One of the biggest failures of the CDC and government agencies is the lack of a coherent and clearly defined target or metric to when we consider the pandemic and our mitigation's "over". This has led to tons of frustration, distrust, and the apathy we see now.

So what is it? Cases below a certain number? Zero cases at all? No more deaths? No hospitalizations? Number of vaccinated? What is the goal? What are we trying to do? What will make everyone feel safe?

One more time until Zobel chimes in:

According to the CDC for ages 0-49, from Jan 2020 to July 2021, there have been 29,249 covid deaths nation-wide. That's .00009% of the total population.

To include 50-64 year olds the number goes to 126,426 or .0004% of the US.

For ages 0-17 there's been 349 deaths over the same period.

https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS/Provisional-COVID-19-Deaths-by-Sex-and-Age/9bhg-hcku

Is it still considered a pandemic?

For some, their fear is terminal and this will never go away.

Until the CDC starts incorporating natural immunity into their vaccinated stats, it is clear that they (those that have been empowered) don't want this to end anytime soon. I'm sure this post is not going to resonate well with several posters on here but so be it.

Irrespective of the reaction you're trying to get, having now posted this same exact thing to four or five different threads did you happen to note the population of each age cohort =/= the sum total? There's some ~60% of the population missing. Cheers

When major hospital systems in major states such as Texas and Florida are stopping all non-emergency surgeries because they don't have enough beds due to COVID, it ain't over and isn't close to over.

It's really that simple.

we had that opportunity and it was vaccination rate.

We failed, and now we face the consequences.

Sooner or later everyone is going to hopefully realize that NONE of the mitigative measures are successful and only delay the inevitable infection or exposure to Covid. More people should consider getting the vaccine but whatever metric is imposed on the population, as if the immunized are free from spreading and getting Covid, is nonsense.

It is over because no matter what we do, we're only trying to manage the short term ramifications of the virus. This will play out shorty and until a new mutation starts causing mass reinfection, increased mortality and/or renders the vaccine completely useless in preventing severe illness, there's not a damn thing we can do.

Sort of ignores the reality that vaccination is the biggest deterrent to hospitalization and sufficiently high immunity would block runaway case growth and hospitalization spikes, but sure, the exuberant apathetic approach works just fine too.

It's weird, but you're all correct? How's that possible? Well, to me it starts with the fact that this has become such a horrifically wonderful political tool for both sides that it's hard know what is fact and what isn't and how to proceed properly from an individual perspective. Take what the DISD announced yesterday combined with the timing. There may be some within that push truly concerned with people's health and wish that masking mandates were brought back. But there is a political power struggle combined with an coming state election and one side sees that as an opportunity to unseat the other as well. So how are we supposed to interrupt that? Children still make up such a small number of Delta infections and while there's supposedly a higher rate of "serious " infection, no real data is given and the data that is doesn't make me too concerned for my own children. Ive worked in the state capitol and trust me, this push to mask in schools and city offices is an attempt to make Abbott look weak and only has the side benefit of making some people feel more comfortable and "safe". Just as much as Abbott declaring no government entity and institute a masking mandate is as much about his constituents and their desires. But where is does our actual risk reside in all of this?

The medical community should be a perfect place to get non political advice. Yet they have their own politics and desires. They also have a well known strategy of generalization when it comes to mitigation like everyone needs to social distance or everyone needs a mask b/c "reasons" when that is entirely not true. Do the vaccinated really need to mask for instance? Where is the real data showing this? There really isn't that much. And the data that is out there, again, still seems to point towards the vaccinated are totally free to leave Covid mitigation behind. What about vaccinated AND natural immune folks who have had Covid before they were vaccinated? And as has been mentioned, why has the medical community consistently ignored natural immunity in all of this? Generalization is why. Hey, I want people to be vaccinated as well, but when you ignore a major thing like natural immunity, it looks like you are either hiding something, lying or just have no idea what your talking about.
Then there is the sensationalism that is the media. Misleading articles and headlines, constantly pushing fear and uncertainty at us. They have a terrible business model set up to get hits and views, not to actually tell reasonable stories and fact.

I'm the end, the issue here is our political leadership and our medical leadership have lost us and we have no confidence in their messaging. This thing is a huge mess and failure. So when will it be over? The moment this spike goes down naturally with more being vaccinated, more just getting the virus and getting immunity etc. The spike will go down. It always does. But when the next spike hits? Depends on whether the media cares enough at that time or if they've decided to move onto a new subject or issue or not. It depends on whether one party can gain a foothold over the other with an agenda by using the virus to propel them. It depends on how the medical leadership responds to it with their messaging. To me, I ha e zero confidence in all of them doing anything different than what they are doing now. It's sad.

COVID for me has been over since abbot about September. That's when my kids went back to school in person, we started vacationing again, and I stopped wearing a mask.

