Possibly. However, if I mention other instances that are similar in nature such as the flu or the common cold, I imagine that I would be told that I am speaking of something entirely different in nature. I gave my opinion. I am not one to demand others conform to my standard. Remember, there are only so many folks that will or can become infected before we achieve "herd." I have no intention of wearing a mask and gloves for the rest of my life, just because others feel threatened by germs. I imagine that some on here will demand that everyone wear a mask in public during flu season, since it was so popular during the COVID virus. I will compromise right now, but I won't carry on this pretension much longer. Everyone knows that most of the infections originated from home, not out in public. And I have no intention of wearing a mask in my own home. But, I also do not fault those that insist on wearing them in their own home or in their vehicles, etc. I also do not criticize those that are not wearing a mask in the stores where I shop. That is their choice and it won't affect me.
If there is another wave of infections, I choose not to panic or succumb to hysteria. I will accept it and know that it won't last that long. I have no doubt that there are those in power that use and amplify disasters for political gain.

Enjoy your rock climbing and sky diving folks, for tomorrow you may die. :ho:

:1rotfl: :1rotfl: :1rotfl:

Easy for some to say when they have a permanent source of income. Not so easy for those that work and live from paycheck to paycheck, to stay home when they get evicted for not paying their bills.

Just because some people behave foolishly no reason for us to stay home just take simple precautions when we got out.

Germany intends to fight the CV on a NATIONWIDE basis - not an INDIVIDUAL basis. Is America right or is Germany correct?

Some folks are ALWAYS comparing others to what we do. Some folks are not happy, regardless of the circumstances.
Germany is a very small country with an entirely different political and economic structure. Most folks realize this. Some folks do not need a gov nanny and relish in the Freedom and Liberty that this country allows.
Was it Reagan that said "The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help. "

The class was probably indoors. And it illustrates that when INDIVIDUALS are left to their own devices and decisions, that they will act selfishly and without regard for society and the greater good. CV is a national and worldwide problem that can only be controlled by national and worldwide LEADERSHIP. We can no longer rely on individual RESPONSIBILITY when situations like this prove that it does not exist in every INDIVIDUAL. Government decides what the speed limits should be and that we should wear seat belts. A CV Pandemic is even more important than seat belts. We live in a time that requires cooperation and empathy and not individual stubbornness and shortsightness.

Disagree with it all.

I explained how businesses could evolve and still stay in business. Most people can work from home. Science can change society to adapt to the new CV environment. ALL life is about adaptation!

Thats right. It is foolish but the world is packed with half wits. Why care? Patronize the businesses that follow the distancing/mask rules, drive by the ones that dont and live your life safely. As the nitwits die off, more houses for sale for us![/QUOTE]
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I said this months ago on this forum and it still holds true today, if not even more.........

Those folks who refuse to social distance when out and about in bars and the squares and other crowd gathering places will just perpetuate this virus. They will continue to give this virus new hosts to breed upon and screw up everything we know in life to be normal. Here are just a few examples of what has not returned to normal and will not as long as there are those who refuse to follow CDC guidelines and offer this virus more hosts to do its vile and deadly deed.......

1) Face to face learning for kids in schools. There is some but not enough.
2) Filling sports stadium seats to full capacity
3) Allowing full capacity in places of worship
4) Dining in restaurants and not have to worry about being too close to another table
5) Going to the theater. Broadway shows comes to mind.
6) Cruising :(
7) Will the Olympics be cancelled???
8) Air travel, train travel, bus travel without having fear.
9) Hospitals not turning away patients because they are at full capacity
10) Doctors and EMTs not having to decide who shall live or die by deciding who receives care and who does not.

I really don't care if you don't protect me by not wearing a mask. What I want those who refuse to follow CDC guidelines to do is to protect life as we knew it. It is everyone's responsibility to do everything they can to mitigate the spread of the virus. That means stay clear of others, do not stand shoulder to shoulder in a bar setting or anywhere there is a crowd. Wear a mask when you can not adequately keep your distance from others. Show some respect for those of us who want to see our world return to normal.These are not only my requests but requests from the experts who are trying to get this pandemic under control.

Immunity after having the virus is not known at this point. It is not safe to think you are immune after having the virus. Sad but this is what I have heard by epidemiologists on TV, Dr, Fauci included.

Florida has a large population of seniors, especially here in The Villages. We are more fearful of the virus and follow CDC guidelines more strictly. There are those few who adamantly go against all guidelines but thankfully, there are more folks here in Florida that do abide by the guidelines. Who knows what happened in Penn. Maybe people gathered in private? Those younger folks feel invisible so who who knows what they did to spread the virus. I've heard of Covid parties where they TRY to get the virus. Crazy. Huh?

