Politics And Current Events

[shmenguin]

Just noticing Biden and MTG have the same face - different hair

[tifosi77]

Like clockwork

[Lemon Berry Lobster]

Attacks against people of Asian descent are up Europe. But ya know Trump because...

ah yes, the christ church NZ shooting was also completely unrelated to the rise of far right populism in america too

No it was all because of Trump.

[shmenguin]

and fauci speaking this assertively would have probably saved a few lives if he mustered the balls to cross his boss a year ago, i'd say

[count2infinity]

There's a middle ground between Paul and Fauci...

[shmenguin]

There's a middle ground between Paul and Fauci...

i agree. they both sucked there.

@tifosi77 - the notion that someone in Fauci's position would withhold data for the purposes of influencing 300 million people to act more safe than is possibly necessary...this is like a tin foil hat thing to you? you've worked for large organizations. you understand how broad messaging works. this is a very strange amount of faith you have in a government official to be fully transparent.

[MalkinIsMyHomeboy]

it's entertaining how Paul refuses to understand that masks are more for saving other people than helping the wearer

that said, while it might be an epidemiologists wetdream that we'll wear masks for the rest of time now, I think we're all coming to a boiling with them. if there are studies that show the vaccines protect against the variants I think we should go into the "if you're not vaccinated, that's not my problem" territory in June-ish

this is where epidemiology and governance move away. Fauci doesn't want to have any more people die from COVID so he'll keep suggesting we wear masks but civilization is ready to move on. Fauci is an advisor, not a policymaker

I think most of us know that people are still going to die if we remove mask requirements but we understand that the people who don't get vaccinated are taking on that risk

though the one thing that gives me pause is that the vaccine hasn't been cleared for children and while we've gotten lucky that COVID is ineffective against children, I'm afraid that a variant might pop up and wreak havoc

[tifosi77]

With statements like "Fauci isn't shooting straight" you are clearly ascribing an element of bad faith/ill-intent that I think is plainly nonexistent in his case. You make it sounds like you think these people capriciously simply changed their minds about this or that for rope-a-dope reasons, and that strikes me as, frankly, quite a silly posture to double down on.

[shmenguin]

specific issue is this...there's no goal. for 12 months it's been to keep the hospitals running (even though we were never plainly told this #FauciThings). we barely squeaked by, but we did it. now, there's virtually no chance of a hospital crisis. like zilch. so what are we doing here?

i understand we need 2-3 more months to make sure 1A's are all set. what then? what's the key thing at stake to cause this continued disruption to norms? there is no thing. just a vague concern about variants that lacks a critical mass of evidence.

i dunno...maybe it's a personal thing that i don't like being spoken to like a child from people in authoritative positions. but we haven't gotten much in terms of straight answers this past year, and that was absolutely by design and not some wacky consiracy,

[Lemon Berry Lobster]

Meanwhile when Rand Paul directly asked Dr. Levine about the government giving minors access to life altering physical decisions without parental consent *crickets*

[shmenguin]

With statements like "Fauci isn't shooting straight" you are clearly ascribing an element of bad faith/ill-intent that I think is plainly nonexistent in his case. You make it sounds like you think these people capriciously simply changed their minds about this or that for rope-a-dope reasons, and that strikes me as, frankly, quite a silly posture to double down on.

not ill intent or bad faith.

From March 2020-Jan 2021 he scared of being fired so he censored himself and cost some amount of lives. From Jan 2021-Mar 2021 he's being overly cautious and is lacking the scientific evidence to back it up. In neither case was he trying to hurt people. In neither case is he being an effective leader.

[MR25]

Because the more chances the virus gets to infect people, the more chances it gets to mutate. The more chances it gets to mutate, the more chances it has of creating a strain that gets around vaccines. Then we'd be back to square 1.