It's easy to do. You just stop worrying about the Corona boogie man everyday, and magically you get your life back. Simple choice love you life or live in fear.

My 10 yo's best friend has leukemia. She's 10, she cannot get vaccinated, and she might have to be hospitalized at any time if she gets even a small cold due to her immune system. Before the cancer, I coached her for 13 soccer seasons over 7 years, since the two of them were 3. She's a great athlete, wants to play goal for the Ags. She may not have a hospital bed available if she needs one.

My wife is a pediatrician. Her employer has had to let doctors go because they were hit so hard financially without elective surgeries. My wife's officemate was let go effective the day she was notified, zero severance pay.

If everyone who could be vaccinated would, we wouldn't have this issue of overcrowded hospitals. Then, covid would still be there, but the excess death due to lack of treatment capacity and the nearing-critical impact on Healthcare workers would be behind us. That's when it ends.

There is no personal choice. There's only public choice. Each individual has the freedom to choose whether they want to incrementally impact the survival rate of cancer kids or help the Healthcare industry start to recover.

DaveAg02 said:

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My 10 yo's best friend has leukemia. She's 10, she cannot get vaccinated, and she might have to be hospitalized at any time if she gets even a small cold due to her immune system. Before the cancer, I coached her for 13 soccer seasons over 7 years, since the two of them were 3. She's a great athlete, wants to play goal for the Ags. She may not have a hospital bed available if she needs one.

My wife is a pediatrician. Her employer has had to let doctors go because they were hit so hard financially without elective surgeries. My wife's officemate was let go effective the day she was notified, zero severance pay.

If everyone who could be vaccinated would, we wouldn't have this issue of overcrowded hospitals. Then, covid would still be there, but the excess death due to lack of treatment capacity and the nearing-critical impact on Healthcare workers would be behind us. That's when it ends.

There is no personal choice. There's only public choice. Each individual has the freedom to choose whether they want to incrementally impact the survival rate of cancer kids or help the Healthcare industry start to recover.

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I work at a children's hospital. She will absolutely have a bed if she needs one. Please don't spread this type of information. COVID patients do not come close to the heme-onc floor and the ICU will always make room, if she needs it.

DaveAg02 said:

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My 10 yo's best friend has leukemia. She's 10, she cannot get vaccinated, and she might have to be hospitalized at any time if she gets even a small cold due to her immune system. Before the cancer, I coached her for 13 soccer seasons over 7 years, since the two of them were 3. She's a great athlete, wants to play goal for the Ags. She may not have a hospital bed available if she needs one.

My wife is a pediatrician. Her employer has had to let doctors go because they were hit so hard financially without elective surgeries. My wife's officemate was let go effective the day she was notified, zero severance pay.

If everyone who could be vaccinated would, we wouldn't have this issue of overcrowded hospitals. Then, covid would still be there, but the excess death due to lack of treatment capacity and the nearing-critical impact on Healthcare workers would be behind us. That's when it ends.

There is no personal choice. There's only public choice. Each individual has the freedom to choose whether they want to incrementally impact the survival rate of cancer kids or help the Healthcare industry start to recover.

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I really hope your daughters friend makes a full recovery and stays healthy but using her to make a moral superiority argument about "the only public choice" is complete and utter bull *****

01agtx said:

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DaveAg02 said:

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My 10 yo's best friend has leukemia. She's 10, she cannot get vaccinated, and she might have to be hospitalized at any time if she gets even a small cold due to her immune system. Before the cancer, I coached her for 13 soccer seasons over 7 years, since the two of them were 3. She's a great athlete, wants to play goal for the Ags. She may not have a hospital bed available if she needs one.

My wife is a pediatrician. Her employer has had to let doctors go because they were hit so hard financially without elective surgeries. My wife's officemate was let go effective the day she was notified, zero severance pay.

If everyone who could be vaccinated would, we wouldn't have this issue of overcrowded hospitals. Then, covid would still be there, but the excess death due to lack of treatment capacity and the nearing-critical impact on Healthcare workers would be behind us. That's when it ends.

There is no personal choice. There's only public choice. Each individual has the freedom to choose whether they want to incrementally impact the survival rate of cancer kids or help the Healthcare industry start to recover.

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I work at a children's hospital. She will absolutely have a bed if she needs one. Please don't spread this type of information. COVID patients do not come close to the heme-onc floor and the ICU will always make room, if she needs it.

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I hope that's true. My wife's children's hospital just stopped all elective surgery and repurposed beds to create an overflow area for adults. I don't know if/how heme-onc is impacted, but I do know they've already shifted as much urgent care out of the ER and into the clinics as they can, and are just plain running out of space.

ttha_aggie_09 said:

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Sooner or later everyone is going to hopefully realize that NONE of the mitigative measures are successful and only delay the inevitable infection or exposure to Covid. More people should consider getting the vaccine but whatever metric is imposed on the population, as if the immunized are free from spreading and getting Covid, is nonsense.

