Or you know maybe we just let everyone determine their risk appetite like everything else in life. Driving, flying, biking, swimming, golfing, etc.
Everyone gets a choice.
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Sort of. Depends on how drastically those choices can negativity affect others. Itās why there no helmet law in Texas but thereās still a speed limit. The only person at risk is the rider when helmets are concerned. However going 180 MPH into a passenger car will kill everyone involved in both vehicles.
We can go into the weeds on whether or not other people are affected by choices around masks and vaccines but if everybody has their own facts itās a fruitless exercise. I get where youāre coming from but I donāt agree in this case. In a lot of other areas, yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
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Reasonable people grow tired of the ācommon senseā policies that are āscienceā, when they are neither.
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Iāve managed to irk people on both sides of the debate. Fuck this. Good luck yāall. 
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That tracks cuz thatās where we are. People on both sides dead set on being right on their opinion.
At the end of the day we have a shared space for our org and lots of people coming and going with the entire range of opinions about what theyāre willing to do for themselves. I donāt think itās unreasonable for DMS to be extra cautious in our shared space.
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TLDR: Study of Massachusetts covid-19 outbreak of mostly delta variant found that three-quarters of the people who became infected were fully vaccinated.
Well, that should mostly be bad news for the unvaccinated. The vaccinated are supposed to recover better. Itās those days when weāre asymptomatic and spreading it that are really badā¦
Although, weāll see how much difference the Delta variant makes. Vaccinated people have died of Covid, but the (pre-Delta) numbers were statistically insignificant. Still, one doesnāt want to be that dead person.
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Current numbers accounting for the Delta variant mentioned today on various news shows is 99.5% of deaths are in unvaccinated patients.
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I am now irked youāve left the debate!
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This is the metric that should be driving polices at any level, or at most,Covid hospitalizations. Driving policy from Delta ānew casesā is a foolās errand ā thereās always going to be another variant or whatever ā and hyping it day after day in the news or wherever is tantamount to fear-mongering.
Note that reported Covid deaths in Texas for July appear to be ~= 35 as of yesterday; thatās all of Texas, for a month.
My opinion: people in this country who are not vaccinated at this point have made an explicit choice (and itās their choice to make!) not to be vaccinated, and as Dr. Phil likes to say, āwhen you choose the behavior, you choose the consequences.ā
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Iām not irked at all. Your opinions are as valid as everyone elseās. The art we have lost is to be able to disagree and simply accept it. I suspect the powers that be will make a decision, hopefully based on solid facts. Still, your point that we donāt know what is fact and what is wishful thinking complicates this beyond simple agreement. Cooler heads that can persuade is what we needā¦they have been mostly hiding but with luck, they will rise to the occasion.
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More conflicting dataā¦it seems never ending.
From the looks of it, India got overwhelmed with Covid-19. Of 1.4 billion people, the antibody survey of 26,000 people in 7 major states show >70% have antibodies to Coronavirus. With a reported death toll of only 420,000 souls, this shows an amazingly low virulence for Indiaās Delta variant (reports from the USA vary, it is still hard to sort the data).
Britain seems to be emerging from their recent bout with Delta. Their number of newly reported cases from their last wave has almost dropped in 1/2. Death Rates are substantially lower than the last wave; not as many old sick people left to kill.
Numbers spiked in Florida, and across the mid-SouthEast. Low vax rates are blamed, but Iām not so certain after reading the report that CDC got from Cape Cod.
Iām holding out for a breaking wave here in the USA. If we follow the model of Britain, we should be through this in 3 weeks.
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Do recognize that Britain is showing lower reported cases but it hasnāt shown up in lowered hospitalizations. Possible implication is fewer going for test, but not less being infected. Hospitalizations in the coming weeks will clarify if it a real break or just funky data.
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An organizational mask policy may be a wise decision. However should I visit DMS while delta COVID is a thing, Iāll be masking up regardless of organization policy and would encourage everyone else to do the same.
The OTC PPE availability situation seems to have improved - my limited sampling of local Home Depot and Lowes uncovered large stocks of quality N95 masks. While most have dreaded exhale valves, worry not - surgical masks remain cheap and ubiquitous so you can up your inhalation filtration game while also sparing others your exhalation.
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Thatās when you know youāre in approximately the right place.
I manage to piss off my friends and family on the left and the right, and I donāt feel bad about it at all.
Lol. If I wear a mask, itās for me. If Iāve learned nothing else in the last 18 months, itās that Iām not going out of my way to protect people who donāt give a shit about others.
They can go get it. As long as they donāt go welfare queen and saddle the government or my insurance company with the bills, I couldnāt care less.
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DMS had mask standards that required filtration of exhaust, thus Iāve got stacks of surgical masks to burn. As an added bonus before you even get into protecting others from whateverās in your own exhalation stream, a surgical mask prefilter cuts down on the coarser particles that primary finer media would otherwise intercept.
Theyāll contribute to healthcare unavailability and inevitably nudge up your insurance premiums since thatās how indigent care is funded.
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A scary series of tweets came out from Judge Jenkins tonightā¦
We have seen significant increases in cases, cases/100,000, COVID Emergency Department visits, COVID admissions, hospital census and percent positivity. Hospitals are facing substantial staffing issues.
In Texas over 78% of sequenced strains are Delta variant up from 52% two months ago; 96% of strains sequenced the last 2 weeks at UTSW were Delta variant.
In TX, 189% increase in cases in the past 14 days. Hospitalizations up 94%. With COVID-19 related hospitalizations in North TX up 321% from June 30 (368 to 1,550) in the Trauma Service Area E.
And ICU beds are spiking load levels againā¦
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The uninformed (who might later read this) could take away that the vaccine isnāt effective based on the headline, but the vaccines are working. Look at the hospitalizations and deaths. Theyāre extraordinarily low among the vaccinated.
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