under age 50, does not have experience or remembrance of family and friends getting very sick or dying of communicable diseases that are now routinely almost entirely prevented by vaccines. Many of us older people can recall that people were in iron lungs from polio damaging their lungs. I read recently that there are still two people alive in iron lungs. President Roosevelt had polio. We gave to the March of Dimes to help stop polio. So, since this younger generation did not see the deadly effects of vaccine-preventable diseases, it is easier for the anti-vax charlatans to mislead them.
Maybe, though by the time I grew up we were already in that time when it was rare to personally know anyone killed or disabled by diseases prevented by vaccines. There were pockets of vaccine skepticism, but that was hardly mainstream -- honestly, up until recently, I associated vaccine skepticism with the crunchy left, not the populist right.
Maybe one way of looking at this is that vaccine hesitancy has a strong correlation to how alienated one feels from mainstream medicine. In some cases that alienation is very understandable, and even to a large extent justified -- say, for instance, in working class communities of color. But I think that's now been wrapped up in a more generalized feeling of cultural alienation, which for a lot of white people is tied to status anxiety in the face of changing demographics. Isn't that what all this energy on the Trumpist right is about -- people freaking out over the fact that they're no longer the default protagonists of the story of America? If vaccines are the mainstream, and the mainstream is no longer exclusively you, then being anti-vaccination is the latest manifestation of this protest against cultural change.
I'm pretty sure we've seen at least one person on this board making the declaration that if you are young, the risk from the COVID vaccines are higher than the risk from infection. And that's just not so, given the actual data. Sure young people aren't likely to die from COVID, but the negative outcomes from the vaccines are even less likely.
so it's not as though people are particularly good at risk assessment, even when presented with correct information.
One more thought: I was reading the AARP magazine that came today and there was an article about who is most vulnerable to scams. The answer is that all of us are most vulnerable to scams when we are under strong emotional distress such as a death in the family. We are not thinking clearly or critically at times like this.
So, I am wondering if Americans who are opposed to getting covid vaccinated have somehow become under strong emotional distress. I think our overly heated political rhetoric has caused many people emotional distress and thus allows for anti-vax charlatans to misguide their thinking...Just a thought for today.
The younger generation, those under age 50, does not have experience or remembrance of family and friends getting very sick or dying of communicable diseases that are now routinely almost entirely prevented by vaccines.
I was visiting my elderly friend H yesterday (remember, she’s in her mid-90s) and her grandson (a pharmacist, 30yrs), his mother V, and another couple (she’s 45y, he’s around 50y) we’re also there. V has studied some bio-science, worked in a hospital lab (I think as a clerk/phones/basic tech). H was basically left out of the conversation, which was too fast and too technical for her. Everyone apart from me is unvaccinated and everyone apart from the grandson is convinced the vaccines will kill us. They’re designed to kill us, to take over our genes and change us. The married couple proudly carry fake exemption cards declaring they’re part of a research project and are NOT to be given any ‘other’ vaccines (I also think they’re not to wear masks; they’re part of the ‘control group’ in this experiment). The grandson, unfortunately, has a cardiac condition which will be exacerbated by most vaccines so he’s waiting on a specific one soon to be released here - oh, you should have heard everyone else jump on him for that! But he can’t work without it…
Then they all started screaming about the politics behind the fears of business people not letting unvaccinated people onto their premises, and how immoral that is. I pointed out that Environmental Health laws fine the server/sales assistant, the manager, the business AND the directors of the business for any infringement and the fines are in the thousands of dollars. So this is serious for the workers, not just germ-phobia. New information they couldn’t assimilate. Grandson said when he was working, 3 weeks ago (stricter came in then) he would have been fined $14k as an intern. They shut up.
And then started talking about sovereign citizenship, under Nuremberg etc conventions.
But such people still want to buy things, consume commercial things, be fashionable, travel - in cool cars, and to distant exotic places - they want to use the best of modern dentistry and cosmetics…. In the hippy era, the anti-vaxxers lived in communes where they grew their own veggies, they invested in hydroponics and permaculture, they walked or rode for miles; spun their yarn and wove their own textiles…
I see a lot of the protest as people failing to understand communal responsibility, basic civics, and modern history (or history of population health). They’re making the issue more political than it needs to be because ‘government’ has to take overall responsibility for supply & logistics. And they can’t see that the more they protest, the harder they make it for all of us.
This virus was weaponized by trumpenstein. He played it down because it was an election year. So he promised his flock that it was just a hoax perpetrated by the left to create havoc, in an election year. He said it could be treated with small amounts of bleach in morning, and an ultraviolet light inserted orally or anally. But if we could only hold out till Easter it will completely disappear. Here we are going on two years of this thing, and now he’s telling his flock to go get vaccinated….and they’re rightly reminding him of what God told Moses up on the mountain….‘get the flock out of here’
When the vaccine came out the people most resistant were people of color. Many blacks didn't trust the medical establishment. Many of the poor then couldn't afford the time consuming effort to get vaccines. Or easy access for scheduling. Issues that have been largely resolved.
Now, the highest percentage of vaccination refusals is his MAGA crowd. 1% of the sick dying may be low but when you look at recent presidential elections or the 2000 election in Florida on sees that very small percentages are enough to flip state elections.
