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Ostracized
I enjoy being around smart people; I learn a great deal from them and they help me feel smarter. But when smart people expound on ideas in a naïve and irrational fashion, it doesn’t make me feel smart. It makes me feel sad. That happened today.
This morning, I was to meet with a little group I formed to discuss Jewish topics on Zoom. Unfortunately, the internet wasn’t cooperating, and since we all live in the same area, we were all impacted. But today’s presenter was determined to make our meeting happen, so one of the women offered her home for our meeting. That sounded like a great and generous solution, except for one thing: one of our members hadn’t received her third Covid shot. She’d made that decision because of her concern regarding blood clots. The problem is that the other women in our group don’t want to be with her and the booster-shunner (let’s call her BS for short) knew it; she told me that she was being ostracized, but felt she shouldn’t have the third shot, particularly due to a medication she’s taking which can cause blood clots, too. So, she didn’t join us that morning.
The woman who was presenting picked me up in her car, so I took that opportunity to ask her if she was unwilling to be around the woman without the booster. She said yes. When I asked her why, she said that she thought everyone should have the third shot. When I asked her if she realized that BS was the one more in danger because of her more limited protection, she answered me by saying that was “just the way I felt.”
Right.
So after our meeting, I asked the other three women if they agreed, that BS shouldn’t be able to attend, and they said yes. When I asked their reasons, they told me that they could get Covid from her. I asked if they realized that they could also give her Covid. Well, it wasn’t the same, they said. Then one woman pointed out that they were medical professionals.
Okaaayyyy.
So I offered that people who had all three shots were also getting Covid. Oh, she said, but they have no symptoms, but BS might have Covid. I said, she doesn’t have symptoms either. So all of you or none of you might have Covid.
Silence.
After a moment, I said that I thought she shouldn’t be excluded, but I left it at that.
* * * *
On the drive home, the two of us in the car discussed how much we’d enjoyed being physically together. (We had discussed staying on Zoom or getting together at the end of the year, and all but one person wanted to stay on Zoom, which was fine with me.) Then I said, but if you all agreed to meet in person, what about BS? Oh, that’s right, she said. I wouldn’t want BS to be left out of the group. I immediately countered with a firm statement: BS will not be left out of the group.
* * * *
I’m very disappointed with the group members on a number of counts. First, they have ostracized BS because she’s decided not to be boosted. They are demanding that she conform to the authorities’ “guidelines.” They think they are on righteous high ground. And they are acting in this manner out of fear. I need to decide whether to let this go and just keep meeting on Zoom. Or if I need to make a statement. I asked BS what she thought, and she pointed out that they were unlikely to change their minds if I spoke further on the topic. She’s probably right.
I’m at a loss. So much for compassion.
[photo courtesy of Zoltan Tasi at unsplash.com]
Published in Culture
This seems an unwarranted conclusion to draw (in the article quoted, I mean).
Why would it be surprising that vaccines aren’t effective in reducing transmission among people who become infected despite being vaccinated? There might be some benefit, as vaccination might reduce the length of the illness, but once a person is infected, I don’t know why it would be surprising that the disease might be passed along to people with whom the infected individual is in close contact.
The main benefit of the vaccine, to others, is the reduced likelihood of being infected in the first place. As noted previously, the first article that I found indicated that vaccination (with booster) was 93% effective against Delta infection and 37% effective against Omicron infection.
I did find additional data on vaccine effectiveness, since my prior comment. Per this Healthline summary:
This evidence, I think, indicates that the ladies in Susan’s group were acting rationally in declining to be in contact with someone who did not have a booster shot. These Healthline figures suggest that a person without a booster (but with a two-dose vaccination) presents about twice as large a risk as a person with a booster.
It seems to me that whether or not this increased risk is justified is a matter of each individual’s risk tolerance. Personally, it does not bother me. But why should we be critical of people with different views of this risk?
A risk, by the way, that no one else attempted to quantify. That is strange, to me.
