4 hours ago, Talkingbirds said:

Numbers are rounded.

55 million people tested positive for Covid.

245 million have at least 1 shot.

330 million population of US.

that’s 91% of population should have some antibody protection.

when does herd immunity kick in ?

 

When the rest of the world catches up.

2 hours ago, Boogyman said:

Pretty much everyone except you can make sense of those numbers.

So you think it makes sense that the vaccinated are over represented in omicron cases? Uhh ok.

4 hours ago, Dave Moss said:

Clearly, people who are vaccinated are still getting the virus.  

And clearly people are getting covid for the second and third time. 

10 minutes ago, Gannan said:

And clearly people are getting covid for the second and third time. 

Do you know some people who’ve gotten it multiple times?

17 hours ago, DBW said:

See it’s no big deal, just a "cold” 🙄 

Glad you have seen the light. 

21 hours ago, Procus said:

Beware the flurona!

https://twitter.com/NewsForAIl/status/1476959131349274625?s=20

They're handing over the baton. The flu "disappeared" and when it reappeared, it made morphed into rona. Tada!

19 hours ago, mr_hunt said:

all good...mild cold...no fever or sore throat.  had to take a sudafed from my meth cooking supplies but that's it so far.

You took a what?

@mr_hunt

have you tried hydroxychloroquine yet?

3 hours ago, Dave Moss said:

Do you know some people who’ve gotten it multiple times?

I do he got it the first time in October 2020 (in Seattle visiting family) and never had the vaccine.  He got it bad enough he changed his mind and got the vaccine and just came down with it again two days ago, but with very mild symptoms.  He wasn't against the vaccine at first either but he is so far out in rural Montana he just didn't even think twice about it (or covid).

6 hours ago, Dave Moss said:

@mr_hunt

have you tried hydroxychloroquine yet?

Hunt is sticking to horse tranquilizers over horse dewormers.  Just as effective, but a lot more fun. 

17 hours ago, Dave Moss said:

Do you know some people who’ve gotten it multiple times?

This guy...

Seems necessary 

 

First I watch the eagles go down 10-0 after 1 and now I read this.  Can today get any worse?

53 minutes ago, DEagle7 said:

 

 

Quote

 

The list of challenges facing school administrators as they head into the new year is long and daunting: crippling staff shortages, nasty battles over mask-wearing, deep academic deficits, terrifying sickness and disruptive quarantines. 

On top of that, administrators are also navigating difficult questions about how best to respond to student discipline issues, including violence, which some educators say has been a growing concern this school year. 

"In the first nine weeks of school, we had more physical aggression in terms of fights than we probably had in the last maybe three or four years combined,” said Crystal Thorpe, the principal of Fishers Junior High School in suburban Indianapolis, who said her students had difficulty transitioning back to full-time in-person classes. 

Thorpe’s seventh and eighth grade students are not only reeling from trauma and loss related to the pandemic — they also missed out on social interaction at a crucial time in their development, Thorpe said, meaning they returned to school lacking skills like conflict management that they ordinarily learn from their peers. 

Thorpe issued an unusually high number of suspensions early in the school year — seven by the end of October, compared to none before Halloween the previous three years, she said — after her staff members broke up fights in the hallways, the cafeteria and by the buses. In one instance, she said, two girls who are normally friends started slapping each other in a dispute over potato chips. 

National data on suspensions and expulsions isn’t yet available for this school year. NBC News requested numbers directly from the nation’s 20 largest school districts, and the 10 that responded offered a mixed picture. Two of the districts — Palm Beach, Florida, and Wake County, North Carolina — reported a rise in suspensions this school year compared to 2019, while several said their numbers had fallen or remained flat. Others said they hadn’t compiled comparable figures. The Dallas Independent School District cut punishments by 80 percent since 2019 by softening its discipline policies in response to the pandemic and to past racial inequities in school discipline, sending students to new "reset centers” for misbehavior rather than suspending them. 

But several advocates for student civil rights locally and nationally say they’re receiving more calls this school year from parents concerned about discipline issues. These advocates said they’re also seeing more examples of students facing harsher punishments for relatively minor infractions, like vaping.

Advocates for Children of New York, which helps students facing disciplinary action, reported 47 calls about student discipline so far this school year, a nearly 50 percent increase over the same period in 2019. The director of the Student Advocacy Center of Michigan, a group that represents students there, said it has received 51 calls about long suspensions and expulsions this school year, up from 38 in the same period two years ago. 

That’s concerning, advocates say, given research showing that students who are suspended or expelled are more likely to drop out of school or end up in the criminal justice system, and that Black and Hispanic students and students with disabilities — the same students who’ve been hit hardest by the pandemic  — are disproportionately subjected to school discipline. 

