Let's see the latest excuse from Trumpers for not getting vaccinated... Anti-vaxxer hysteria hits new heights: Covid vaccine turns you into a different race https://www.rawstory.com/vaccine-conspiracy/
Bidenworld fears many vaccine skeptics may be unreachable. They're trying anyway. A new effort to sell the jab is focusing on a few things: financial hurdles, conservative media and not speaking down to those who are hesitant. https://www.politico.com/news/2021/04/21/vaccine-skeptics-outreach-484124 The Biden administration is launching a renewed, more nuanced push to tackle a resistance problem of its own — it has more Covid vaccines than people willing or able to take them. In recent days, officials have leveraged community groups, attempted to lower financial hurdles and utilized top health care officials all in the service of one objective: convincing reluctant folks to get the jab. The effort comes as local leaders ask for more help from the administration and as questions mount about whether federal regulators have been too cautious in their approach to vaccine safety. And though the administration is deploying an incredible amount of federal resources to solve the hesitancy problem, top health officials concede it may not work. “I don't mean to in any way say that I have a total amount of confidence that that 30 percent is going to get their minds changed,” National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins said in an interview, “but I sure hope we have some way to, at least with some of those folks, to begin to make some progress, because, as you know, if we don't succeed in reaching this 70 to 85 percent herd immunity … then the consequence of that will be that this pandemic lingers on.” In consultation with health experts, the Biden administration has identified three buckets of communities that it needs to get vaccinated: those who were excited to get their shots, the “movable middle” of people who say they want to wait and see, and those who are telling pollsters that they will never get a vaccine. For the last two buckets, the White House is leaning on local leaders and non-political validators to reach them. Just how large a group the firm resistors are is a topic of debate. But the White House concedes that a Democratic administration isn’t the best messenger for them or necessarily the moveable middle. “We’re not wearing rose-tinted glasses when it comes to the challenge of confidence or hesitancy, but what you’re not going to see is the White House leading [outreach] efforts [to hardcore Republicans] here. That doesn’t make sense. Our goal isn’t to elevate us, it’s to get shots in arms,” a White House official said. “They don’t want to be belittled. They want to hear the information. They want to hear the facts.” Though the administration may recognize its own limitations as a messenger, they are still trying. Collins, Biden’s top Covid adviser Anthony Fauci, and Surgeon General Vivek Murthy have all been guests on Fox News in an attempt to reach the network’s conservative audience. The administration says it has run TV ads on Fox, NewsMax and Fox online. A Kaiser Family Foundation polling found that 29 percent of Republicans and 28 percent of white evangelicals say they will never get a vaccine and that almost no messaging breaks through with them. But Collins, a self-described “serious Christian” who has written books on religion and science, said he believes that different tactics and messages are required to reach white evangelicals who may be inherently distrustful of any government program and will recoil at being condescended to. “I think we've had too many instances of people saying, ‘Well, if you don't get this vaccine, you're just stupid.’ And that's not helpful and it's not true. You got to listen and hear what the concerns are and then try to address those point by point,” Collins said. The administration’s task was complicated further last week after the Feds paused the Johnson and Johnson vaccine amid concerns it was linked to the development of a very rare but serious blood clot. Since that announcement, the rate of vaccinations has begun to decline with daily vaccinations having gone down about 300,000 doses since April 13. The administration insists that the J&J news has had no impact on hesitancy and limited impact on access. Press Secretary Jen Psaki cited an increase in the number of people polled who said they were likely to get the vaccine compared to a month ago to argue that public opinion has actually improved on the vaccine campaign. “We've always been prepared. That doesn't mean that when it happens, [you’re like] ‘you don't think that you could have picked a better day to do this?’” Anita Dunn, senior adviser to the president, told POLITICO. “From day one, as people said, ‘Why are you buying so much vaccine?’ It was with the full knowledge that things would happen along the way, that there's never been a 100 percent smooth program of this kind.” But health experts on the ground tell POLITICO they have experienced that new hesitancy first hand, and that the J&J news has fed into it. Dr. Reed Tuckson, the co-founder of the Black Coalition Against Covid-19, said he’s been meeting with Biden officials since the transition, gathering information, providing feedback and calling on staff to speak directly to the Black community to convince them to get the vaccine. Tuckson says he’s noticed an uptick over the last week in people saying they have concerns or won’t be gettingthe vaccine. “Some who are predisposed to not be accepting the vaccine will say, ‘I told you so.’ On others, you get, ‘I'm just not sure now …. I think I want to wait to get more information,” Tuckson said of his conversations since the J&J news broke. Tuckson added that he hasn’t sensed any nervousness from the administration after last Tuesday. “There is no panic, but it is a sober, cleareyed assessment that this is going to be a challenge to the work of saving the nation from the pandemic,” he said. While administration officials may not be nervous, they are getting more aggressive and creative in trying to pitch the vaccine to skeptical groups. On Wednesday, Biden announced that the administration would support tax credits for businesses that provide paid leave for Covid-19 vaccine appointments and recovery after the final dose to help mitigate issues of access for some people. Administration officials say they continue to be hopeful that over the long term, people will see the decision to pause the J&J vaccine as proof the system worked. They have continued to interact with community groups to ensure that message gets through and to stress that the choice is binary: either get folks vaccinated or the pandemic keeps going. “A few months from now, if that's what happens, the people who are in the hospital, in the ICU getting sick and dying, are going to be those who didn't get immunized. And it'll be pretty obvious that's the case,” Dr. Collins said. “And I don't want that to be the wake-up call. We can do better than that. But that could be the downstream scenario if we're not successful in conveying all the reasons why it's time for action now.”
