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Plus Jamais Normal Life
Oh, you fools. You thought a vaccine would bring back normality. Pfft. You must be illiterate. You probably also believe that climate change isn’t an existential threat to humanity. You probably even like meat. Rube!
Thankfully, St. Dr. Anthony Fauci is here to tell us all the truth:
Even when vaccines are released, they should as a compliment, not a substitute, to other public health measures, he said.
That’s in part because it’s not yet known if the vaccines will offer sterilizing immunity or just protecting individuals from getting sick themselves, allowing them to inadvertently become asymptomatic spreaders of the virus, he said.
“We will know that, ultimately, but we don’t know that now,” Fauci said. “My feeling is: When my turn comes to get vaccinated, I will not abandon all public health measures. Clearly, there will be a much greater ease in dropping back a bit on the stringency of it. But to just say: ‘We’re done with public health measures,’ it’s not going to be for a while. For those concerned, as I am, about the economy, about schools, about sports events, I think we’re going to be a major shift toward much more normality. But it might not be exactly the way it was in 2019.”
Hooray! Like 2020, 2021, and even 2022, will offer so many opportunities for me to signal how much I hate love humanity! I can wear a mask everywhere I go! In fact, I can even wear a mask when I sleep! That’s how much I love people! Yippie! This is going to be such a great two years!
. . .
On a more serious note, I have a question: If the vaccine nullifies the effects of the virus, if it turns us all into “asymptomatic spreaders” then . . . why should we care about spreading it, exactly?
Published in Healthcare
My compliments on the tags.
What Old Dan said. The above is my favorite, but that is to be expected: Old Demon Hope: Pandora’s Box Revisited. On a very side note, only one conversation on Ricochet has ever used the phrase “capo da tutti capos.” It needs to happen more often, even if it makes that conversation harder to find.
These “public health measures” have constituted massive infringements on liberty while offering virtually nothing in return (and even if they offered something in return, they are still illegal). The virus has been a dud, as virtually everyone knows… the loss of life, which has been sad for a select few, has been oddly reminiscent of previous years (i.e. we are constantly losing lives, and this virus has not been uniquely deadly… very few people dying who we wouldn’t already expect to see dying).
The vaccines will be an excuse for people to ditch “public health measures,” and hopefully they will make it extremely difficult for governors to get away with ongoing mandates and regulation. As soon as people are permitted to return to normal, they will do so, regardless of how much the much disgraced “public health community” continues to shout at us.
Fauci can yell and scream until he is blue in the face. He can recommend whatever the hell he wants. He has lost all credibility, and we will gladly continue to ignore him.
also… is anyone actually doing this “social distancing” nonsense? I haven’t changed my behavior even slightly since March of this year, and I have zero intention of ever doing so. I don’t own a mask, and have an old bandana that I throw around my neck in order to get through certain doors, then promptly remove.
These measures will last only as long as the American public is ignorant and foolish enough to play along with them. 2020 has shown us simply this: Our rulers are just as power hungry as they have been since the dawn of time. The public is just as stupid, just as fearful, and just as self-interested as it has been since the dawn of time. There is nothing new under the sun. These things gave us Soviet Russia, Communist China (et.al.), and Fascist Germany and Italy … they gave us covid restrictions, and will continue to work their magic until the end of time. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that you or your peers are in any way different from your ancestors.
Read history, because it isn’t just about the past, it is about the present as well.
Until actual individuals reject governors’ edicts, the restrictions will remain. Around here in NH and MA, few seem so inclined. Few are “distancing” but most mask and I saw grown men greet each other via fist bump today. Color me discouraged
I have not followed any of my governor’s edicts, and he is one of the worst in the country (Inslee, of WA state). I also talk to people I encounter on the street or in stores or wherever, and more and more people seem to agree with my position. I stopped wearing masks altogether, and I am beginning to see more faces… it’s a small number right now, but it is growing. This whole thing is based on fear, and it is based on either lies or bad information. That cannot last. If you want to be discouraged, I suppose you can remember that communism still exists in the world, and that it took something like 65 years for Russia to see reforms under Gorbachev. But it’s pretty difficult to hide truth, and once enough people start to get vocal, this house of cards will also crumble. We still (nominally) have freedom of speech in the US, and the anti-lockdown/anti-mask voices, which have always made the most sense, are now being supported by empirical evidence that is increasingly undeniable. Do your part and put away the mask (if you haven’t already), and encourage your friends to do the same.
This, too, shall pass…
Well, I’ve changed my behavior. I went from leaving my house every few days to leaving my house every few weeks — not because I’m afraid of the virus (though I’m not blasé about it, either), but because there’s nowhere to go, no one to see, and nothing to do, now that civil society is dead (if it wasn’t dead before) and its pathetic remnants are tainted by pandemic theater.
