More people died in Alabama during 2020 than were born as Covid-19 deaths continue rising in the US - CNN
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
(CNN)Alabama had more people die last year during the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic than births, a top health official said, as the US continues to grapple with rising coronavirus cases and deaths.
"This past year, 2020, is going to be the first year that we know of in the history of our state where we actually had more deaths than births," Alabama Health Officer Dr. Scott Harris said Friday during a news briefing. "Our state literally shrunk," he said. Vaccine boosters for more people are on the horizon. But the unvaccinated remain the biggest obstacle to curbing the pandemic Preliminary data shows that 64,714 people died in Alabama in 2020 while there were 57,641 births, Harris said. In 2019, the state recorded 54,109 deaths and 58,615 births, according to the health department. According to state data, 7,182 people in Alabama died due to Covid-19 in 2020 and total Covid-19 deaths reached 13,209 as of Saturday. Read More Even though more than half of the country is fully vaccinated, Covid-19 cases, deaths and hospitalizations have been rising over the past few months -- and it's not impacting everywhere equally. In Alabama, where 41% of people are fully vaccinated, according to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), officials said more hospital beds have recently become available, though it's not because people are recovering from the virus. "It is not because these patients are miraculously getting better and going home. It's because they're dying," Dr. Kierstin Kennedy, the chief of hospital medicine at the University of Alabama Medicine. Of Alabama's 67 counties, 65 have a "high" level of coronavirus transmission, and two are at the "substantial" tier, state data shows. Kennedy noted that most of the vaccinated patients she has seen get extremely sick or die are older or have significant co-morbidities that negatively affect their immune systems. "This is not a surge of the young vaccinated that are six months out from their shots. This is a surge of the unvaccinated," Kennedy said. CDC study: Unvaccinated 11 times more likely to die from Covid-19 It's a similar story in Mississippi, which now has the highest amount of deaths per capita from Covid-19, surpassing New Jersey, which had long held the worst rate due to its massive outbreak early in the pandemic. Mississippi has one of the lowest rates of vaccination in the country with 42% of all residents fully vaccinated, trailing the national average of around 54%, according to CDC data. In Kentucky, nearly 85% Covid-19 deaths have been in partially or unvaccinated people, Gov. Andy Beshear said Thursday. The partially vaccinated or unvaccinated also accounted for more than 87% of Covid-19 cases and about 92% of hospitalizations, he added. The governor urged people to get vaccinated to protect themselves and others as well as to help the state's economy recover. "I hope that you ... hear very clearly that the number one thing that we can do to get through this is to get vaccinated. By percentage, 90+ percent of folks that end up hospitalized are unvaccinated. So how do we not overrun our hospitals? We get vaccinated."
Covid-19 cases among pregnant people rise
One of the groups health experts are urging to get vaccinated is pregnant people, among whom Covid-19 deaths appear to have recently spiked. In Mississippi, at least eight pregnant people who were not fully vaccinated have died of Covid-19 since late July, according to Dr. Thomas Dobbs, the state's medical officer. One person was partially vaccinated, and seven were not vaccinated at all. Mississippi says Covid-19 deaths in pregnant women are rising -- and it's pleading with them to get vaccinated In total, 15 pregnant people have died from Covid-19 in Mississippi, and officials are analyzing information on 72 stillbirths that have affected Covid-infected pregnant people in the state, Dobbs said. That appears to be twice the usual stillbirth rate. "Please get vaccinated," Dobbs said at one of two news conferences this month that addressed the topic. "You've got to protect yourself; you've got to protect your baby." In Alabama, at least seven pregnant people have died from Covid-19 since the onset of the pandemic, according to Harris, the state health officer. The state also averaged 23 pregnant people hospitalized with the virus over the past week, he said Friday. "Your OB/GYN is entirely focused on your health and your baby's health. And all that matters to them is a good outcome for you and for the baby," Kennedy said. "So if the OB/GYN is saying that you need to get (the vaccine), you gotta listen to that." The CDC reported that Covid-19 deaths in pregnant people in the US appear to have ticked up in August and recommends that pregnant people get the Covid-19 vaccine. About 25.1% of pregnant people age 18 to 49 in the US had received at least one dose of a vaccine during pregnancy as of September 11, according to the CDC's latest published data. East Alabama Medical Center nurse Harvard Graham checks fluids for a Covid-19 patient in the intensive care unit Thursday, December 10, 2020, in Opelika, Alabama.
