Vaccine

Grace, look up the population of Gibraltar. Then look up the annual number of tourists to Gibraltar.

You always shift the goalpost. As Hound has said, it's the off season. A better argument is that the border with Spain is porous and workers cross back and forth. But then that blows your Martha's Vineyard argument out of the water. It also means you are saying there is no herd immunity unless you seal off a high vaccinated place from the rest of the world or hit 90%+ of vaccination in the entire world.
 
Gibraltar traditionally has 10 million tourists per year, and a population of 33,000 people. Even during low season, tourists vastly outnumber locals.

”cases per capita” means you take the number of tourist covid cases and divide it by the number of residents. Not really a meaningful metric.

Gibraltar's current tourist season has been very restricted. You can't be on their red zone countries. You have to be vaxxed or you have to take a COVID test before and after leaving the country. Hotels are also very sparse in the territory....most tourists visiting are day tourists crossing in from other areas. And many of the attractions such as the caves have been closed. It's a day trip location., not a resort.

The exceptions are Spanish (mostly there for work) and English (mostly visiting relatives and/or conducting business). Again, your argument is that 90%+ vax rate is not enough unless you shut down travel and/or the world is 90% or more vaxxed.
 
We've managed to create the best ever self licking ice cream cone. Big government and big pharma love it. One loves the control, the other loves the profit.

Until a vaccine is developed that provides robust real immunity, this is what we have to look forward to. The vaccine wanes, the booster wanes, the virus mutates. I guess what is lost on people is that the silver lining in this thing is that hospitalization and deaths are significantly reduced. Instead of championing that idea and developing treament strategy, fear porn will continue to be peddled and the silly idea of eradication continues to live.

Yup, and the kicker according to the John Campbell stuff I posted is if true, we aren't just looking at 2 years of this but at a minimum 3 (think about it...if you are pro restriction this is the half way mark right now). As Hound says, best option for the vulnerable is to deploy the pills quickly. Everyone else, get your cold and live your life.
 
Gibraltar's current tourist season has been very restricted. You can't be on their red zone countries. You have to be vaxxed or you have to take a COVID test before and after leaving the country. Hotels are also very sparse in the territory....most tourists visiting are day tourists crossing in from other areas. And many of the attractions such as the caves have been closed. It's a day trip location., not a resort.

The exceptions are Spanish (mostly there for work) and English (mostly visiting relatives and/or conducting business). Again, your argument is that 90%+ vax rate is not enough unless you shut down travel and/or the world is 90% or more vaxxed.
Why does that change anything? You’re still comparing apples and oranges: tourist cases versus local population.

Adding in Spanish workers just makes your argument even weaker. Now you are comparing tourist cases plus Spanish worker cases versus local population. That’s even worse.

If you want to make that argument stick, you need to pick a highly vaccinated place with fewer daily border crossing per capita.
 
This is what bugs me most about modern politics. You assume that, because I disagree with you, I must be fearful and irrational. In the statement above, you reject the possibility that a sane, rational adult might believe you are wrong.

It reminds me of the liberals who insist that, because I disagree with them, I must be “misinformed“. No possibility that I just look at the same facts and have a different opinion than they do.
We have disagreed often but I have a better perspective and understand more because of your posts. I don't look at it as if we are on different sides.

Fear and irrationality visit all of us at one time or another but I was simply parroting your "punchline" sentence - except that I actually tied the reason I stated (your fear) to something that was happening in our discourse - you weren't understanding my point and were trying to change the conversation to something else. In changing our conversation you made assumptions that were not true, only addressed two mandates and generalized to all mandates, and trivialized your argument by completely ignoring any "harm" done by mandates.

"You, I would guess, believe that declining to wear a mask or be vaccinated does not harm other people, and that therefore mandates are unreasonable."

You never really addressed the crux of my argument - that irrationality regarding COVID does not lead to rational mandates. You simply took a special case of one of the examples I gave and said it "might even be rational". To my mind, irrational mandates happened with sports and playgrounds last year and continue with mask mandates for young children and the lack of consideration for natural immunity in the vaccine mandates.
 
Why does that change anything? You’re still comparing apples and oranges: tourist cases versus local population.

Adding in Spanish workers just makes your argument even weaker. Now you are comparing tourist cases plus Spanish worker cases versus local population. That’s even worse.

If you want to make that argument stick, you need to pick a highly vaccinated place with fewer daily border crossing per capita.

You've just conceded it! You've just said yeah you moved the goalpost again! You've just said that you can't get to herd immunity unless you have almost all your population faxed and you've basically stopped other outsiders from coming in (or the world is totally vaxxed). Don't you see how absurd that it? You are essentially saying that even if the population is fully vaxxed, herd immunity is a chimera (which is what we've been telling you these last several days)...the only difference is you are still grasping at the illusionary straws of "borders"....seen our southern border?....good luck with that one!
 
Adding in Spanish workers just makes your argument even weaker.
Actually it does not make anything weaker.

