@JCG posted:Not only would take the vaccine, but I have signed up to be a phase 3 tester.
Some folks are going to have to step up, and not just in the younger demographic.
Most of the safety issues are determined in phase 1 and 2.
I’m more concerned what a rushed vaccine could do to me than COVID.
@TerribleBPthrower posted:My wife's a teacher and I agree with you. Our district has a plan that makes teachers way more safe at school than they are when they are doing their normal activities. The teacher unions are going to try to eat this up though.
The media and others keep portraying this like we are sending them back without any safety measures in place. This simply isn't true. I keep seeing this stupid social media post directed at Betsy Devos talking about 30 kids per class 5x day. No teacher in FL has seen that in years besides a few electives. Also I'd be shocked if much more than 50% of students are back in the fall. Tons are opting for the virtual option.
The back to school thing is just another page in the Covid flip chart; flatten the curve, 2 more weeks, save grandma, wait for a vaccine, blah blah blah.
It’s amusing Harvard is going online for a year. It can’t be for the professor’s health. My cousins said in four years (at three different Ivies) they had mostly TA’s for teachers.
@RoadRunner posted:So 4 more days?
Sure. Line it up:
Cases on top, deaths on the bottom; the deaths start to trend up (July 7) about 3 weeks after the cases did (Jun 16). Deaths will be fewer now than in the first wave, I would hope. It's ridiculous to compare NY and FL - when it hit NY, no one had any idea what they were doing. When it hit FL, they did. So if, in a few more days, the deaths are not going sharply up, then I will be greatly relieved. If they are, then I won't.
Florida (population 21.5 million) had 15,000 cases and 132 deaths YESTERDAY.
South Korea (population 51.6 million) has had 13,512 cases and 289 deaths TOTAL SINCE FEBRUARY.
Not that that means much, obviously, but it's worth thinking about.
I will say it again: it's not about whether you personally are willing to assume risks with this. It's about whether you are able to persuade a majority of other people they should also assume risks (if they even have a choice). It's capitalism, or democracy, or whatever you want. If enough voters think that teachers should not be put at risk in schools, then schools won't make them teach in classrooms. If enough college students don't think that online classes are worth their money, then colleges will have to re-think. No-one is making these choices (including labor unions) without taking into account the opinions of all their stakeholders.
@RJM posted:A few more pages and we”re in a Tebow territory. We can blame COVID on Tebow.
Count me in!
@Smitty28 posted:For anyone still wondering how/why this issue is political, here's yet another example:
LA Teachers Union Demands Defunding Of Police, Medicare-For-All And Ban On New Charter Schools As Conditions For Reopening Schools
https://dailycaller.com/2020/0...ands-reopen-schools/
I don't think that headline is accurate. I could be wrong but I think LAUSD has the right to defund its own SCHOOL police (which it's hardly alone in considering) without defunding ALL police.
https://www.latimes.com/califo...defund-school-police
@smokeminside posted:I don't think that headline is accurate. I could be wrong but I think LAUSD has the right to defund its own SCHOOL police (which it's hardly alone in considering) without defunding ALL police.
https://www.latimes.com/califo...defund-school-police
Cuz cops on campus @LAUSD facilities makes zero sense....(sarcasm)
Medicare for all? even the illegals?
Ban on Charter schools?
All of the above just to 're-open'?......pound sand LAUSD teachers union!
No wonder they call it commie-fornia!
@smokeminside posted:I don't think that headline is accurate. I could be wrong but I think LAUSD has the right to defund its own SCHOOL police (which it's hardly alone in considering) without defunding ALL police.
https://www.latimes.com/califo...defund-school-police
I read the article. Only discusses police. Not Medicare or charter schools. If they don’t want police in their schools, go for it! Let’s see what happens. I wonder how many teachers will go to a different district? How many students will go to private schools or drop out? Let’s experiment. I’m glad mine are done!
@TerribleBPthrower posted:IMO, the vaccine is just another goalpost waiting to be used. I'm starting to hear it now. "but we're just a few months away from a vaccine". Sorry folks, but there are more and more opinions coming out that we may never have a vaccine for it.
Good idea for a poll experiment. I bet you opened a few eyes with it.