Advocates worry that suspensions and expulsions could create yet another pandemic consequence for the nation’s most vulnerable kids and have called on schools to work with students who’ve already missed weeks or months of instruction during the pandemic, rather than punish them.

"There has to be this grace and compassion that’s extended to young people who have lived through the world since March 2020, this unparalleled event that all of us are still kind of sitting with and fully understanding,” said Andrew Hairston, the education justice director at Texas Appleseed, a civil rights organization. "It is a perilous moment for young people. If you’re approaching it with the same zero tolerance philosophy that has guided schools for 70 years, then you’re certainly going to see a number of fallouts from it.” 

Ronn Nozoe, the CEO of the National Association of Secondary School Principals, said he’s heard from members around the country that they’re seeing higher-than-usual rates of fights, drug use and other discipline issues and are struggling with how to respond. 

His members don’t want to suspend or expel students, he said, but they have limited resources to address the emotional causes of students’ behavior while also keeping their buildings safe.

"These are deep problems,” Nozoe said. "You know, ‘We don’t have a place to live,’ or ‘My parents lost their job,’ or ‘My uncle died,’ or ‘I don’t have hope.’ These are not issues that you’re going to go to a counselor for 30 minutes and be done with. These are issues that are deep, and some of those issues are not resolvable at the school level.” 

Stephen Paterson, the principal of Kearsarge Regional Middle School in North Sutton, New Hampshire, created a "base camp” for the first two weeks of the school year to spell out expectations and routines and help students readjust to school.

"We took the approach at the start of the year that we had to reteach kids how to be in school,” Paterson said. 

His school has also used "restorative practices” in response to student misbehavior, focusing on teaching children about the consequences of their actions rather than punishing them, he said. His school hasn’t seen a spike in problematic behavior or suspensions, he said.

But educators note that some schools don’t have the staff, skills or resources to effectively respond to discipline challenges without conventional tools like suspensions, especially given staffing issues that have made it difficult for schools to hire enough counselors to serve students’ needs. Hiring issues have also reduced the number of aides available to monitor hallways and support students with disabilities. 

"Teachers and administration and staff are tapped out,” said Ruth Idakula, the program director for Dignity in Schools, a national coalition of organizations that push for alternatives to traditional school punishments. She said she recently polled 20 members of her coalition, many of whom reported an uptick in parent complaints about suspensions and expulsions. "People are burnt out, and they just can’t deal anymore.” 

Educators, meanwhile, are also under pressure to respond swiftly and decisively to safety issues, particularly after school shootings like the one that took place in Oxford, Michigan, on Nov. 30, when a student whom administrators decided not to suspend allegedly used a gun to kill four of his classmates. 

Oxford superintendent Tim Throne later defended the school’s decision to send the 15-year-old back to class despite concerns from teachers who found his violent drawings and writings, saying the student had no history of disciplinary infractions and appeared calm. Throne wrote that the school’s counselors had "made a judgment based on their professional training and clinical experience.” 

While school shootings are extreme situations, administrators must regularly make difficult decisions to keep their schools safe, said Thorpe, the Indiana principal who noted a sharp increase in student violence this school year. 

Sometimes, she said, that means suspending students. 

"Is sending them home the best, you know, unsupervised? No,” she said, noting that students might not be safe at home or might view suspensions as a reward, a chance to play video games. "But keeping them here in an agitated state where they are disrupting the entire school?” she asked. "That’s not the best answer either.

 

 

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/education/school-suspension-covid-mental-health-rcna10329

 

 

Covid is going around my office now. There are only 5 of us. Guy #1 was sick early last week so he masked up and kept working since his covid test was negative. I got sick around last Thursday before my scheduled 2 days off. I masked up all week also when I found out guy #1 was sick and saw him wearing his mask but I still came down with what I'm assuming was the same thing. It wasn't anything serious. I had coughing, head and sinus congestion with a runny nose for a couple days. Never had a fever or felt any aches or anything. I took it easy over the weekend, had a bunch of OJ and whiskey drinks, made some soup, then also tested negative for covid before returning to work. When I get back 2 other guys who sit in the back are coughing and joking around about how guy #1 and myself got them sick. Guy #3 took off work and guy #4 said he felt fine but just had a scratchy throat so he masked up and kept it rolling. The last guy #5 was scheduled to fly today and yesterday he popped a positive covid test. He had to cancel his arrangements and start quarantine today until the 6th. Funny thing is that guy #5 is an older gentleman (72) who stays masked up at all times while in the shop, is fully vaccinated and just got his booster shot less than 2 weeks ago.  After hearing the news last night guy #2 (who is feeling better now) took a covid test at the hospital and also tested positive. He will also be in quarantine until January 6th. The Medical Group asked us all to go take another covid test this coming Friday.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/funds-for-covid-19-testing-dwindle-as-americans-are-plagued-with-long-waits

Federal government has allocated at least $73 billion for COVID-19 testing, so where are the tests?