People are leaving their jobs due to vaccine mandates
The US had vaccinated 54.5% of its total population as of Saturday, CDC data shows. And as some institutions, including health care facilities, roll out vaccine requirements, there has been some push back. At least 125 part-time employees from the Indiana University Health system have lost their jobs for not complying with vaccination requirements, spokesperson Berkley Rios told CNN Friday. More than half of Americans support vaccine mandates for workplaces, classrooms and sporting events "Indiana University Health has put the safety and well-being of patients and team members first by requiring employees to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by September 1," Rios said. "After a two-week unpaid suspension period ending September 14, a total of 125 employees, the equivalent of 61 full-time employees, chose not to receive the Covid-19 vaccine and have left the organization." Rios added that the impact on staffing will be minimal as the health care system was already working to fill those positions. Meanwhile in South Carolina, the state has reached a milestone of vaccinating 50% of eligible residents. "Reaching this 50 percent benchmark is a testament to the countless hours (the Department of Health and Environmental Control) and partner staff have put into putting these life-saving doses into arms," DHEC Director Dr. Edward Simmer said. Gov. Henry McMaster added that choosing to receive the vaccine is personal. "Two things are clear -- the most effective way to protect ourselves from COVID-19 is to get vaccinated, and the vaccine is readily available in every part of the state. If you decide to get vaccinated after thoughtful consideration of all the facts, now is the time to do it," McMaster said.
CNN's Liam Reilly, Andy Rose, Jason Hanna, Kay Jones, Melissa Alonso, Claudia Dominguez, Rebekah Riess and Gregory Lemos contributed this report.
Red states are dangerous to the survival of mankind!
and to being, 'well', Red
Blacks and Hispanics are less likely to be vaccinated. And that doesn't include all the emigres and refugees coming in.
Way to cherry pick Greg.
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That was my thinking too
Mine too. But was trying to be polite about it.
Yet more cases of lefties not being able to handle the truth..
Thank you for being civil.
The truth about the vaccine? That's a very long, unsupported, stretch there Greg.
The numbers/figures don't lie
Your cherry picked numbers? You can't see the forest through the trees.
Good, we finally have some measure of population control.
If we won't do it on our own; then nature will take it's course.
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Really? That exquisitely refined distortion of facts ignores that New York City has twice the population of Alabama and five times the number of COVID fatalities. New York State is still experiencing between 30 and 40 COVID deaths per day. The number of COVID deaths each day in California is higher than what Alabama is experiencing with this spike.
Keep in mind that the Delta variant did not originate in the United States. Infected people entering the United States are responsible for the present state of the pandemic. The pandemic of the Delta variant has been affecting the young between ages 5 and 18. And children who are not eligible for vaccines can also spread the virus. The pandemic of the Delta variant is a pandemic of the young who have not been vaccinated or who cannot be vaccinated. It would seem that vaccinating those aged 5 to 12 would be a high priority but, no, the blame is being shifted elsewhere to gloss over the lack of planning and effort.
The unvaccinated in Alabama pose little risk to the rest of the country as long as people don't travel to or from Alabama. The virus is spread by infected people traveling around the country and around the world. The Delta variant did not originate in Alabama; the Delta variant was brought into Alabama by infected people. So now liberals are blaming Alabama for what they have advocated and what they have done.
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Abortion really does have an impact on the number of births. Ignoring the impact of abortions when comparing COVID deaths to births only serves dishonest liberal enlightenment. Alabama's birth rate has been declining over the last decade. Don't ignore that abortions are influencing that decline.
According to 2017 data, there were 6,110 abortions performed in Alabama. Of course the data is old because liberals oppose collecting and reporting that information when the facts aren't on their side. Liberals have institutionalized ignorance when it serves their purpose.
Comparing COVID deaths to births means abortion is an on-topic factor in that comparison.
I so agree with that and it's appropriate
A perfect illustration of a double standard.
For that to be relevant, wouldn’t the number of abortions in Alabama have to be increasing? The data I have seen indicates they are decreasing .
Alabama Abortion Statistics
Furthermore, the percentage of pregnancies ending in abortion has also been decreasing.
As you say, the numbers are dated, but there is a clear trend. It therefore seems unlikely that a decrease in population would be due to abortions.
There are far more spontaneous abortions than there are induced ones.
God is the most prolific abortionist.
baby killer! lock him up!
If there were only something that could have been done to prevent this. Oh, wait, what needed to be done was attempted but liberals, somehow, deemed that "racist" and they cried and stomped their feet until they got their way. Now we see how that turned out.
They don't pose a threat to vaccinated people no matter where they go.
That is simply not true. Vaccinated people can still catch and spread Covid.
Covid itself does not pose a statistically significant threat to a vaccinated person, therefore an unvaccinated person is also no threat.
There is, however, an indirect threat due to stressing medical resources and the uncalculable effect this prolonged pandemic has on our socio-economic/political system.
