Facemasks and social distancing will be needed until next summer, the head of Oxford's vaccine trial team said last night.
Andrew Pollard warned strict rules would have to be followed even if global tests proved successful. He said the first jabs would probably not be available until next year – and then only for key groups such as frontline health workers.
Professor Pollard said that he hoped the final trials could be completed by the end of this year but added: 'Life won't be back to normal until summer at the earliest. We may need masks until July.
If we end up with a vaccine that's effective in preventing the disease, that is by far the best way to control the virus. But in the medium term, we'll still need better treatments. When does life get back to normal? Even if we had enough vaccine for everyone, in my view it's unlikely that we're going to very rapidly be in a position where the physical distancing rules can be just dropped.
'Until we've got a high level of immunity in the population so that we can stop the virus so most vulnerable people are immune, there is going to be a risk. Initially, we're going to be in a position where mask-wearing and social distancing don't change.
'Only when there is a big drop in serious cases will governments feel able to relax these measures. This is a very easily transmissible virus.'
The Oxford University vaccine, produced with drugs giant Astrazeneca, is one of only nine to have reached phase three trials, the final stage before implementation, and is widely seen as the leading candidate to deliver.
In his remarks to an online seminar with Oxford alumni, Professor Pollard explained that, if successful, the vaccine will need approval from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency.
He said: 'Once we have the trial results, I can't imagine they will do that overnight.
'They will have to scrutinise the data very carefully – the public would not expect any less.'
The final evaluation, he said, is likely to take weeks, even though he and his team have begun a 'rolling programme' to give the regulatory agency access to the trials while in progress.
Rolling out the vaccine will pose a 'huge logistical challenge', the professor pointed out.
In his remarks to an online seminar with Oxford alumni, Professor Pollard explained that, if successful, the vaccine will need approval from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency.
He said: 'Once we have the trial results, I can't imagine they will do that overnight.
'They will have to scrutinise the data very carefully – the public would not expect any less.'
The final evaluation, he said, is likely to take weeks, even though he and his team have begun a 'rolling programme' to give the regulatory agency access to the trials while in progress.
Rolling out the vaccine will pose a 'huge logistical challenge', the professor pointed out.
Oxford's vaccine is based on a genetically engineered type of coronavirus that gives chimpanzees a form of the common cold.
Trials of the jab involve 20,000 volunteers in Britain and other countries being given either the vaccine or a harmless placebo.
Professor Pollard said early results had shown that the vaccine causes the body to make antibodies against Covid, and that these last for at least three months.
Tests on volunteers given the jab in April will soon show whether they lasted for six months. 'The evidence so far in the lab is that the antibodies are able to stop the virus in its tracks,' said Professor Pollard.
At least one person in the trial has become seriously ill, and has had to be hospitalised with the disease, he added.
Kate Bingham, head of the UK Vaccine Taskforce, said there was only a 'slim' chance the Oxford jab could be ready by Christmas.
She said she felt optimistic from the data seen so far in trials. But she warned against assuming a Covid-19 vaccine would be better than flu jabs, which are only around 50 per cent effective.
'It's most likely that it'll be next year,' she added.
You mean the AUTHORITARIAN COMMUNIST lockdown that proves chinabad? Good thing this is AMERICA and we have the freedom to keep getting sick for years on end.
Not even that, Vietnam managed to do it as well, hell even for "western" states New Zealand got it right. It's just the pure arrogance of Anglo countries (and Sweden) thinking they're the best ™️ and that nothing can go wrong and their way is the best™️ no matter the objective truth being otherwise
Anglo countries (and Sweden) thinking they’re the best ™️ and that nothing can go wrong and their way is the best™️ no matter the objective truth being otherwise
Maybe one of the biggest obstacles those of us in Anglo countries who want to bring about change face is this attitude, towards everything. I can argue about how every other rich or just moderately rich country has universal health care and how it works even better and is cheaper... but people just sorta refuse to believe anything can be better than how we do it in America.
I mean I get this my country had to learn the hard way. My country has had a total of 46 000 excess deaths, but now excess death levels are back to normal now, due to mask wearing and opening up late. So at least they learned, even if it was the hard way. I can only hope that something similar happens in the west, that people will learn. At the same time all the propaganda about how masks are bad™️ is definitely not helping, and the refusal of governments and corporate entities to crack down on it is horrifying.