This data from the CDC, which extends through the end of 2021, indicates that vaccination does indeed affect transmission…though not as powerfully as if affects hospitalizations and deaths. More positive than what the CDC director said last August.
I’m curious to know your reasons for “going back to coach.” If you don’t want to discuss it on the post (especially if you want to write too many words (!) would you P.M. me?
With regard to Covid, I believe that fear has definitely overtaken reason.
But doesn’t the effectiveness lessen over time anyway? I got my booster 4 months ago, and wonder if it really gives me that much protection at this point.
And then there is the question of asymptomatic cases. Since Omicron appears to be milder, any one of us could be infected and not know it. This whole issue is making me nuts.
According to yesterday’s report from the Oregon Health Authority, the rate of infection is exactly the same between vaccinated and unvaccinated: (edit) For some reason, the quote didn’t copy. What the OHA reported was that 48% of new cases were vaccinated and 48% were unvaccinated. Very strange. Also, it didn’t explain what the remaining 4% were.
Susan, it just seemed time. I was a contributor for four years, and I think by now everyone knows where I stand on everything. There are people here who create more and better content, and I think Ricochet should tap some of them.
I haven’t used the post-directly-to-Main Feed feature for years, because I always figured the “12 likes” test makes as much sense for my posts as for everyone else’s. The only benefit of the status for me was as an ego boost. That was nice, but never important.
Perhaps because I’m getting older (I turned 61 on Saturday) I find myself less inclined to entertain what I think of as foolishness, and I think I’ve developed a bit of a reputation of late as a scold and curmudgeon. I make some effort to be gracious, but I don’t know that I try as hard as I used to. I also don’t think I mind. But having “contributor” under my picture always made me feel that I somehow might be seen as representing Ricochet, and I think I might want to be increasingly cantankerous without that minor burden.
That’s pretty much it. I don’t expect it to change my behavior here — except for that damned word count thing.
Thanks for filling me in. I seem to remember that at one time, certain membership levels gave you higher word count allowances. Maybe someone knows about that–if you’re willing to pay for the higher tier.
You are more patient than I am. :) I sometimes think that life is too short to waste it on people like that – certainly, it does little to enhance my own. But I do understand why people are inclined to do as you have.
It was Joy Behar (don’t ask me how I know that – probably read it here!) who said that she plans on wearing the mask indefinitely. Someone like that doesn’t really understand how little she’d be missed if she were to take it a step further and disappear entirely.
Meh. Pearl harbor every day due to all sorts of things that we simply live with.
“they tighten,” and apart from destroying our liberties and our country, it has zero impact. It isn’t simply “annoying,” it is criminal, and should be met with open revolt, if not armed rebellion.
Susan, I don’t know. I haven’t seen data, one way or the other, indicating that vaccine effectiveness after a booster shot declines over time.
If it does, the solution is obvious — another booster. This doesn’t bother me, though it appears to bother other people for reasons that I don’t really grasp.
It may just be frustration, which would be understandable. It would be really nice if we had a “silver bullet” vaccination that would have whipped this darned disease. That hasn’t happened, but it looks like the vaccinations are safe and effective. Not perfectly so, of course. Perfect would be nice. I’m looking forward to it in the hereafter.
My main reason is that I formed the group to have like-minded folks that were interested in exploring our understanding of Judaism. So I’m in charge. In a way, too, I think that at least for now, it’s important for me to stick it out. If it has to end, it will. Trust me–there are lots of other things I’ve ditched or dumped because I can’t be bothered!
Jim, if you meant to provide a link, it didn’t appear.
I did find this report from the Oregon Health Authority, titled “COVID-19 Breakthrough Report” and dated yesterday (2-17-2022). If this is the one that you mean, I think that you have misinterpreted it. Here is the relevant graph (from page 3 of the report):
[Edited to add]: Sorry, I cropped the legend out of this graph. The yellow line is unvaccinated, blue is fully vaccinated, gray is fully vaccinated + boosted.