It would be beneficial to have this pandemic behind us. If we are able to get the infections down and well under control then the threat becomes the potential of a new disruptive virus that bypasses our antibodies. We would then cross that bridge with mRNA technology should it happen.
Yes. That doesn't change if people from Alabama travel to another state.
The new virus threat exists at some level anyway.
In any case, unvaccinated people do not represent any significant threat to vaccinated people, and the dogged dedication to the belief they do is statistically indefensible and wholly political.
In short, most of the unvaccinated in Alabama are likely to be Trump supporters, and the people advancing the idea that they're dangerous were just looking for another reason to hate them anyway.
The threat is what I identified: drain on medical resources and stress on our socio-economic/political system. I have never claimed that the unvaccinated pose a significant risk of infection to the vaccinated. They do pose some risk by perpetuating the pandemic but breakthrough infections are minimal.
Now, given I just mentioned breakthrough infections being minimal, let's look at how this applies from a different perspective. The low rate of breakthrough infections mean vaccinated people predominantly do NOT perpetuate the pandemic. They serve as good (albeit imperfect since they could transmit if not infected) barriers to the spread whereas the unvaccinated pose no such barrier and, instead, offer hosts for new variants. And while variants are most likely to come from the unvaccinated billions left on the planet, nothing stops a disruptive variant emerging from an unvaccinated individual within our borders.
If possible (medically and legally), everyone who does not already have immunity should get vaccinated for their own health and for the good of our nation. (Apply the same sentiment when speaking of the entire planet.)
This statement from me has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with politics. It is simply good old common sense backed by the facts to date.
Wasn't actually accusing you, just making a comment in general.
No way. First of all, people from other countries have no control over how the virus mutates. It has an equal chance to mutate in Birmingham or New Delhi.
Additionally, infected travelers have no control over the millions of other people who refuse to get vaccinated, wear masks, or social distance.
Americans used to be a people who believed in taking responsibility for their own actions. No more, it seems.
What do you mean by this? Where did you get the idea that vaccinating kids is not a priority? It absolutely is. But vaccinating kids requires new testing and only today has Pfizer been able to show data on that testing. Moderna is probably a month behind. That data will then be reviewed by the FDA, and that will also take time. You can’t just jam an adult vaccine into a 5 year old’s body.
How do you think blame is being “shifted?” Don’t you think adults have a responsibility to themselves and others to get themselves vaccinated and practice other measures that reduce the spread of the virus?
Are you proposing we quarantine the state of Alabama? Or all states for that matter?
Statistics won't overcome the reality that all the variants of concern originated elsewhere and were brought into the United States. Statistically there's a possibility that the SARS-Cov-2 virus will just go away on its own, too. But reality doesn't support the possibility that the virus will just go away or the possibility a mutation of concern will emerge in the United States.
Reality provides copious evidence that the biggest threat are mutations of concern being brought into the United States. And mitigation efforts should address that threat.
Infected travelers have direct control over traveling. The argument is that people of the United States must take precautions because travelers are being irresponsible and our government refuses to exert any control over that irresponsibility.
Americans have been duped into believing they must take responsibility for the irresponsibility of others. We're being told that Americans must make sacrifices for those who are being selfish.
Where's Joe Biden's Operation Warp Speed? Biden has excused himself by claiming his hands are tied by red tape. But Biden is in a position to cut that red tape. We're being led by someone claiming to be a victim of the bureaucracy.
Haven't you been blaming Americans? Haven't you been pointing out that Americans aren't doing enough to protect themselves from risks of irresponsible travelers coming into the United States and traveling inside the United States? Americans are being blamed for something only the government can control.
Quarantines really do work. Mask mandates can't work because masks are only effective if worn properly and we aren't enforcing wearing masks properly. Someone with their nose hanging out is not wearing a mask; they're only making a fashion statement.
It’s a reality, but it’s not a significant one - for the reason I explained. Only random chance has prevented a variation of concern from arising in the United States. However, the more we spread it amongst ourselves, the more we increase the chances that such a variant will arise.
According to the CDC , there are 4 significant variants in the United States. Alpha arose in UK; Beta in South Africa; Gamma was identified earliest in Japan and Brazil; Delta in India. But any one of them could have just as easily developed in the United States.
What makes you think the only way a variant enters the US is through an irresponsible traveler from another country? Why couldn’t it be Americans traveling abroad who are bringing it home? For all we know, any of those variants I mentioned could have developed in the lungs of an American traveling abroad.
I’m also curious what you mean by “traveler.” Are you thinking about tourists? There are many reasons a person might travel. They could be diplomats or businessmen. They could be military. They could be handling freight. Are you prepared to shut down the entirety of international trade?
