Finally, a barber shop where local anti-vaxxers can feel at home

Refusing to accept the consequences of your actions is indeed stupid.

That is false. The virus can be sequenced to determine the variant.

Don’t forget I had to touch every client who came in

All three of them?

Owner, you're completely unhinged. Please get some help.

Adam, you might want to consider stopping this flow of dangerous misinformation.

You should have gone to college instead of beauty school.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

-signed, an epidemiologist

... and crazy people have doors like this one.

My mom was advised to wait by her medical team because of her autoimmune condition and the extant issues caused by it; she was cleared for a vaccine in early June and sent off to her local CVS for a shot. And yes, fully vaxxed now.

I have a friend just finishing a round of chemo; they want her to get her first vax two weeks after it finishes, because they don't think her immune system will take up the vaccine under its current stress.

I figured out in a brief conversation with the crazy parent from my kid's class that there is NO magic spell or sequence of words that I can invoke that will convince someone to act sane. They've chosen the crazy; let's hope they don't kill someone with it.

This is a point of confusion that I have seen repeated many times lately, by otherwise intelligent and vaccine-supporting people. Last spring there was a time when some people with suppressed or compromised immune systems (from a very wide range of causes) were recommended by some sources to delay getting the vaccine because of concerns about its efficacy. I did not hear of any cases where safety was a concern. In the cases that I had personal knowledge of, the patient's immunosuppression was a temporary condition that was expected to improve: a cancer patient getting treatment with immune-suppressing drugs, as in FlyingToaster's example, or an organ transplant recipient who was currently receiving strong immune-suppressing drugs to avoid rejection of the organ, but who would not always be taking them at such a high dose. So, the advice in some cases was to delay -- not decline -- the vaccine until taking it would have the best effect. I don't know if the relative scarcity of vaccines at the time had something to do with this, and if the advice would be the same now that they are plentiful (plus, six months of additional data). I never knew of a case where there was a safety concern, so I'm asking that if you know of one, you present it here. And if you don't, please reconsider repeating vagueisms about how people with suppressed or compromised immune systems shouldn't get the vaccine.

Pfizer isn't just throwing this vaccine out there without any scrutiny, that's pretty much not possible with something so high profile as a treatment for a virus causing a global pandemic. There has been a lot of oversight, and I'm sure the millions dead worldwide from this virus would have welcomed the opportunity to have it. Most will not die from the virus, but many families have been affected and any tool we can use to reduce this human suffering should be welcomed.

Covid has killed over four million people. How many has Pfizer killed?

Of course it’s useless asking this, because you no doubt believe that Pfizer has killed millions, and Covid isn’t real. This is not because you see things that others don’t see; it’s because you see things that aren’t there. Your critical faculties are not functioning correctly.

You have made a lot of mistakes, but it all comes down to one. It’s good to hear that you aren’t a Trump supporter, but you share with him one fatal flaw; you think you’re a smart person, and you’re not. This is where you go wrong. You propound on subjects of which you are completely ignorant. There is practically nobody here who doesn’t understand these matters better than you, and yet you’re giving lectures.

You don't have to trust Pfizer, or Moderna or Johnson and Johnson, to wear a mask. Masks are a non-pharmaceutical way of protecting yourself, and of protecting other people if you do get sick.

Bonus: that mask doesn't only protect you from CovidID, it will also protect you from the flu. The flu isn't as dangerous as Covid, but in a normal pre-pandemic year it kills tens of thousands of people. In the winter of 2020-2021, it killed almost nobody, because masks and distancing were that useful.

My wearing a mask, on the other hand, hurts you not at all. Maybe I'm putting a little extra money into the pockets of a mask maker on Etsy, or CVS for medical masks, but that's just capitalism in action.

I know very little about cutting hair

You know even less than that about epidemiology.

Stay in your lane, dude. I don't want you giving public health advice and you don't want me cutting hair.

I don't trust the big banks, not a bit. But I have a bank account and I use banking services all the time. Fortunately, we still (to some degree) operate in a framework with some (admittedly compromised and dwindling) government oversight and regulation over the banks, to curb the worst of their predatory instincts.

I don't trust big oil. But I drive a car and buy gasoline. As with the banks, I'm grateful that we have what regulatory oversight that we have, and I wish for more.

And, I don't trust big pharma. But I have some confidence in the regulatory and oversight framework in which big pharma operates, imperfect though it might be. And I buy and consume big pharma's products when, in consultation with my own doctor, I need them to treat or prevent some disease condition. Antibiotics for infections. Blood pressure meds when diet isn't quite enough. And the COVID vaccine, which to my eye is nothing short of a masterpiece of biomolecular engineering.

The natural immunity from having been infected may not be sufficient, and should be boosted by vaccination.

Having recovered is like having the first of two shots - you still need the booster.

Some countries have actually looked at doing a single vaccine for those with verifyable recovery, but it was ultimately decided to be way too much of a headache to keep track of it.

especially if it prevents you from getting infected in the first place (which is not guaranteed, but is more likely than if you aren't vaccinated)

General Washington required troops to be inoculated for smallpox before being sent to secure Boston after the British Troops evacuated. No exceptions.

The first high court cases on lockdowns, quarantines, and the like date to the early 19th century. This isn't the first virodeo in the US - that was in the 1790s with yellow fever. But epidemic zero was smallpox and it raged all during the revolution.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article...

What’s with people simply not understanding the basics of probability?

Since the vaccine doesn't stop transmission, I'm not sure there's really a strong argument for compulsory vaccination,

“Since fire escapes don’t fully prevent people from dying in fires, I’m not sure there’s really a strong argument for the building code requiring them. Since seat belts don’t fully prevent people from dying in car crashes, I’m not sure there’s really a strong argument for mandating them”