“Many of us are frustrated with the nearly 80 million Americans who are still not vaccinated even though the vaccine is safe, effective and free.

This is not about freedom, or personal choice. It’s about protecting yourself and those around you — the people you work with, the people you care about, the people you love… We cannot allow these actions to stand in the way of protecting the large majority of Americans who have done their part, who want to get back to life as normal.”

US President Joe Biden on new vaccine rules on federal workers, large employers and health care staff.

Last night.

The White House, Washington DC.

Probably sounds better in German.

Attacking anti-vaccine movement, Biden mandates widespread COVID shots, tests (Reuters)

Meanwhile…

Good times.

Yesterday: No Option

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94 thoughts on “Wearing Thin

  1. george

    “US President Joe Biden having mandated that two-thirds of all US workers get COVID-19 shots,”

    What have you edited out after the comma? Is it “or get tested weekly”?

    1. George

      I see the post has been edited to remove the tell tale comma but not to correct the inaccuracy. Rarely do we get to see fake news being created live like this.

        1. George

          I am not commenting on the speech. I commented on your misrepresentation of the facts which you have the opportunity to correct if you’re interested in the truth.

          1. just millie

            @Bodger

            I strongly disagree.
            You’ve succeeded in sounding like a child, just like the people who called Trump disparaging names, the people who use terms like ‘ratlicker’ or ‘conspiraloon’ or ‘muzzles’. So stupid on all counts.

            And incredibly disappointing, from you.

            @Janet
            Thank you my love. I won’t be staying for long mind. Hope you and the little sunny one are at your best xx

          2. Bodger

            just millie, I am watching all this unfold with mounting horror. Unlike you, I do not believe the narrative and I think this is about population control among other things. Nigel, who you are defending and who is very much a cretin, has spent the past 18 months using terms like ratlickers and ‘conspiraloons’ to try and kill any debate on this matter, without a peep from you.

          3. Nigel

            Um, I have never used either of those terms. (I once riffed on something Micko said about his secret identity as ‘Ratman’ but that was all in fun.) All I have ever asked in this debate is that you actually put up an argument that isn’t ‘I feel sorry for you that you can’t see it.’

            Also – hi Millie, m’luv!

          4. Bodger

            You are on the side of pure evil. As are all of those cackling on this thread in support of you, whether they know it or not (although ignorance is no defence at this stage).

          5. just millie

            @Bodger

            I’m defending no one. I suggest you read my comment again.

            And with that said, I think I’ll bow out of this conversation. Take care.

          6. Nigel

            ‘You are on the side of pure evil.’

            But do I choose evil because I’m a bad person who loves evil things, or because you’re so completely unpersuasive that what you call ‘pure evil’ is, in fact, ‘pure evil?’

          7. Bodger

            Nigel, if you know what’s going on, what you’re doing is incredibly sick. But, as everyone can see, you are a sadist who gets an endorphin rush trolling decent people. You may have dissected live animals for fun as a youth. Either way, you remain a cretin, an evil one.

          8. Nigel

            I know what’s going on – a pandemic and the distribution of a vaccine. The pandemic is not evil, it’s a natural phenomenon and has no moral value, though it leads to tragic outcomes. The vaccine is saving lives. If you think something else is going on, you’ve been incredibly non-specific about it.

        2. Nilbert

          You’re just not plausible these days Bodger. You are clearly creating a narrative to be outraged at. Its very obvious.
          You’re even adopting Trump’s lazy-minded childish nicknames…

  2. White Dove

    Truly amazing how quiet lawyers are about this. I assume some legal brain is writing a ‘J’accuse’ to Joe as I speak. No attempt in his speech to even justify this under the US Constitution.

    1. george

      When has a president ever made specific references in a speech to the constitutionality of any law being announced? That just doesn’t happen.

  3. goldenbrown

    open to correction, my understanding was that the Biden/Harris ticket was a compromise in an effort to minimise any split in the camp and to convert as much value as possible out of “radical” Bernie Sanders supporters when it came to the eventual vote…so I wouldn’t have expected Harris to have the same views as Biden on many issues really…

    1. Mr T

      Harris’ remarks were from yesterday – she is the VP. You cant have 2 diverging policy positions coming from one government.

          1. SOQ

            The principle is the same though. Given that vaccinated people can be just as infectious as non vaccinated, they are both personal decisions.

          2. Nigel

            No, the pandemic is a public health emergency, and mass vaccination is an emergency public health measure, to which everyone in the US has access, whereas abortion is about the denial of access to health care. The saeme political party in the US is opposing access to health care for women, and opposing emergency public health measures, the principle involved is that that party is fueled by homicide and misogyny.