What the data shows is that even amongst a population that is about 100% vaxxed, there isn't protection against the spread of the virus.

That is the key takeaway.

You said a month or so ago you and some friends were mad at the unvaxxed because if they only vaxxed up this would all be over soon.

The reality is the virus spreads easily through vaxxed populations. If it didn't, Gibraltar would not have the highest case count they have ever had.
 
This is what bugs me most about modern politics. You assume that, because I disagree with you, I must be fearful and irrational. In the statement above, you reject the possibility that a sane, rational adult might believe you are wrong.

It reminds me of the liberals who insist that, because I disagree with them, I must be “misinformed“. No possibility that I just look at the same facts and have a different opinion than they do.
Your opinion is endorsed by a mandate. WLB.
 
You've just conceded it! You've just said yeah you moved the goalpost again! You've just said that you can't get to herd immunity unless you have almost all your population faxed and you've basically stopped other outsiders from coming in (or the world is totally vaxxed). Don't you see how absurd that it? You are essentially saying that even if the population is fully vaxxed, herd immunity is a chimera (which is what we've been telling you these last several days)...the only difference is you are still grasping at the illusionary straws of "borders"....seen our southern border?....good luck with that one!
Conceded what? You brought up a meaningless statistic, and I pointed out that your statistic is meaningless.

That’s kind of all that happened.

Now you’re going to try to make some US/Gibraltar equivalence: “Border crossings are significant there, therefore border crossings are significant here.“.

US has just under one daily border crossing per 330 residents. Gibraltar has almost one daily border crossing per one resident. The impact on them is about 300 times as large as the impact on us. Just because border crossings complicate herd immunity for Gibraltar doesn’t mean border crossings are at all meaninful for herd immunity in the US. It’s literally 300X more important to them than to us. This isn’t even apples to oranges. This is grapes to watermelons.
 
I still come across people who think it's some kind of conspiracy theory to say the vaccines don't "stop the spread."

But the head of the CDC has conceded this, and now (with the evidence too overwhelming to ignore) Dr. Fauci is conceding this, as well as waning effectiveness.

I am shocked at how many people don't realize this, or who blindly accept the propaganda behind the vaccine passport system -- that allowing the vaccinated to interact only with other vaccinated people will "stop the spread."

What other explanation can there be for the chart below other than that the vaccines do not stop the spread? This is Iceland, one of the world's most vaccinated countries, and where restrictions are now being reintroduced. (The orange line tracks vaccination rate.)
NWJ2qao0aTp7LryK_7qNVuiV-gbFdNLSSkBIFGbtxziCS60rUG--9KXkyhy-dnk9pRrcxhuXF5RwdOec5X2nx6dIhw2p2RH0bMaOCC4kiHPbOaSbdGOXV32lW1PuSxxuQdnZREQP1_ZhrVnQIa1WykuTAzTu_r8=s0-d-e1-ft
I'd also like to share this chart, courtesy of a friend:
EepFR-Xz329OOjXUJZ7O2-y48oXt3Nb3hDiByuPWt-0YHKzcwyz4u-homgRkaCJXEnzl7m2dnUzS1tuGu4nzKdEOVpkkKcbkD6891dk7CBEU1tkwDq74EzdxzaQr-2uuVERs0YOX8FoOGoEaEUEsLLWILbVHt9o=s0-d-e1-ft
He writes:

What can we learn from this graph?
- open schools don't drive covid
- full football stadiums don't drive covid
- lack of masking doesn't drive covid
- no vax mandates don't drive covid

What drives these curves?
1) we don’t fully know, 2) to the extent we do, regional seasonality appears to play the biggest role, and 3) possibly constrained by natural immunity.

Nothing new. Just another example of the experts being wrong about everything again.—T. Woods
 
Actually it does not make anything weaker.

What the data shows is that even amongst a population that is about 100% vaxxed, there isn't protection against the spread of the virus.

That is the key takeaway.

You said a month or so ago you and some friends were mad at the unvaxxed because if they only vaxxed up this would all be over soon.

The reality is the virus spreads easily through vaxxed populations. If it didn't, Gibraltar would not have the highest case count they have ever had.
Sure. And your conclusion is valid in any jurisdiction with more than 30 annual tourists per local resident.

It just does not apply to the 99.9% of the world‘s population which doesn’t live in a tourist trap.
 
Conceded what? You brought up a meaningless statistic, and I pointed out that your statistic is meaningless.

That’s kind of all that happened.

Now you’re going to try to make some US/Gibraltar equivalence: “Border crossings are significant there, therefore border crossings are significant here.“.

US has just under one daily border crossing per 330 residents. Gibraltar has almost one daily border crossing per one resident. The impact on them is about 300 times as large as the impact on us. Just because border crossings complicate herd immunity for Gibraltar doesn’t mean border crossings are at all meaninful for herd immunity in the US. It’s literally 300X more important to them than to us. This isn’t even apples to oranges. This is grapes to watermelons.
Dude, you moved the goalpost. You've basically said even if a population is 100% vaxxed, herd immunity isn't possible if there are people coming in from other areas that aren't 100% vaxxed.