Warp speed funded the development of new vaccines. That problem is solved. Testing and approving new vaccines simply takes time. The FDA is being particularly careful with children because they are physiologically different from adults and the need for vaccines is not as urgent when compared to safety concerns. Even with Delta, kids typically have better responses to the virus, so the risk v reward calculus is different.
However, I do think - and have often said here - that I think the Biden administration could be doing much, much more to motivate people to get vaccinated.
Americans - not their government - have total control over whether or not they choose to get vaccinated, wear masks, and social distance. They are responsible for their behavior. And at this point, 9 months into vaccinations, and with full FDA approval, they really have no excuse.
So you want to just lock Americans in their homes, the way the Chinese army did? Do you want to shoot them if they try to go outside?
Two things here: First, again people are responsible for the way they wear their masks. They know how to wear them and they choose to be lazy about it. Second, while I do get aggravated with people who can’t seem to keep their nose in their masks, the masks are still effective even if they aren’t worn perfectly. See this report:
Expiratory aerosol particle escape from surgical masks due to imperfect sealing
So poor mask wearing practices are not a reason to stop requiring them.
All the variants of concern were brought into the United States. The virus has not evolved wings and has not floated across the border. The only way the pandemic could happen in the United States is by infected people entering the United States and being allowed to mingle with the domestic population.
Don't expect to be allowed to enter the United States. Doesn't make a difference if it's American travelers or foreign travelers entering the country for any reason. That's not any harsher than shuttering businesses, prohibiting gatherings, fining people for not wearing a mask, requiring testing, or requiring vaccination. Now that vaccines are available, a traveler arriving at a point of entry must either show verifiable proof of vaccination or be vaccinated before entering the country. No vaccination, no entry.
All the migrants at the southern border must be vaccinated before they are processed or deported. The only exception are those under age 12 at this point since we're slow walking vaccine approval for that age group. Show up at the US border and you are going to be poked. No proof of vaccination is grounds for immediate deportation and they'll be poked before they are deported.
Operation Warp Speed involved expediting development, testing, approval, and distribution. Operation Warp Speed wasn't just about the money provided to multi-national pharmaceutical corporations. Testing was expedited by concurrent testing rather than sequential testing. And a lot of bureaucratic red tape was cut. It's taking as long to obtain approval for use of vaccines for children age 5 to 11 as it did to develop the vaccines, establish manufacturing capability, install storage equipment, and set up logistics. The approval for children age 5 to 11 is being slow walked to fit arbitrary bureaucratic requirements.
That's false. Americans are required to follow imposed mandates and the government is requiring Americans to be vaccinated; there isn't a choice. Oddly those same imposed requirements are not being imposed on those entering the country.
That's how quarantines work. How is that any more harsh than shuttering businesses, prohibiting gatherings, fining people for not wearing a mask, requiring testing, or requiring vaccination?
Who trained the public how to wear a mask? Were there public service commercials? Were there public demonstrations? Was educational literature distributed? Or were people left to figure it out on their own? A lot of the packaging doesn't even include instructions for proper use which the government could have required.
Why is this even a debate? Obviously we do both. We vaccinate to dramatically reduce the infections of the variants currently within the USA and we control our borders to mitigate infected people who might bring in a disruptive variant.
We still are quite capable of producing our own disruptive variant but, again, the more vaccinated the less likely we will do so.
Finally, the mRNA vaccines can be rather quickly adjusted by encoding mRNA strands for signature antigens on the pathogen (new variant). Thus if most everyone is vaccinated they will have gone beyond the fear, uncertainty, doubt, ... whatever ... that dissuades them from vaccines and we will have a much more successful round of vaccinations in the population.
To wit, given a new disruptive variant (from here or abroad) we encode the signature antigens and deploy a new mRNA-based vaccine (not as easy as I am making it sound, but still) and the already-vaccinated public will more readily adopt it. Net effect, a much more effective response to a disruptive variant.
Bottom line: we do both. We seek full vaccination (exceptions noted) and we protect our borders.
The problem is that we have not been controlling our borders. There's a lot of mastubatory self aggrandizing by experts who aren't addressing reality. We're being spoon fed theoretical hypotheticals instead of being provided useful information.
Who gives a shit? Bottom line is over 350 million doses have been administered and people aren't growing third eyes or tails. Going out in public means you'll very likely encounter a lot of vaccinated people. And they're the same assholes they were before they were vaccinated. You won't be able to tell who is vaccinated and who isn't.
What dissuades a lot of people is that the pharmaceutical industry has a poor reputation. People trusting Pfizer is like climate advocates trusting Exxon. The public has been lied to and cheated far too often to expect public trust and faith in big pharma or their bought scientists and doctors. The efficacy of pharmaceuticals is determined by accountants and patent lawyers; when the patent expires the drug isn't any good any longer. And that info will likely come from the FDA and CDC.