          3. SOQ

            Mass vaccination is an emergency public health measure which has already been proven to be ineffective and not fit for purpose.

            In Israel you will need three jabs and even that will have a six month timer before another one. And yet, their infection rates are sky high. There is no communitarian argument for these vaccines any more- it is personal choice only.

          4. Nigel

            Even if you need a further jab the communitarian argument remains, since vaccines reduce risk of infection and risk of spreading.

          5. scottser

            SOQ: Mass vaccination is an emergency public health measure which has already been proven to be ineffective and not fit for purpose.

            this is complete nonsense and you know it.

          6. Nigel

            For someone who doesn’t know what’s going on in Israel, you use it a lot to make broad points about vaccine effectiveness.

          7. SOQ

            Please explain it to me-

            Please explain why the country with the highest percentage of the population vaccinated also has such high rates of infections and illness?

          8. Nigel

            I wouldn’t be confident of my ability to explain it properly. Why don’t you go see what actual experts are saying?

          9. Cian

            Portugal, Iceland, Malta, Spain, Denmark, China, Chile, Ireland, Canada, France, Belgium, Italy, Norway, UK, Sweden all have higher % of population vaccinated than Israel.

            https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2021-05-23..latest&facet=none&pickerSort=desc&pickerMetric=total_vaccinations_per_hundred&Metric=People+vaccinated+%28by+dose%29&Interval=7-day+rolling+average&Relative+to+Population=true&Align+outbreaks=false&country=GBR~FRA~ITA~ISR~MLT~CHL~PRT~DNK~ISL~CHN~CAN~BEL~IRL~NOR~European+Union~ESP~SWE

        1. Zaccone

          @Cian Israel has a significantly younger population than all of those other countries. 25% of the country is under 12, so ineligible for a vaccine. Amongst eligible 12+ population they’re still at or very close to the top of the vaccination table.

  4. Micko

    “We can turn the tide on Covid 19. It’ll take a lot of hard work, and it’s gonna take SOME time”

    Would that be the next four years there Joe? I think it might be…

    Speaking of Joe’s.

    Did anyone catch everyone’s favourite Covid survivor Joe Rogan’s podcast yesterday.

    YT Clip below.

    The proliferation of COVID variants
    https://youtu.be/gmy8znrLPc0

    Ooops…

    1. SOQ

      So the vaccines are creating the variants? That makes sense. The ones which are not targeted by the vaccines have a distinct advantage.

      1. Micko

        I’ve no idea tbh. It’s interesting to think that they could be.

        But sure it’s just a podcast. And those guys are biologists (as far as I know)

        I’d be interested to get Alick’s take on it here ;-)

        1. Nigel

          They don’t, but vaccine-resistant variants may emerge as a greater part of the population is vaccinated, which I have seen explained and discussed as long ago as last year. Hopefully Alick will enlighten…

          1. Micko

            “They don’t”

            Thanks Doctor Nick!

            Interesting that you watched THAT YouTube video though eh Nigel?

            Are we learning yet?

          2. Nigel

            No, I didn’t, I just know this from discussions by experts from as long ago as a year. Obviously you should not trust my layman’s recall of the subject and go look it up yourself, preferably not on YouTube.

          3. Micko

            Emm

            First off, the people in question in that vid are not laymen, they are biologists and actually state they are not experts in the field, but are quoting someone else.

            And how the hell can Alick “hopefully enlighten” you when you won’t watch the initial part of the discussion?

            You’d be missing most of the initial info. Do you expect Alick to cover what it is in detail?

            Seems like what you’re really saying is your waiting for Alick to GIVE you what your opinion should be.

            Also, (and no offence Alick) – you have no idea who Alick is, what his qualifications are or what his motives are. (For the record, I think he’s a good guy, but he doesn’t think for me) ;)

            Your inability to watch a YouTube video that you think might change your mind and or algorithm is really effin weird man.

            Really really weird.

          4. Nigel

            I said I was the layman, not anyone else. Micko, I hate to tell you this, but YouTube is not the only source of expert discussion on this, or any subject. I was joking about the algorithm, I just hate watching videos, I prefer to read articles. Yes, that’s still weird. No, I don’t care. Also, since you’re only hearing about this now, you’re the one who is late to the discussion.

          5. Micko

            Actually myself and others talked about evolutionary pressure caused by vaccines and other stimuli on viruses months ago on Broadsheet, including possibly effect of lockdowns actually causing mutations etc.

            I think I discussed it with Alick too. So not late to the party ;)

            You must have missed it

            Anyway,

            You must miss so much of the content here, not watching Youtube link people share.

            Do you think that limits you in understanding others point of view? It might make you myopic to others opinions.

          6. Nigel

            In general I take people’s opinions as they are expressed in their own words. Sources that inform opinions are not irrelevant, but YouTube is hardly the be all and end all of sources of information.