I was watching the NZ vs AUS rugby match last Saturday night. It was shocking to see a stadium full of people standing should to shoulder and not a mask in sight. The problem I have with comparisons between the US and NZ is that is apples to oranges. NZ has an equivalent population, land mass, and population density to Colorado. They also have 100% maritime borders which makes containment significantly easier.
If Vietnam can eradicate covid, which is a country bordering China, with a high population density, and also much poorer than other countries, any western country can. They could literally just copy aspects of Vietnam's plan, it's not like it's a huge secret or something. It's just that there's a lack of will to do so, for whatever reason
How did Vietnam do so well? You hear obviously about the stuff that went down in China but I haven’t heard much about Vietnam tbh
They literally shut everything down and told everyone to stay inside except for a few people who were tested regularly who brought food to everyone else. The shut down lasted less than a month, and they were back to normal. They also were very strict about letting people in afterwards. If the whole planet did the same thing they did, the virus would have been dealt with by the end of March.
I wouldn’t use New Zealand as an example it’s way easier to keep a virus out of an isolated island country with a small population.
This shit has nothing to do with population density or travel.
New Zealand did what Vietnam did, what Korea did, what Japan did, what China did.
An aggressive fucking lockdown, early, a mask mandate, thorough contact tracing, targeted and mass testing (easy and free), and took care of people that had to stay home.
It wasn't complicated, it's just basic pandemic science. And being an island doesn't fucking help. Ask the UK. Speaking of which, that's where New Zealand got its recent cases from, idiotic fucking Anglos who traveled while they were sick because they didn't want to cancel their vacation. And New Zealand went back into lockdown after just those cases!
Other countries fucked this up, badly.
The US had every advantage going for it, and we still fucked it up. And our lockdown was working, until they realized paying people to stay home meant it was impossible to force them to come back to work while the pandemic was ongoing, and the line demanded they return.
It is 100% policy based. Geography doesn't have shit to do with it.
Korea and Japan really never did an aggressive lockdown like China though. I mean they implemented social distancing and restrictions on crowds and closed schools but most business stayed open. The key to those countries was the testing, tracing, and isolation systems they put in place.
Japan’s testing and isolation was ass.
It’s honestly an enigma how it did as well as it did. Mask wearing, maybe? Or maybe just faking the numbers.
ngl abe/suga definitely fudged the numbers. theyre still not even that great imo, just the huge fuckup by the anglosphere/eu makes it look good in comparison. the ldp was practically frothing at the mouth to make sure the olympics happened.
There are theories that they might have some cross immunity from other viruses but in this age I’m not sure why they would have them and the average person in the US or EU wouldn’t
new zealand never had a mask mandate except on public transport and even then only in auckland. from talking with my friends back there, no one was really social distancing hugely anyway - new zealand was very lucky. like just before auckland went into lockdown 2 electric boogaloo people were crowding over the fucking beaches bro, anglo brainworms are too strong.
Is South Korea good comparison? It's a densely populated neolib hellhole and they manage to contain the virus pretty well.
I think you can also call it an island nation. It is bordered entirely by sea except for the DPRK which you can disregard for any significant travel.
Yeah that’s a good point, the only way in/out of South Korea is via a select few (like 2-3) airports.
Yeah probably. Any EU country or the US could have done what they did.
Island regions generally speaking have fared well. British Columbia recently clocked in at having the most infections per capita in Canada but almost all the infections are on the mainland. Vancouver Island measures new cases in single digits and has had only 235 confirmed cases total all year.
Interesting how the entire Anglo-American system has been put on trial this year: the UK, the US, India, Brazil (under a pro-Yankee auth-lib regime) are all doing the worst by far.
I feel like even if you are a liberal, this year shows the modern superiority of socdem centralism a la Japan/RoK/Germany. Most Americans won’t learn anything though.
Most Americans won’t learn anything though
It's either fake or it's all the orange man's fault, this is the extent of the American analysis.
