I caught a tiny bit of Trump's speech last night and he was again claiming that the PRC deliberately created this and released it.
Positivity rate in Texas has definitely reached an inflection point and is now trending up. It's difficult to tease out whether the increase is due to the Delta variant (though only 10-20% of Texas cases are Delta) or increased socialization and decreased caution. https://txdshs.maps.arcgis.com/apps/dashboards/0d8bdf9be927459d9cb11b9eaef6101f That said, I am still not that worried. With about 70% of the 65+ and 50% of the 16-65 vaccinated, the virus has a much smaller pool of potential people to infect. If hospitalization does start to increase at a significant rate, that may urge the lazy people and the people on the fence to get the vaccination. The Pfizer vaccine begins to give significant protection after about 10 days after the first shot. With ample supply of vaccines, I believe the majority people will react and get vaccinated before the strain on the health care system gets overloaded. It's unfortunate that some people will unnecessarily die due to vaccine hesitation, but I don't believe it's going to a catastrophe like it had the potential to be prior to the availability of vaccines.
It's more than "unfortunate" for those who die and their families. The gross incompetence of the state's leadership has directly impacted the still far too low percentage of Texans who have been vaccinated. Many, in fact, having no intention of being vaccinated, some believing in "herd immunity." That they could be contributing to deaths and hospitalizations, whether their own or not, seems to matter not a bit. I play trivia weekly (we just started playing again) with a retired cardiovascular surgeon who is buying into "herd immunity." He happens to be a conservative Republican who voted for trump, twice. A brilliant fellow, our best trivia player, who can be completely blind in certain areas, to put it mildly. We don't talk about politics, but this is an area where politics and public health converge, with the health of the general public losing.
Does he know that we won't get to herd immunity if we don't get more than 70% of the population vaccinated?
His logic seems to depart the building when it comes to this topic. The guy is very intelligent and with a remarkable memory, yet he sees what he wants to see. Being his friend requires an amazing amount of self control.
I am tired of this being partisan. This weird coalition of Evangelicals, Conservatives, Anti Vax, and Populists are always all in on false cures and doubling down when the data shows the therapies do not work but the vaccines do. but now we are getting reports from Israel that Delta is potentially powering through mRNA vaccinated folks. Hopefully it’s decoupled and people have regular immune responses like with other coronaviruses instead of COVID-19. **** that wet market and whomever was case one in Wuhan.
Seriously **** the CCP for their initial coverup. **** the GOP (USA), SLP (Brazil), and BJP (India) for basically burying their heads instead of leading, and letting this ****ing kill and evolve. **** the people who said this was just a cold.