According to the text of the report: “The rate of COVID-19 cases among unvaccinated individuals in the most recent week was nearly twice the rate of COVID-19 cases among those who are fully vaccinated and more than 3 times the rate of COVID-19 cases among those who are fully vaccinated and boosted.”
Jim, I’d appreciate it if you could help track down this discrepancy. Were you looking at another report? Were you looking at the same report, but I missed something? Were you relying on a third-party claim about what was in the report? The last would be the most helpful, as it might identify an unreliable source of information.
Sorry, Jerry, you prove it does.
You are the one who does not think the mandate is any big deal. The burden of proof is on you. That’s how it works, hombre.
That is about a unreasonable a way to look at it as possible, but OK.
I guess you have flounced out of Ricochet twice, but have decided to stay to be pro Lockdowns and Pro Mandates.
Very Tory territory to me.
Back to the OP:
These woman are the Pharisees of the New Testament. They are the bad guys in the story of America.
And anyone who gives any succor to the mandates or lockdowns or forced jabs are too. They are not “following the science” because no plan for a pandemic was ever like this or ever been tried.
I have lost friends to overdoses brought on by the lockdowns. I have seen my own kids educations mauled by these stupid mandates. I have seen utter destruction of lives and desperations over the lockdowns.
I am done.
These women are not worth your time, Susan. They have shown their trues selves.
Bryan, I presented the evidence. You have presented nothing in rebuttal.
Jim made a claim in rebuttal, which appears to have been false (perhaps innocently on Jim’s part, as he may have been relying on some source). I tracked it down — the Oregon Health Authority report cited above in # 45 — and it further supports the other evidence that I presented. The Oregon data suggests that two-dose vaccination is about 50% effective against infection, and vaccination-plus-booster is about 70% effective.
Susan, I have a hard time believing that people can still act that way. We live in an over-55 community and most of us are well over that age. We’ve had numerous in-person events of all kinds for almost a year (wine dinners, dances, parties, etc.), our restaurant is packed every weekend, and no one seems to care.
I got the vaccine early in 2021 and had the booster in August of last year. In early January of this year, I got Covid and it was pretty much a 4-day cold. Several other acquaintances have had it recently and everyone stays home while they’re symptomatic, like normal people do. Then we go back to normal life. If there are folks here who are still too afraid to live normally, they’re staying sealed up in their homes, but no one else cares what they do.
I’m not getting any more boosters.
Yeah, sorry about that. As I indicated in the comments to my second post, I cancelled, but remain here until November, when my subscription will expire.
At that time, you’ll all be blissfully free to believe whatever you want, without pesky little me pointing out the evidence to the contrary.
I wonder if they will drop the term “booster” and treat it like the annual flu shot. It will be interesting to see. Thanks, Old Phil. I’m with you.
Actually, I clearly did a quoted response on an earlier post before reading to the end of the thread.
I don’t find your evidence all that compelling. That is to say, your evidence is not enough to warrant me deciding that the government should tell me if I should or should not have a medical procedure. Whereas you, Jerry, you clearly think that is no big deal. You have said so. You think it should be part of the political process not about rights.
But, I am going to be honest here, I find it hard to take you seriously anymore. You made two “look at me” posts about leaving, and did not leave either time.
Never mind not on topic
It’s a very long report, but here’s what I attempted to copy earlier:
OHA releases new COVID-19 vaccine breakthrough report
OHA’s most recent update on COVID-19 breakthrough cases, released today, reported 18,041 cases of COVID-19 during the week of Feb. 6 to Feb. 12.
Of those cases, 7,834, or 48.4%, were unvaccinated people and 8,732, or 48.4%, were vaccine breakthrough cases. Among the breakthrough cases, 3,330, or 38.1%, were fully vaccinated and boosted.
