Proof that conservatives are America’s greatest danger

Conservatives are notorious for not only arguing against COVID vaccination mandates, but for refusing vaccinations themselves.

They adopt the macho stance that they don’t want anyone to “tell them what to do,” despite the fact that when you live in a society, you can’t simply do whatever you want, and let the effects on everyone else be damned.

If your actions are liable to hurt others, our society passes laws to protect the group. Vaccine mandates, down through history, are examples of those group-protection laws.

Conservatives don’t care about groups. They are a “Me first, me last, me only” bunch.

The following articles show why selfish conservatives are America’s and the world’s greatest danger.

Covid-19 vaccines reduce the likelihood of infecting others

NEWSCIENTIST: People who are fully vaccinated against covid-19 are far less likely to infect others, despite the arrival of the delta variant, several studies show.

The findings refute the idea, which has become common in some circles, that vaccines no longer do much to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

“They absolutely do reduce transmission,” says Christopher Byron Brooke at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “Vaccinated people do transmit the virus in some cases, but the data are super crystal-clear that the risk of transmission for a vaccinated individual is much, much lower than for an unvaccinated individual.”

A recent study found that vaccinated people infected with the delta variant are 63 per cent less likely to infect people who are unvaccinated.

This is only slightly lower than with the alpha variant, says Brechje de Gier at the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment in the Netherlands, who led the study. Her team had previously found that vaccinated people infected with alpha were 73 per cent less likely to infect unvaccinated people.

What is important to realise, de Gier says, is that the full effect of vaccines on reducing transmission is even higher than 63 per cent, because most vaccinated people don’t become infected in the first place.

Even assuming vaccination only halves the risk of infection, this would still imply that vaccines reduce transmission by more than 80 per cent overall.

Others have worked out the full effect. Earlier this year, Ottavia Prunas at Yale University applied two different models to data from Israel, where the Pfizer vaccine was used. Her team’s conclusion was that the overall vaccine effectiveness against transmission was 89 per cent.

The idea that vaccines are no longer that effective against transmission may derive from news reports in July claiming that vaccinated people who become infected “can carry as much virus as others”. Even if this were true, however, vaccines would still greatly reduce transmission by reducing infections in the first place.

In fact, the study that sparked the news reports didn’t measure the number of viruses in someone directly but relied on so-called Ct scores, a measure of viral RNA. However, this RNA can derive from viruses destroyed by the immune system. “You can measure the RNA but it’s rendered useless,” says Timothy Peto at the University of Oxford.

There are now several lines of evidence that Ct scores aren’t a good measure of the amount of virus someone has. Firstly, the fact that infected vaccinated people are much less likely to infect others. Peto has done a similar study to de Gier using contact tracing data from England and gotten similar results.

Secondly, Peto’s team specifically showed that there is little connection between Ct scores and infectiousness. “It appeared people who were positive after vaccination had the same viral load as the unvaccinated. We thought they were just as infectious. But it turns out you are less infectious,” says Peto. “That’s quite important. People were over-pessimistic.”

Yet another line of evidence comes from a study by Brooke. His team took samples from 23 people every day after they first tested positive until the infection cleared and performed tests, including trying to infect cells in a dish with the samples.

With five out of the six fully vaccinated people, none of the samples were infectious, unlike most from unvaccinated people. The study shows that vaccinated people shed fewer viruses and also stop shedding sooner than unvaccinated people, says Brooke.

That’s the science. If you are vaccinated you are much less likely to harm others. Do you care? If you are conservative, perhaps not.

Republican Governors Now Racing Each Other to Ban COVID Vaccine Mandates
Conservatives across the country are hopping on the federal-overreach bandwagon in opposition to Biden’s private-sector vaccine mandates, setting up what will likely be a series of fruitless legal challenges.
BY VANITY FAIR, CHARLOTTE KLEIN, OCTOBER 13, 2021

President Joe Biden is facing mounting opposition to his private workplace vaccine mandates in Republican-led states, where officials continue to prioritize their own grievances over the safety of their constituents.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott made headlines this week with an executive order banning “any entity,” including private businesses, from mandating coronavirus vaccines—a directive at odds with the federal vaccine-or-test requirement for companies with more than 100 employees, which Biden announced last month but has yet to issue.

Abbott claimed he was responding to “federal overreach” and “bullying” by the Biden administration, a position other Republican officials are seizing upon.

According to the Associated Press, conservatives “in several states are moving to block or undercut” Biden’s private-sector vaccine mandates “before the regulations are even issued.”

The emerging fight between Republican governors and the president is in some cases creating the potential “that businesses will be forced to choose whether to break federal or state law.”

The extent to which the opposition is working not “in the interests of the people you are governing” but “in the interest of your own politics,” as White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki put it Tuesday, is underscored by the fact that many large employers have already implemented their own mandates.

American Airlines and Southwest Airlines were among the Texas-based companies that came out on Tuesday against Abbott’s order. “We believe the federal vaccine mandate supersedes any conflicting state laws, and this does not change anything for American,” said a spokesperson for the airline. Southwest likewise said it would “remain compliant” with the federal rule.

Henry McMaster, pledged earlier this month to fight Biden’s vaccine mandates “to the gates of hell to protect the liberty and livelihood of every South Carolinian.”

Experts say that the states are likely to lose, however, with the Times noting that courts in the U.S. have historically upheld vaccine mandates and prioritized protecting public health.

Sadly, the conservatives don’t seem to care much about public health, but rather are more interested in pandering to the nut-case, anti-vaxer, anti-science, selfish individualism, Aaron Rodgers segment of the GOP.

Truly pitiful, but not surprising, considering past GOP votes against pro-people proposals like healthcare insurance and anti-poverty programs.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty
Twitter: @rodgermitchell
Search #monetarysovereignty
Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

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THE SOLE PURPOSE OF GOVERNMENT IS TO IMPROVE AND PROTECT THE LIVES OF THE PEOPLE.

The most important problems in economics involve:

1. Monetary Sovereignty describes money creation and destruction.
2. Gap Psychology describes the common desire to distance oneself from those “below” in any socio-economic ranking, and to come nearer those “above.” The socio-economic distance is referred to as “The Gap.”

Wide Gaps negatively affect poverty, health and longevity, education, housing, law and crime, war, leadership, ownership, bigotry, supply and demand, taxation, GDP, international relations, scientific advancement, the environment, human motivation and well-being, and virtually every other issue in economics. Implementation of Monetary Sovereignty and The Ten Steps To Prosperity can grow the economy and narrow the Gaps:

Ten Steps To Prosperity:

1. Eliminate FICA
2. Federally funded Medicare — parts A, B & D, plus long-term care — for everyone
3. Social Security for all
4. Free education (including post-grad) for everyone
5. Salary for attending school
6. Eliminate federal taxes on business
7. Increase the standard income tax deduction, annually. 
8. Tax the very rich (the “.1%”) more, with higher progressive tax rates on all forms of income.
9. Federal ownership of all banks
10. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99.9% 

The Ten Steps will grow the economy and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and the rest.

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY