Community Members 16 and Older Now Eligible for COVID-19 Vaccine at Public Health Vaccination Sites

While I would have done it a bit differently, this is the way to roll it out. it's just about getting it out there. Get it to the people out in the community and working. Once the 70+ crowd got their shot, it was no longer about protecting individuals. It's about stopping community spread. That means vaccinating the community as fast as possible. The bigger problem is the anti vaxx crowd. Just wait until around July and we will have the opposite problem. Too many vaccines and not enough people willing to get it. COVID restrictions will continue to be kept alive and well thanks to the selfish vaccine resistant segment of the population.

I mean, it's already Tuesday. Last week, there were still openings on Weds for Lompoc. I wonder if they even filled up? This week, it's entirely possible that Santa Maria wasn't filling up, so they opened to people under 50. I know that the Tues/Thurs Santa Barbara slots were not filling up either, and so they opened to people under 50. (Now they are full).

Is it ideal? Probably not, but if this is what is required to get shots in arms, and make sure that appointments don't go unfilled, then I'm all for it. If my teenager were 16, I'd have signed him up in a heartbeat.

BOSCO - this is the sad truth. Most people are readily getting their shots, but there are some who refuse to do so. Sad thing is, these are the same people who also refuse to wear a mask or take any precautions. The result of their choice is simple - they lose the ability to take part in gatherings, travel, etc. We must not allow anti-vax, anti-mask folks to ruin it for everyone else.

LMG, I already checked for you. There are no appts available in SM unless someone cancels. So opening it up to more people is foolhardy.

Sas and Bosco, your comments are the epitome of what is wrong with our society today: it's always someone else's fault. Those selfish, anti-science, anti-mask wearing people ruining it for you are the problem just because they aren't falling in line with your way of thinking. News flash: you two, and everyone else that feels the need to impose their will or line of thinking on others, are the problem.

Newsflash. Only on the most foolhardy social media sites are the freedumbers not the problem.

VOR - I didn't say they are ruining it, I said we can't allow them to. Future tense possibility, not present tense reality. I'm surprised you missed that. The main point of my short comment is that they made a choice and their choice has consequences.

More importantly, science isn't an opinion. If you don't "believe" science and refuse to wear a mask and refuse to get vaccinated, then you ARE the problem, not everyone who is taking responsibility and working together to try to return to normal.

Anonymous @ 2:46, thank you for providing another crystal clear example. Sac, what has been going on in California has not been "science". Science said schools were safe to open last year yet our schools remain closed, science said outdoor dining was safe (actually it showed indoor dinning was too) but was shutdown anyway, science said people should go outside, get some sun, fresh air and exercise while CA closed parks, playgrounds, beaches and campgrounds while telling people to stay home, science didn't label weed as essential, science didn't force small businesses to close while Target, Walmart, and Costco could stay open. Trusting in science does not equal believing every piece of excrement out of a politicians or the medias mouth just because they say "science says..."

VOR - it's me, Sacjon, for some reason it's showing me as unpaid. Anyway, I said back in the summer the schools should be open, so take that off your grievance list. As for parks, playgrounds, beaches, youth sports, etc I FROM DAY ONE (remember Puglover?) said they should be open and people should be allowed to be outside, albeit with only household members. The only thing I supported being closed were things like bars, concert venues, indoor dining/church, etc due to the MANY instances of outbreaks in places like that. After all these months, you've falsely swept me with a broad brush and it is indicative of your insistence on arguing and not listening. You have NO idea what my stance is as you make perfectly clear.

And for "science," I'm listening to doctors and scientists (yeah yeah, via the media since they don't call me on my phone to give me personal updates). Unlike you, I'm not listening to FOX, YouTube and Newsmax to tell me who I should or shouldn't believe. I know you think you're being a "free thinker" when you follow your conservative media, but you're not and we all know it.

VOR. News Flash, we live in a society. This is not rural America where a person's individual actions may have no effect on others. But once you leave your home you agree to participate in our society. We all agree to live by certain rules for the greater good. I don't agree with many of the restrictions, closures and excessive mask mandates. But it is an indisputable fact that the world is going through a pandemic and it is an indisputable fact that the vaccinating the population is the key to ending the Pandemic. This is not "my way of thinking" it's common sense.

Wow Sac, you're pretty confident you know what news stations I follow when in reality, I don't even own a TV. (okay, I do, but it is in the garage and not plugged in).

Bosco, you are correct. But it is those pro-lock downers that wanted everyone else to change to their way of thinking/acting so that they (lock-downers) could get some sense of (false) security going out into society. Now, with the benefit of hindsight, those pro-restrictions turned out to be the wrong path.

VOR - you keep saying that the restrictions and mask mandates (you call it all "lock downs") were a failure. Where is your evidence that the closures and restrictions did nothing to slow the spread of COVID? If you say "Florida," I'm going to lose it.....

Sac -but actually yeah... FLORIDA!!!!!!!! And I was responding to a few posts recently about movie theatres opening and there were some thoughts on Texas from late February... so... TEXAS!!!!

The CDC study on mask mandates showing they had a 1-2% effect at slowing the spread (study has been linked and discussed here previously). If I put up a chart showing cases per 100k over the past year with a line for each of the 15 most populated states, you wouldn't be able to tell which one "followed the science" and which one fully opened back in September. On one extreme we have California and the other we have Florida and you'd be hard pressed to say covid affected either state very differently, but the governments of each state certainly had a dramatic different effect the scars of which will be visible for year to come. CA's response did more to increase education and income inequality that anything else in our history. FACT! In CA covid cases and deaths disproportionally impacted minorities, in FL covid cases and deaths mirrored the demographics of the state impacting all the same. FACT! Yet us here in CA are supposed to be the ultra progressive ones that fight for equality and equity? I guess were just progressive in name only. FACT!

VOR - you mean this article? https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/10/20-0948_article

Show us all where, exactly, they say masks are only 1-2% effective at slowing the spread of the virus.

No not that one, which also does not even come close to backing up your position: "cloth masks may provide some protection if well designed and used correctly." Key part being "may" and "if well designed and used correctly"

@PITMIX, I was just wondering if Lompoc's appts filled up last week, not Santa Maria. I trusted that you checked that one. OTOH, I just saw a posting elsewhere that says there are openings if you go directly to the caprep site. I clicked on the link, and saw some. (Example:)
Thursday (4/8): https://www.caprepmod.org/reg/4114296074

VOR - My position? What would that be? You demonstrate over and over that you have no clue what my position is. Here it is though - wearing masks aren't a cure but they help and ANYTHING that helps without serious adverse effects (such as a little piece of cloth) should be used. Now, answer my question and show us all where the CDC said that masks are only 1-2% effective. Stop dodging it. It's getting really tiresome trying to get you to support your "authoritative" claims.

https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2021/do-masks-really-work-here-are-politifacts-answers-for-mask-skeptics/

letmego - we all know they aren't the cure, I never said they were. Show us where the 1-2% effectiveness figure came from.

Masks and shutdowns have worked very well. Only a complete fool would think otherwise at this point.

Mask effectiveness:

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2776536

Association of State-Issued Mask Mandates and Allowing On-Premises Restaurant Dining with County-Level COVID-19 Case and Death Growth Rates — United States, March 1–December 31, 2020

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7010e3.htm?s_cid=mm7010e3_w#contribAff

Sac, see table 1 in this paper for a summary of the reduction in new COVID cases achieved by mask orders. This study found mask orders achieved a reduction in new cases and deaths on the order of 1-2%.
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/pdfs/mm7010e3-H.pdf

CHIP - thanks for that. My point remains though, masks did help, even a little. If wearing a little piece of cloth over my face while I'm indoors and unable to be distanced from others helps a little, I, like billions of others around the world, am happy to help.

CHIP - I think the overall point of the CDC report you cite counters your stance. Take a look at the summary:

Summary
What is already known about this topic?
Universal masking and avoiding nonessential indoor spaces are
recommended to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.
What is added by this report?
Mandating masks was associated with a decrease in daily
COVID-19 case and death growth rates within 20 days of
implementation. Allowing on-premises restaurant dining was
associated with an increase in daily COVID-19 case growth rates
41–100 days after implementation and an increase in daily
death growth rates 61–100 days after implementation.
What are the implications for public health practice?
Mask mandates and restricting any on-premises dining at
restaurants can help limit community transmission of COVID-19
and reduce case and death growth rates. These findings can
inform public policies to reduce community spread of COVID-19.

@SAC, I am agreeing with you. My post must have crossed yours - it was in response to the anti-maskers.

LETMEGO - my bad, I'm sorry! I must have been hasty in debunking all these pro-covid folks!

Sac, the language from the report that you cite makes it sound like masks and business closures made a big difference. It sounds good to say they achieved a statistically measurable reduction in deaths, but the obvious question is how much of a reduction. They told us masks would get COVID under control in weeks and get us back to normal life. They were obviously wrong about that. Now, this latest study says at best masks reduced deaths by 1-2%. California’s dashboard says we have had 58,659 deaths as of today. If we assume masks and business closures reduced our deaths by 3% based on the cdc’s analysis, I calculate that we would have about 1800 additional deaths if we had never implemented mask orders or business closures in california. Instead of 58,659, our total would stand at about 60,473. That is not a big difference. If you consider that overdose deaths have nearly doubled since before mask orders and business closures were implemented, one could make a strong argument that the additional deaths that resulted from these COVID response measures exceed the lives saved by them.