You've destroyed your Martha's Vineyard argument (think of the weekend daytrippers there in the summer). You've said San Diego and Texas can't reach herd immunity given the border crossing (which for them is a huge deal than lumping in Missouri's population to say 1 border crossing per 330 residents). You are also saying then for New York City herd immunity is impossible unless the residents of surrounding New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey are fully vaccinated (even though they also are overwhelmingly day commuters just like in Gibraltar).

You are saying that herd immunity is impossible while there is a large motion of people (even if those people don't stay overnight in the location, as in Gibraltar). So we've gone from 70%, to 85% to 90% to 100% to 100%+ everyone in travel distance to get to herd immunity. You may as well say there's no such thing until everyone in the globe is vaccinated because you know what, people travel. Do you ever get tired of pushing those big goals around the field???
 
Dude, you moved the goalpost. You've basically said even if a population is 100% vaxxed, herd immunity isn't possible if there are people coming in from other areas that aren't 100% vaxxed.

You've destroyed your Martha's Vineyard argument (think of the weekend daytrippers there in the summer). You've said San Diego and Texas can't reach herd immunity given the border crossing (which for them is a huge deal than lumping in Missouri's population to say 1 border crossing per 330 residents). You are also saying then for New York City herd immunity is impossible unless the residents of surrounding New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey are fully vaccinated (even though they also are overwhelmingly day commuters just like in Gibraltar).

You are saying that herd immunity is impossible while there is a large motion of people (even if those people don't stay overnight in the location, as in Gibraltar). So we've gone from 70%, to 85% to 90% to 100% to 100%+ everyone in travel distance to get to herd immunity. You may as well say there's no such thing until everyone in the globe is vaccinated because you know what, people travel. Do you ever get tired of pushing those big goals around the field???
I am saying Gibraltar doesn’t count as a “population” for purposes of epidemiology. Too small and too porous.

New York and Texas? Neither one is all that small. If New York City had 8 million daily commuters, or Texas had 20 million daily commuters, then they’d look like Gibraltar and you’d be right. But they don’t, and you’re not.
 
I am saying Gibraltar doesn’t count as a “population” for purposes of epidemiology. Too small and too porous.

New York and Texas? Neither one is all that small. If New York City had 8 million daily commuters, or Texas had 20 million daily commuters, then they’d look like Gibraltar and you’d be right. But they don’t, and you’re not.
The question you are avoiding is why are cases skyrocketing in a population that is about 100% vaxxed?

What does that say about the vaxx?

It tells you breakthrough cases are not rare.
 
The question you are avoiding is why are cases skyrocketing in a population that is about 100% vaxxed?

What does that say about the vaxx?

It tells you breakthrough cases are not rare.
What does it say? Nothing. With millions of visitors and 33K locals, it’s all noise and no signal. Even the vax rate is all noise. A tiny fraction of people getting vaccinated while on holiday would be enough to mess up the counts.

If you want to know whether breakthrough cases are rare, take a look at Watfly’s MN page. SCC also breaks out the vaccinated case rate from the unvax. For SCC, the jab reduces your odds of a positive test by about 82%: from 33.7 per 100K to 6.2 per 100K.


It’s an 80% reduction. I’ll let you worry about whether that counts as “rare” or not.
 
Dude, you moved the goalpost. You've basically said even if a population is 100% vaxxed, herd immunity isn't possible if there are people coming in from other areas that aren't 100% vaxxed.

You've destroyed your Martha's Vineyard argument (think of the weekend daytrippers there in the summer). You've said San Diego and Texas can't reach herd immunity given the border crossing (which for them is a huge deal than lumping in Missouri's population to say 1 border crossing per 330 residents). You are also saying then for New York City herd immunity is impossible unless the residents of surrounding New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey are fully vaccinated (even though they also are overwhelmingly day commuters just like in Gibraltar).

You are saying that herd immunity is impossible while there is a large motion of people (even if those people don't stay overnight in the location, as in Gibraltar). So we've gone from 70%, to 85% to 90% to 100% to 100%+ everyone in travel distance to get to herd immunity. You may as well say there's no such thing until everyone in the globe is vaccinated because you know what, people travel. Do you ever get tired of pushing those big goals around the field???
The herd is nearly 8 billion worldwide.
 
I am saying Gibraltar doesn’t count as a “population” for purposes of epidemiology. Too small and too porous.

New York and Texas? Neither one is all that small. If New York City had 8 million daily commuters, or Texas had 20 million daily commuters, then they’d look like Gibraltar and you’d be right. But they don’t, and you’re not.

It's always something. Whenever you don't like the solution, you always wave it away (like Los Angeles and your preferred solution). How about Singapore (that one's great because they had masks + vaccination)? Iceland? The UK itself? Waive away.
 
Back
Top