That's great! When do we start?
For the bazillionth time, so what? Why can’t you acknowledge that Americans are as capable of mutating the virus as anyone else?
I have no problem with that.
Incorrect. As I explained already, the calculus is different and there is more need for caution. Covid is more infectious and deadly in adults than it is in children, so the need to vaccinate was more urgent for adults.
Additionally, the vaccines are exceedingly safe in adults. Teens, however, have experienced concerning side effects like myocarditis. The physiology of children is even more different, so additional caution is warranted.
You are overstating the situation. First, not every American is under the mandates. Second, the choice is get vaccinated, submit to regular testing, or don’t do whatever the activity is. However, I would like to see everyone get vaccinated who doesn’t have a legitimate medical reason to avoid it.
I agree they should be.
You seriously don’t see a difference between being locked in your home and having freedom of movement with a vaccine in your body or a mask on? To me, being vaccinated and having to wear a mask occasionally is far preferable to being locked in my house.
I totally agree. We should be inundated with PSAs on vaccine and masks, but we aren’t.
Correct. So why debate vaccinating the unvaccinated? Both are problems and both should be pursued.
How can you not care that we have in 2.5 billion people vaccinated worldwide and thus have an amazing field test and delivery system for delivering state-of-the-art bio-technology that can be quickly adapted (relative to conventional methods such as including a benign version of the pathogen) to address new pathogens (new variants)? If you do not give a shit about that then your head is in a place that I do not care to explore.
The vaccinations started ½ year ago. The public messaging certainly should be more intense. What is going on with the border is a great question.
I do not know why Nerm does not simply state that there are billions of unvaccinated people outside of the USA and ~100 million within our borders thus probability alone suggests a new variant is likely to come from outside of our borders. Your point is correct that we could produce a variant within our borders and Nerm is correct if his argument is that the breeding ground is much bigger outside of our borders.
You've been using potential virus mutation as justification for forced vaccinations in the US for weeks.
Now you're saying that countries with far lower vaccination rates are developing mutations by "random chance", and that those mutations could have happened "just as easily" in a country with a vaccination rate 4 times higher.
You're going to need to make up your mind.
Make up my mind about what? Do you think I have expressed two opposing points of view?
Yeah, I mean we’re in agreement that it would benefit us to place restrictions like vaccination or quarantine on incoming travelers, but Nerm seems to think that’s the only thing we should be doing. Meanwhile Americans within our borders are supposed to have some kind of free-for-all or something.
Yup, that is how his comments come across to me too.
Yes. You absolutely have. Either high vaccination rates reduce the risk of mutation or they don't. You can't have it both ways.
You only stated one point of view. What is the other one that conflicts with that?
1. High vaccination rates reduce the risk of the virus mutating.
OR
2. They don't.
You have been supporting vaccine mandates for weeks based on the idea that unvaccinated people increase the risk of mutation.
Now you're saying that they don't.
If that’s what you think, then you have misunderstood. All I have said is that location is not relevant to mutation. The vaccine can mutate in the US just as easily as it can anywhere else.
With regard to vaccines, they lower rates of infection and intensity of infection. That reduces the opportunity for mutation.
So....things like temperature and population density don't matter?
And vaccination rates don't matter?
Your questions don’t make any sense and seem like an attempt to twist my words into who knows what. I therefore can’t answer them.
If you have a point of your own to make that contributes to the conversation, why don’t you try making it instead of playing games?
The point here is that you like to assert that vaccines are important when it's convenient to something you favor, but then deny their importance when it's inconvenient.
Really? That’s your point? Then your point is bullshit. At no point have I denied the importance of vaccines. That is an absurd fantasy.
Do you just not understand how the math works?
You said.....
Do you know what 'random chance' is and how it works? In order for something to be a random chance, all outcomes must have equal probability and be independent from each other.
Which could only be true if vaccines don't inhibit the virus from mutating.
Yet you have repeatedly claimed that they do.
My suspicion was correct. You don’t have a point.
The probability of an infected host generating a disruptive variant is equal in all hosts. To find inequality you would need to reframe the problem so as to consider factors within the individual hosts (or their environments) that make one more likely to produce a variant than others. That data does not yet exist.
Each host is an independent entity; the generation of a disruptive variant in one does not affect the probability of the generation in another host.
Approximately 47% of the US population is unvaccinated. About 68% of the planet is unvaccinated. Clearly, a probability distribution across the planet would show that it is more likely that a random mutation will appear outside of our borders.
Look at it like this...if they're killing off more than they're producing, there's a good chance that Alabama could turn blue in a few years
Joe Biden’s failure to control covid means thousands die every month. Another Biden failure.