No, it is also China's fault. In many cases it is also fake + being China's fault.
thesis: fake
antithesis: chinas fault
synthesis: chinas faults are fake
I mean Russia is the country that's actually doing the coverup in terms of numbers that people think China is doing. It's actually hilarious that the libs haven't figured this out out yet and incorporated it into russiagate somehow, everyone is still screaming about China while there are actual coverups elsewhere
Japan is a strange case I think. They have a really good contact and trace system and excellent health care but they really don’t have many restrictions yeah? Idk I remember following some of the people who had to go to hospital in Japan from that cruise ship and I was super jealous, from the care they got down to even the food everything was top notch.
I give people the side eye when I see them wearing their mask wrong does that count?
talked to my mom (who used to live in a communist regime but is conservative now) about china shutting down and coronavirus petering out there and she was like 'yeah im sure theyre lying about all of it!' and 'its so horrible that they forced everyone inside for a month!'
smh my grandparents are way cooler and think shes an idiot
China had a good response later but keep in mind at the start of all this, like in late 2019 they had their own fuckups. It seems clear to me the local leadership in Wuhan had no idea what the fuck it was doing and was in way over their heads. I don't care if it was a new virus no way they should have let it get to the point where their hospitals were collapsing and lockdown of the entire city was the only option. It wasn't until the response and help from Beijing did they really get things under control.
I'm not confident of that, covid has come back pretty aggressively in some places that had mostly gotten rid of it.
I keep making comments around people like "when everything is normal, in like a year or two, I'd like to try X or do Y" and people are always like "wtf, it won't be that bad." But it will. It's gonna take a while to make a vaccine, distribute it, and get enough of the population inoculated to make a difference. And that's assuming the vaccine works, is safe, and/or the virus doesn't mutate.
I hope everyone is mentally preparing for masks/distancing rules/limited day to day functions to last for another year. This is going to be a marathon, not a sprint
I hope everyone is mentally preparing for masks/distancing rules/limited day to day functions to last for another year.
I need mental preparation for it to end. Personally, this has been a wonderful year so far.
I hope everyone is mentally preparing
Well said. People need to get their shit together
I'm so tired of being looked at as crazy or dramatic when talking to my family about how long we could be dealing with this. Like they're so naive, I'm not sure they'll understand until someone they know dies. Even Europe is getting bad again. Greece, where I was born and where they like to point to, did really good. They're not doing as good nowadays. I understand people want to live in delusion to cope but it's pissing me off that they think I'm the one being unrealistic because I told them they won't be travelling next year either.
I’m so tired of being looked at as crazy or dramatic when talking to my family
Lol yup. Start talking to them about the problems we are going to face from the declining rate of profit like I have and they might lock you up and throw away the key.
Ah sorry, I'm ESL so sometimes not always sure what some things are referring to. What do you mean by declining rate of profit? Like just the market getting bad again?
The tendency of the rate of profit to decline is a Marxian economic concept. Basically the consistent crises capitalism faces every 5-7 years is a result of the rate of profit declining. It has been getting worse since the last 1970’s and instead of fixing the structures of capitalism they inflate bubbles in order to forestall the terminal crisis of capitalism. 2008 should have been it but they put it off another decade. Go check out this blog https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2020/09/13/the-us-rate-of-profit-before-the-covid/
Ah I see! Sorry, I've read a lot of the theory in different language, so maybe the translations didn't 100% line up. I get what you mean now, thank you so much.
It's only "that bad" because there's a collective will to continue to make this a disaster instead of fixing anything. The rules have already more or less gone away in most of the US, and Europe ad well, despite cases rising in Europe. Doomerism is mental illness, and it's such a fucking shame that the Left is STILL falling for this bullshit.
I have family in Melbourne, Australia, where the government has instituted a massive and stringent lockdown. The civil liberty violations required to lockdown would never be possible here in the United States. In Melbourne they have forced people to stay in there homes 23 hours a day, they’re not allowed to travel more than a short distance from their house, state borders have been militarized. Fortunately the Australian people are compliant, I can’t imagine what the American government would have had to do in order to force compliance in stringent anti Covid measures.
Australia has gone completely fucking insane, and I feel sorry for your family. There's no actual evidence that those lockdowns work, and even the WHO is walking them back. There's simply no science based or material based evidence that this is sane or necessary.
