Coronavax experiences?

[Bobby Henderson]

It's hardly surprising, therefore, a third to half of the population are deeply mistrustful of the "unholy trinity." If you know that you've been lied to once, you're not going to trust that source again. So we're now into a boy who cries wolf situation: vaccination is likely the safest course of action for the overwhelming majority of those who haven't had it, but many of them simply don't believe that message, because of where it is coming from.

At this point, under current circumstances, what difference does it make?

What difference does it make IF the US government helped fund "gain of function" research of coronaviruses in Wuhan? What difference does it make if Dr Fauci knew about it or not? What difference does it make if the SARS-CoV-2 virus escaped from a Chinese lab or made the leap to humans from zootonic sources at a "wet market?" Judgment either way is still inconclusive by the way. What difference does it make who gets credit for spurring the development of COVID-19 vaccines? None of that trivia shit changes the facts of what the SARS-CoV-2 virus is currently doing in the wild.

There is no statute of limitations for criminal investigations involving conspiracies that result in bad things, like people dying. And many different parties have already been investigating every angle of this pandemic and will continue doing so and debating about it for decades. It can take years for investigations to reach a conclusion. Meanwhile, COVID-19 is killing lots of people right now.

The focus really needs to be on stopping the virus. All the people hung up on crap like who said what or who lied to who have taken their eye off the ball. It sure as hell doesn't make any difference to the virus. It's going to do whatever it intends to do regardless of what (or who) created it. What's funny is many of the people airing out conspiracy theories on cable news shows and Internet outlets have plenty of credibility problems of their own. I think at least some of those assholes can be charged with criminal liability for lethal misinformation being spewed.

If this pandemic was really some sinister anti-American plot by the Chinese government, the anti-vax, anti-mask crowd is really doing a bang-up job of playing right into Chinese government hands. They're doing that by making themselves available hosts to the virus and giving the virus the opportunity to evolve into something even more dangerous. Consider the demographic COVID-19 is killing more and more -a lot of older, politically conservative white people who don't like China. The angle of eating the horse paste just adds a nice level of comic relief to an otherwise very depressing and frustrating saga.

[Leo Enticknap]

I may have missed something Leo but I don't think the articles you linked proves your case of outright lying or even that the funds were used in a manner other than he stated.

Admittedly, you have to read between the lines of the Intercept piece - articles that set it out in black-and-white exist, but come from sources that have a reputation for political polarization such that I'd likely be violating the "no politics" rule if I posted them. My point is that the situation we now find ourselves in - around a third of the population refusing to be vaccinated, and governments resorting to sanctions and coercion in response - is fundamentally a political failure. Federal, state, and local governments (of both colors) have pretty much done everything they can to destroy trust in them over the last year and a half, and this is the result (I singled out Fauci, but he's symptomatic of a broader problem). The problem with Bobby's "I don't care about the politics" is that a big enough proportion of the population do to prevent herd immunity from being achieved.

[Bobby Henderson]

I think we've blown our chances of achieving herd immunity. It's likely scientists and medical professionals will be playing whack-a-mole battling new coronavirus variants (among other emerging pathogen threats) for years to come. We were already looking at a very difficult challenge of inoculating the populations of poor/developing countries around the world. The lunacy going on in the United States has made a bad situation worse.

Here in Lawton, Comanche County Memorial Hospital has set up tents in the damned parking lot for treating the over-flow of patients. The ER and ICU are both past capacity. Beds are lined up down the halls.

One of my boss' close friends began suffering life-threatening blood clots in his legs and chest this weekend -complications from a kidney stone procedure. He developed diverticulitis on top of that. They were finally able to squeeze him into a hospital bed last night. Our hospitals are short on staff. Doctors, nurses and other staffers are exhausted, angry and demoralized.

The hospital has reached the point where it has to choose who to treat and who to just let wait. When forced to make a choice, who are they more likely to pick to provide medical treatment? A pandemic denier suffering COVID-19 or someone else with a different yet very serious medical problem? They might inclined to tell the COVID-19 guy, "don't worry, it's all a hoax, just go home, eat some horse paste and you'll be fine."

[Marcel Birgelen]

If this pandemic was really some sinister anti-American plot by the Chinese government, the anti-vax, anti-mask crowd is really doing a bang-up job of playing right into Chinese government hands. They're doing that by making themselves available hosts to the virus and giving the virus the opportunity to evolve into something even more dangerous. Consider the demographic COVID-19 is killing more and more -a lot of older, politically conservative white people who don't like China. The angle of eating the horse paste just adds a nice level of comic relief to an otherwise very depressing and frustrating saga.

