Note, Conroe ISD is located in Montgomery County (very conservative area) where less than 50% of the county is vaccinated and has opposed mandated measures to control COVID-19 spread. Imagine, if a student had some extremely rare and contagious disease (say, like Ebola) that was not on this list of diseases that the schools could require the student to quarantine... sheer madness.
Once again, awful take. You assume the decision is made on misinformation. Maybe its made on the same information you found to be credible, and they decided against it.
10-year-old dies from plague in Colorado https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/10-year-old-dies-from-plague-in-colorado/ar-AAMuUq5
"Opinion: What the fight between Anthony Fauci and Rand Paul is really about": https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...-anthony-fauci-and-rand-paul-is-really-about/ excerpt: Both men were playing to the cameras, but many scientists think Paul actually does know what he’s talking about. One of them is Rutgers University microbiologist and biosafety expert Richard Ebright, whom Paul quoted as saying this research “matches, indeed epitomizes the definition of gain of function research.” Other scientists, even those who believe the lab leak theory likely, argue that Fauci is technically correct, although they note that the official definition is so narrow it enables anyone to avoid the review process Fauci himself helped to establish. In other words, if the oversight system for reviewing risky research is almost never used, what good is it? But it doesn’t matter which “gain of function” definition you prefer. What everyone can now see clearly is that NIH was collaborating on risky research with a Chinese lab that has zero transparency and zero accountability during a crisis — and no one in a position of power addressed that risk. Fauci is arguing the system worked. It didn’t. Even if the lab leak theory isn’t true, what’s clear is that we need more oversight of this risky research, both in the United States and in China. Fauci also told Paul there’s no possibility the research in the paper Paul cited directly led to the SARS-CoV-2 virus, but Paul correctly called this out as a straw man. That specific project was only one element of the U.S. government multiagency effort that for years pumped U.S. money and know-how into these Wuhan labs, via the EcoHealth Alliance, including NIH, USAID and the Pentagon. According to an intelligence fact sheet released by the Trump administration and partially confirmed by the Biden administration, the WIV took our help and used it to build another, secret part of the lab, where they worked with the Chinese military. *** This is ultimately not about Fauci or Paul or even gain of function research. This is about getting to the truth of how this pandemic started so we can adjust our policies to prevent the next one. That means avoiding politics, not quibbling over semantics and pushing forward without bias or pre-conclusions. This is an urgent issue for our national security and public health. more at the link
Should we reconsider funding research in Chinese labs in the future, given their lack of transparency? Perhaps, but the politicization of scientific research in an area as important as this really is not a good thing. The science is better off with more robust and transparent collaboration, rather than siloed research. It seems this editorial is trying to make the point that the consequence of any such collaboration is that the Chinese can take the information we share or information learned from our funding and somehow use that to do risky/dangerous research. This strikes me as speculative paranoia. I’ll note that the article links to an intelligence fact sheet put out by our State Department last year and says: “the WIV took our help and used it to build another, secret part of the lab, where they worked with the Chinese military.” This is what the “fact sheet” actually says: The United States and other donors who funded or collaborated on civilian research at the WIV have a right and obligation to determine whether any of our research funding was diverted to secret Chinese military projects at the WIV. Big difference between saying something happened and saying that the US is trying to determine whether that thing happened.
Which scientists are pushing this gain of function - nearly all agree with Fauci that it wasn't. They weren't creating viruses that could go from not infecting humans to ones that do, they were taking viruses that already can infect humans and testing them on other animals. That is a big difference. It's all so silly. Should this type of research be carefully monitored and safety be of the utmost importance? Yes. Should they stop gain of uncition research? No, not unless you want to leave humanity susceptible to a pandemic someday that we won't know how to fight back
I know conservatives who are vaxxed, and I know liberals who refuse to do so. Conservatives and liberals who don't get vaxxed have bought into fears and propaganda. They aren't dumb. They aren't selfish. And they don't need to be shamed. But they are making a very bad choice for themselves and the rest of society. They are putting their life at risk, and they are putting other people lives at risk. This isn't a judgement, it's a fact. Let me just make that clear - it's a fact. There's no dispute on that unless you are the type to dispute that the earth is flat vs round. There is no valid reason for not getting vaxxed. None. The only reasons not to get vaxxed is because you have fear from ignorance, you buy into the propaganda, or it's political. That's it. The fact that you have to say, "personal reasons" demonstrates that there is no rational reason. As for generalizations - yes most of the people who refuse the vaccine Trump supporters, the data tells us that. But you are right, people across all spectrums don't get vaxxed. Whether you want to call them stupid or not is up to others, but I don't because many are people I respect, even though they are sadly misguided. Do I respect people for their decision to not get vaxxed? Absolutely not. It's a bad decision and demonstrates how bad people are at evaluating risk. Do I abuse them for making that decision? No, because even though I think their decision is terrible, they already know how I think and nothing I can say will change their mind, so what's the point?
Opinion pieces are often not even written by anyone on the staff but are meant to give a variety of opinions on a subject.
