Coronavirus Outbreak

[RZehr]

With the President and the CDC now loosening almost all restrictions for people who have the vaccine, now our Democratic Governor has followed suit. While there remains restrictions in certain places, it is really encouraging to see them dropping some of these mandates.

I personally expect that once a larger percentage of people are vaccinated, society will continue to loosen up. At some point it would not surprise me to see the whole maskless thing go from "only for confirmed fully vaccinated people" to leaving not confirming at all, rather leaving it up to the unvaccinated individuals "honor" to mask up. And eventually functioning as a society without masks, assuming/pretending that everyone is vaccinated.

Yet, there are two other elements that are at play that could prevent normalcy from returning.
First, once airlines and other organizations put technology and rules in place where vaccines are confirmed, that will be difficult to unravel.
Second, if not enough people get vaccinated at all, the war will continue.
Either of these will prevent normalcy.

For us honest people, there could come a problem. If I'm correct, and it comes down to simply attesting that you have been vaccinated in order to buy a ticket, not wearing a mask, etc., we are stuck. Most of the unvaccinated people will have no qualms at all simply lying. So the voluntary attestation route may be viewed by a majority of society as a good solution, and it may be implemented and kept in place for a long time with no powerful opposition.

[mike]

It's going to be impossible now to tell the difference between the antimaskers and the provaxxers. How will we ever cope with this?

[Josh]

For us honest people, there could come a problem. If I'm correct, and it comes down to simply attesting that you have been vaccinated in order to buy a ticket, not wearing a mask, etc., we are stuck. Most of the unvaccinated people will have no qualms at all simply lying. So the voluntary attestation route may be viewed by a majority of society as a good solution, and it may be implemented and kept in place for a long time with no powerful opposition.

The amount of people with that degree of honesty in society is vanishingly small. I mean, how many people do you know who go and confess to the police whenever they speed 1 MPH over or roll a stop?

[RZehr]

I think all viruses by nature tend to mutate into weaker but more transmittable viruses. So the new Covid mutations over time will do the same. So while there was panic a year ago, in the years to come we will only be left with a much smaller threat - even less threatening that we have today, which is less threatening that the one we had a year ago.

If a virus is too deadly, it kills its host, and it becomes extinct. To survive, a virus has to keep its host alive in order to spread to more people. So the mutations that do the best at spreading and keeping their host alive will be the mutation that lasts.

[RZehr]

For us honest people, there could come a problem. If I'm correct, and it comes down to simply attesting that you have been vaccinated in order to buy a ticket, not wearing a mask, etc., we are stuck. Most of the unvaccinated people will have no qualms at all simply lying. So the voluntary attestation route may be viewed by a majority of society as a good solution, and it may be implemented and kept in place for a long time with no powerful opposition.

The amount of people with that degree of honesty in society is vanishingly small. I mean, how many people do you know who go and confess to the police whenever they speed 1 MPH over or roll a stop?

I'm okay with people assuming I have the vaccination. I don't feel compelled to correct them. But I'm not comfortable checking a box to confirm that I have been vaccinated.

[Ken]

With the President and the CDC now loosening almost all restrictions for people who have the vaccine, now our Democratic Governor has followed suit. While there remains restrictions in certain places, it is really encouraging to see them dropping some of these mandates.

I personally expect that once a larger percentage of people are vaccinated, society will continue to loosen up. At some point it would not surprise me to see the whole maskless thing go from "only for confirmed fully vaccinated people" to leaving not confirming at all, rather leaving it up to the unvaccinated individuals "honor" to mask up. And eventually functioning as a society without masks, assuming/pretending that everyone is vaccinated.

Yet, there are two other elements that are at play that could prevent normalcy from returning.
First, once airlines and other organizations put technology and rules in place where vaccines are confirmed, that will be difficult to unravel.
Second, if not enough people get vaccinated at all, the war will continue.
Either of these will prevent normalcy.

For us honest people, there could come a problem. If I'm correct, and it comes down to simply attesting that you have been vaccinated in order to buy a ticket, not wearing a mask, etc., we are stuck. Most of the unvaccinated people will have no qualms at all simply lying. So the voluntary attestation route may be viewed by a majority of society as a good solution, and it may be implemented and kept in place for a long time with no powerful opposition.

I think Biden and the CDC are doing the right thing. What they are essentially saying is that with universally available vaccines, this is now an ordinary preventable disease like any other here in the US. (unlike other countries like India where it is still raging). There is, of course, no way to monitor or enforce masks for the vaccine-less so no one is going to bother. And there will be a portion of the population who just keep wearing masks, regardless, as was the case in some Asian countries even before the pandemic.

But what it does is eliminate a constant source of friction and conflict that has been plaguing us for the past year. I actually think the dropping of mask requirements is going to light a fire under a lot of people to get vaccinated. Because suddenly society isn't keeping them safe anymore. They have to do it themselves.

In any event, if you look at the new CDC guidelines, they still require masks on airplanes and public transportation. And for international flights there are still going to be rigid requirements depending on the country you are flying to. My wife is flying down to Chile next week and the paperwork requirements are immense, even though she is a dual-citizen. She also has to mandatory quarantine for 5 days upon arrival even though she is fully vaccinated with Pfizer since Jan and will have a negative PCR test prior to arrival.

[Soloist]

For us honest people, there could come a problem. If I'm correct, and it comes down to simply attesting that you have been vaccinated in order to buy a ticket, not wearing a mask, etc., we are stuck. Most of the unvaccinated people will have no qualms at all simply lying. So the voluntary attestation route may be viewed by a majority of society as a good solution, and it may be implemented and kept in place for a long time with no powerful opposition.

The amount of people with that degree of honesty in society is vanishingly small. I mean, how many people do you know who go and confess to the police whenever they speed 1 MPH over or roll a stop?

I'm okay with people assuming I have the vaccination. I don't feel compelled to correct them. But I'm not comfortable checking a box to confirm that I have been vaccinated.

While I won't go telling the police I went a mile over, (they would laugh me out of the station) I don't feel comfortable not wearing a mask into stores given this law and what it appears to say.

[Dan Z]

While I won't go telling the police I went a mile over, (they would laugh me out of the station) I don't feel comfortable not wearing a mask into stores given this law and what it appears to say.

Soloist - we don't come out exactly at the same place in terms of vaccination, but I want to note that your integrity and consistency in this whole issue speak well of you. As a result, your perspective is influential.

[Robert]

I'm okay with people assuming I have the vaccination. I don't feel compelled to correct them. But I'm not comfortable checking a box to confirm that I have been vaccinated.

SOmeone asked me today if I had a vaccination. I told them it was a HIPPA violation to ask me.

[Robert]

Interesting points.