The whole story that the Chinese government would willingly release a potentially deadly virus to their own public, a virus they themselves cannot control, in order to infect the world and wreak havoc on the world just doesn't pass muster. It's actually so absurd, it's laughable people are willing to subscribe to those ideas.

Would they try to cover-up any accidental release or mishandling of such an outbreak? Sure, that's exactly what they did and we knew they would be doing it.

But that entire discussion doesn't make the virus go away and constantly blaming it on them by calling it the Chinese virus also won't make it go away and won't make them feel guilty about a thing. If anything you play into the hands of their quasi-dictatorial government, as they'll use this kind of material as evidence for derogatory practices performed by "the West", namely the USA...

My point is that the situation we now find ourselves in - around a third of the population refusing to be vaccinated, and governments resorting to sanctions and coercion in response - is fundamentally a political failure.

It's a failure decades in the making... If you raise decades and decades of ignorant people, this is exactly what you get. Let this be a lesson for all those other "Western Democracies" that think you can simply throw your educational system out of the window... The U.S. seems to be a few years ahead in about everything, but the gap is closing fast and stupidity and incompetence isn't an U.S. exclusivity, it's truly international...

But hey, that's why people start voting for reality-star presidents with a sub-zero IQ on visible display, selling snake oil medicine to the masses and causing news media all over the country to start panicking and post warnings that drinking bleach might not be the greatest idea...

The very fact that we're talking about thousands of people eating horse medicine as an alternative for a vaccine... this is more than just a single presidential term worth of damage we're seeing here, caused by political parties of BOTH colors...

[Bobby Henderson]

The whole story that the Chinese government would willingly release a potentially deadly virus to their own public, a virus they themselves cannot control, in order to infect the world and wreak havoc on the world just doesn't pass muster. It's actually so absurd, it's laughable people are willing to subscribe to those ideas.

Logic, or even plausibility, is not a prerequisite for conspiracy theories in the US. They only need to patronize some kind of bias for people to consume them and then parrot them to other willing ears. Numerous talking heads on TV make a lot of money by passing such bullshit along to viewers. They're making a lot of money because there are LOTS of such viewers.

It's a failure decades in the making... If you raise decades and decades of ignorant people, this is exactly what you get. Let this be a lesson for all those other "Western Democracies" that think you can simply throw your educational system out of the window... The U.S. seems to be a few years ahead in about everything, but the gap is closing fast and stupidity and incompetence isn't an U.S. exclusivity, it's truly international...

Historically there is a lot of "American" innovations that came from the minds of foreigners who emigrated to this country. Currently this nation is growing ever more dependent on foreign-born talent, not only for innovative purposes in science and technology, but increasingly for more of the "grunt level" work with engineering, medical work, etc. Shit, if it weren't for foreign-born students a bunch of American universities would end up in deep financial trouble.

I can say with authority America's public school sector has a lot of deep, structural problems. I grew up as a Marine Corps brat and via that experience I attended 10 different public schools from elementary level through high school. The best quality schools I attended were DOD-operated schools on Marine Corps bases (in Iwakuni, Japan and Quantico, VA). The rest were varying degrees between good and shitty. None of these schools were on the same page in terms of standards, curriculum and quality.

During 10th grade I attended 3 high schools that year. We moved from the New Orleans area to Quantico, but had to stay one quarter out in New Mexico with my Mom's relatives while my Dad attended Warrant Officer School. When I got to Quantico High I found myself well behind other students there. Thank you to local school district autonomy.

Here in Oklahoma we have 520 different school districts. I don't understand why we need that many. But that's 520 varying levels of inequity. If a kid is lucky enough to be born in an affluent district with a lot of big homes he'll probably attend schools that have great teachers and lots of resources. And that's assuming his parents allow him to attend public school rather than a private school. In another not-so-rich zip code the same kid might be totally screwed. Oh, but we have "charter schools" popping up now. Here's even more lack of standards coming into the picture, sold under the banner of "school choice." A bunch of these operations are fly by night scam outfits, designed to suck up tax dollars and/or tuition fees until the scheme falls apart. We've already had a number of charter school operations in Oklahoma close, often closing without warning, leaving students adrift in the middle of the school year. Normally a student gets to repeat a grade for goofing off, not because his school suddenly went out of business.

Then we have our higher education sector. For all the bitching I hear of how politically biased colleges can be, I think the far louder problem is how over-priced they have become. The price inflation is just about as insane as America's health care sector. For the sheer cost of many of these degrees students will be hard pressed to get a good return on the investment. A lot of high school kids would be far better off attending a vocational-technology school and learning a good trade. My brother is a diesel mechanic. He never went to college. But he makes more money than me.