There’s no actual evidence that those lockdowns work
Except for how the strictness of "lockdowns" (which in reality are only limitations in how many people can gather, and wearing a mask) has correlated with the decrease and increase of infections. Everywhere.
Or the simple fact that we know how it spreads...
No, it hasn't. The Northeast loosened restrictions in June (New England has had gyms and indoor dining since June/July), and saw no increase in cases all Summer.
The initial lockdowns were also very strict, despite this Orwellian line on the Left that the US was "laxer" than every other country because the Cops didn't arrest people for leaving their yard (suddenly cops are good...)
Oh, okay. If some US states with low population density have had no increase in cases, because people didn't behave like complete idiots, then this certainly disproves anything virologists and epidemiologists have thought to know, and renders the experiences of countless countries around the globe as insignificant. Seriously, how can you even come to the conclusion that wearing masks, social distancing, and avoiding large gatherings is ineffective? Does the virus transmit through magic?
In other News, the last winter in New England has been quite cold. Climate change is fake.
New England is the densest region of the US, wtf are you taking about?
It isn't, and the states with higher population density had a sharp spike at the start, then got it under control by taking strict measures. Now it is increasing again.
https://puu.sh/GCW9f/3814bc1959.png
What are you taking about? Massachusetts and Connecticut -where most people in NE live and two of the densest states in the country - have had indoor dining and gyms for 3+ months and had no summer spikes. Maine has had people from all over travelling there, and no fucking way they all took a Covid test. It's increasing now, months and months after things opened up, which is proof that those cannot be the cause!
Massachusetts and Connecticut -where most people in NE live and two of the densest states in the country - have had indoor dining and gyms for 3+ months and had no summer spikes.
And so did many countries... No one is saying that this is impossible, but it can only be done after getting the cases down. How do you do that? By enforcing more extensive restriction on public life. How did Massachusetts get to the point of low incidents again? By doing exactly this. What did Boston look like? Like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXqj3Xowhfg
Your conclusion:
There’s no actual evidence that those lockdowns work
Lib brain world salad. Massachusetts did everything "so right" because we killed off all the vulnerable in March/April.
Bruh I'm in Maine and one positive at a wedding spread to like 200+ people. Schools are still closing etc. High school almost entirely online. Its less restrictive but Winter is gunna be brutal on small businesses. Half the storefronts are already empty it seems
The world should just copy most of Vietnam's plan, it's proven to work and doesn't require nationwide lockdowns, just very strict ones in hotspots. We literally have a way out of this, but for some reason no one wants to try it.
The current consensus is that detecting clusters and reacting to them is most important and allows for fewer restrictions for most people. Many countries don't even have contact tracing apps etc., but there are many that already do this.
Yeah my country has a contact tracing app and I use it everytime I go out in public. The problem is the restrictions on areas that have positive cases in many countries are not strict enough, or are not followed or enforced. Thus it makes the contact tracing useless when people that have been in contact with positive cases are still walking around in public or even the positive cases themselves.
The big component thats needed that I don't see outside of Asia is dedicated isolation ares for the sick to go. Something like 60-70 percent of cases can be traced back to home and only like 15%, from one study I saw, actually truly isolate if they test positive. Either they are around their family, or they gotta go into work, etc. Like provide a NICE isolation experience, with daily medical checks, good healthy food, comfortable setting, and full salary paid while isolated majority of those that test positive will go. People don't want to expose their family to a virus, or their coworkers. Most want to be responsible just the system doesn't allow them too.
I'm so fucking tired already of having this virus around. And because we live in a capitalist hellscape it means we rather do half assed measures instead of one big lockdown to kill the spread outright. We're just slowing the virus down, not stopping it. All for the sake of the economy.
Meanwhile in Asia people are pretty much back to normal, while we just went into second wave lockdown.
My job that I guess I’m lucky enough to have went WFH in March. For a few weeks it was “oh yeah this is a crazy time totally understandable if you take time off for family stuff etc” but then like end of April they were just done with it, expecting full productivity again even though the world got crazy and people have 5 yr old kids running around the house
that's whats nuts is that if they just stay inside let it run it's course and die off itd' be fuckin done. we coulda ended this shit in like march.
A special American brand of reactionary capitalism paired with a huge landmass. Taiwan and Singapore, South Korea, New Zealand are capitalist as hell and crushed the virus.