Pardon the cliché, but dude...
I thought it was trmp who ignored the pandemic?
Oh right.. Only Donald Trump has the magical power to stop Covid without a vaccine and thus left wingers were justified in claiming he was responsible for every Covid death. But Biden, even with a vaccine, isn't responsible for anything that happens when he is President.
Biden is ultimately responsible because of his office. So if you want to leave it at that then, by convention, you are correct. The responsibility does indeed go with the office. In result, the PotUS is blamed or credited categorically and sometimes for factors beyond his control (e.g. crediting a PotUS for a booming economy, faulting a PotUS because new, more infectious, variants of the virus have appeared).
You could also dig deeper and evaluate what Biden has done and is doing to get people vaccinated. The poor control of the border is a clear negative on Biden's actions. In contrast, how is Biden supposed to get irrational people to get inoculated when they refuse to do so? He has worked to make vaccines available for free, convenient, FDA approved, has communicated the importance of vaccinations and has now even resorted to coercion.
If you were PotUS, how would you get stubborn, irrational people who refuse the vaccine to change their minds?
First thing Biden can do is STFU! Seriously, the demented father figure is not going over well- especially with those of us that have/had demented fathers. The sterner and more condescending he sounds the more people are going to put him on ignore. Threatening their livelihoods w/o knowing the facts is another asinine move; especially when they are from states that have AG's just itching to make a name for themselves by taking down the Biden administration in court. Want to see outrage? Watch when people get laid off from jobs because they haven't been vaccinated because of Joe's mandate. The unemployment rate is already high; and companies are having a hard time filling jobs now. Exasperating the problem by dumping more people into unemployment isn't going to do any good.
Second, listen! Not his strong suite or the Democrats for that matter. There are more reasons that people are not getting the Covid 19 shots (I refuse to call them vaccines any longer since they are no more affective than the flu shot), than just being stubborn. Some people have medical conditions that prevent them from taking the shot; some are on strong medications or anti-biotics and are prohibited from taking the shot; and some have had bad experiences with the flu shot- and don't want to risk being stuck with something far more deadly.
Third, after listening (for a change) Biden and the Democrats can come up with a real plan to help people that cannot get the Covid shot for the above reasons. Maybe if it is good enough they can even get the Republicans to go along with it; and not fight in out in the courts.
Fourth, immigrants (illegal and legal) need to be treated the same as US citizens. If there is a mandate for US citizens to get the shot; then that applies to every last person in the US. No exemptions allowed. You want to be here you have to get vaccinated, period. Having unvaccinated immigrants roaming all over the US isn't going to end Covid. Also, anyone that enters this country must prove they are fully vaccinated or has passed a successful Covid 19 test after being quarantined for two weeks. Not doing so just allows even more variants into the country.
It is majorly the uninvaccinated aholes that are driving hospitalizations and deaths upwards. This is not Biden's fault except to the kool aid intoxicated lemmings. They still don't get it. If Trump had taken this seriously, we might be in better shape right now.
Might as well start your comment off with: 'I have no objectivity'.
Amazing. So the vaccines must be 100% effective for you to recognize their value? Further, are you actually implying that people could just get the flu shot and be just as protected against the coronavirus?
That is a tiny tiny minority. You want Biden to focus on the very few rather than on the very many. Dumb strategy.
Well you finally wrote something that makes sense. Yes, I agree on this point.
If you were PotUS, how would you get stubborn, irrational people who refuse the vaccine to change their minds?
Anyone who blamed Trump for every single Covid death has to do the same with Biden.
The only exemption should be if the person is allergic to any of the ingredients or are on medications that should not be mixed with the vaccines.
Too simplistic. One must get to a specific allegation and its supporting argument. For example, those who blamed Trump for all COVID-19 deaths are being unreasonable. However, blaming Trump for deaths that resulted from him downplaying the virus and not immediately acting to protect the nation have a case.
Similarly, those who blame Biden for the tens of millions of people who refuse to get vaccinated are being unreasonable. However, blaming Biden for allowing infected human beings through our borders into the population have a case.
If you were PotUS, how would you get stubborn, irrational people who refuse the vaccine to change their minds?
That and having sufficient antibodies by virtue of recovering from the virus. Regardless, those relatively few cases if addressed fully would not make a dent in the problem at hand.
Too simplistic.
So, in your mind, the people who say Trump killed 400,000 odd people were making a complex, multi layered, assessment?
Why is it, Sean, that you cannot just take what I write without spinning it into nonsense? And why do you do that instead of answering my question?
People who say Trump killed 400,000 people are being unreasonable. Note what I wrote:
How is it possible that the above is not clear to you?
You're acting like you expect reason or rational thought from these people.