[MalkinIsMyHomeboy]

specific issue is this...there's no goal. for 12 months it's been to keep the hospitals running (even though we were never plainly told this #FauciThings). we barely squeaked by, but we did it. now, there's virtually no chance of a hospital crisis. like zilch. so what are we doing here?

i understand we need 2-3 more months to make sure 1A's are all set. what then? what's the key thing at stake to cause this continued disruption to norms? there is no thing. just a vague concern about variants that lacks a critical mass of evidence.

i dunno...maybe it's a personal thing that i don't like being spoken to like a child from people in authoritative positions. but we haven't gotten much in terms of straight answers this past year, and that was absolutely by design and not some wacky consiracy,

I think to Fauci the goal is no deaths. Completely stop the spread and the virus goes away

Paul (and most of us) are more on the "you know the risks of not getting the vaccine and not wearing a mask; if you die, it's your fault" side

[shmenguin]

Because the more chances the virus gets to infect people, the more chances it gets to mutate. The more chances it gets to mutate, the more chances it has of creating a strain that gets around vaccines. Then we'd be back to square 1.

i understand variant theory. but it's not reality at this point. the data is saying the variants are addressed by existing vaccines. MORE dangerous is casting doubt on those vaccines, giving anti vaxing more oxygen, and then more home grown variants spin up.

people need the vaccine. give them hope. don't be a big f***ing wet blanket about getting back to normal. it helps nobody.

[MR25]

But we don't have enough people vaccinated to get to that point yet. And while it's not reality yet, if you keep giving it chances to mutate, it will almost certainly become reality.

[shmenguin]

specific issue is this...there's no goal. for 12 months it's been to keep the hospitals running (even though we were never plainly told this #FauciThings). we barely squeaked by, but we did it. now, there's virtually no chance of a hospital crisis. like zilch. so what are we doing here?

i understand we need 2-3 more months to make sure 1A's are all set. what then? what's the key thing at stake to cause this continued disruption to norms? there is no thing. just a vague concern about variants that lacks a critical mass of evidence.

i dunno...maybe it's a personal thing that i don't like being spoken to like a child from people in authoritative positions. but we haven't gotten much in terms of straight answers this past year, and that was absolutely by design and not some wacky consiracy,

I think to Fauci the goal is no deaths. Completely stop the spread and the virus goes away

Paul (and most of us) are more on the "you know the risks of not getting the vaccine and not wearing a mask; if you die, it's your fault" side

fauci's goal is that he take no personal and professional risk.

[Lemon Berry Lobster]

But we don't have enough people vaccinated to get to that point yet. And while it's not reality yet, if you keep giving it chances to mutate, it will almost certainly become reality.

We also don't have enough test subjects to have any vaccine that is FDA approved.

[tifosi77]

Shmengy, when I see you post something along the lines of "we were never plainly told that flattening the curve was to preserve hospital capacity", I am left with the presumption that your 5AF hiatus also included a leave of absence from following the news, generally.

That was the entire point from Day 1; we were already talking about the possibility of overwhelming hospital capacity in February of last year, before any regional lockdowns were initiated in the US.

As to the rest of your comments, I do not know what outlets you follow, or if you just consume Fauci's comments in curated Twitter posts, but he's been pretty clear that mass vaccination - presuming efficacy against the variants - will lead to a resumption of something resembling pre-COVID life by the end of the summer. But the key to that is maintaining strict mitigation practices until we get more widespread vaccination coverage.

[count2infinity]

Fauci's career is pretty much over after this. I'm not entirely sure he's worried about personal or professional risk...

[shmenguin]

But we don't have enough people vaccinated to get to that point yet. And while it's not reality yet, if you keep giving it chances to mutate, it will almost certainly become reality.

this isn't about the next 2 months. it's a bunch of mutants in the midwest who see this as Rand dunking on Fauci's hinky story telling and then not getting the shot - ever.

[NTP66]

c2i calling for Fauci to never be employed again

[DigitalGypsy66]

Fauci's career is pretty much over after this. I'm not entirely sure he's worried about personal or professional risk...

The man is 80 years old. No exaggeration. Why isn't he retired anyway?

[MalkinIsMyHomeboy]

Fauci's career is pretty much over after this. I'm not entirely sure he's worried about personal or professional risk...

If i was him I would be. I don't want to be the guy that gets blamed for all this in history books

[NTP66]

The same reason nurses were coming out of retirement in droves to assist with this - it's a massive public service.

[shmenguin]

Fauci's career is pretty much over after this. I'm not entirely sure he's worried about personal or professional risk...

ah, this. so why not make a personal choice to go on TV last summer and tell the truth about COVID and the Trump administration? he was already stripped of meaningful contributions. he had nothing left to offer anyone and would have been confident Biden would have swooped him back up. so why not have a talk with Jake Tapper and see what happens? most generously, you could say he's a fool who thought he was still doing good because he was turned into a meme. but he was doing nothing and could have spoken out. but didn't. for virtuous (?) reasons.