Here, Jerry:
OHA releases new COVID-19 vaccine breakthrough report
OHA’s most recent update on COVID-19 breakthrough cases, released today, reported 18,041 cases of COVID-19 during the week of Feb. 6 to Feb. 12.
Of those cases, 7,834, or 48.4%, were unvaccinated people and 8,732, or 48.4%, were vaccine breakthrough cases. Among the breakthrough cases, 3,330, or 38.1%, were fully vaccinated and boosted.
Jerry, if you think I’m stupid or a liar, here’s the OHA site so you can wade through the whole report and post a correction. Or an apology.
oha@service.govdelivery.com
BTW, when was it that you said you were leaving Ricochet?
Wow.
So, clearly, we need to inject infants and if their parents don’t let us, take the kids away.
Which I explained, and which you never fail to bring up when you’re losing an argument.
I said nothing about mandates on this post. I rebutted a mistaken impression that vaccination is ineffective in reducing transmission of Covid.
That fact cuts against your opposition to mandates. Which, by the way, I have always opposed and continue to oppose as a political matter. On the other post, I pointed out that your argument about “rights” in the mandate context is pretty weak, in light of our roughly 50-year history of mandating many vaccinations.
So all of a sudden, when you feel strongly about an issue, you: (1) decide to ignore a person presenting evidence contrary to your position, and (2) disregard such evidence.
Oh, and you appoint yourself arbiter of who bears the burden of proof — which I carried anyway. Must be nice.
This is your cue to object to me being the “rational man” again. Shame on me, relying on rational argument and evidence and all. Whatever am I thinking?
Guys, please refrain from insulting each other, even though the insults are relatively tame. I will be offline in an hour or two for the Sabbath, and I’d like to think you are at least behaving respectfully.
Sort of related, but not really. I’ll remove the comment if people object to my going slightly off the topic.
I was thinking as I was reading this post and comments that I’ve been hopeful that the new vaccines would be a way to respond to future foreign pathogens as they arose because of air and sea travel. Of course, there’s no way to circumvent the year it takes to run a new medication through clinical trials, so it’s perhaps a moot point anyway. But I’ve been concerned about this issue for many years. And I’ve not been alone in that.
Microorganisms exist in their own ecosystem. Much like flora and fauna, there are natural constraints against microorganisms overtaking the world. In the world of plants and insects, the invasive species were transposed from their natural habitat where they existed with other plants that competed for the same resources, and they often lost the battle so that a healthy native plant and insect diversity remained. Plants (kudzu) and insects (emerald ash borers and Japanese beetles) that were relocated by shipping containers into regions without those constraints often multiplied and became a nuisance.
Microorganisms work this way too. When they are in their native home, they constantly run into people who have already built up an immunity from a previous light exposure. They quickly die out.
Troop deployments throughout the world during World War I dispersed the flu and its accompanying deadly pneumonia virus out of its native region (Pandemic I). The infectious disease scientists have believed that with air travel, it was only a matter of time before this happened again. They would point to Ebola and the annual flu season as evidence that we were living on borrowed time in solving the problem of FedExing deadly microorganisms around the world.
I’ve been happy about the new mRNA vaccines because I thought maybe they would help with that. But I just realized what probably has actually happened. Consistent and frequent air and sea travel around the world has created a global microorganism ecosystem instead of a regional one. We are lightly exposed to many more microorganisms today than we have ever been. Our immune system is probably working at an extraordinary level and pace to begin with. It took a human-forced variant of the existing SARS virus, a variant that has ten times the number of cell-piercing spikes on its outer shell as its naturally occurring parent organism, to cause a second pandemic.
It strikes me that rather than pursue global vaccination, we need to pursue global constraints on scientists. :-) The immune system was actually becoming stronger and stronger as we traveled farther and faster. We’ve been thinking that we were living on borrowed time, that a deadly pandemic was just around the corner. It’s possible we were selling the immune system short. I wonder if that’s why until now, there’s been no Pandemic II.