It is over because no matter what we do, we're only trying to manage the short term ramifications of the virus. This will play out shorty and until a new mutation starts causing mass reinfection, increased mortality and/or renders the vaccine completely useless in preventing severe illness, there's not a damn thing we can do.

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I was told we were close to herd immunity in June 2020.

Then December 2020.

Then March 2021.

Yet, here we are in August 2021 with several states seeing hospitalizations that exceed any previous peak in the pandemic. This is coming when doctors, nurses, and hospital staff are burned out from 18 months of this crap and with quite a few that have just quit and/or retired.

I would argue that several mitigation measures like social distancing and masks are successful when correctly applied, but we have argued about that for 18 months and I'm not going to argue it again. The fact is that there is one successful mitigation measure and that is vaccination. The data is clear. A % of our population continue to ignore it.

Not making an argument, just sharing a reality. The cumulative impact of millions of so-called personal decisions is a public impact. So, your decision is a public one. As is mine and everyone else's.

Here is the road map for everyone --

It is expected in September that the vaccines (Pfizer and Moderna) will become approved by the FDA.

Also in September, the vaccination age will also be extended to include more children, potentially everyone 5 and older.

At that time, you're going to see vaccine requirements all over the place. You may not want to believe it, but it will happen. Jobs, schools, colleges, etc. That will push the vaccination rate to where it needs (and should be).

Once some time has passed that will allow children and any adult hold-outs to be vaccinated (2-3 months) to receive both doses of the vaccine, then many of the mitigation requirements (masks, social distancing) will be lifted. Being conservative, by January 2022.

Like I said its all about vaccination rate. They wanted to lift restrictions once vaccination rates reached a certain % (70-80), but it never got there. We failed. Instead we lifted anyway due to low infection and hospitalization rates (as we should have). The delta variant and new wave of infections changed the game. Now we are back to vaccination rate and it will now be forced. That's the reality.

Why is drunk driving against the law? After all, its my choice to get behind the wheel while drunk, right??? I'm assuming the risk, right? It should be ok.

No, because you endanger others by hitting them head on and killing them, which wasn't their choice.

You may want to assume the risk of getting infected, and that's your choice, but by doing so you endanger others who don't have that choice.

Not sure why we continue to have these discussions. We are 18 months in.

I already had the freaking Virus, recovered and am living a normal life... so did my family. You want to know where we got it? From school, from a teacher that was masked while my kids were masked. Not at some freedom rally or anti-mask protest.

It is absolutely my choice as it is everyone else's and I am not going to entertain these stupid false equivalence arguments.

DaveAg02 said:

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Not making an argument, just sharing a reality. The cumulative impact of millions of so-called personal decisions is a public impact. So, your decision is a public one. As is mine and everyone else's.

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And that is the beauty of living where we do... we're all able to make decisions on our own, without a gun to our head. I'm sure Australia or much of Europe would welcome you with open arms.

Are you going to hold this much vitriol towards people when they're vaccinated and still infect others around them? It is already happening and I am curious how the goal posts are going to be moved, yet again.

They can try and force it all they want, but that "vaccine" will never enter my body or my child's body. Period

Ranger222 said:

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Why is drunk driving against the law? After all, its my choice to get behind the wheel while drunk, right??? I'm assuming the risk, right? It should be ok.

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This is such a strawman argument it's not funny.

A better analogy is there was a drunk driving accident in a town resulting in two deaths. While very sad, one party is now pushing prohibition while the other party is pushing education and personal choice.

Similarly, if I am not feeling well or experiencing symptoms I don't put myself in a situation where others are at harm. If that's the case, then it shouldn't matter where I have the vaccine or not because the fearful situation is not coming to fruition.

But you still haven't given us metrics. Even if everyone is vaccinated covid will still spread. So if we are still reporting every infection as a "case" what's the point of vaccination % as an end goal?

Cyp0111 said:

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BC we have quite a few freedom puppies that would cut their nose if in spite of their face

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People should never be ridiculed for advocating liberty. It's a turn off and only pushes them away. If your goal is getting them to vaccinate this is a poor way to do it.

Salute The Marines said:

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Cyp0111 said:

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BC we have quite a few freedom puppies that would cut their nose if in spite of their face

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People should never be ridiculed for advocating liberty. It's a turn off and only pushes them away. If your goal is getting them to vaccinate this is a poor way to do it.

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I wont attack people for advocating liberty. But I'm pretty tired of hearing all the whining about how taking any type of covid safety precaution is an all out assault on muh freedoms. When in reality these people are too selfish to take any action that benefits someone else or is for the greater good (like getting vaccinated, staying home if exposed, etc)