Yes... red rural counties and states are leading the U.S. in dropping COVID vaccine demand. Rational people can see what this will lead to... much longer lockdowns and restrictions across the U.S. All of this will be driven by deadly variant outbreaks in unvaccinated rural areas with poor healthcare systems and GOP supporters -- which will be a "summer of dismay" across many red areas... which unfortunately will impact the entire country in our struggle to effectively address COVID and return to normal. 62 Kansas Counties Reject Vaccine Shipments as People Put Off Getting COVID Shots https://www.thedailybeast.com/62-ka...vaccine-shipments-as-people-delay-covid-shots Iowa declines 22K vaccine doses amid slowdown in demand https://thehill.com/homenews/state-...nes-22k-vaccine-doses-amid-slowdown-in-demand
The media isn't mentioning this, but here's what I discovered after I myself did this: 1. Many people got their first shot at locations far from their residence/job. 2. They had also schedule their second shot, when they got their first shot, for that same location. 3. Fast forward to the present. 4. Many of those people have scheduled another second shot at a closer location. 5. This will register as a cancelation at the first location, but it's really a rescheduling. And imagine a second person doing the same, but in the reverse (locations). IOW, two people getting vaccinated, BUT, two appointments ALSO being registered as being cancelled. Cancellations would be up in this examples, but everyone was vaccinated. In still other words, those stats about canceled appointments may not be accurate at all.
Brianna Keilar Names And Shames Evangelical Pastors Who Spread COVID-19 Misinformation CNN’s “New Day” anchor rolled the tape on a reason for increased vaccine hesitancy among white evangelicals. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/bria...ation-evangelicals_n_6087b546e4b09a22a446bd46 CNN’s Brianna Keilar on Monday explained increased hesitancy about the COVID-19 vaccine among white evangelicals with footage of prominent pastors downplaying the pandemic. White evangelicals “are most skeptical about taking the vaccine,” noted Keilar, with almost half saying they definitely or likely won’t receive the jab. Keilar recalled many high-profile pastors — including Guillermo Maldonado, Jesse Duplantis, Paul Daugherty and Kenneth Copeland — dismissing or spreading misinformation about the contagion during the early weeks of the global public health crisis. “Experts say what some evangelical pastors preached from the pulpit for months and months likely had a profound effect on shaping their opinions,” the “New Day” anchor explained. “The loss this country has experienced over the past year has been overwhelming and many Americans have turned to family and to friends and to faith for comfort and answer,” Keilar concluded. “Unfortunately for many evangelical congregations, they are getting the wrong message and in some cases lies from pastors they have entrusted with their faith and with their lives.” (Article has video)
GOP State lawmakers opposed to COVID vaccine mandates have filed a flurry of bills this session. Some worry about the message they send. https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/n...ban-covid-19-vaccine-requirements/7326506002/ INDIANAPOLIS — As the federal government works to make COVID-19 vaccines available to all Americans, lawmakers in more than 40 states have introduced legislation that would forbid mandates requiring people get vaccinated. Often advanced by vaccine skeptics and sponsored by Republicans, most seek to prohibit businesses from requiring employees to be vaccinated against the coronavirus or limit school and daycare vaccination entry requirements. Although most of the bills have gained little support and few if any are expected to become law, the efforts reveal a new alliance between long-time opponents of vaccines and groups opposed to COVID-19 public health measures, say vaccine advocates. “Starting at the beginning of the pandemic, the anti-vaxxers did a wonderful job of pivoting from anti-vax to anti-mask and anti-lockdown, and essentially anti-government,” said Erica DeWald, director of strategic communication with Vaccinate Your Family, a vaccine advocacy organization founded by former first lady Rosalynn Carter. Sponsors of such measuressay it’s a question of freedom of choice. They object to any requirement a person be vaccinated in order to work or enter venues like sports arenas or music events,arguing to do so would be government overreach. "It goes back to personal liberties," said Indiana state Sen. Dennis Kruse, R-Auburn. He and others argue businesses or the government shouldn't be telling people what to put in their bodies. A bill he authored would have prevented companies from mandating any vaccination, including those protecting against COVID-19, due to