And this part gets at the heart of the problem. We should have focused, after the most vulnerable in hospitals and nursing homes, at the workforce.
The retirees who could afford to continue staying home and get deliveries from vaccinated workers should have been last in line.
Instead, like we do with everything else where the folks with the votes get priority, we shot all the retirees, leaving the last group to be the folks actually working the jobs and having to be out in public.
Vermont isn’t safe by their actions alone. They are safe because they have 1- no density for spread to propagate and, 2- a low density of FREEDUMB lovers to fuck it all up.
Major metro areas have density, public transit, and a large number of people who cannot work from home. That’s the spread. Not your fantasies of Spring Breakers running rampant in Detroit, Philadelphia, Chicago, etc…
Meanwhile, racialized communities are getting slammed because they have to work, take transit and live in dense cities.
A true Democrat turns to Vermontand says: we got you. And Vermont says: we know.
Read my reply to your other message if you must. But I think we are are the same page.
Salute.
I live in the greater D.C. region. Quite metropolitan, plenty of spread despite plenty of adherence to continuing limitations and lockdown rules that never went away.
We’re almost the poster child of the antithesis of what is happening in the “fuck it, let’s go to the bar” places like MI, and it’s still spreading here for exactly the reasons you point out-- can’t be totally isolated at all times, for different reasons like work and groceries and medical care.
What stands out in a MI or FL is the populace refusing to adhere to the simple rules.
So why should I tell my neighbors, or myself, that I or they should risk looking-term effects or even death by delaying our place in line for folks who can’t be bothered?
I’m in Ottawa, the Canadian opposite to D.C.
Much like you (though we didn’t get as badly hit as you did last spring), we hunkered down like the good government town we are. Still, now we are getting slammed.
It isn’t behavioural change that has caused it. It’s the variants that are breaking through masking, distance and crowd limitations. Our latest increases are less about free wheelers and more about the disease becoming more virulent.
Vaccinate hot spots. Vaccinate those who cannot work from home. And move all schools online until May.
That will save lives and limit the number of new COVID-19 long timers accordingly.
Think that’s the difference here. In the States, there is a direct correlation between the States which are flouting the basics and the hotspots.
So for us it’s a different question. Surging to hotspots for a deadly virus when everyone is following the same rules is fair and equitable. Surging when the hotspots are the places who don’t follow them means that other people are literally dying so that they can party.
Believe a lot of doctoral theses will be written about pandemic ethics in the coming years.
You are somewhat on point. But we have our nutbars here too and our Premier in Ontario was one of them… or at least elected by them.
Canada has, by nature and by our Constitution, a more communal orientation. So our otherwise right wing premier had to change course once the crisis hit and, frankly, I’ve been sufficiently impressed by his performance as to no longer hate him as a human being. Therefore, my wish that he suffer multiple anal fissures is held in abeyance.
We have our own reality deniers. But they are not linked to a single political party. We have the NDP to house some anti-vaxxers and the Conservatives to house the rest. We have libertarians housed in the Conservative camp, but others who go too far and join the yet to be labelled fringe fascists party.
Our extremism is structurally on the fringe. The Liberal Party is impermeable and, as such, we have a permanent safe harbour.
So yeah, I get it.
Red state/Blue state, insanity/sanity.
A simple dichotomy that one would think the winner would be clear and undisputed. Why isn’t life so simple below the 49th?
Does Michigan have surplus doses from previous allocations sitting around? Does California? Is California experiencing a major covid surge?
Who the fuck is “Whitemore”?
Your argument is uninformed. Please do some research.
She’s trying to do her best during this crisis, and republicans are putting up roadblocks everywhere. Michigan was one of the earliest states to get Covid and lost thousands of people, especially in and around Detroit. It’s been a long and difficult journey, and she and her administration have been working very hard to get a handle on it despite the republicans, who are actively working against her and the people of Michigan. She and the majority of us want to be able to return to some normalcy SAFELY.
Cut her some effing slack.
0 for 2 there. We have had any number of outbreaks caused by people thinking the rules didn’t apply to them. And the urban areas we have are quite dense enough to support spread. (Once again shown by outbreaks.) And we have the racism that “forgot” outreach to people of color, especially those for whom English is a second language.
What we’ve had that saved us from complete disaster was a governor and legislature that took the pandemic seriously and recognized that lots of dead people was worse than lots of closed businesses. (They even passed frontline worker hazard pay, albeit in an ass-backward way that denied benefits to most of same.) We’ve also had a mostly-screwed-up vaccination priority system that has been saved so far by the low general transmission rate.
(The thing about low population density areas is that people still get together in the same few places, and they still travel between those areas. Sports gatherings killed a whole bunch of people, for example.)
Be aware that the MI House and Senate are in repub control. They have spent their time taking away the power of Governor Whitmer. If you don’t live here, you don’t understand.
As satisfying as that would be, we’d end up cutting off our nose to spite our collective face. Now I’m afraid of whatever variant they have spilling over into my state.
We’re only going to beat this virus by vaccinating enough people so it has no place to go. If we were able to turn Iowa or some other state into a leper colony, I’d be fine with that, as long as they couldn’t leave and infect others.
So where was her call to them in recent days to shut things down or to allow her to?
I only saw where she twice called on Biden to be the rescue plan, which opens him for the blame game.
Look, I get that she didn’t make the whole problem to begin with, but by giving them an “out” now, where they can blame Biden for their current crisis (and they certainly will), she is doing their dirty work for them.
And if there are so many citizens in support of her there, why aren’t you organizing and marching to demand action?
She can override the court and the legislature? I didn’t know this.
Anyway, I’m done. You’re being a whiny thing and it’s annoying. No one is taking your precious vaccine supply away.
I wasn’t saying she could, I’m asking why she’s not calling them out and prefers to try to throw Biden under the bus for michigan’s politics problems.
Since you call it whiney, I’m sure you haven’t been vaccinated, and are offering your spot up in line to surge vaccines elsewhere?
The frustrating thing is that Biden is going to get this virus under control, these people won’t be dead, and they’re going to turn around and say, see we told you so.
There won’t be any thank yous.
which part of “sending more vaccines won’t make any difference at all for weeks” don’t people understand. If there is a crisis in Michigan, then crisis measures need to be taken. But the “variants” won’t isolate themselves in Michigan for the next month – and more vaccine for Michigan means less vaccine elsewhere, making other populations more vulnerable.
Institute a major lockdown for a month to six weeks (with exceptions for those who have been fully vaccinated for at least two weeks) — THAT is how you stop the spread of the virus and its variants. Do that, and then rush extra to the area to prevent a new surge once this one is under control.
We will never win over some people, but that shouldn’t stop us from trying to solve problems that impact them.
But I still wish they could have a shred of decency. I really don’t understand the mindset.