Why would you do that?
Said like a potshot from the peanut gallery...
The wonderful thing about pointing out how political extremists renounce reason and rational thought is that invariably one comes along to provide supporting evidence.
The article is about 2020 when Trump was POTUS!
Irrelevant!
Since Sean was blaming Biden for the Covid deaths in Alabama in 2020, noting that Trump was President in 2020 seems pretty relevant.
noting that Trump was President in 2020 seems pretty relevant.
That is like the Trumpturd I saw interviewed blaming Obama for hiding out in the WH on 9-11 instead of taking action. It didn't matter to this grade school drop out that Obama was not POTUS on 9-11.
I saw that. Seems to me he could not connect the dots when the interviewer gave him hints. There are some people who are legitimately stupid; I think you reported on one. On the other hand there are many others who make themselves so by stubbornly clinging to whatever their trusted 'authorities' claim as truth while engaging in confirmation bias to filter out any facts to the contrary.
" This past year, 2020 , is going to be the first year that we know of in the history of our state where we actually had more deaths than births ," Alabama Health Officer Dr. Scott Harris said Friday during a news briefing."
I find it rather funny but not surprising that right wing conservatives will do and say just about anything to blame Biden even for things that happened before he was inaugurated.
In 2020 Trump lied about Covid, told the American people it was no worse than the flu, that it was going to just disappear like a "miracle", he ridiculed mask wearing and social distancing mandates, all while telling others behind the scenes how deadly it really was. Clearly his misinformation and lies led to the situation in Alabama last year where they had more dying of Covid than were being born.
“It’s going to disappear. One day, it’s like a miracle—it will disappear.” Donald Trump Feb 27, 2020
Privately Trump was saying “You just breathe the air and that’s how it’s passed. And so that’s a very tricky one. That’s a very delicate one. It’s also more deadly than even your strenuous flus,” “This is deadly stuff,”. Feb 7th, 2020
What the experts were saying at the same time: “as the next week or two or three go by, we’re going to see a lot more community-related cases.” Dr. Fauci March 3rd, 2020
Trump claimed that i f the economic shutdown continues, deaths by suicide “ definitely would be in far greater numbers than the numbers that we’re talking about ”.
" While nearly 350,000 Americans died from Covid-19, the number of suicides dropped by 5 percent, to 44,834 deaths in 2020 from 47,511 in 2019."
Trump claimed in May of 2020 “Coronavirus numbers are looking MUCH better, going down almost everywhere,”.
The reality was that in May 2020 coronavirus cases were either increasing or plateauing in the majority of American states. Over the summer, the country saw a second surge even greater than its first in the spring.
June 17th, 2020 Trump claimed the pandemic was “fading away. It’s going to fade away.” Of course the exact opposite was true and cases were spiking in most States and the US was seeing 20,000 new cases a day at that point and climbing. By July it was at 50,000 new cases a day.
Trump claimed in July that “99%” of COVID-19 cases are “totally harmless.” The facts showed it to be fatal in about 4.1% of cases and 15% of cases were considered severe as Dr. Fauci pointed out the virus “can make you seriously ill” even if it doesn’t kill you and now tens of thousands of those who have survived Covid are living with severe long term after-effects.
July 6th Trump falsely claimed “We now have the lowest Fatality (Mortality) Rate in the World.”. The facts showed we actually had the world’s ninth-worst mortality rate.
In September Trump claimed America is “rounding the corner” and “rounding the final turn” of the pandemic.
The reality was the number of coronavirus cases were increasing in almost every state; in the last week of October, cases rose faster than reported tests in 47 of the 50 states.
Trump claimed “85 percent of the people wearing masks catch” the virus. This lie distorted the purpose of mask-wearing, which is chiefly to protect other people from the virus, not to protect only the mask-wearer herself and has played into anti-mask morons who clearly don't understand basic science.
So after so much misinformation and lies from the former President, right wing conservatives are desperate to whitewash all those facts and lay the blame at the new Presidents feet who is tasked with cleaning up the mess made by his clearly incompetent and untrustworthy predecessor. Right wing conservatives clearly have no shame.
Nobody is cheering Covid deaths though it is hard to mourn those who called Covid a hoax, spread Covid misinformation, advocated fake cures like pig wormer, got Covid and died...
the odds are a lot better...
No where in my comment do I cheer any deaths. I simply refuted the idiotic claim that the deaths mentioned in the seed that exceeded Alabama's births was clearly not "Another Biden failure".
Your weak attempt to deflect from my factual comment is beyond obvious.
I don't mourn any of those idiots.
I don't cheer the deaths but I won't offer condolences either.
oh sure you can ...
"I'm so sorry that _____ was too goddam stupid to not get the vaccine and then died from covid. you have my thoughts and prayers."
