[The Soup Nazi]

Originally Posted by tw2113

what about the GOP Women, Mitchy-poop? Do you hate women?

Boys go to Jupiter to get more stupider. Girls go to Mars, become rock stars.

[tw2113]

In other news, South Dakota is opening up vaccines for everyone above the age of 16, come Monday, so I'm able to now get myself scheduled to be stabbed

[Antagon]

One of my uncles tested positive now. This came shortly after my aunt had a positive home-testkit result that was kind of voided by a subsequent negative lab-test. My mother tested herself after having been in their garden for a short time recently, where my uncle just "passed by". I told her that she might still call the service number, just in case. She was like "No, we barely had contact. We didn't even speak. And I tested negative at home. It should be alright.". Hope she's right.



Maybe I'm a bit overly tense right now, but the overall atmosphere of nonchalantness kind of baffles me. Especially when it comes from family members or friends I care about.


On the upside: From what I gather, my father should be getting his first Moderna shot one of these days. So maybe I can see him in two months or so.

[The Soup Nazi]

Your mother should get a "real" test ASAP, Antagon. "We barely had contact" is contact, and that's all it takes.

[Antagon]

Originally Posted by The Soup Nazi

Your mother should get a "real" test ASAP, Antagon. "We barely had contact" is contact, and that's all it takes.

Exactly. I tried to tell her that getting a lab test/calling the service number to hear further instructions would be a good idea. By "Hope she's right" I meant I hope she's okay. Wrote her again today, stressing that I think it would be really important now and that I'd feel better if she did. Hope she's mindful of that.


Those home testkits are a nifty tool of convenience, but they aren't as reliable as many think they are. All they really do is tell you whether your viral load is at a point where you're really contagious. And then, results may vary.

[tw2113]

https://thehill.com/policy/national-...avirus-vaccine

[The Soup Nazi]

Originally Posted by tw2113

https://thehill.com/policy/national-...avirus-vaccine

 

[tw2113]

Originally Posted by The Soup Nazi

 

I assume they all think they're too strong for the virus to "win" and they don't want to look like proverbial pussies.

[The Soup Nazi]

Originally Posted by tw2113

I assume they all think they're too strong for the virus to "win" and they don't want to look like proverbial pussies.

The refrain "THE CORPS, THE CORPS, THE CORPS!" has never been more timely — if you pronounce the last consonant.

[The Soup Nazi]

What the fuck is up with this freedom of choice for the military anyway? Full Metal Jacket-wannabe drill instructors kill cadets every year by forcing them to comply with inhumane orders, but soldiers can't be ordered to get a damn vaccine?

All countries have elements of contradiction and hypocrisy, but the United States is off the charts.

[!@#$%!]

40% of dumb cunts means impending mutiny/revolt

watch handmaid's tale to see what happens next

[Skuj]

Many Republicans are Marines, I see.

I'm RCAF. We have a "vaccination parade" this month. I'm actually allowed to refuse, which I think is bullshit.

But I lean Dem*, so of course I will have it.




*How the fuck did I stay in the military for 40 years?

[The Soup Nazi]

Fareed Zakaria's latest Washington Post column, this time on something we've been talking about for some time, so I'd strike the word "new" from the headline (although it's true that now there's more cold hard data to back it up):

A new key to covid success: Not states but societies

A few months after covid-19 burst onto the world stage, it seemed clear why some countries were doing well and others poorly. Places that had strong, effective governments — China, Taiwan, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, Germany — suffered few deaths from the virus. Places with weak leadership and bureaucracies that were dysfunctional — the United States, Britain, Italy, Chile, Brazil — did poorly.

But now, one year into the pandemic, the situation is somewhat more complicated. Many European countries that had gotten the virus under control have now seen sharp spikes in cases. Some countries that were pummeled by the virus have done very well with vaccinations. How to make sense of these new facts?

It remains true that the single strongest ingredient to successfully handling the pandemic has been strong and effective governmental institutions, particularly in the public health domain. But it turns out, that’s not enough. In addition to the state, we have to look at society.

Michele Gelfand, a cultural psychologist at the University of Maryland, has long argued that a key distinction among countries is whether they have “tight” or “loose” cultures. Tight cultures like China tend to be highly respectful of rules and norms; loose ones like the United States tend to defy and break them. In a January 2021 paper in the Lancet Planetary Health, she and several colleagues studied 57 countries and concluded that loose countries had five times the rate of covid cases and nine times the rate of covid deaths as tight countries.

Gelfand points out that this distinction between rule-observant societies vs. rule-breaking ones was first observed by Herodotus and has been noted by many anthropologists and scholars over the centuries. But she has tried to study the phenomenon systematically and determine the consequences of these cultural traits. In March 2020, as the pandemic was growing, she presciently warned that loose cultures were likely to have a hard time unless they managed to “tighten up.”