I know it’s just people trying to cope, but I’ve found the “2020 hate” laughable. I think people are going to really struggle in Q1 2021 when the realize there’s no end in sight. I’ve taken the mindset that this is a 5-8 year long crisis. Physicians still fundamentally do not under this virus. Expecting a vaccine in the next 18 months is delusional. We should be moving forward with the understanding that an effective vaccine is an “IF” not a “when” statement.
Compound this with worsening economic prospects, a change in government that has deluded folks into thinking anything will get better, and we have a recipe for societal wide pain. I’ve opened up a new cupboard in my house to expand my deep pantry. I’ve bought all my seeds for my garden next year. Next month I’ll be buying a 6 month supply of our prescription meds. Fuck it all.
I think 18 months is reasonable, but it's just the start of a new phase of this cluster.
- will it have side effects?
- will they be able to make and distribute enough?
- who will have access to it?
- who will get the first run at it?
- how effective will it be?
- how many people will refuse to take it?
And yeah there's a chance that an effective vaccine won't be found.
I think 18 months is reasonable
The amount of time it took to create vaccines for hiv, hep c and hpv doesn’t fill me with confidence.
Just keep in mind the whole world is working on this. HIV is a tricky case because it fucks with your immune system directly, but the others just didn’t have the scientific urgency or money behind them. There are like 150 vaccines in various points of development. 11 in phase 3. One of those will have limited approval in the next month or two, with rollout early next year. Big question still is will it be like the MMR vaccine or the flu one?
True I just figure it's a global effort, so it'll probably be in record time.
Oh for sure. That’s exactly the bell I’ve been ringing for a while now. People think I’m nuts, just like they did in feb when I told them Covid was about to wreck shit. My prognostication is that the 2021 meme will be “I miss 2020” lol. It will be interesting to see how much of a deterioration in material conditions people are able to subsume. They’ve eaten a lot of shit with a smiling face this year, I wonder how much more they can stomach.
I don't know. If Biden wins, all the libs who love that joke will insist things getting worse in 2021 is just the start of them healing thanks to Joe and blame all of his failures on residual Trump sludge.
Not to mention that the government spending to prop up capitalism will be followed by austerity for the working class in the near future. There’s already been massive austerity-induced unrest around the world prior to the pandemic and that will only escalate as workers are required to foot the bill for the capitalist crisis.
Fucking Austerity again is on menu for the working class of the world in the next few years
https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/imf-paves-way-new-era-austerity-post-covid-19
It's like we're right back in the 1980s with neoliberalism pushing austerity. Fascism is going to be a worldwide phenomenon by 2026.
Fascism is going to be a worldwide phenomenon by 2026.
There are going to be revolutions, revolutionary situations, and general political crises for the ruling class across the world as the working class fights back against untenable austerity conditions.
This process has already been unfolding and evident in the aftermath of 2008. Like in Lebanon, they’ve overthrown two governments in the past year. In the past 2-3 years there have been revolutionary situations and mass uprisings in Haiti, Chile, Puerto Rico, Colombia, Ecuador, Sudan, Iraq, Tunisia, Indonesia, Nigeria, France, the United States, and others.
What is still missing is an international, revolutionary political leadership for the workers of the world.
There’s not a linear path whereby capitalism declines into fascism, especially when class struggle has come roaring back internationally and workers are stepping onto the stage of history.
You are living in fantasy land if you truly think there is going to be a revolution in the US or anywhere in the West.
The left is very, very small here. We waste most of our time infighting with identity politics and other nitpick bullshit. The only way a revolution is possible here is if you build a working class movement, and we absolutely don't have that, cause the left here has bought into the liberal ID-POL nonsense and divided the working class by race and other subdivisions.
Fascism is far more likely in the US. The far right have their shit together and they've had decades to prepare and wait for this moment. At most, we're going to end up with a handful of small left groups, who will be outnumbered and likely outmatched by all the fascists in the US.
There will be revolutions in Africa long before it happens in the West. Fascism is already on the rise in Europe. Hungary elected a fascist not too long ago and France has Le Pen who just might very well win the next election. There is no big left in the west cause neo-liberalism has spent decades squashing it and what little bit of the left they didn't kill off, we've cannibalized ourselves with identity politics.