Only $10 billion of those allocated funds were left by mid-December, according to HHS

16 minutes ago, Procus said:

https://www.foxnews.com/us/funds-for-covid-19-testing-dwindle-as-americans-are-plagued-with-long-waits

Federal government has allocated at least $73 billion for COVID-19 testing, so where are the tests?

Only $10 billion of those allocated funds were left by mid-December, according to HHS

Read the article.

Quote

Prior to the American Rescue Plan, Congress allocated $25 billion in April 2020 as part of the Paycheck Protection Program to "research, develop, validate, manufacture, purchase, administer, and expand capacity for COVID–19 tests."

So 1/3rd of your total is money spent to set things up.

Quote

The roughly $73 billion allocated through these massive economic stimulus plans has been partly doled out to states, which can then use the money to distribute tests for local residents.

Connecticut announced a plan last week to use federal funds to purchase three million at-home tests made by iHealth Labs. Massachusetts announced a similar plan in mid-December to purchase 2.1 million at-home tests and distribute them to areas of the state with the highest percentage of people below the poverty level.

So the states don't necessarily have these funds yet.

Quote

The first at-home rapid test wasn't approved by the FDA until roughly six months into the pandemic in November 2020.

Oh.

3 hours ago, mr_irie1 said:

Covid is going around my office now. There are only 5 of us. Guy #1 was sick early last week so he masked up and kept working since his covid test was negative. I got sick around last Thursday before my scheduled 2 days off. I masked up all week also when I found out guy #1 was sick and saw him wearing his mask but I still came down with what I'm assuming was the same thing. It wasn't anything serious. I had coughing, head and sinus congestion with a runny nose for a couple days. Never had a fever or felt any aches or anything. I took it easy over the weekend, had a bunch of OJ and whiskey drinks, made some soup, then also tested negative for covid before returning to work. When I get back 2 other guys who sit in the back are coughing and joking around about how guy #1 and myself got them sick. Guy #3 took off work and guy #4 said he felt fine but just had a scratchy throat so he masked up and kept it rolling. The last guy #5 was scheduled to fly today and yesterday he popped a positive covid test. He had to cancel his arrangements and start quarantine today until the 6th. Funny thing is that guy #5 is an older gentleman (72) who stays masked up at all times while in the shop, is fully vaccinated and just got his booster shot less than 2 weeks ago.  After hearing the news last night guy #2 (who is feeling better now) took a covid test at the hospital and also tested positive. He will also be in quarantine until January 6th. The Medical Group asked us all to go take another covid test this coming Friday.

It's hilarious that seemingly intelligent people think "mask up" is going to make any difference. Self delusion is now a political badge of honor.

1 hour ago, Abracadabra said:

It's hilarious that seemingly intelligent people think "mask up" is going to make any difference. Self delusion is now a political badge of honor.

Masking, you ignorant tool, is mostly about preventing YOU from infecting others.

This is why it is SOP in ORs, and when visiting patients with immune issues, like burn victims. The mask LESSENS your risk of spreading infection.

That you morons still wring your panties about masks is incredulous.

Just a mild cold...

 

4 minutes ago, we_gotta_believe said:

Just a mild cold...

 

Oh, a l California physician.  Well, he has a blue check so he must be the authority.  Oh, and there's a graph too!

There have been a few here, and quite a few of their family members (yours truly included), who contracted Covid in this latest wave.  We are all fine, thank you.  But let's nevertheless get into a fear induced frenzy brought on by the psychopaths on this thread.  Great idea!

11 minutes ago, Procus said:

Oh, a l California physician.  Well, he has a blue check so he must be the authority.  Oh, and there's a graph too!

There have been a few here, and quite a few of their family members (yours truly included), who contracted Covid in this latest wave.  We are all fine, thank you.  But let's nevertheless get into a fear induced frenzy brought on by the psychopaths on this thread.  Great idea!

 

On 10/5/2021 at 11:37 AM, Procus said:

Nobody actually provided a response to what is happened in Uttar Pradesh India.  What happens is that when you make a point that can't be refuted, the progressive participants in the thread resort to personal attacks and ridicule or attacks on the source of the information.  I mean we are on the EMB, so decorum is correctly disregarded by the members here given the forum.

But again, in Uttar Pradesh India, they beat back an outbreak in less than a month via widespread distribution of Ivermectin.  Nobody here has been able to dispute the veracity of this statement.

If you have facts which dispute the veracity of this, please share.  If not and this is true, you would have to agree that something is amiss.

 

working from home this week as i continue to kick covid's sorry arse. still only experiencing cold symptoms...probably because i'm in peak physical condition...pretty much built like a greek god. 

and i don't trust the rapid covid tests...already had 2 family members test negative even though they're symptomatic. pfft!