Americans for the most part go along with the regimens and rules of a developed nation. We get licenses before we are legally able to drive. All but 6% pay our fair share of taxes. We obey the law, abide by homeowner restrictions, and pay our bills. Most Americans see that their children get 27 vaccinations before they are 18 years old. In spite of this, some people refuse to go along with Covid-D vaccination or safety measures.
A few have good reasons, but most of those who refuse are afflicted with an epidemic as deadly as Covid-D can be – they willfully refuse to take into account that their actions affect and may infect the people with whom they are in contact – family members, co-workers, anyone they have minimal contact within stores, restaurants, bars theatres, and concerts. Many Americans are spooked by the strange pandemic economy, and Republicans keep pounding that Democrats’ legislative agenda is politically unpalatable, and the media pay too much attention to Republican bellyaching.
42 percent of the unvaccinated adults surveyed said that they “definitely” would not get vaccinated. Along party lines, 30 percent of Democratic men said that they would consider getting the vaccine to protect against the omicron variant, and 29 percent of Democratic women agreed. Just 4 percent of Republican men and 6 percent of Republican women responded “yes, definitely” when asked about getting vaccinated as a preventative measure against the strain.
U.S. vaccination data shows that people living in counties that voted for Trump last year are nearly three times as likely to die from the virus, a statistic that also gets worse as the vote share percentage increases.
The publication looked at the death rate in roughly 3,000 counties across the country, starting in May 2021, when vaccines became widely available to the general public. Specifically, counties that voted at rates higher than 60% for Trump had a COVID-19 death rate that was 2.7 times higher than equivalent counties that swung for Biden.
Attorney generals in 26 Republican states have to get President Biden’s coronavirus vaccine mandate for businesses with 100 employees or more blocked. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has gone along with these states. The Fifth Circuit covers Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. All but seven of the 24 judges are Republicans.
This reflects the effective packing of the courts the Republicans have been able to accomplish in the past 30 years.
It’s not just the Supreme Court that is the problem. Moderate and progressive forces need to mount an effort that will result in enabling fair judges to be appointed.
Counties that went heavily for Donald Trump have seen much lower vaccination rates and much higher death rates from COVID is not surprising but Fox News does not report this to their viewers.
A Kaiser Family Foundation survey finds 87 percent of unvaccinated adults asy the emergence of the omicron strain does not make them more likely to get the shots, compared to 12 percent who said the variant makes them more likely to get the vaccine. Almost half of the unvaccinated respondents, at 48 percent, said nothing could persuade them to get the vaccine. 6 percent said mandates and 5 percent said large monetary incentives could encourage them to get vaccinated.
Former Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin said while being interviewed by Charlie Kirk at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest, “It’ll be over my dead body that I’ll have to get a shot. I will not do it. I won’t do it, and they better not touch my kids, either.” QAnon cultists are now drinking bleach compounds from a communal bowl, which immediately evokes images of Jonestown.
Another instance of obstinance is why folks who think their teenagers can be trusted with guns don’t think they can be trusted with books?
Anti-vaxxers make it sound as if requiring people to be vaccinated and masked in the company of others is a huge threat to liberty — and frequently claim that statistics suggest there is no scientific basis for mandates.
While vaccinated people can get COVID-19 and spread it, the difference in outcomes between vaccinated and unvaccinated is quite significant. Statistics show that the vaccinated are more resistant to catching the virus, and when they get it, their cases are milder and of shorter duration.
More importantly, perhaps, for the mandate debate, those who catch COVID-19, despite being vaccinated, have a considerably shorter period during which they “shed” the disease — that is, in which they are infectious to others — than the unvaccinated.
In addition, when infected, the unvaccinated usually have a higher viral load, which increases the risk they will transmit to others. That alone justifies both masks and requirements for vaccination.
There really are no legitimate freedom issues at stake; no one has a license to knowingly spread a potentially deadly disease to others. But the growing hue and cry from those who claim such a “freedom” can only deepen the divisions in this society, ensuring that more people will be permanently damaged or die and that the overwhelming burdens we face will continue to mount.
One consequence of the pandemic is that American students have lost 20 years of progress in math and reading during the pandemic, national test results showed.
Math scores dropped seven points from just before the pandemic to performance two years later, marking the first-ever decline, while reading scores slipped five points, producing the largest dip in 30 years on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, often called “the nation’s report card.” The students who took the tests were 9 years old and mostly in fourth grade.