        2. alickdouglas

          Right, the shortest answer I can give is that the evidence to inform the discussion is extremely poor, so it’s really hard to say.

          More detail: so I’m specifically talking about the ‘are vaccines creating/likely to create variants’ point (I watched the video and I’m not commenting on the other points raised). I think the more useful question is whether vaccines are likely to drive variants towards greater pathogenicity.

          The roll out of both Prevnar and ‘modern’ meningococcal vaccines in the early 2000s led to a lot of public health people questioning whether vaccination would drive pathogenicity. The short answer there is that Prevnar appears to have driven some change for a limited number of ‘pneumococcal’ bacteria, and the meningitis vaccines probably have not. However, bacteria and parasites are not viruses and I think they misinform this discussion.

          There’s a lot of fairly shabby stuff in MedRxiv suggesting that the mRNA vaccines won’t drive pathogenic variants, so I had a look at older stuff. There are some promising looking papers back to about 2000, but on closer examination, most of them are modeling papers, not real-world, and their parameters are informed by… evolution in bacteria and parasites… That somewhat leaves informed discussion in the realm of which expert you want to believe.

          Pushing beyond that then, the sensible thing to do would be to assume that the vaccine is capable of driving change and to monitor for that. To a certain extent, that is being done, with all the studies that examine variant spread though PCR. There are plenty of authorities that have experience with this kind of work for other pathogens, including NIBSC in the UK, RIVM in the Netherlands, CDC Atlanta, the Israeli MoH and others. However, it would be a difficult analysis to conduct; one would need large numbers of COVID+ samples, and a relatively well informed understanding of vaccination in the population; the best way to do that is to look at countries that only used one vaccine type, hence, once again, probably Israel. My suspicion is that it will be a very long time before there will be enough evidence to support a sensible discussion on this topic.

          1. SOQ

            How about the competition angle between variants alick? Lets assume the dominant strain has a slightly higher infectiousness but a vaccine comes along and nobbles it.

            Surely that leaves the pitch clear for other strains then? Which begs the question- why had they to be so specific in the first place of course.

          2. alickdouglas

            Hmm, it’s annoying to have to reply to ones-self to respond to others, but I guess there needs to be some limit.

            SOQ, regarding your first point, well, that’s sort of what I’m getting at, I think that without data one can speculate any side of ‘what if…’ Data/evidence is needed to get beyond that, and dredging up reliable data/evidence at this stage is not going to be easy.

            What do you mean by ‘why did they have to be so specific?’ As in why did they have to be so specific in the choice of spike? One answer is that the sequence (or transgene for the adenos) is only stable up to a certain length, so you need to choose a sequence/transgene that fits; about 3000 bases if memory serves. Spike fits that pretty well. Barney Graham’s papers back to 2016 support why one would prefer spike over other epitopes (in 2016 he was discussing RSV). One could in theory put in multiple spike variants into an mRNA vaccine, but that becomes something of a manufacturing and formulation nightmare at the very least, not even considering how you would measure effect.

          3. SOQ

            Yes I am thinking of a tweet made by Marcus De Brun this morning- I am completely out of my depth here of course, so only gleam what I can from others.

            29 Proteins make up a SARS-CoV-2. If you have met the virus via natural exposure you have potential antibodies to all 29

            If you have protected yourself by following the Rules & are reliant on the vax:

            You have potential antibodies to ONE:

            A 2yr old copy of the Spike protein.

            https://twitter.com/indepdubnrth/status/1436221270211891200

          4. alickdouglas

            OK, again with the replying to myself: anyhow, SOQ, referring to Dr De Brun’s tweet, he’s over-simplifying quite a lot, but that’s also a side effect of twitter. I don’t recall if 29 proteins is the correct number, I assume it is. However from a molecular biology and pathogen targeting perspective one would consider some targets ‘good’ and others ‘bad’. There are many reasons why targets might be considered good or bad, but for vaccine manufacturing I’d suggest that the top 3 are 1) whether the protein is ‘easily visible’ to the immune system (the spike is, it’s ‘on the outside’) 2) the relative stability of the protein’s structure (the spike is relatively stable) 3) the ‘mafucaturability’ of the protein; as already mentioned for example, for mRNA or adenos, it needs to have a genetic code the appropriate length to fit in. There are those who propose that other proteins are used, either alone or in combination with spike, but all the serious work I’ve read generally supports spike as being if not the only one, then–relatively–the most appropriate. Of note, many manufacturers, both existing and new, are looking at updating to new spike variants; the exisiting vaccines are typically referred to as ‘Wuhan’-type, expect to see ‘Delta’-type vaccines/candidates in future.

