Texas Slated To 100% Reopen Next Week. We're All Gonna Die.

Phoenixmgs

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Nowhere near enough vaccinated to create herd immunity, too cold for open windows and outdoor behaviour, and plenty of nutcases who'll throw away their masks and walk into bars with like minded people. This can only create huge outbreaks and people dying untreated in overloaded hospitals. When that becomes obvious, many will go back into isolation. Except for those who can't afford to not work. Thousands will die and the economy will tank anyway. You'd think a politician would understand how people behave.

The question is, when this fucks up, who will get the blame?
Bars have been open where I'm at (Indiana) for months and months and months already. And you kinda can't wear masks in there. Indiana's infection curve looks exactly like Illinois' curve when Illinois had/has far more restrictions.
 

SilentPony

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Biden just said all adults should be able to get vaccinated by end of May. Why would August/September be the time we "might" get back to normalcy?
I mean because adults are stupid? We've had viruses thought to be extinct come back because idiots don't believe in vaccination. There are Republicans out there who will refuse a vaccine simply because it'll make Biden look good.
As far as "should" is concerned, I tried to sign up and was basically told yeah no. I already had Covid, I'm in shape, male, 29. They put me down for phase 3, but told me not to expect a call. I have no problem with that 'cause Im not in a danger group, my point being that 'should be able' and 'will vaccinate' are not the same thing.
And then just plus stupid people. I don't think Covid will be under control for years.
 
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Xprimentyl

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It ain't gonna be much different 100% open than it is now. All the places that are high-risk are already mask-less anyway. I very much doubt Texas' infection rate is gonna change that much over this because people are already getting together anyway and all the people that aren't will probably stay that way.
EVERYTHING is opening up with NO capacity restrictions. Restaurants, bars, sports venues, etc., places where close, incidental contact is basically unavoidable with a virus that only requires you breathe contaminated air from yards away to contract it. That's a very different world from one in which it's required you wear a mask to mitigate the water droplets in your breath spreading with abandon. You do the math, or ask the +500,000 who've already died WITH precautions in place.

Biden just said all adults should be able to get vaccinated by end of May. Why would August/September be the time we "might" get back to normalcy?
"Biden just said." There's no such certain guarantee that complete disregard of ALL precaution is wise; we still have to SURVIVE until May, and the virus is just as deadly and contagious now as ever; hell, it's mutating! Even if, are we being REQUIRED to take a vaccine? How many people won't do it because "it's just a flu?" Or "I don't want to wait in long lines?" August/September is a time frame that assumes enough people will have been vaccinated that 1.) more people are less susceptible and 2.) the vaccine is so readily available that it's not the massive inconvenience to attain as it currently exists, "inconvenience" being the reason people are today eschewing basic precautions. Have you met "people?" We're idiots.

I think August/September is actually being generous; if we're "normal" by 2022, I'll be shocked, even if the vaccine is available over the counter.
 
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ObsidianJones

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Biden just said all adults should be able to get vaccinated by end of May. Why would August/September be the time we "might" get back to normalcy?
Is that what he said?


“We’re now on track to have enough vaccine supply for every adult in America by the end of May,” Biden said at the White House.
Having enough to supply every adult in America is not the same as all adults should be able to get vaccinated. Logistics, not to mention state and local bureaucracy, will mess everything up. Not to mention people with agenda who will, say, ruin dosages.

If Biden messes up, let's pin him to the wall. But let's do it fairly. Let's not crucify him for not meeting a goal we misinterpreted.
 

Phoenixmgs

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I mean because adults are stupid? We've had viruses thought to be extinct come back because idiots don't believe in vaccination. There are Republicans out there who will refuse a vaccine simply because it'll make Biden look good.
As far as "should" is concerned, I tried to sign up and was basically told yeah no. I already had Covid, I'm in shape, male, 29. They put me down for phase 3, but told me not to expect a call. I have no problem with that 'cause Im not in a danger group, my point being that 'should be able' and 'will vaccinate' are not the same thing.
And then just plus stupid people. I don't think Covid will be under control for years.
You already had it so you're fine already. I know a way to get the vaccine around where I'm at is to ask if there was any missed appointments and they'll let you come in because there's only so long they can wait with the vaccines because of the storage rules. Covid is gonna be over real soon, it's not gonna be years.
 

Phoenixmgs

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Is that what he said?




Having enough to supply every adult in America is not the same as all adults should be able to get vaccinated. Logistics, not to mention state and local bureaucracy, will mess everything up. Not to mention people with agenda who will, say, ruin dosages.

If Biden messes up, let's pin him to the wall. But let's do it fairly. Let's not crucify him for not meeting a goal we misinterpreted.
Basically what I said just above, you don't even need to vaccinate everyone because so many people already got it infected at some point. You don't need 100% vaccination for herd immunity to kick in. The fact that there should be a vaccine for anyone that wants one is good enough. People destroying vaccine doses is not something that's going to have any kind of significant impact.
 

Phoenixmgs

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This is already what Texas is like. It doesn't really matter if they "officially" open 100%. People have already decided what they're gonna do regardless of what precautions are in place. And where I'm at in Illinois/Indiana border in Chicagoland, Indiana has been open for a long ass time (bars, restaurants, etc.) and Illinois just recently opened indoor dining and guess what? Both states infection curves mirror each other over the past few months. People gonna do what they gonna do. Sometime in the summer (or maybe even before that with how fast vaccines are getting out), you'll see the infections being extremely low and they won't be going back up.