Trump is a narcissist. He couldn't care less about the needs of his base unless they serve his needs. Dying doesn't do that.
An observation that struck me over my holiday travels, where I was in a region where the rattlesnake flag is more common:
For the political right, the symbol and understanding of freedom is a venomous snake telling people to stay away. For the political left, the symbol and understanding of freedom is a statue with a torch welcoming people into a harbor.
I’m fascinated (and a bit disturbed) that international politics & vaccinations/covid social media mythologies are playing out over the international tennis championship circuit, and that it’s now starting to get really nasty. It was already OTT and a bit tedious with various players complaining last year that others were short-changing their practice of the full sanitising routines, or not declaring if they some of the covid symptoms so they wouldn’t be tested, wouldn’t miss various meets… And then the grandstanding over COVID’s origins, and ask-wearing, isolation, the Olympics, vaccinations, etc… Now it’s continued with greater disruptions to travel plans, then resumption but with modifications; and now the whole Djokovic saga (which is going to court). Goodness. It’s just too much, especially in this heat. Think I’ll just stick to Wordle.
I’m really getting to the headspace where I just don’t care about this year’s tennis AT ALL. 1/ No-one here believes ND has had covid because of his behaviour after ‘diagnosis’. Most are pretty much convinced that ‘somehow’ the ‘valid’ form was supplied to him for travel purposes etc. 2/ Even if he really had it, most are disgusted at the massive sense of entitlement that motivated him to travel so freely, give interviews etc before coming to Australia - and then expecting that with our massive outbreaks in Melbourne & Sydney, we’d welcome him with hugs and kisses. He’s been here before; he knows what we’re like with contraband fruit, plants, livestock etc. He’s seen the sights in Melbourne, the specialist contagious diseases hospitals & labs etc (you drive past a couple from the airport). 3/ Our PM and Ministers, and the State government (that didn’t need to be involved): why pick a fight with Eastern Europe, and NOW??? I mean, Scovid, just shut up and let people do their jobs quickly, diplomatically, and send the Ego home???
Sigh.
No, the current refusal and judge’s decision is how much of anti-vaxxers’ martyr ND will be if allowed to stay and play vs kicked out. Yep, really.
oh no; just realised there’s meant to be some fancy swimming comps soon too, aren’t there? Pan Pacs?
not sure if you’ve heard our industrial hilarity this week re abattoir workers, covid, and hair nets.
I’m really getting to the headspace where I just don’t care about this year’s tennis AT ALL. 1/ No-one here believes ND has had covid because of his behaviour after ‘diagnosis’. Most are pretty much convinced that ‘somehow’ the ‘valid’ form was supplied to him for travel purposes etc. 2/ Even if he really had it, most are disgusted at the massive sense of entitlement that motivated him to travel so freely, give interviews etc before coming to Australia - and then expecting that with our massive outbreaks in Melbourne & Sydney, we’d welcome him with hugs and kisses. He’s been here before; he knows what we’re like with contraband fruit, plants, livestock etc. He’s seen the sights in Melbourne, the specialist contagious diseases hospitals & labs etc (you drive past a couple from the airport). 3/ Our PM and Ministers, and the State government (that didn’t need to be involved): why pick a fight with Eastern Europe, and NOW??? I mean, Scovid, just shut up and let people do their jobs quickly, diplomatically, and send the Ego home???
Sigh.
No, the current refusal and judge’s decision is how much of anti-vaxxers’ martyr ND will be if allowed to stay and play vs kicked out. Yep, really.
oh no; just realised there’s meant to be some fancy swimming comps soon too, aren’t there? Pan Pacs?
not sure if you’ve heard our industrial hilarity this week re abattoir workers, covid, and hair nets.
Hawke said he accepted Djokovic’s recent Covid-19 infection meant he was a “negligible risk to those around him” [emphasis added], but that he was “perceived by some as a talisman of a community of anti-vaccine sentiment”.
While he said that, our rules state that if you’re positive, you and your household isolate for 7 to 14 days depending on the State you’re in, and people arriving from overseas must isolate for 14 days in medihotels, in their rooms. He was expecting to be able to leave isolation to train on-court, and hold PR events, as he had elsewhere. As such he had already breached our visa entry requirements.
P.S: 2 members of my family here in Queensland currently have covid and another 2 are household members of one of them, so I’m fully aware of the national rules isolation/quarantine rules. 2 cousins have recently left Melbourne for California, to be with their daughter for the birthday of her baby (their first grandchild). She and her partner have recently had covid, so they’re expecting to contract it, too; luckily they’re fully boosted, but we did discuss what will happen for their return travels. Our entry rules aren’t just tough on visitors…
I’m not sure what you’re getting, how updated it is. They’re on lunch-break in the court hearing now. Thought some of you might find the live blog link useful.
I’m watching the livestream of the decision - it’s been dismissed, and he’s to be sent out of the country. (Although he was allocated a playing slot that will now be reassigned)
Basically, the Chief Judge summarised that it’s not the Court’s position to determine the ‘ethics’ /integrity (my words, since I can’t remember his words) of the Executive’s decision at this time. The full reasons will be available later.
The one crowning achievement that T**** can take some credit for is the vaccines - however, his followers boo any mention of it.
From Alex Jones
On his Infowars show, Jones made the following statement: