Glad to see where Pence and Trump have their priorities focused.



The wanted to add "... of the Galaxy" but Disney sent a cease and desist order.

And I guess "Astronauts" was just to boring???

Interesting development in France and Germany, could be happening other places but have not checked.

CFR flatlined and now has started trending up.

Isn't that a sign of healthcare systems getting overwhelmed?

I've always said, the danger of covid is not so much the virus but rather the way it overwhelms systems so you can not get treatment for it once you are sick.

I would expect to see Cali's CFR start to spike upwards again with the way things are going there.

That has to be a deep fake video, right?

I think that I posted earlier, when Trump tweeted something like “By order of the President of the United States, American corporations are hereby ordered to cease operations in China”. There were a few people who quibbled about the source of legal authority for this declaration. I commented that it was because Trump had heard the president say something like that in his favourite movie “Space Aliens from Outer Space!”. I thought that I was being satirical.

This admin has truly accomplished something incredible and should be given credit for it. They have made it so that there is no parody or deep fake of them can truly be done, or at least well.


They have done this by ensuring their own actions (Rudy at 4 Seasons, Trump with 'injections of bleach ...inside the body, etc) are far funnier and mock worthy than anything SNL or anyone could create to parody.

Sure some try but quite frankly if you pull up the 'Trump Original' it is always funnier and more mock worthy than the attempted parody.

That is not easy to do. In that regard they are truly masters.

I asked this in the BFI thread but am curious about the responses here as well. I guess they will be very different in each forum.


--------------

Curious what people here think about the fact it seems that 'Vaccine requirements' will likely not (and smartly not) be driven by government decree but rather Corporate requirement for service or employment?

Airlines and others requiring some form of 'proof of vaccination' similar to what kids have to display to get into most school systems and employers telling all employees that 'it is requirement as part of our responsibility to provide a safe work environment'?

I think this will be interesting how it plays out as many who typically argue 'at will employment' and 'employers have a right to set their own conditions and if you don't like it, go work someplace else', may now cry 'how dare they set their own rules'.

Especially the 'there is no such thing as societal rights' crowd who would argue 'if you don't want to be exposed to me and my choices don't fly and don't go to work. Stay home if you don't like it'.

Making vaccine programs mandatory at the national level is a double-edged sword, as it can drive distrust of vaccines higher (making it far more politically challenging to introduce vaccines). Often it is better to offer voluntary vaccine programs or use opt-out programs (in schools for example) and inform the public.

For specific organisations / vocations making certain vaccines obligatory is often necessary and far less controversial. It is also less intrusive.

It shouldn't be that much of a big deal to them as they trust corporations more than they trust the government and they will blame the government anyway when the companies point out that the gov will shut them down if they don't have these rules. They will also blame the libs that will try to sue them for not providing that safe work environment. I also think that crowd understands that you give up some liberties when you enter the workplace like most of them won't let you carry a firearm in them even though it is legal to carry one in many states. The hardest part for them will be acceptance of how wrong their original position was in the first place.

I am suggesting above that gov't stay out of the 'forced' distribution model for the reasons tame_deuces touches on above.

Business will likely drive this naturally as they do have 'work place safety' concerns and with airlines, etc, the concern that if they get covid spreads it can force them to shut down and scare passengers away in the future.

Businesses saying, 'you cannot get on a plane', 'you cannot access services like restaurants, etc' will be a much better driver than a gov't mandate.


Just as I always make the argument that Driverless cars will become a default thing, not by gov't forcing reluctant people to give up control and stop driving, but rather because as soon as Insurance proves it is far safer with far less accidents, the cost of getting Insurance to manually drive will become prohibitively expensive to the point the vast majority of people just won't be able to afford to.

Businesses typically do not have workplace concerns. Their bottom line is what drives their decisions. That and OSHA.

But this specific safety issue can be resolved for the most part by individuals (both workers and customers) who take the vaccine.

However, the caveat is that the vaccine is only 90% to 95% effective. So if workplaces can be shown to cause spread of Covid to workers who have taken the vaccine, as a result of other workers not having taken the vaccine, then the businesses will be vulnerable to lawsuits. Which I think is one of the reasons why Republicans have been pushing for the waiving of Covid related lawsuits against businesses.

There will likely be some people in vulnerable groups who will have taken the vaccine and won't give their in person business to places that have not insisted on all workers being vaccinated.

But I think in the end we will have to see if Covid can be eradicated by the vaccine or if it will be ever present and significantly affect those who have already been vaccinated.

I agree genreally but thnk you are missing that many businesses could see 'covid outbreaks' as bad for the bottom liine.

Do you not think if you hear "XYZ airline had a covid breakout amongst their staff and now have X number of staff quarantined' that you might not choose to fly a different airline for a while?

Do you not think if you hear 'covid breakouts amongst passengers on one airline are happening at 3 times the rate (X% more likely) on airline XYZ that as opposed to airline ABC, that you would not choose ABC? If it is shown that one is allowing people not vaccinated to fly and the other not?


I am saying that many business, both to protect their staff and their customers will see this as a bottom line driving thing.

IF I owned a meat packing plant I would demand everyone get the vaccine ASAP and not let anyone in who was not, as downtown due to mass spread is very costly.

You think meat packing plants give a **** about worker safety?

Sorry, these businesses spent the entire pandemic trying to find ways to get people into their bars and theaters and restaurants, they give zero shits if all their patrons and employees get sick.

Not at all. This would mean they are testing their staff to protect passengers.

It would matter to me to know if specific airlines were mandating all flight crew have vaccines. But in the case of airlines I can't imagine that they all wouldn't do that because of the nature of the competition (which is national).

But in areas of the country where people are being Covid stupid (i.e., where they believe their right to do whatever they want Trumps other's right to live) I doubt businesses would want to piss off their employees who don't want to get vaccinated. And certainly customers who don't give a crap now about the risks aren't going to care. Those customers who do care will have taken the vaccine and my guess is that there will be no businesses in states like South Dakota that will be mandating vaccine taking for their staff (unless it is run by an older and/or at risk person who has a functioning brain).
You are probably picking the one business model (national in person customers) that will be mandating all workers get vaccines.

So yes airlines that don't require vaccines will lose business.

But local businesses may not depending on the locale.
This is tricky.

Assuming the vaccine costs $0 for the businesses and their workers, it would make sense to make sure everybody was vaccinated. But if most businesses in the area are not mandating this then its probably because it is Trump libertarian country and you would be alienating your workers. Which would also be bad for business.

Customers who care will be vaccinated anyway. Similarly for workers who care. The real issue is will the % of vaccinated people who get Covid and die be significant?

Incredibly both South Dakota and North Dakota now have more deaths per capita than NY (according to raw data I retrieve from covidtracking.com). This tells me that the vast majority of people in SD and ND do not value the lives of their fellow citizens. Or at least they believe that people are responsible for their own well being (as if that were actually happening). Given the efficacy of the vaccines apparently that is about to be true.

I'm looking forward to seeing the inevitable businesses that will refuse to hire anyone who has had the vaccine

No I do not.

I think Meat Packing plants can do the math that being shut down due to COvid or having staff off sick or refusing to come in due to covid, would hurt their profits.

heck I think if the vaccine was unproven and risky they would push still gladly force their employees to get it, in just the chance it could stabilize their business again. They would push their employees to be the guinea pigs.

Business hate risk and uncertainty and this virus creates both.

it is tricky. We agree on that.

But to your first point as a reply to my point, I have no desire to hop on the cruise ship that is 'catching' out breaks of covid on their ships due to them testing for it on the cruise.

I might hop on the one I know all staff and passengers are required to show they have had the vaccine especially if the vaccine proves very efficacious.

I think you will see entire countries deny tourism to people who cannot show vaccination as they will not want it brought in to their country. This even if the local populace is fully vaccinated. Because any news that a spread broke out amongst tourist at XYZ Resort is bad for business both for the resort and the destination.

I will never hop on another cruise ever anyway (and I am someone who has been on cruises).

Cruise ships may mandate vaccines for their crew but I doubt they would for passengers. I'm guessing that some if not all will mandate proof of vaccine or negative tests within the past week or maybe since arriving in the debarkation city, for all passengers.

People who would still go on cruises, would either be vaccinated or would be young and don't care about Covid.

The only countries that will deny tourism to people who cannot show they have been vaccinated would have to be very wealthy countries that don't actually need tourists.

The possibility that a tourist that has had a recent negative Covid test has Covid is probably very similar to somebody who has had a vaccine and has not been tested, especially if the disease becomes contained (like in South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, etc.)

I would be happy if all airlines would restrict travel to only those who have been tested recently for Covid. What I have read recently is that because vaccine trials were expedited they don't actually know if people who have been vaccinated can be carriers. It is possible that Covid could exist in the nose of a vaccinated person which could be a place where the vaccine in the body would not have access.

But the problem is bigger than that because the question is ultimately if you would allow people to cross your borders if they haven't had a recent test or been vaccinated. Which would be the equivalent of Trump's immigration policy. Perhaps the visiting criteria would be if a person crosses the border the US makes sure they are given a rapid test right there, if they haven't already been tested or vaccinated.

And a different problem exists. How easy would it be to forge vaccination papers?

Congressman-elect Luke Letlow (R-LA) is dead of COVID-19 at the age of 41

Republican politicians seem to get it more. Not sure if that is statistically true.

How many prominent Democratic politicians have even gotten COVID? Tons of Republicans have, including virtually the entire executive branch, and now Herman Cain and this dude are dead.

I mean, you're a lot more likely to find a Republican than a Democrat at this kind of gathering. This could even be where he got it, who knows:

aww, Letlow's tweets are now hidden. It showed him indoors at some kind of campaign event in someone's home in early December. There were like 10-15 people there with 1 mask in sight.

I semi-wonder what the hard core covid hoaxers will say about this. I assume this is some kind of psy op or some form of assassination, because this guy's voice was that important? Certainly could not be that a dude took no precautions and did what he could to make math work against him, and then shockingly caught a virus in a pandemic. At 41 he definitely got unlucky with the variance, but its not like its 0% for any age group, and I assume he was in contact with lots of higher risk people as well, so he probably did his share of spreading. Maybe Lucky will give his thoughts on it as the flat Earth dude got banned.

Also, kind of a shame the OP of this thread got banned. I would be curious to hear his latest thoughts on Kemp being President in 2024 (which was the initial title) and whether staffing up is still the way to go.