Our lack of a comprehensive national education system, national food standards, and universal health care are directly responsible for many of the "normal" deaths of the under-educated and /or impoverished in the US on a yearly basis. Covid 19 has highlighted many of our nation's social weaknesses. Is our government ever going to address fixing any of this? Probably, not. Unfortunately, it seems to be far easier to replace the "undesirables" with an open border policy.
You can lead a fool to knowledge but you can't make him think...
When half the country distrusts science, ridicules higher education, dismisses the idea of strength through community and diversity, clings to divisive religious and cultural superiority and demonizes their fellow Americans simply because they don't look like them, love like them or worship like them, it's nigh impossible to convince them to support common sense progress that would benefit all Americans. There are millions of Americans who would still reject breaking bread with those who aren't white Christian conservatives, they have zero compunction to share what they have already decided is "theirs" by some fantasy birth right.
No truly patriotic American supports "open borders" or supports "replacing" American citizens with a flood of undocumented immigrants. But true patriots also have empathy and want fair and sensible immigration laws that treat all humans with dignity and respect regardless of how they they got here and support legal pathways to citizenship and embrace diversity instead of fearing different cultures and stubbornly clinging to some archaic and deeply flawed white Christian patriarchy.
While I may be disgusted with the deplorables, defined as Americans who are racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic and Islamophobic, who infect our great nation, I hope they seek help, get educated and embrace empathy, reason, facts and reality instead of simply being "replaced". Perhaps that's a naïve dream, but I really do wish we could all get along even though it would take all of us accepting basic facts, science and supporting higher education. At least then we can have constructive debates instead of just devolving into clicks and clans determined to cling to fantasy beliefs or wild conspiracy theories.
Cultural identity is not limited to skin color, is it? Or to any one group in the world? Isn't being different than others is what diversity is all about? Liberal vs conservative mindset is not about race or even culture.
The US is continually bring in men "of color" from patriarchal cultures that are mostly "Christian". This is just expanding the patriarchy culture in the US to the detriment of women inside and outside of our borders. How are the men "of color" flooding the borders different from the "white" patriarchal men in the US? Have they championed women's rights in their birth countries? If not, why would they do so in the US?
Immigration should benefit the citizens of the US. Which US citizens are really benefitting from immigration? It is NOT the women.
Just traveled by air to my youngest daughter's wedding and had some questions when I got back to Charlotte about my luggage. Had to talk to three people before I got a coherent, understandable answer. The English with the other two was gobbledy gook.
You make some good points, but what it all comes down to is personal responsibility for themselves and those around them.
Yes and no. The more I learn, the more I realize that we (as individuals and as a species) don't really understand ourselves as well as we think we do. I have spent the last year trying to be less judgmental and gain better perspective of myself and others. It is, by far, the most difficult challenge I have ever set for myself, but according to some psychologists/scientists, I have little choice to what interests me and what doesn't.
Food for thought......
and
You should seed these — especially the free will one.
I have watched many of the "You Are Not So Smart" videos that were available on youtube and enjoyed them so much I bought the book. I highly recommend both.
I prefer commenting to being a seeder. At this time, I have cut out an end table out of 1x4s that needs painted and glued and screwed together before cold weather sets in.
So please feel free to seed one or both. I am still re-watching Sapolsky's lectures occasionally because I find his research so fascinating. Maybe, someone will watch these videos and it will open up a whole new way to contemplate existence.
Good for you with Dr. Sapolsky. The guy is a rock star. His book "Behave" is awesome; I still recommend it.
I will seed the Free Will video in your name. It makes the same argument I have made for years on the subject.
Alabama is just the first of many to report deaths exceeding births in 2020. Maine, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and West Virginia crossed that line in 2019, pre-covid. 24 more states may likely report deaths exceeding births in 2020.
With the CDC provisional as 240,000 more births than deaths in 2020 on a national basis and with California combined with Texas almost matching that 240K... there are a lot of states in similar situations as Alabama. We won't get a clear picture of current until about a year from now, imo.
Entirely blew the point of these comments out of the water. Well done.
Not my intent. Simply pointing out we have a long way to go.
I know, it just made me laugh. I'm sure the people making the comments I referred to have no idea what's going on.
Nothing to worry about. There are lots of migrants to make up for the shrinkage.
Ebeneezer Scrooge had the perfect message for the anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers....
“If they would rather die,” said Scrooge, “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”—from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol
It appears to me that a lot of ignorant Americans have taken his advice.
Now that a major R voting base is dying off in AL, I wonder if they will pass a law that will allow infants to vote.
Well, the left is certainly going in that direction. They have floated the idea of 16 year olds voting.