We don’t “build” class struggle, class struggle exists independently of anything the left does, by virtue of the antagonisms and limitations of capitalism.
Fascism is absolutely not more likely in the US—the class basis for a mass fascist movement just isn’t there. Your unprincipled take on Idpol causes you to overlook that the biggest protest movement in US history, and against racism, happened fairly spontaneously this summer. While the right wing, who “have their shit together and they’ve had decades to prepare and wait for this moment” have been dramatically outnumbered. Like outnumbered by 100-1 or more in the aggregate. Outnumbered by counter protestors at basically every rally they have within driving distance of a metro area.
Not to mention polling shows that something like 50% of people under the age of thirty in the US are sympathetic to “socialism” whatever that means to them.
Your job, if you’re actually a Marxist (which I think you have some pretensions towards being), is to connect and build inroads into the working masses, their movements and organizations, and steer them towards a conscious class struggle perspective. It’s not to complain that people aren’t popping out of the womb as trained Marxist cadre.
You’ve declared defeat before you’ve done anything, because you look out on the world and ignore reality, and you’re blaming it on idpol. That’s like chud-level analysis.
your statement on idpol is absurd. How can you say idol divides the working class when the whole point of idpol is to include the whole working class, you can't have an undivided working class unless you include poc, women, and everyone else! Consider, who is really dividing the working class, the racists, sexists, ect who are actively pushing away workers, or the people trying to include everyone. It is a tried and true method of capitalism to divide the working class by encouraging racism, etc so they don't develop class consciousness, we must dismantle these unjust institutions for the workers to be able to rise up as one.
sadly I think you are right on all other accounts. though I believe there will be revolution in the west but not in my lifetime.
In the US it will just be a predictable, depressing cycle. Blue wave in 2020 and they immediately talk about "bipartisanship" and "fiscal responsibility". Meanwhile the GOP goes full anti-goverment/tea party again, we see this already with the state revolts. 2022 midterms will be a bloodbath for the Dems where the GOP takes back the house and the senate. If Biden was younger he MIGHT win re-election in 2024 just due to the power of incumbency but since he's old as fuck and wont run again that makes it all that more possible to get a full on fasc president in 2024.
This. Cuomo in New York flat out told the media he wasn't going to let a pandemic stop him from budget cuts. He massively cut medicaid right in the middle of the pandemic.
To compound this, Biden's staff is already talking about passing austerity budgets if he wins and their talk about "the cupboard is bare". They'll just blame it on Trump.
A Biden presidency is going to be such a perfect recipe for fascism. Imagine the 2024 elections after 4 years of brutal economic misery under a Democratic government.
100% agree. I don't know where people come off with the idea he is "harm reduction". Bill Clinton accelerated everything that Reagan and Bush Sr began back in the 80s. Biden is going to accelerate us directly to fascism.
He's going to inherit the worst economy and highest unemployment numbers since the great depression and his staff wants to push austerity. The right wing backlash is going to be worse than anything we've ever seen before. It will make the Tea Party and Trump look tame in comparison.
Abso-fucking-lutely. This is what I’ve been telling my lib family about Biden. It’s not going to solve anything, and based on 2008-2010 it’s only going to make matters significantly worse.
For reference, this is the amount of time the UK took to reach each milestone of covid cases:
- 1k-100k: 35 days
- 100k-200k: 24 days
- 200k-300k: 79 days
- 300k-400k: 58 days
- 400k-500k: 12 days
- 500k-600k: 8 days
not doing good :ukkk:
I feel like there is no way you're gonna get American hogs to keep masks and distancing going that long.
It's obviously the right thing to do but idk how you're gonna get folks to do it
I'm so curious to see how the right-wing acts a year from now. Even today with 200k+ dead, the libertarians I know are still equating it with the flu no matter how many angles I explain it through. In this area they're still congregating in large groups on top of the university students still going to parties. There is only a 3 month~ resistance period and then it's round two.
Here in Alabama, no one ever social distanced to begin with. Schools closed and a lot of businesses are taking some precautions, but the average person acts like covid never existed.
We're so fucked.
This is mental illness, not actually science based thinking.