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I said this months ago on this forum and it still holds true today, if not even more.........

Those folks who refuse to social distance when out and about in bars and the squares and other crowd gathering places will just perpetuate this virus. They will continue to give this virus new hosts to breed upon and screw up everything we know in life to be normal. Here are just a few examples of what has not returned to normal and will not as long as there are those who refuse to follow CDC guidelines and offer this virus more hosts to do its vile and deadly deed.......

1) Face to face learning for kids in schools. There is some but not enough.
2) Filling sports stadium seats to full capacity
3) Allowing full capacity in places of worship
4) Dining in restaurants and not have to worry about being too close to another table
5) Going to the theater. Broadway shows comes to mind.
6) Cruising :(
7) Will the Olympics be cancelled???
8) Air travel, train travel, bus travel without having fear.
9) Hospitals not turning away patients because they are at full capacity
10) Doctors and EMTs not having to decide who shall live or die by deciding who receives care and who does not.

I really don't care if you don't protect me by not wearing a mask. What I want those who refuse to follow CDC guidelines to do is to protect life as we knew it. It is everyone's responsibility to do everything they can to mitigate the spread of the virus. That means stay clear of others, do not stand shoulder to shoulder in a bar setting or anywhere there is a crowd. Wear a mask when you can not adequately keep your distance from others. Show some respect for those of us who want to see our world return to normal.These are not only my requests but requests from the experts who are trying to get this pandemic under control.[/QUOTE]
I agree, show some respect and empathy!

The vaccine does NOT give a person immunity from CV. Rather, it gives a person a 95% chance of not being hospitalized and having a significantly bad experience there. It makes you immune against death from CV and also a large hospital bill.

:1rotfl::1rotfl::1rotfl::1rotfl::1rotfl:

yep>
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??? There was a significant rise in cases after the Trump rally, reported in the V News. And Florida is one of the leading states as far as number of Covid infections. The Villages is up to 3400 cases so far, when months ago people didn't think it would even go over a couple of hundred. And that is with a lot of the snowbirds still up north waiting for vaccines there. I suspect one reason we aren't doing worse in The Villages is that most people are wearing masks to stores, etc, and we are able to do a lot of things outside due to the good weather. By the way, Pennsylvania has had 812,000 cases vs. Florida 1,658,000. In other words, Florida has had over twice the cases that Pennsylvania has had.

i'm just curious as to how long many of you think this needs to go on? next week, next month, permanently?? am very interested, not being snide

Just an interesting FYI...


“Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis is suggesting the Olympics could happen in Florida in 2021.

Patronis wrote a letter to the International Olympic Committee encouraging them to consider relocating the 2021 Olympics from Tokyo, Japan to the United States of America, and more specifically to Florida.

According to Patronis' office, recent media reports have stated that leaders in Japan have “privately” concluded that they are too concerned about the pandemic for the 2021 Olympics to take place.”

Florida CFO wants 2021 Olympics in the Sunshine State if Japan cancels

Florida official offers to host Olympics if Tokyo backs out | The Japan Times

Florida's financial chief: Move Summer Olympics to state - South Florida Sun-Sentinel

And Florida has twice the population that Pennsylvania has so the rate of infections is about the same. That doesn't say much for FL doing better than PA but it certainly isn't doing worse. On the other hand, FL is seeing this infection rate while implementing few (zero?) lockdowns and restrictions. Can the same be said for PA?

What else is the same? Number of deaths. PA has about 21,000 deaths and FL has about 25,000 deaths. So half the population, half the infections, but the same number of deaths in PA as in FL. Not sure PA was a good state to choose for a comparison.

Florida's rate of cases is just a little above median rate according to the WaPo statistics. Again, with minimal restrictions. Considering the number of people coming into the state and possibly bringing the virus with them it is surprising the rate of infection isn't higher. FL is either getting very lucky or they're doing something right.

As far as the increase in cases after the rallies, I'll have to go back and check but the V News reported increases throughout that time period, even before the rallies here. The number of cases was increasing nationwide and FL was not immune to that but the rate of increase in FL was much less than the rate of increase in other places. FL must have been doing something right, even without restrictions and mandates.

There was an editorial in one of the NY papers just recently where the author reported coming to FL and being surprised at the mask compliance. Even without mandates they saw that many in FL were wearing masks when it made sense and often keeping a distance. We're not perfect, we have our share of anti-maskers and people who are terrible at judging how far six feet is, but maybe we're not doing all that bad.

I think you need to look up how vaccine immunity actually works!

Agree....I recall when the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were initially being developed, there was euphoria in the pharma community when they discovered the virus was "neutralized". This neutralization made the virus inactive and unable to replicate itself. Without that activity going on, humans could not become infected with the virus.