The United States is currently doing a LOT of things to set up a very grim future. Parenthood is quickly becoming an unaffordable luxury to many young adults, never mind the travesties going on with the education sector. Under the current and worsening population trends in another 10-20 years this nation will have a hard time staffing many industries and staffing its military. Our population will be increasingly elderly. And we won't have the economy or tax base to support that situation.

[Leo Enticknap]

Had a booster (Pfizer again) on Sunday. Felt abysmal yesterday - really bad joint pain in my ankles, knees, elbows and shoulders, hot and cold spells, and a slight headache and nausea. A lot better this morning, but the joint pain is still there.

[Steve Guttag]

Hmmm, my 3rd shot was also Pfizer and it was a repeat of shot 2. Sore arm for a couple-three days. I got the flu shot at the same time. The C19 was the dominate sore arm but after about day-2...as C19 soreness went down, the Flu shot soreness didn't increase but it became the slightly more dominant feeling. Fortunately, I didn't have any of the other symptoms that Leo just described.

However, this past week, I did get a cold!

[Bobby Henderson]

I got my second Pfizer shot on March 26, so I'm 3 days shy of the 6 month mark. I'll probably go to my neighborhood Walgreens store for the booster shot and probably not have to wait any time at all to get it. We still have a lot of unvaccinated people in my county after all. I think the ones who haven't had at least one shot by now aren't going to get vaccinated at all.

I'm still leaning toward getting Pfizer booster, although I've heard mixing vaccine types (such as 2 Pfizer shots followed by a Moderna booster) can yield even more effective results. The problem is everyone I know who had the Moderna vaccine experienced medium to fairly bad flu-like symptoms. I may get a flu shot at the same time just for good measure.

Had a booster (Pfizer again) on Sunday. Felt abysmal yesterday - really bad joint pain in my ankles, knees, elbows and shoulders, hot and cold spells, and a slight headache and nausea. A lot better this morning, but the joint pain is still there.

How did you do with the initial two Pfizer jabs? Was the booster even worse?

I timed my first two Pfizer shots on Fridays to have the weekend for recovery if needed. This coming Friday a couple people are going to install five new windows in my house. So I'll have to get the booster either during the weekend or wait until December 3.

[Frank Cox]

My wife and I both got Moderna. The first shot was nothing; it didn't bother either of us at all. The second shot didn't bother my wife at all (again) but I had a really bad night with joint pains and chills starting just about exactly 12 hours after I got the shot, and I was really run down and tired all of the following day.

But it was well worth it.

As soon as we're eligible for boosters (probably sometime around Christmas) we'll be right there to get those too.

We both are fully vaccinated and now everyone 12-and-up who comes to the show has to show their proof of vaccination at the door. If it wasn't for those two things, I don't think I would have my theatre operating at this time. But as it is, I feel pretty confident that everyone (customers and us) is safe here.

[Steve Guttag]

Bobby,

March 26, so I'm 3 days shy of the 6 month mark

Either you can't do math, or, the more likely cause, you mistyped the month and meant to say "May."

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Got my first two shots in March. Only the second one affected me slightly. Got the third one two weeks ago, no effects at all from that one.

[Leo Enticknap]

How did you do with the initial two Pfizer jabs? Was the booster even worse?

Nothing whatsoever after #1, but two days of nausea, joint pains, fatigue, and hot/cold spells after #2, with the joint pains taking around a week to go away completely. The booster was a slightly less severe version of #2: everything except the joint pain was gone within 24-36 hours, but there is still a bit of residual soreness in my ankles, knees, shoulders, and elbows, three days later. Nothing more than a minor annoyance, though.

[Bobby Henderson]

I think my arm was more sore with the first Pfizer shot than it was after the second jab. The next morning after shot #1 I was a bit nauseous, feeling like I had a slight hangover. The symptom disappeared by mid-day. With shot #2 I went to bed an hour or so earlier than usual that evening and I had a noticeable (but not serious) headache the next day. I'm not sure what to expect with shot #3.

Either you can't do math, or, the more likely cause, you mistyped the month and meant to say "May."

No, I just didn't do the math right. I don't know what the hell I was thinking at the time, but somehow I got it in my head that I would need the booster in November. And that's on top of having a birthday in May and previously knowing November was the halfway mark between birthdays. Not that it really makes much difference, the gub'ment only opened booster eligibility for everyone over age 18 just a few days ago.

[Martin McCaffery]

Got Pfizer #3 a week ago Friday. The injection spot hurt for two days, more than I remember the first two hurting, and that was it. Boarding an airplane and visiting DC for Christmas, so glad to be boosted.

[Don Furr]

I got the third shot Aug. 16th and didn't even have a sore arm like I did with the first two shots. I feel lucky!