News out just now from Moderna (MRNA) - All 45 patients in its trail developed a strong immune response. All created antibodies. I understand that this is only patients aged 18-55 and waiting on other age groups. Need to see data from other age groups but this is encouraging. Creating a vaccine quickly is a huge challenge this is very positive news. There are a few other legitimate candidates for a vaccine as well. Trying to stay positive.
@Gunner Mack Jr. posted:News out just now from Moderna (MRNA) - All 45 patients in its trail developed a strong immune response. All created antibodies. I understand that this is only patients aged 18-55 and waiting on other age groups. Need to see data from other age groups but this is encouraging. Creating a vaccine quickly is a huge challenge this is very positive news. There are a few other legitimate candidates for a vaccine as well. Trying to stay positive.
I agree. I’d love to see a vaccine developed. I was referring to the crowd that was chanting 2 more weeks and now say “but a vaccine is just a couple months away”. I really hope it is, but I don’t think we should shut down while we wait for it. I appreciate your positivity. Not much of that going around these days
@smokeminside posted:I don't think that headline is accurate. I could be wrong but I think LAUSD has the right to defund its own SCHOOL police (which it's hardly alone in considering) without defunding ALL police.
https://www.latimes.com/califo...defund-school-police
The headline is accurate. This is what the LA Teachers union is demanding. Your link is an article from three weeks ago, another issue entirely.
There's a very positive editorial in the Washington Post (may be behind a paywall):
https://www.washingtonpost.com...homepage%2Fstory-ans
The Moderna vaccine sounds like good news, they are starting a 30,000 person trial by the end of this month.
The head of the CDC has published an editorial in JAMA about mask-wearing:
https://jamanetwork.com/journa...fullarticle/2768532?
It's very clear, and cites published medical studies, including the one about the two hairstylists in Missouri.
I'm an optimist.
@Smitty28 posted:The headline is accurate. This is what the LA Teachers union is demanding. Your link is an article from three weeks ago, another issue entirely.
Thanks for the clarification.
@Smitty28 posted:The headline is accurate. This is what the LA Teachers union is demanding. Your link is an article from three weeks ago, another issue entirely.
Here's one from 5 days ago.
@smokeminside posted:I don't think that headline is accurate. I could be wrong but I think LAUSD has the right to defund its own SCHOOL police (which it's hardly alone in considering) without defunding ALL police.
https://www.latimes.com/califo...defund-school-police
here's another article from just last week. You can really tell the perspective of some of the papers simply by clicking through a couple of the stories.
https://www.latimes.com/califo...-for-delay-reopening
And if you want to know what the report actually says instead of what someone else says it says, click here. https://www.utla.net/news/utla...hool-campuses-closed
@Smitty28 posted:The headline is accurate. This is what the LA Teachers union is demanding. Your link is an article from three weeks ago, another issue entirely.
Smitty, read your own article. This is a report and it's what the report recommends they ask for - it's not their actual demands. The particular source you used is quite well known for misleading headlines.
@DesertDuck posted:Cuz cops on campus @LAUSD facilities makes zero sense....(sarcasm)
Medicare for all? even the illegals?
Ban on Charter schools?
All of the above just to 're-open'?......pound sand LAUSD teachers union!
No wonder they call it commie-fornia!
Here’s experience with an even more dangerous school district. We added a clause to the support agreement with Compton Unified any of our personnel could leave at dusk regardless of the situation with our product. Once dark, the sound of gunshots started.
One time, one of our support people decided to stay until about 8pm (in winter) to fix a problem. While leaving he was mugged in the parking lot by a school district security guard.
But for appearances the scariest school district I’ve ever visited is Camden Schools in NJ. Driving down the street looked like bombed out Beruit. The fence around the district parking lot was rimmed with razor wire. I had to be let in the parking lot by an armed security guard.
There was an armed security guard in the district lobby after I passed through a metal detector. This was the early ‘90’s when this kind of security was rare.
When I arrived in Camden (the city) I called my office. I told the receptionist I’m going in. I told her if she didn’t hear from me in three hours there’s a problem.
@smokeminside posted:Thanks for the clarification.
It's not accurate and the headline doesn't even match the story. Not to mention that when you use a news source founded by Tucker Carlson, you get this kind of crap.