a person’s religious beliefs or “conscience.” After Kruse’s bill stalled in committee, state Rep. Brad Barrett, R-Richmond, introduced an amendment toa different bill prohibiting businesses from asking members of the public their vaccination status. He argued the vaccine is too new to be mandated. The amendment was thrown out without a vote. "This vaccine is still (under) emergency use authorization," Barrett said. "The science is still pending. The vaccine has really only been in use since December." In an eleventh-hour move last week, Indiana lawmakers inserted language into another unrelated insurance bill the would forbid the state and municipalgovernments from requiring "vaccination passports" or proof of COVID-19 vaccination. “The thought of a state mandating that people take a vaccine that is still experimental according to the manufacturers of the vaccine would be considered a gross violation of the individual freedom of Hoosiers,” said Rep. John Jacob, R-Indianapolis. Business and medical groups have opposed attempts to outlaw vaccination requirements, saying they threaten employers’ legal obligation to maintain a safe workplace and could put workers and customers at risk. In Indiana, the measures were opposed by the state Chamber of Commerce, health care groups and public health experts. Such opposition hasn't stopped effortsthere, or elsewhere.Statehouses in Alabama, Florida, Maryland, Tennessee and Wisconsin all have bills circulating that would ban businesses or the government from requiring proof of vaccination or immunity. In Kansas, legislators have packagedtogether a series of controversial vaccine-related measures. The sweeping bill would prevent employers from requiring employees be immunized against COVID-19 and would shield businesses from lawsuits in the event an employee becomes infectious. While no COVID-19 vaccine is currently authorized for children younger than 16, the bill also would ban state health officials from requiring new vaccinations to attend daycare centers and schools. The power instead would be given to the legislature. During a hearing last week, Kansas state Sen. Mark Steffen, R-Hutchinson, said "long-term dangers won't be known for decades" from the COVID-19 vaccine. He called the shots “experimental.” “Used appropriately, vaccines are a great, great thing. As a physician, I have recommended them to many individuals,” Steffen said. “I have never once mandated a treatment.” In Missouri, a proposed bill would require immunizations only for public school children and would make exemptions easier. “We need to rein in our schools and our health departments,” said Rep. Suzie Pollock, R-Lebanon. Employment concerns The largest number of the bills ban private employers from requiring COVID-19 vaccination as a condition of employment – an issue coming to the forefront with nearly 54% of American adults vaccinated as of Monday, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. U.S. workers appear to be split on whether companies should require vaccinations. Forty-nine percent of working Americans agreed employers should require proof of vaccination before allowing employees to return to the workplace, according to a survey this month by public opinion firm Ipsos. “Another sticky issue for employers is how to handle employees who choose to remain unvaccinated," said Melissa Jezior, president and CEO of Eagle Hill Consulting, which commissioned the survey. "Should they be permitted to interact in-person with colleagues and customers or be given special allowances to work from home?” One-third of workers said non-vaccinated employees shouldn’t be allowed to work in-person with co-workers. Lawmakers in 40 states take steps to ban COVID-19 vaccine requirements Lawmakers in over 40 states have taken steps to prohibit businesses from requiring employees be vaccinated against COVID-19. (Video in article) Such requirements are allowed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. In December the commissionannounced employers could require workers to be vaccinated against COVID-19 as long as they did not violate the Americans with Disabilities and the Civil Rights acts. The bills being proposed by state lawmakers are partly in response to the commission's finding. However, overall vaccine requirements haven’t yet become a major employment issue. Prior to COVID, few businesses outside of hospitals and health care settings required workers to be immunized. Even now only a handful of employers, mostly nursing homes, have required COVID-19 vaccination. Only one case of an employee refusing to be vaccinated, in New Mexico, has been filed so far, said Sam Halabi, a professor of law at the University of Missouri and a scholar at the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University. New laws aren't needed, Halabi said, because few employees are fighting new COVID vaccination