Coronavirus SZN Forever

[delavan]

Feedback was so bad they had to do a complete 180 over the course of a few weeks.

The fact that she mocked it as implausible… when it very clearly was not…

[reuben]

thoughts & prayers

[Johnny English]

Irrelevant to the fact the White House press sec mocked an extremely feasible and advisable suggestion.

But that's par for the course with neoliberals.

But a pointless one. Sending free tests out to everyone costs a lot of money and achieves very little, other than making people feel like someone's doing something.

[Badger]

Sending free tests out to everyone costs a lot of money and achieves very little,

Thank you for this opinion Ms. Thatcher

[Johnny English]

Thank you for this opinion Ms. Thatcher

Uh, you're welcome Uncle Joe?

But it isn't so much an opinion as an informed fact. "They give tests away for free in the UK, why can't we do that?" isn't really a very well thought out question. "They give tests away for free in the UK, how has that helped with things?" is much more pertinent, and the answer is that it hasn't. In fact it has been counterproductive in a number of ways:

- it has helped justify vaccine avoidance ("I'll just do a test every day instead")
- it has been used as a tool to help people and employers skirt regulations ("I can't afford you not to come into work and if you end up taking time off because you catch covid I'll probably have to bring someone else in to do your work instead, so make sure you bring proof of a negative test result in once a week to show you don't have it and that way we're all covered if HSE come asking me")
- some authorities allow a negative test result instead of a vaccine certificate for entry to things like sporting events, resulting in plague rats just opening a test, punching the number in online, reporting it as negative and downloading the official certificate of a negative test result

I'm a little surprised that our resident champion of workers rights hasn't figured out the extensive issues with this, TBH. "Huuuuuur government give free stuff now" doesn't really help if you haven't bothered to think through why, and what the likely outcomes of it are.

[dcm1602]

thoughts & prayers

It is interesting how lots of people have this mindset that it's over, and understandably most people are either vaccinated or delusional so they don't need to stress it.

But morgues are starting to consistently get over capacity. I work for a large public hospital and they had to start stacking bodies because the morgue was full, and still had to shut that mother fucker down.

If there's another major variant, I think healthcare completely melts down

[Badger]

Uh, you're welcome Uncle Joe?

But it isn't so much an opinion as an informed fact. "They give tests away for free in the UK, why can't we do that?" isn't really a very well thought out question. "They give tests away for free in the UK, how has that helped with things?" is much more pertinent, and the answer is that it hasn't. In fact it has been counterproductive in a number of ways:

- it has helped justify vaccine avoidance ("I'll just do a test every day instead")
- it has been used as a tool to help people and employers skirt regulations ("I can't afford you not to come into work and if you end up taking time off because you catch covid I'll probably have to bring someone else in to do your work instead, so make sure you bring proof of a negative test result in once a week to show you don't have it and that way we're all covered if HSE come asking me")
- some authorities allow a negative test result instead of a vaccine certificate for entry to things like sporting events, resulting in plague rats just opening a test, punching the number in online, reporting it as negative and downloading the official certificate of a negative test result

I'm a little surprised that our resident champion of workers rights hasn't figured out the extensive issues with this, TBH. "Huuuuuur government give free stuff now" doesn't really help if you haven't bothered to think through why, and what the likely outcomes of it are.

You're conflating a lot of things, none of which prove any point.

[Johnny English]

You're conflating a lot of things, none of which prove any point.

I'm just telling you exactly what has happened in the region you're encouraging the US to take its guidance from. It seems not unlikely that at least some of the same results will be achieved.

[Badger]

I'm just telling you exactly what has happened in the region you're encouraging the US to take its guidance from.

Ah, so that's why it didn't make any sense. Because I don't care what the UK did and it's not relevant to my position on providing people who want them with free kits.

[Johnny English]

Ah, so that's why it didn't make any sense. Because I don't care what the UK did and it's not relevant to my position on providing people who want them with free kits.

My bad. I forgot about the American exceptionalism clause.

[dcm1602]

I think the free test thing made sense before Thanksgiving Christmas and new years.

Now it's kind of irrelevant. The whole point of the free kits is to smooth out the surge so you don't have 20 to 40 million people infected over a 4 week span

At this point by the time people get the free kits it'll be entirely useless

[delavan]

I think the free test thing made sense before Thanksgiving Christmas and new years.

Now it's kind of irrelevant. The whole point of the free kits is to smooth out the surge so you don't have 20 to 40 million people infected over a 4 week span

At this point by the time people get the free kits it'll be entirely useless

at the same time, the above tête-à-tête was a fun read  : )

[Badger]

"They should have done it earlier" is a more valid argument than "it's not worth it."

[SixFeetDeep]

"They should have done it earlier" is a more valid argument than "it's not worth it."

Correct.

I don’t see how you can say this won’t be helpful when it takes a week to schedule a test or takes hours of waiting to actually get tested. I don’t live in a densely populated area either. I’ve seen some insane excrement in the NY area.

If we’re saying they should have done this much sooner, yes, I agree. Been saying that.

It also has nothing to do with the UK, other countries are doing this too.

[SixFeetDeep]

This literally only happened because Psaki got owned in a viral video and made herself and by extension the Biden admin look like complete cunts. Full stop.