Now if you want to see what THEY ARE ACTUALLY ASKING FOR in the official proposal, go to the source instead of reading attention-grabbing headlines from rags like the Daily Caller, The Washington Examiner, etc:
https://www.utla.net/sites/def...2020-2021_7-9-20.pdf
@roothog66 posted:Smitty, read your own article. This is a report and it's what the report recommends they ask for - it's not their actual demands. The particular source you used is quite well known for misleading headlines.
And for publishing pieces by White Nationalists.
@roothog66 posted:Now if you want to see what THEY ARE ACTUALLY ASKING FOR in the official proposal, go to the source instead of reading attention-grabbing headlines from rags like the Daily Caller, The Washington Examiner, etc:
https://www.utla.net/sites/def...2020-2021_7-9-20.pdf
Or rags like the New York Times, Washington Post or Boston Globe. These once great newspapers are now no better than the ones you mentioned. They only believe they’re better based on past achievement. People on the left believe they’re accurate because these papers tell them what they want to believe to be true just as the ones you mentioned.
It’s why it’s important to read news from both sides, look for consistency in the facts and don’t let the writer tell you what to think. The biggest problem with news now is no one delivers the news anymore. Hey deliver their opinion of the news. They omit facts that don’t fit their agenda.
I share news articles and express opinions with a group of Facebook friends. It started with real friends and expanded with friends of friends. I’m very careful to verify information I get from right leaning sources I want to believe to be true. I want to verify it’s true.
But regardless, we’re all going to be biased in some way by our own political beliefs. They key is don’t let people who sway readers/viewers for a living prevent you from forming your own opinion.
@RJM posted:Or rags like the New York Times, Washington Post or Boston Globe. These once great newspapers are now no better than the ones you mentioned. They only believe they’re better based on past achievement. People on the left believe they’re accurate because these papers tell them what they want to believe to be true just as the ones you mentioned.
It’s why it’s important to read news from both sides, look for consistency in the facts and don’t let the writer tell you what to think. The biggest problem with news now is no one delivers the news anymore. Hey deliver their opinion of the news. They omit facts that don’t fit their agenda.
I share news articles and express opinions with a group of Facebook friends. It started with real friends and expanded with friends of friends. I’m very careful to verify information I get from right leaning sources I want to believe to be true. I want to verify it’s true.
But regardless, we’re all going to be biased in some way by our own political beliefs. They key is don’t let people who sway readers/viewers for a living prevent you from forming your own opinion.
This is all you need to read to understand the New York Times today.
@JCG posted:And for publishing pieces by White Nationalists.
If you’re referring to the writer who worked on Carlson’s show, Carlson hasn’t had anything to do with day to day operations The Daily Caller for a few years. He recently sold his share of the company.
But since we’re ripping on the right ...
How about The New York Times refusing to print an opinion piece on using the national guard to quell riots but a right leaning writer was harassed at work for three years before she finally quit. If personnel on the right harassed an employee on the left at the Times they would be fired in a week.
The reason this person was hired is when Trump was elected the Times decided they were very out of touch with a lot of America. I’m amused the Times believes David Brooks is their resident conservative. I’m a right leaning libertarian. I sometimes get called liberal for not being locked in to the Republican platform. I see Brooks as the the left of me.
@Gunner Mack Jr. posted:This is all you need to read to understand the New York Times today.
Being a newspaper these days is scary. i ran a column by a local legislator that was either critical of the Black Live Matters movement or racist, depending on your perspective. People involved in protests posted my name and phone number on Facebook, calling me a racist. When I posted comments submitted by readers on the other side, conservatives cancelled their subscriptions.
I have friends on both sides who stuck up for me, but by and large, people only want to read things that support what they already believe. I have a hard time blaming newspapers or any other media group of catering to that to a degree in the effort to stay alive.
And before you say it's a modern thing--our local print newspaper used to come out twice a week. On Monday they had Republican editorials, on Wednesday Democratic. That continued through the 1980s.
You do need to dig past a single article to get a feel for what perspective any publication is writing from. Usually, it's not hard to find.
... but by and large, people only want to read things that support what they already believe.