requirements and most states already have existing laws that allow people to easily opt out. “If you really don’t want to take a vaccine, your ability to say, ‘I refuse to on the basis of my conscience’ is really prevalent,” he said. Public health politicized Legislation allowing people, especially children, to opt-out of vaccination is routinely proposed and often passed in state legislatures, especially in more conservative states. What’s been different about the surge in COVID-19 vaccine bills is the new coalition they represent. “This has a whole different feel,” said Diane Peterson, associate director for immunization projects at the non-profit Immunization Action Coalition, a non-profit that works with the CDC to distribute information about vaccines. Hesitancy looms: America reaches milestone with COVID-19 vaccine widely available to those who want it, but hesitancy still casts a shadow The anti-vaccine movement has “melded with the anti-mask, anti-lockdown folks. They’re coming out more as the mainstream because they've joined forces with other extreme anti-science groups,” said Becky Christensen, of the SAFE Communities Coalition, which advocates for pro-science legislation and counters anti-vaccination candidates. She emphasized not everyone with concerns or hesitation about the COVID-19 vaccine is opposed to vaccination in general. While we have a long history of states regulating business, it’s usually regulation to improve the public health, not to undermine it. “We're talking about a lot of people that are truly hesitant right now versus people that are outside of a capitol with a bullhorn saying, 'Vaccines are going to kill your children.'” As common has they have been this legislative session, none of the vaccination bills have so far passed and few are expected to, said Jennifer Laudano, senior director of communications and community engagement at the National Academy for State Health Policy. “Legislative sessions are ending, so a lot of these bills will die when they adjourn,” said Laudano, whose non-partisan, non-profit group supports states in developing health policies. Had they passed, they almost certainly would have been upheld by the courts, said Dorit Rubinstein Reiss, a professor of law at the University of California Hastings College of Law and an expert on policy responses to vaccination questions. States have wide latitude to regulate businesses, though these bills run counter to most such regulations, she said. “While we have a long history of states regulating business, it’s usually regulation to improve the public health, not to undermine it,”said Reiss. Those whosupport vaccination say even if none of the bills pass, they allow dangerous mistruths to be repeated. On Thursday, during a debate on the Montana Senate floor, state Sen. Keith Regier,R-Kalispell, cited the false claim computer chips being inserted with vaccines. In a local television interview on April 5, New Jersey state Sen. Mike Testa, R-Cumberland, said the coronavirus vaccines don’t prevent COVID-19 or keep it from spreading. He also said that COVID-19 had a 99.8% survival rate. None of these statements are true. Among unvaccinated people who’ve tested positive for COVID-19, about 20% will end up with severe disease, 5% will end up in intensive care and between 1 and 2% will die, according to CDC data. Of the first 75 million Americans to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19, only 5,800 had breakthrough infections. Of those, 74 died, a death rate of 0.0000009% compared with 1% to 2% among unvaccinated people. Clips of such falsestatements are frequently shared on social media by anti-vaccine groups and used to promote vaccine hesitancy. “Elected officials are in a position of trust and they're validating people's fears,” said Christensen,whose organization promotes pro-science legislation. “They’re increasing mistrust in public health.”
Trump supporter explicitly says he won't get vaccinated 'because it makes liberals mad' A supporter of former President Donald Trump is explicitly saying that he won't get vaccinated against the novel coronavirus because refusing to get vaccinated will make liberals angry. Writing in the Trump-loving publication "American Greatness", columnist Peter D'Abrosca reveals that his personal spite of liberals is reason enough for him to skip getting vaccinated, despite the fact that his actions could help delay the end of the COVID-19 pandemic. "If those bastards want me to get the jab, I'm not going to do it, because it annoys them," D'Abrosca bluntly states at the start of his screed. "My primary reason for refusing the vaccine is... I dislike the people who want me to take it, and it makes them mad when they hear about my refusal. That, in turn, makes me happy."
Got to love the people who are willing to catch a respiratory virus that attacks your neurological system to own the libs.
