the worst part about the party of plague
Jan. 26th, 2022 03:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
solarbirdThe worst part of Republicans calling for COVID-19 vaccines to be banned - and what you have to understand - is that the @GOP don't need a majority to trainwreck blanket effects of vaccination for diseases like measles and polio.
They only need 10% - 20% tops - to monkeywrench everything and bring back recurring plagues.
With a 20% refusal rate, we will absolutely see waves of measles, polio, who knows what else, if they can pull it off.
They're trying, right now, in Florida, and probably other states. Dismantling childhood vaccination requirements for schools, in particular.
Vaccination will still protect the people who get polio and measles in these new outbreaks from severe disease, like COVID now. But there will be outbreaks, and breakthrough cases again.
Most of these breakthrough cases will be okay. Some won't be, because _literally no vaccines_ are 100% proof against disease, and they never have been.
Particularly but not exclusively amongst the unvaccinated, Long Polio will return.
What makes outbreaks end isn't vaccines stopping 100% of cases. What makes them end is vaccines reducing probability of disease, of case severity, of duration of sickness, and by doing so, reducing contagiousness windows.
With smallpox, we got the odds so far down it died out.
But the higher the unvaccinated rate - the larger number of people who let disease run free - the less possible it becomes to stop outbreaks.
Some anti-vax strongholds were already seeing measles outbreaks _before_ the GOP went all-in on being the Party of Plague.
That was with a much lower refusal rate, mostly of cranks. It wasn't even partisan, I've had my share of fights with anti-vax leftists, mostly trendy new-age assholes and the like.
But now it is partisan, made so entirely by the right.
The GOP are making vaccination denial part of their identity. This won't stop with COVID.
They only need 10-20% to bring back disease outbreaks. When they do, they'll declare vaccination doesn't work, and double down.
Just like Agent Tucker on Fox News, boosting a literal plague by sabotaging not just vaccination, but _every_ attempt to fight the disease.
Doubling down like they always do, every time.
The GOP have become a Party of Plague. They will not stop. Functionally, they can't.
If you give the GOP power, that's what they will do.
If you _don't_ give the GOP power, they'll sabotage to make sure we have plagues anyway, knowing you'll blame whoever _does_ have power..
Just like they've always done.
Just like they're doing right now, with COVID.
The only way out is to deny them the one thing they really want, which is power.
We can't stop the GOP from being the Party of Plague _except_ by starving them of power.
That's what it takes. _Sustained_ removal from power. Because that's really the only thing they care about.
That's their actual guiding light.
Well, that, and having someone to persecute while claiming they're being persecuted, as their cultural and religious beliefs demand.
(If that sounds fascist to you, that's because it is.)
But push comes to shove, it's about having power.
Know this now. Fight the primary fights you need to fight _now_ to get better Democrats.
But whether you win or lose in primaries... remember _all_ this, I beg you, in November.
Any vote for _any_ Republican is a vote for the return of plagues.
Like this one.
But _more_.
They only need 10% - 20% tops - to monkeywrench everything and bring back recurring plagues.
With a 20% refusal rate, we will absolutely see waves of measles, polio, who knows what else, if they can pull it off.
They're trying, right now, in Florida, and probably other states. Dismantling childhood vaccination requirements for schools, in particular.
Vaccination will still protect the people who get polio and measles in these new outbreaks from severe disease, like COVID now. But there will be outbreaks, and breakthrough cases again.
Most of these breakthrough cases will be okay. Some won't be, because _literally no vaccines_ are 100% proof against disease, and they never have been.
Particularly but not exclusively amongst the unvaccinated, Long Polio will return.
What makes outbreaks end isn't vaccines stopping 100% of cases. What makes them end is vaccines reducing probability of disease, of case severity, of duration of sickness, and by doing so, reducing contagiousness windows.
With smallpox, we got the odds so far down it died out.
But the higher the unvaccinated rate - the larger number of people who let disease run free - the less possible it becomes to stop outbreaks.
Some anti-vax strongholds were already seeing measles outbreaks _before_ the GOP went all-in on being the Party of Plague.
That was with a much lower refusal rate, mostly of cranks. It wasn't even partisan, I've had my share of fights with anti-vax leftists, mostly trendy new-age assholes and the like.
But now it is partisan, made so entirely by the right.
The GOP are making vaccination denial part of their identity. This won't stop with COVID.
They only need 10-20% to bring back disease outbreaks. When they do, they'll declare vaccination doesn't work, and double down.
Just like Agent Tucker on Fox News, boosting a literal plague by sabotaging not just vaccination, but _every_ attempt to fight the disease.
Doubling down like they always do, every time.
The GOP have become a Party of Plague. They will not stop. Functionally, they can't.
If you give the GOP power, that's what they will do.
If you _don't_ give the GOP power, they'll sabotage to make sure we have plagues anyway, knowing you'll blame whoever _does_ have power..
Just like they've always done.
Just like they're doing right now, with COVID.
The only way out is to deny them the one thing they really want, which is power.
We can't stop the GOP from being the Party of Plague _except_ by starving them of power.
That's what it takes. _Sustained_ removal from power. Because that's really the only thing they care about.
That's their actual guiding light.
Well, that, and having someone to persecute while claiming they're being persecuted, as their cultural and religious beliefs demand.
(If that sounds fascist to you, that's because it is.)
But push comes to shove, it's about having power.
Know this now. Fight the primary fights you need to fight _now_ to get better Democrats.
But whether you win or lose in primaries... remember _all_ this, I beg you, in November.
Any vote for _any_ Republican is a vote for the return of plagues.
Like this one.
But _more_.
no subject
Date: 2022-02-01 09:49 pm (UTC)Last October, a friend texted me with a (and this is a quote) "neener neener." I had told him about an Israeli study demonstrating that previous infections seemed to provide more robust protection than non-infected but vaccinated status. He, in turn, saw a CNN story that put that into question, based on a CDC MMWR.
They even have added a nice graphic.
Here's the "value added" paragraph:
Thing is, I read through it, and in the tables we see the numbers. Unvaxxed, but previously sickened: 1,020 people. Vaxxed and infection naive: 6,328.
This seems to show me only that testing is pretty hit-and-miss. (Anecdata: co-worker is just recovering from long-term covid. She tells me she had 9 tests; all were negative. Seems supportive.)
Furthermore, I would hardly accuse the Israeli pre-print of being in any way "anti-vax." Just read the final sentence of the Conslusion:
This is hardly my only example of CDC ????, but it's the one I spent the most time reading, due to my friend's text.