All viruses mutate, it's nothing new. You don't need to vaccinate literally everyone, at least 3x of the official infection count already got it and it's probably closer to 5x so somewhere between 86-144 million got it already, you just need to vaccinate the rest. The fact that everyone can get vaccinated by end of May is more than enough.

Stupid boards let me post this with my 1st post by then I couldn't edit and then this was too much text in a single post when I posted with more text before already...
 
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SilentPony

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You already had it so you're fine already. I know a way to get the vaccine around where I'm at is to ask if there was any missed appointments and they'll let you come in because there's only so long they can wait with the vaccines because of the storage rules. Covid is gonna be over real soon, it's not gonna be years.
The problem is the vaccine hasn't been tested against the new strains. Its shown promise in reducing symptoms, but the new strains I think it was Brazil are now documented to infect people who already had a previous strain. The antibodies aren't working, and you can get re-infected. Combine that with overlapping windows of new strains going around, inability to get a vaccine, and antibodies no longer in the system there will be a more waves as different strains travel the globe. I promise you we will still be wearing masks and talking about the vaccine, herd immunity and new strains come 2022.
 

Phoenixmgs

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The problem is the vaccine hasn't been tested against the new strains. Its shown promise in reducing symptoms, but the new strains I think it was Brazil are now documented to infect people who already had a previous strain. The antibodies aren't working, and you can get re-infected. Combine that with overlapping windows of new strains going around, inability to get a vaccine, and antibodies no longer in the system there will be a more waves as different strains travel the globe. I promise you we will still be wearing masks and talking about the vaccine, herd immunity and new strains come 2022.
They've been 100% effective against the new strains against hospitalizations and deaths. What else do you want? The vaccines themselves are likely to give you worse symptoms than getting "re-infected" will. Re-infections aren't a bad thing and they actually demonstrate your immune system working much better the 2nd go around than it did on the 1st infection. Antibodies aren't the end-all-be-all of beating infections and they are working enough for that 100% number. There was this island that got the measles and most got infected, then 65 years later a traveler brought measles back to the island but no one that had it before got it again. You think they still had measles antibodies? You think that strain of the measles 65 years later was the same and never mutated? I promise you we won't be wearing masks even in the summer let alone in 2022. It's basically over, stop watching the fear-mongering news about variants and everything. You think all the other viruses that we got rid of didn't mutate into different variants as well? The flu is basically the only virus that has been able to stick around because of its uniqueness and covid doesn't share that property.
 

Xprimentyl

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Here's another thought. Its too soon to reopen. They know that, they're counting on it. A safe, vaccinated end to Covid?! Its 4 years before Trump can run again, they need to keep Covid going the entirety of the Biden presidency so Trump has a talking point. I wouldn't be shocked at all if the GOP decided to actively sabotage Covid relief and health/safety practices specifically to be able to blame Biden. So what if it costs a few million lives, its not like Cruz has anything to worry about for re-election, and its going to kill the old people and the brown people first, so who really cares?
You were right...

Screenshot_20210303-190832_Twitter.jpg
 
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Thaluikhain

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Eh, not necessarily seeing a concerted attempt by the GOP to do something with this, just the normal everyday evil. You might argue that immoral (killing people for no real reason) is worse than amoral (killing people for a political goal), I don't have a hard stance on that.
 

Gergar12

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I think the quote that Politics is a Zero-Sum game is appropriate for this thread. More covid-19 = more minority deaths = More power to the Texas GOP. If a few thousand Hispanics and African Americans died because of this, while a smaller number of conservative Caucasians die, in pragmatic realism terms the GOP loses less so they win. While the democrats being neoliberal are always going on about win-win. Guess who will win in 2022?
 

Phoenixmgs

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I think the quote that Politics is a Zero-Sum game is appropriate for this thread. More covid-19 = more minority deaths = More power to the Texas GOP. If a few thousand Hispanics and African Americans died because of this, while a smaller number of conservative Caucasians die, in pragmatic realism terms the GOP loses less so they win. While the democrats being neoliberal are always going on about win-win. Guess who will win in 2022?
Then why are the Republicans for getting rid of abortions if the democratic voters are far more likely to get them thus reducing their voting numbers?
 

Silvanus

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Then why are the Republicans for getting rid of abortions if the democratic voters are far more likely to get them thus reducing their voting numbers?
Religious dogma is pretty much all the explanation required there.
 

Bartholen

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Religious dogma is pretty much all the explanation required there.
It all makes perfect sense with this one quote:

""The unborn" are a convenient group of people to advocate for.

They never make demands of you; they are morally uncomplicated, unlike the incarcerated, addicted, or the chronically poor; they don't resent your condescension or complain that you are not politically correct; unlike widows, they don't ask you to question patriarchy; unlike orphans, they don't need money, education, or childcare; unlike aliens, they don't bring all that racial, cultural, and religious baggage that you dislike; they allow you to feel good about yourself without any work at creating or maintaining relationships; and when they are born, you can forget about them, because they cease to be unborn.

It's almost as if, by being born, they have died to you. You can love the unborn and advocate for them without substantially challenging your own wealth, power, or privilege, without re-imagining social structures, apologizing, or making reparations to anyone. They are, in short, the perfect people to love if you want to claim you love Jesus but actually dislike people who breathe.

Prisoners? Immigrants? The sick? The poor? Widows? Orphans? All the groups that are specifically mentioned in the Bible? They all get thrown under the bus for the unborn."
 

tstorm823

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Alternate theory: the unborn are the single category of human being that can currently legally be killed based on someone else's preference, and thus get unique advocacy.

I guarantee, if the law said any other group of people could be killed on a whim, Republicans would be on top of it.