COVID Is Going Away, and It’s Making Some Trump Fans Crazy https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/04/tucker-carlson-masks-police-vaccine-coronavirus-denial.html As the coronavirus pandemic recedes as a national public-health emergency, you might expect reactionaries to respond with the same relief and joy as the rest of us, perhaps — given their exaggerated loathing of any protective measures — more so. Yet, oddly enough, the mental torments it’s inflicting upon them persist. They are seeing a glimpse of a world in which the virus does not supply a daily theater for culture-war conflict. It does not suit them. Here are two usefully frank specimens to analyze: Tucker Carlson’s monologue last night attacking outdoor masks as an affront, and Peter D’Abrosca’s tirade against the vaccine in American Greatness. While neither rant is typical of current conservative thinking about the pandemic, they are not so completely idiosyncratic as to represent nothing broader. More importantly, they both lay out their premises in unusually revealing fashion. Carlson’s monologue expresses indignation that any person would wear a mask outside. His point is not merely that outdoor masking is unnecessary — here he would have a very plausible case — but that it is a personal affront, against which he urges his audience to respond aggressively. If you see a person on the street in a mask, he says, tell them to take it off. And if you see children playing outside in a mask, you should react with the same alarm as if you were witnessing cold abuse, and call the police. D’Abrosca uses his column to proclaim that he is refusing to be vaccinated not only because he questions its medical basis, but also as a way to torment his political enemies. “My primary reason for refusing the vaccine is much simpler: I dislike the people who want me to take it, and it makes them mad when they hear about my refusal. That, in turn, makes me happy.” We are all familiar with libertarian arguments against public-health measures. There is certainly a trade-off between an individual’s ability to, say, eat at a crowded restaurant or fly on a plane maskless and society’s interest in suppressing the pandemic. But neither Carlson nor D’Abrosca are making a libertarian case. The obvious libertarian principle on masking is that everybody should choose their own level of protective comfort, and that parents should make their own decisions about their children’s safety. (Perhaps they want their kids to wear masks because kids aren’t good at remembering to stay out of each other’s faces or grasping the difference between high-risk crowded spaces and low-risk spaces.) Carlson is making the case explicitly against individual choice. He wants his viewers to insert themselves into the choices made by others, even invoking the intervention of armed state agents if necessary. D’Abrosca is even more explicit in his rejection of libertarianism: Personal liberty is not the reason I’m avoiding it, either. I’m not a member of the “don’t tread on me” club. Though I don’t think mandated “vaccine passports” are a brilliant idea, my refusal to take the vaccine is not related to some perceived or real government overreach. I’m not here to take a principled stand against the federal or state governments on this issue. In fact, I’m saving my principled stands against the federal or state governments for issues that really matter, like strengthening libel laws so that lying journalists can finally be shipped off to Guantanamo Bay where they belong. D’Abrosca at least recognizes that, while having a choice not to take the vaccine is a libertarian idea, exercising the choice is not. His authoritarianism is a matter of conviction. He wishes to reserve the powers of the government to suppress one’s political enemies. It’s usually wise to avoid the temptation to pathologize opposing beliefs without first attempting to understand them on their own terms. In this case, however, the subjects are laying out their diagnosis in full public view. “I have decided that because the vile political Left, which I despise in the abstract, wants me to take their coveted vaccine, I simply will not,” writes D’Abrosca. “After the horrifying displeasure of meeting several of their militant COVID-19 restriction enforcers in person over the past year, I have become even more steadfast in my stance.” He is turning down a completely free and convenient medical treatment that gives almost complete protection against a virus that makes even young people quite sick and which has long-term health effects of unknown scale and duration. Because he believes it distresses his political enemies. (For the record, speaking for myself, I feel bemusement and pity for D’Abrosca, but not anger.) Carlson, for his part, is training his fans to think of outdoor mask-wearing as a form of aggression against which they must lash out. And the reason is that the sight causes him psychological distress. What they should tell people when demanding they remove their masks, he instructs, is, “Your mask is making me uncomfortable.” In both cases, it’s not about their freedom. It is — by their own account — about their feelings. And it’s especially strange that they should be experiencing these feelings as normal life is beginning to return. The pandemic was first a hoax by deep-state authorities to undermine Donald Trump’s reelection, and then it became an excuse to impose purposeless public-health restrictions. Throughout these two (mutually exclusive) phases of denial, disbelieving the medical threat was a way to order their social identities. At some level, they cannot stand to see the conflict end.