The news media created this monster by turning all news into opinion while searching for a place in the market. Now they have to live with it.
@RJM posted:
... but by and large, people only want to read things that support what they already believe.The news media created this monster by turning all news into opinion while searching for a place in the market. Now they have to live with it.
I think that is actually one of the biggest problems in our nation today. If you are my age (or RJM’s) you grew up trusting that what you heard Walter Cronkite day on the evening news was the truth. Then you could decide what you thought (felt) about it. It’s no longer that way and I (for one) have had to recondition the way I think about what I hear and see in the news. RJM is right - the vast majority are now opinion pieces about things that are being reported as the news. There is at least a generation or 2 of young adults that don’t get that IMO.
@RJM posted:If you’re referring to the writer who worked on Carlson’s show, Carlson hasn’t had anything to do with day to day operations The Daily Caller for a few years. He recently sold his share of the company.
But since we’re ripping on the right ...
How about The New York Times refusing to print an opinion piece on using the national guard to quell riots but a right leaning writer was harassed at work for three years before she finally quit. If personnel on the right harassed an employee on the left at the Times they would be fired in a week.
The reason this person was hired is when Trump was elected the Times decided they were very out of touch with a lot of America. I’m amused the Times believes David Brooks is their resident conservative. I’m a right leaning libertarian. I sometimes get called liberal for not being locked in to the Republican platform. I see Brooks as the the left of me.
That's a fine example of whataboutism, but that's not what I was referring to.
One thing that today's news climate has screwed up is that you have to learn to separate the "news" from the "editorials." The Times for example - and I agree with criticism of what's going on there especially as it concerned the recent Cotton incident - has a pretty tight wall between it's editorial and news staff. Hell, even Fox News, when you learn which parts of the program are actual news and which parts aren't even supposed to be news, isn't tremendously biased. The WSJ is the other end of this. Their news division leans right, but their editorial department is quite unbiased.
For those of us of a certain age, it's been a change from the days of being able to watch network news and not even having an inkling of the political leanings of the anchors. Fox changed all of this. Before Fox, CNN was quite balanced, but Fox deliberately structured broadcasting to attract right wing viewers. Heck, most of their older talent was stolen right out from under CNN. Fox forced CNN to the left. Let's face it, the vast majority of viewers don't WANT fair and balanced programming. They just don't. We've become a society of bias-confirmation viewers. However, getting news from Fox or MSNBC, The Washington Post, New York Times, WSJ, to an extent the NY Post, is hell and gone from depending on The Guardian, Blaze, Breitbart, Mother Jones, the Daily Caller, etc.
@Iowamom23 posted:Here's one from 5 days ago.
here's another article from just last week. You can really tell the perspective of some of the papers simply by clicking through a couple of the stories.
https://www.latimes.com/califo...-for-delay-reopening
And if you want to know what the report actually says instead of what someone else says it says, click here. https://www.utla.net/news/utla...hool-campuses-closed
You'll note that the left-leaning articles you provided do not mention their demand to defund the police, etc. You probably didn't see MSNBC, CNN, etc report it either. This is why people that lean left are often so confused by this whole situation - you are really under-informed by the sources you follow.
IF I watch the evening news I watch Fox. I like Bret Bair’s personality. The news is rational. But I’m very aware at 6:40 it becomes an opinion show. I’m more likely to pay attention to an opinion expressed by Leslie Marshall (when she’s on). She’s bright, articulate, sane and on the other side of the political fence. Another is civil rights attorney Leo Terrell (he’s a Democrat who’s not drinking the KoolAid). If anyone on this portion of the show is going to give me something to think about it’s going to be a sane person on the left. I’m likely to agree with the people on the right unless they’re extreme.
i created my own news aggregator on Flipboard. My categories are Politics, News, Foreign Policy, Boston, WSJ and National Review. The first four provide the news from both sides. The WSJ and National Review are right leaning sources I find articulate and sane. Even if I don’t agree with some of the left leaning news it gives me a perspective on how the left views situations.
I also have sections on each sport and my teams. But I won’t get into that. This is a political discussion board. 😁
@RJM posted:
... but by and large, people only want to read things that support what they already believe.The news media created this monster by turning all news into opinion while searching for a place in the market. Now they have to live with it.