CHIP - so what is your point? We should not have required masks? You and others are fighting tooth and nail to "prove" that masks and restrictions didn't do "as much" as we thought. So what? They did something. They did something more than not having them at all. It saved lives, maybe not all of them or even most of them, but it did. Now you're complaining we did something that saved lives but not as much as we thought? What is your point? Masks helped. Bottom line.

3:57 :

Their only point in objecting to non-pharmaceutical interventions, and at the same time to vaccines, is to parrot their con social media narrative. As we've seen so often in the past, it doesn't have to be consistent or make any sense, as long as it conforms. Sheeple, indeed.

No one here is objecting to vaccines. NPI's and masks did do something, they gave people a sense of security, a false sense of security but the sense of security none the less. Also, when faced with a crisis like this, whether it can be controlled or not, many politicians get terrible bouts of Dosomethingitus, which greatly exacerbated our problems over the past 12 months.

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article249576943.html

4:08 - Funny thing to say when all the data show that states that did more have had better outcomes.

Actually the data is all pointing towards states that did more didn’t have a better outcome. The outcome was the same, other than mass business closings and kids missing a year of school of course.

5:17 PM - Let's check that assertion against CDC data, as far as outcome being the same. Data from the CDC COVID Tracker page. New York City thrown in as a separate entity (that's how it's tracked) to show worst case for jurisdictions that did something, even though they were the first to be hit strongly and have dense population. The data are pretty clearly showing that doing something in a pandemic is better than doing nothing.

State......did something........cases per 100K.....deaths per 100K
[CA..........YES....................................9070..........................148]
[NYC.......YES.................................10388..........................177]
[ND..........NO.................................13669..........................192]
[SD...........NO.................................13415..........................219]
[FL............NO..................................9552...........................157]
[GA...........NO................................10046..........................181]
[TX............NO..................................9657...........................164]
[AZ............NO...............................11616...........................233]

Actually your data doesn’t show that. And as many have pointed out, California having a similar outcome to Florida with much different shutdown plans (and age demographics) is quite telling! Did you actually look at the numbers you posted?

Most people can tell that bigger numbers are worse outcomes, especially when multiplied out to full population levels. Apparently, your definition of better outcome is that more people died.

PIT - if the anti-vaxxers are out wallowing in COVID, there is an increased risk of mutation. That then increases the risk of a vaccine defiant mutation that could affect those of us who have chosen to be responsible citizens. I'll have to find the article I read about that, but it is a legitimate concern.

Sac, the vaccines themselves could also help spawn a new more deadly virus. The vaccines may be effective in preventing severe cases of the virus, but if they are not 100% effective in stopping transmission we may end up having some major problems, namely ADE. Since the “experimental vaccines” have not been through the traditional 10-15 year trials process, we dont have years worth of data from animal testing or a small scale human trials to evaluate this possibility. I sure hope ADE does not become a problem with any of the experimental vaccines.

CHIP - could, maybe, possibly.... yeah, lots of things. When they developed a polio and measles vaccine, did they wait 10-15 years to give it to the masses?

Interesting article on ADE. They say that the US firms targeted a protein that was less likely to cause ADE. The Chinese vaccine, on the other hand, does not.

https://www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/exclusives/91648

wow sac, king of hypocrites you are calling out Chip for expressing concern about potential ADE issues when you've spent the past 12 months chastising others while spewing the most worst doomsday scenarios in an attempt to justify your pro-lockdown position (which with current knowledge and data has shown was the absolute wrong path to take).

VOR - what are you talking about? I've never spewed scenarios, just been supportive of taking precautions, including closing some businesses, requiring masks, etc etc.... You sound super fussy and tense today.

How's Florida's looking? Still double the numbers for their 7 day average with half our population. That's how.

Thank you for brining up FL Sac, a state with no restrictions since September and schools open in person this entire year. While their 7 day average is higher than CA, it is lower than at least 11 other states who still have severe restrictions in place like. How many months of data do you need in order to understand that government restrictions and the course the virus takes through a community are two independent things?

VOR - their 7 day average and new case rates are BOTH MORE THAN DOUBLE CA's rates with HALF our population. In what assbackward world are you living where you think FL is succeeding in slowing the spread of COVID?

I think your intentionally missing the point and have been the past year. Re-read my comment below.

VOR - I did and stand my mine. FL is not the model of covid response you tout it to be. Yeah closing schools was a bad move in CA and I never agreed with it. But being completely open isn't the right response either and that is evidenced by the numbers right now.