There's no proof outside of doomer models that this is necessary. Why the fuck would you keep wearing a mask a YEAR after a vaccine? It's religious cult behavior, not sober material analysis.
You don't need to "resign" yourself to anything. We all CHOOSE to live like this. This article that OP posted is pure fear mongering, and I'm fucking sick of the Left falling for the bait over and over and over again. L It's made me question the viability of a Left project multiple times tbh, the way that people are so Goddamn guillbile and doomer
Living in a constant state of doom, panic, and resignation. People have just given up on life.
Masks - not against it, but I'm only wearing one to required or asked to
Social distancing - yes, other than banning events of 5000+. The past 2-3 months have shown that it's mostly been useless. No, I don't think poor histrionic wage cucks need to DIE to feed hooting Boomers burgers, but people need to chill the fuck out. It's OK to meet people in person and live your life.
I agree, but that's not what "social distancing" means and you fucking know it.
I'm sick downplaying the very real, very irrational fear and apocalyptic mindset that was pervasive in March/April. I also hate this game where people say "OMG we need to lock everyone inside, and if you leave your house, you're going to kill us all" and then they just say, like you, "lol, no, we just want sensible restrictions". It's part of this bullshit lib mindset where you treat the public like children who are going to break the rules anyway, so you have to manipulate them and make things excessive so that they follow the rules you really think matter.
Nu-uh! I am filled with a deep-seated desire for life and you posting hog
Why would you stop wearing a mask just cause a vaccine exists? If you've taken it fine, but it could be some time until after it exists before people (including you) get meaningful access to it.
Why didn't you wear a mask your entire life? Dude, you gotta get over the death cult mindset.
I cannot believe your hill to die on is no masks like some idiotic chud in fucking October 2020. Shut the fuck up you embarrassing chode
I'm fine with masks. What I'm not OK with is people "resigning" themselves to things always being bad. If you think things never get better, you create a self-fulfilling prophecy.
That's reasonable. Masks are fine, it's just the mindset of "this is how things HAVE to be" forever is really unhealthy, unnecessary, and I wish people would knock it the fuck off. Protecting your neighbors doesn't mean being moaning over sensational bullshit from the media
Facemasks and social distancing will be needed until next summer the head of Oxford’s vaccine trial team said last night.
Read the first line of the goddamn article jesus.
How do you not understand that the media pushes sensational stories constantly to keep you afraid? Why is the capitalist media suddenly absolutely correct?
Different parts of the Capitalist class have different interests. Most large businesses have been booming during Covid. Even companies like Nike, which you think would do poorly in a down economy where no one is leaving the house, have been booming. Outside of the travel industry, things have been fine. The reports of economic "devastation" are extremely exaggerated, and a blind reading of traditional metrics simply does not reflect material reality.
Most of the lost jobs have been precarious service industry jobs. Oh boy, Capital sure hates it when poor, desperate people get even more desperate! Same with civil unrest. Golly, it sure sucks for Capital when the state appears to be weakening!
y-yeah, what could a bunch of poor desperate people do to capital interests in an age of increasing radicalization of younger age groups,
Nothing. Who owns the guns in this country? The Right! Which side do the police and military support? The Right! What are "radicalized" younger people doing? Voting for Democrats to change the world, man!
The Left cucking hard on Covid is pretty prescriptive of why we are the state we are - most Leftists are just Liberals who naively think that Democrats and the media are Good and Honest, but get foiled by evil Republicans or "donors" as opposed to a wing of the Bourgeoisie that's fighting the other side of the Bourgeoisie.
Which is not "shut everything down" like the psychotics are doing in Melbourne...
I'm going to go with the WHO, who does not recommend lockdowns anymore.
Since I've learned about it, the idea of wearing a mask when your sick has always been a good idea to me. It prevents others from getting sick, but yeah, I don't want to be the weirdo with a mask and explain it all day (or you look like a week kinda). So there you go.
When there's a global pandemic of a disease that nobody has immunity to, is known to transmit during it's asymptomatic stage, and threatens the lives of people in my community, it makes sense to wear a mask on a regular basis to reduce their risk levels. Once I take a vaccine (if it's effective) then I probably won't need to worry about it from that point on. I should not have to explain this in October.