**Correction**
WE have to live with it.
I like abcnews.com. Actually more news than opinion (i.e. stories about stuff that has happened).
@adbono posted:I think that is actually one of the biggest problems in our nation today. If you are my age (or RJM’s) you grew up trusting that what you heard Walter Cronkite day on the evening news was the truth. Then you could decide what you thought (felt) about it. It’s no longer that way and I (for one) have had to recondition the way I think about what I hear and see in the news. RJM is right - the vast majority are now opinion pieces about things that are being reported as the news. There is at least a generation or 2 of young adults that don’t get that IMO.
Or Peter Jennigs, Dan Rather, David Brinkley & Chet Huntley! (that's going back aways). Today, you have to rifle thru too much bs.
@Smitty28 posted:You'll note that the left-leaning articles you provided do not mention their demand to defund the police, etc. You probably didn't see MSNBC, CNN, etc report it either. This is why people that lean left are often so confused by this whole situation - you are really under-informed by the sources you follow.
The second of links is not a left leaning article. It's actually the recommendation from the union. The portion regarding how to pay for schools to reopen under best practices starts on page 9. It outlines some things you could do to come up with the up to $250 million they say it could cost to make schools safe to reopen in a pandemic. One option listed is moving money from police to education, housing and other social services. It doesn't say they won't go back if the state doesn't adopt those measures. Or if it does, I didn't see it and I actually read the thing.
Part of the problem I think we are all missing is that we tend to follow media reports on various events rather than finding out for ourselves. Actually watch a Trump speech if you want to know what he says, read a bill to see what it really says , or read the document put out by the union before you assume that it's demanding we defund the police before they go back to school.
You may not be surprised to know that I was the mom on the baseball team who read the rule book before a tournament. The other parents, even those who knew I was clueless about the sport itself, knew they could rely on me to know if the game was limited by innings or time, etc.
@baseballmom posted:Or Peter Jennigs, Dan Rather, David Brinkley & Chet Huntley! (that's going back aways). Today, you have to rifle thru too much bs.
Jennings, Rather and Brinkley all leaned left. Jennings and Rather outed themselves in their later days. Brinkley kept it subtle, Huntley was a moderate on the right.
I enjoyed watching This Week with David Brinkley. He was fair. Sam Donaldson leaned left. But he was fair and wasn’t partisan about asking tough questions. George Will was a bright conservative until he got old and flakey. Cookie Roberts was also on the show (dumbest woman in Washington before Mika Brzezinski). Roberts family connections, like Brzezinski got her the job.
Tim Russert was also fair even though he was a Democrat aide before Meet The Press.
Presidents and press secretaries must have walked to the lectern, seen Sam Donaldson and Helen Thomas and thought, “This isn’t going to be easy.”
@Iowamom23 posted:The second of links is not a left leaning article. It's actually the recommendation from the union. The portion regarding how to pay for schools to reopen under best practices starts on page 9. It outlines some things you could do to come up with the up to $250 million they say it could cost to make schools safe to reopen in a pandemic. One option listed is moving money from police to education, housing and other social services. It doesn't say they won't go back if the state doesn't adopt those measures. Or if it does, I didn't see it and I actually read the thing.
Part of the problem I think we are all missing is that we tend to follow media reports on various events rather than finding out for ourselves. Actually watch a Trump speech if you want to know what he says, read a bill to see what it really says , or read the document put out by the union before you assume that it's demanding we defund the police before they go back to school.
You may not be surprised to know that I was the mom on the baseball team who read the rule book before a tournament. The other parents, even those who knew I was clueless about the sport itself, knew they could rely on me to know if the game was limited by innings or time, etc.
They flat out said this. They tweeted it. They are not hiding from it. This has nothing to do with school safety, it is BS politics plain and simple. I can't believe you are in such denial. No one should wonder why or how many people do not believe a word coming out of the media, doctors who said BLM should protest, or education "experts".
@cabbagedad posted:Pedaldad, I didn't ask anyone to align themselves with one side or the other - most in this conversation have already made very clear what their position is. I simply asked some questions that I am genuinely interested in regarding certain sub-topics within this issue.