  5. SOQ

    I asked this question yesterday but nobody seemed to have an answer so- once more for Jesus.

    Where someone is forced to take these vaccines under treat of losing their job, in the event of injury or death, who is liable?

    1. johnny

      who forced you take that job ?
      its simple you don’t like the policy-quit
      we insist on long sleeves in ALL public facing areas to cover ink-some dont like that,i mean c’mom man thats a great dragon…yeah but the…

      1. SOQ

        If some is taking those injections under treat of losing their livelihood, then that is force, or coercion, call it what you will- its the same thing, because they wouldn’t have taken it otherwise.

        1. johnny

          ….is there no local drama club,you are talking about ADULTS right.
          in what set of circumstances do you imagine employers are ‘forcing’ injections ?

          its mainly applicable to the feds and military who are all volunteers,the economy hit a brick wall in Aug,so….

          1. SOQ

            US President Joe Biden on new vaccine rules on federal workers, large employers and health care staff.

            The entire topic we are commenting on is about force- or coercion. Is it so unreasonable to ask who is going to compensate those who will be injured or the families of those who will die?

            This is a change in the employment contacts after all- nobody signed up to taking such risks of an experimental therapy.

          2. johnny

            NO-that all you want talk about ALL the time-FORCE the imaginary FORCES the forcing of….
            when,no one gives a F about the feds or military taking not taking quitting,no one cares no one…..people are over covid here,most are trying hard to just get past it,people here have lots choices,we dont ask at my place nor do most.

          3. SOQ

            If you are about to lose your livelihood then there is nothing imaginary about it- it is as real as it gets.

            Of course it is force- if you don’t want to take the vaccine but wish to remain employed, then what else could it be?

            Definition of force 3- violence, compulsion, or constraint exerted upon or against a person or thing.

            https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/force

          4. johnny

            ….its about saving lifes,not taking ‘livihoods’,if it was up me i’d simply let nature run its course,you want a vax,here you go,you dont..well you cant work for the feds or serve in the military…eh ok.

            i cultivate and harvest weed,at commercial or industrial levels to really loud music indoors and a smal amount outdoors,we are growing 24/7 and have never,ever grown so much,its still not enough..i don’t know nor care what the ‘rest’ is doing,we just dont.The hospitality industry in NY is finished as you knew it,but again not that many people care….yanks have very high tolerance for sick old people dying,until it impacts the planned economy recovery, then its ….but most yanks are simple,self centered and selfish,suits me at moment.

          5. SOQ

            Well, you may not think it is important but I am pretty sure a lot of people do. And, more to the point, what the US does in these matters, Ireland usually follows.

            Nobody can deny there is risks with these jabs and unfortunately it will be well in the past tense before we know how high they actually are.

            It is perfectly reasonable that such people or their families be compensated in exactly the same way as if it was an accident at work.

            I wonder what the employer’s liability insurance companies think about all of this mind- will they be prepared to pay-out on such?

    2. George

      They aren’t being forced to get vaccinated. They will require a weekly test if unvaccinated. This is in the article linked to but Bodger chose not to include it in his post.

  6. Daisy Chainsaw

    Bodger appropriating the murder of six million Jews cos he still can’t get a pint inside.

    Ratlicker conspiraloons aren’t the Jews in this scenario. You’re the brownshirts, rampaging through shops, smashing windows and heads.

      1. George

        Chris, that’s not true and the fake statistic being circulated you are trying to quote but have misunderstood isn’t true either.

        1. chris

          Nonsense, the Deltoid, I mean Delta varient is invariably going to harm the vaccinated – hence the manic attempt to get as many people as possible jabbed. I won’t be injured by others ignorance.

  7. Nigel

    Why does it sound better in German? Is it because free vaccinations resemble the European socialised approach to healthcare rather than the astonishingly awful US private insurance system?

    1. Janet, dreams of an alternate universe

      it’s probably the only thing that would sound better in German, so easy to learn but so ugly in the mouth

      1. V aka Frilly Keane

        Ah fair play Yep

        a few more in the pipeline – well all the ones I’ve been promising to complete for the last year or so
        follow them over @villagemagire shur

        or meself there
        just click on the V aka etc

  8. johnny

    carry on with the ‘sleepy’ distractions ,this is a far more important decision or policy,the feds are fairly helpless locally,most mask mandates/covid measures are local not federal,see florida/texas.

    “All children 12 and older in Los Angeles public schools must be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by January to enter campus under an order approved Thursday by the Board of Education, the first such mandate among the nation’s largest school systems and a decision that triggered immediate pushback.”

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/09/us/la-vaccine-mandate-students-schools.html

    https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-09-09/los-angeles-school-officials-approve-vaccine-mandate

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