Hellworld take - there will never be an effective vaccine for covid 19 due to rapid mutation, and these outbreaks will continue to happen every few years, killing off hundreds of thousands or millions each time. Basically a permanent upgrade to the flu.
With the amount of anti-vaxxers in USA, I have very little faith...
Doesn't matter. Not everyone will take the vaccine lmfao. It'll last longer bc idiots refuse to mask up and will infect everyone around them
wait until it mutates since its been incubating in millions of people and then we reinfect the entire world.
america: the plague
Do we even know what this will cost to the patient? I can imagine some serious price gouging.
Honestly, that probably depends on the makeup of the legislature next year, in the US at least. This is absolutely the kind of thing that should have a price ceiling or be provided free of charge, but I could see the GOP legit letting then price gouge the shit out of it.
Here’s what I don’t understand. Let’s say I get the vaccine. Great. If the vaccine is any good, or one that would pass approval why would that person need to still social distance or wear a mask. The vaccine, if it’s good, is suppose to put them in the immune herd.
There are larger social implications of this. If people think they will still have to do these things after a vaccine then you’ll see even less wanting to take it. I’m not saying that’s right, but that’s what’s going to happen in western countries
Ben garrison cartoon of Nancy pelosi breast feeding antifa when?
May as well cancel 2021 too then. Christ what a fucking nightmare. I’m at a point where I’d rather risk infection with in person classes than sit in for another dogshit zoom class. Guess I should push my transfer and graduation plans back a few years because tuition isn’t going down and online has been a thoroughly negative experience for me with no end to the misery in sight.
Had to deal with years of mental health issues before I could get something going in college and then all this happens. It’s so frustrating.
they're gonna kill us all at the office. the last 20 years offices have looked for creative ways to cram more workers into the same amounts of space to save rent. how the **** are we supposed to social distance at these disgusting cramped offices??????
Im taking a year off because I know I would have failed literally all my online classes, my ADHD brain just cannot deal.
can't even get an ADHD diagnosis because I keep forgetting my remote therapy appointments. I have to set them months in advance and I guess they don't send out reminders for them like in-person sessions...
But yeah same. I'm thinking this'll be my last semester for a while.
I'm in the same boat but its important that school remains online until the virus is under control, it wouldn't just be you that is at risk.
Yeah for sure. I don’t want to come across as some anti lockdown poster.
This is what happens when you half ass a response. Prolonged pain on the working classes. We should have endured a couple of months of intense lockdown, paid everyone for the pleasure and then come out the other end like fuck all happened.
But we wouldn't want the poors to get money for nothing!
i don't really care about maks but i'm really annoyed about the social distancing. my city is already isolating enough and now the few possible opportunities to maybe get to meet people are dead in the water too. i legit don't know if anybody who starts studying here this semester will actually be able to make friends considering the one week meet and greet (which is basically the only way to make friends because after that week everyone already has an entrenched friend group) will all be over live stream. the meager sports offering at my uni is restricted even more and i really wanted to start doing something this semester. sports clubs suck ass too, they have like 1 random training at 10pm on a monday or some shit and it's a huge pain to become a member. only the gym has been cool, it was a quick sign up after a free afternoon trial and i can come and go whenever i please 24 hours a day. shame it's a really shitty place to make friends because people are only really there to do their training and then go home.
in short, this only makes me want to die more and i'm scared if i can survive the rest of my life without friends or a girlfriend.
in short, this only makes me want to die more and i’m scared if i can survive the rest of my life without friends or a girlfriend.
Keep your chin up mate. We’re still in the phase of this crisis where everyone thinks it’s still a short term thing, and they’re not making adjustments because they think it will be over soon. We’ll hit a point where human need and ingenuity will kick in and we’ll find new ways to form and sustain relationships.
Idk I find it really depressing. Both my parents live far away from me and my mom who’s not in the best of health at the moment doesn’t want to see us unless we are vaccinated. She hasn’t seen us in over a year now, and I no idea when I’ll be able to see her again. This story is playing out around the world. Just read about an Australian who is overseas couldn’t come back to see their close family member who was dying of cancer. We gotta figure out how to have in person contact safely without people in our immediate households soon
My family live half a world away And I have resigned myself to not being able to go home in the event someone is terminally ill or dying. Mostly I try not to think about it.