I’m just glad it’s winter, so I can don a scarf indoors to satisfy the paranoiacs. I will never, ever, ever, ever! wear a mask outside. The ridiculous people on the local bike path can feed themselves to a wood chipper.
Why has this not garnered ten thousand likes so far?
One hopes. But EODDad’s company (in Chas Parker’s MA) just this past week permitted its HR dept to send yet another memo reiterating that masks SHALL be worn. Even when in an office. By one’s self, without others anywhere near. He has been one of about 6 (mostly execs – the factory is elsewhere) in the HQ building that is meant to house 200. He may not ask his dept to come into the office for meetings. Baker, Sununu and the other New England govs are doubling down in the complete absence of evidence. I only mask when entering a restaurant and ignore those in stores who glare. I run in the woods with others, but routinely have people get OFF THE TRAIL and TURn ThEIR BACK when I pass. But grown men not shaking hands in a business greeting? Sigh. One hopes for it to pass. Without a mask.
See, this is the kind of idiotic rule I would absolutely violate. No people = no risk of transmission = no mask.
Fauci is a fool.
Tomorrow, Kate and I are going to the eye doc for her appt.
For the first time ever, she will wear the muzzle. (We cancelled a trip to Boston last month to see our beloved grandchildren, whom we only rarely see, because she could not stand the idea of being involuntarily muzzled for the whole trip. She has asthma.)
Say her a quick prayer if you are so inclined!
https://ricochet.com/808725/divine-help-autumn-air/
Is it ok if I cite my dang self again?
There will be a period when a portion of the population suddenly feels free to unmask, because they’ve been vaccinated. At first they will be regarded as murderous killers by the timorous, because they don’t know if the Unmasked Peril is a Denier, or someone who got the shot. They will assume the former. When the tipping point arrives and the majority of people are unmasked, the true believers will still wear their masks, because they know it is not over, and the mask sends a comforting message to the other smart people, like a lawn sign that says “All Are Welcome Here” and delineates a liturgy of progressive pieties.
Masklessness among the vaccinated will be a cause for concern, I think. A false sense of security! Newspaper stories about someone who got the vaccine but went to a party and ten people got COVID. Caution and tut-tutting about people doing things “too soon” will be the narrative for 2021. The all-clear will come when President Biden appears in public without a mask, and this will be touted as a moment of triumph and reassurance.
Seriously?
He’ll first do this in 2023, when he lies in state at the U.S. Capitol.
Cool, since he never accepted them all, for himself, anyway.
I think this is about right. Except that I do believe a majority don’t want to mask, but are rule followers. I think that tipping point will be much more extreme. Virtually everyone will unmask.
So, at his funeral, then.
I run in my neighborhood, which has big sidewalks and grass/trees on either side. I usually move to the grass side to go around folks as they’re walking or running towards me.
Some people are wearing masks. Outside. On breezy sunny days. On a walk. Where they will spend approximately 2 seconds of space with someone else.
I’ll often cross the street just to keep the space, and to avoid any engagement (plus it distracts me from the fun of putting feet up and down 13,000 times). But I’ve seen masked people cross the street WAY before I get close to them, and I’ve seen a few move WAY off to the side of the sidewalk and stand there, to wait until I pass.
One assumes my COVID miasma has a short half life. But it’s pretty interesting to see some of the behaviors. That said, 99% of people I pass aren’t overreacting, and probably 80-90% of them aren’t wearing masks. My anecdotal info is that older folks are wearing them, and that makes perfect sense to me, and they are the folks I give a wide berth to.
Seriously. And it’s not uncommon. I cannot express how weird people are behaving.
I will say a prayer for her. I’ve put my reminder card aside for a week. Today I’ll call and tell them I won’t be in until the protocol is changed. My hearing is bad and I cannot understand what most people say when they speak behind covers. There’s no point going. And they need to know why I’m not coming. Same for the dermatologist. It will have to wait. Recently there have been quite urgent PSA’s on the local radio from pediatricians saying: it’s important to keep up with well visits for your pre-teen. Come On In! Fat chance.
I’ve seen people step off the sidewalk by a few feet. The “turning their back” thing is a new one for me though.
He and another man who works for him have an opened bottle of water on their desks and an open snack pack of pretzels out. They are always eating or drinking.
A year ago this bleak picture would have made me laugh at its exaggeration and improbability. Now it is all too true.
I wonder how many more people are now planning suicide or are newly abusing drugs or alcohol in response to their conclusion that the isolation will never end, and an isolated life is not a life worth living? I assume that Dr. Fauci’s announcement of indefinite and potentially permanent human isolation caused more than a few deaths. But as long as the deaths and mental illness and suffering is not the virus per second, Dr. Fauci doesn’t care about “collateral consequences. ”