Also, I'm not sure what you mean that I am acknowledging this is a political agenda and not a medical or health agenda. One would have to be totally oblivious not to see that many have aligned their thoughts on the issue along those of their preferred party line but it is a virus pandemic, for God's sake... of course it is a medical/health issue.
As far as your invitation to interpret the graph - well, we see that the virus is more fatal with older age groups, which of course we already knew. The CDC death numbers have between a week and two weeks lag time, so, unfortunately, this graph doesn't properly illustrate the fact that the death numbers have since flattened and then turned upward over the last few weeks.
Again...
https://www.google.com/search?...=chrome&ie=UTF-8
I'm really not sure why you say the notion that other industrialized nations have stopped or slowed the spread of the virus is absurd. By all accounts, most clearly have at least made far more progress than we have.
Your comments regarding domestic abuse, unemployment, isolationism, etc. have merit and must be weighed against the mounting Covid deaths and other related significant health concerns associated with the virus. Again, this aligns with my POV that this is a complex issue with no definitive right or wrong.
Now, if you could answer my specific questions, I remain open to better insight...
Cabbagedad, first, I think that I pointed you in the right direction by suggesting an unbiased interpretation of the data. All news sources seem compromised by a need for ratings, selling air time, and courting the corporate world, if not just their own inherent bias.
But since you asked, I think Viking0 did a great job of explaining inherent difficulties in comparing industrialized countries, and I won't compare "tiny little burbs". Nonetheless the CDC finds this data useful as they report infection rates and death rates by county. Again, I encourage you to check it out.
Current media whipping boys - Florida, Texas and SC all have Covid death rates below about 200 per million of population or lower - only about 116 per million in Texas. Meanwhile NY is just below 1700 deaths per million of population and New Jersey is just below 1800 per million. NYC is a at about 4,000 deaths per million of population and Cuomo just released a poster to tell everyone how great he did. BUT NY and NJ didn't flatten anything and these other states did. They didn't overwhelm their systems, just like we planned and that is why they continue to have cases and a moderate amount of deaths.
But as you asked for reliable source, I'll give you one many won't like. How about Governor Kemp and Director of Public Health Kathleen Toomey here in GA? It's been almost three months since GA was the first state to reopen. Trump said don't do it. But Kemp told the President, he was going with evidence of what was actually happening. For weeks on end, media dogged the governor and the department of health. They said horrible things and seemed to take pleasure in warning that the rising positive tests would soon catch-up and overwhelm the state and counted every daily ripple as a major rise in deaths. (Sound familiar Florida)
Media doesn't like to talk about GA anymore - why is that? IHME (the people that gave us all these shitty projections that Fauci and politicians used to shutdown our country and called science) has finally given up on their astronomical projections here in GA. They now show us getting better with or without masks because they are tired of getting beat by real data over their "science". Maybe other governors should be calling Kemp and ask him how he and Toomey did it. Maybe they are on the down-low.
I don't know how anyone with a conscience looks at this poster and doesn't want to knockout the idiot that OK'd it. I am repulsed for everyone that lost someone. New York State Leads Again.. in what needless Deaths?
@Smitty28 posted:They flat out said this. They tweeted it. They are not hiding from it. This has nothing to do with school safety, it is BS politics plain and simple. I can't believe you are in such denial. No one should wonder why or how many people do not believe a word coming out of the media, doctors who said BLM should protest, or education "experts".
Please show me the part of the attached document that says they will not return to school if the police are not defunded.
@Iowamom23 posted:Please show me the part of the attached document that says they will not return to school if the police are not defunded.
How do you expect me to do that, you posted a link without all the pertinent facts...such an odd way to go about life.
As storms have my husband taking pictures of the pixelated tv screen I’m reading various newspapers and it leave me with a couple of question.
Hospitals aren’t maxed out, which is good. But the stories I’m reading say people will spend a week or so before being well enough to leave or a couple of weeks for those who die.
Who pays for that? Should we be worried about it?
@Smitty28 posted:How do you expect me to do that, you posted a link without all the pertinent facts...such an odd way to go about life.
It’s a link to the unions official position. Are you unable to access it? I can copy and paste it if the link isn’t working? Although I’d probably pm it. It’s like 16 pages long.