The numbers speak for themselves. When looking at cumulative deaths per million among large countries, loose cultures such as Britain, the United States, Brazil and Mexico have been some of the worst performers. Tight cultures such as those in East Asia — China, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Vietnam — have all maintained very low rates of covid cases, hospitalizations and deaths.

Gelfand wisely does not claim that these cultural differences are rooted in some innate differences between East and West but rather are a rational product of historical realities. Societies that have faced chronic threats — war, invasion, famine, plagues — tend to develop tight cultures in which following rules becomes a mode of survival. Think of Taiwan, constantly under the threat of Chinese military intervention, vs. the United States, sheltered by two vast oceans and two benign neighbors. Places that have been secure and prosperous for a long time tend to become more lax about observing norms.

This distinction between state and society sheds much light on Europe. In many European countries, such as Germany and France, the state functions well. As a result, they were able to crush the curve after the first wave. But eventually people got “weary” of following the rules (in Emmanuel Macron’s phrase). In France, social distancing broke down during the country’s August vacation period. In Germany, people decided to gather for festivities a few months later. The result — covid spikes.

The vaccine rollout highlights another dimension of this phenomenon. Some of the loosest countries, which fared poorly in managing the pandemic through measures such as social distancing — the United States, Britain, Israel, Chile — were the most innovative and dynamic at developing, procuring and distributing the vaccine. The very traits that made it hard to follow social distancing rules were ones that helped generate the solution to the problem — and now they are benefitting from that creativity, risk-taking and rule-breaking.

Gelfand told me that this is not a case of one trait being better than the other. “Whether you are a country, a company or even a family, sometimes you want to be tight, sometimes loose. The key is, do you know how to move from one side of the spectrum to the other.” She points out that New Zealand, generally considered a loose country, tightened up when confronting covid. Greece, under the leadership of an extremely able prime minister, did the same. “The goal should be,” she said, “to be ambidextrous — tight or loose, depending on the problem we face.”

[tw2113]

i still think perpetual war is blue chew for republicans. they get off on it.

[The Soup Nazi]

So for reasons I won't bore you with, I spent the last two years without cable, getting all my news and movies and TV shows online, watching it all on my notebook. Now the cable's back (good GOD I hate the new menus, what kind of douchebag designed that flashy horror), the first channel I watch is BBC News (international edition, I suppose), a guy's reporting from a street in a place called... Cheltenham, I think (I think), anyway there's a bunch of people walking around and shit and NOBODY'S WEARING MASKS WHAT IN ALL THAT IS FUCK IS WRONG WITH THEM. OK, "nobody" is an exaggeration, but over half those mooks, mostly old timers, were maskless. Expect cases in the UK to skyrocket again after the recent "good" numbers, I guess...

[h8kurdt]

Nah, wearing masks outside has never been a mandate here. Inside you'll see everyone wearing them. I reckon in the past six months I've seen a handful of people not wearing masks. Which is kinda surprising as I'd expect more douche bags around.
So our numbers are plummeting given that no it feels like most people don't wear masks outside.

This by the way, is absolutely not a defence of how shoddily the government have dealt with this whole situation (vaccine roll-out aside). Just an observation.

[The Soup Nazi]

Originally Posted by h8kurdt

This by the way, is absolutely not a defence of how shoddily the government have dealt with this whole situation (vaccine roll-out aside). Just an observation.

Leaving the wearing masks outside issue, it's the same here, actually: an incompetent government (despite the praised vaccine rollout) taking half-assed measures, but, without making a false equivalence, if nobody waiting in line for ANYTHING ever keeps their distance then fuck this, we'll never see the end of the pandemonium.

[Antagon]

 

This is a quote posted on social media by probably the most prominent news show in Austria yesterday. It was too powerful not to share.

Allow me to translate:

"It is really strenuous. One year in, we're all really gasping for air.

Recently, there has a been a situation that really got to me. It was a 37-year-old patient that had me struggling for two night shifts. He was in a very bad shape. And at 5 in the morning, after I had peformed the last venipuncture, I had to tell him that he won't make it - that his lungs are failing and that we have to put him into an induced coma. The patient was deathly afraid and started to cry. And it was there, after 22 years on the job, that I had reached a point were I got goosebumps and joined him in crying. It was horrible. He then asked me those questions, like: "Am I going to wake up again? It is too early, I can't die yet. Am I ever going to leave this room again?"

I am trying to raise awareness. But some are incorrigible. That angers me. All of those ignorant people anger me. Comments on social media by people who think they know better, anger me. People who go out to protest against the measures, get sick themselves and then wind up in my care, anger me. All of this is madness."

- Barbara Lindner, Intensive Care Nurse in Vienna

[The Soup Nazi]

^ Unfortunately, that sums it up. Everything made worse by the human condition.

[The Soup Nazi]

Now they're saying the vaccine killed DMX, because of course they are.

https://www.politifact.com/factcheck...dmx-died-afte/