That is my take-away from reading several articles about the mRNA vaccines. Is this correct?

I always pt on a mask when I go inside of a public building. But I do go to the squares without a mask and try to stay six feet away from people. I believe that it's very difficult to catch this virus out doors.

Most of the times I've been to the squares, they are not all that crowded. Shoulder to shoulder is a huge exaggeration. Occasionally, when one of the more popular bands the square will be a bit more crowded and I'll try to find a spot where I can be alone or I'll leave.

One of the things that it perplexing to me is that the states that have the most stringent rules about stating indoors and closing businesses have had much higher infection rates than states like Florida that are open with fewer restrictions. Some say that the reason those states have more stringent rules is that they had more cases. But the number of cases since the closing down of those states and the opening of Florida is lower in Florida.

It seems that all of the steps being taken that are killing businesses and hurting working people are not working.

Some people have such strong belief in certain things that when they don't work, they insist that we aren't doing enough of them. So when we do more and they still don't work, they keep insisting that they are right and we need to do even more. I believe that these people believe so strongly that their idea is right that they refuse to believe facts presented.

Bottom line is that we all have to be careful but within reason. When people can't go to work and can't feed their family or lose their house it can be a devastating as getting this virus. There needs to be a balance and I think that Florida has gotten it right.

The virus is nothing more than a chain of proteins. It's a snippet of biological code. All that it does is link with your cells and reprogram them to make more of itself and in the process your other systems become up or down regulated. The mis-regulation is what causes all the havoc.

The virus doesn't replicate itself. It cannot. You replicate the virus for the virus.

The Vaccine simply tells your body what to look for and neutralize it. In this case, the MRNA Vaccine is like a virus in that it reprograms your own cells to produce a spike protein that looks just like the virus.

Your body sees it, realizes it's not suppose to be there and starts to attack it. Since the spike protein you created doesn't do anything but make an appearance, you don't get sick. It trains your system what to look for.

This primarily done via t-cells. Killer t-cells come along and drop cytotoxins all over the viruses it spots. It's cellular level cyanide. There are also macrophages which are big blobs. They bump into viruses and surround them, engulf them like the blob and once inside they dissolve them.

With enough of an immune response, memory t-cells are created. These are what give you long lasting immunity. A new invader is spotted, if it matches what's in the "memory bank", anti-bodies for that particular pathogen are produced rapidly.

I'm vastly over simplifying the process here, but that's the gist of it.

The vaccine doesn't make you partially immune. It either works or it doesn't. It seems to work for about 95% of the people. If you are in the 95%, you're immune. You won't get a weak case, you simply won't get any case. You won't make more virus, you won't pass it on to anyone else.

The only slight issue here is the immune response in the nasopharynx(back of the nose). It is a bit on the "outside" so to speak and the immune response can be slower here. You theoretically could have an active infection here that may take some time to resolve. The idea is that maybe you could shed enough virus to still infect others but internally, in areas, like the lungs with tons of blood flow, your immune system will shut down any infection quickly. This is why they keep talking about wearing masks and whatever long after you are immune. It's a stretch, there simply isn't any data one way or another.

The amount of virus shed by someone who is fully infected with a lung full of infection is probably several orders of magnitude greater than what can be made in the nose. The likelihood that nasopharyngeal infection in a vaccinated person is enough to infect others is very very low. It's not zero though.

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as a public service for those who watch/hear the "news" with the recent stories of Florida only using 1/2 of the vaccine doses sent to the state - here's the REAL story, direct from the Gov> (hope this silences the critics)
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Paraphrasing the information in the clipping: Florida has reserved enough doses to provide the second shots and that is why they haven't already used all that have been provided.

This is good news, it is just a shame it has taken so long to hear. At least those with first shots can have confidence they will be able to get their second.

They are scheduling Covid shots at Gainesville VA the number is 3525486000 ext 103755 for over 75 year old vets I just.called and I had 5 minute wait , I’m going Thursday but I could have gone tomorrow, the VA clinic in villages they said will have more vaccine Feb 10 I’m not taking chances she did say that they might fill up there schedule with younger ages

What is also a big shame is why they cannot give us any idea when they will be able to vaccinate the rest of us on the self start list.

And it won’t. If it hasn’t by now..

IMO

Shut downs don’t work very well, California and NYC good example. The virus will never go away, so shut down for ever not going to work either. Only thing that’s going to work are the shot and people following guidelines of what has been learned so far. That will also never happen.

You keep giving the example of countries that have far fewer population than United States, naturally they may have fewer due to fewer population and what travel they have and restricted? I have to ask? If %#% hate Florida and United States so bad why not move to lands of peaches and cream with rainbow sunsets everyday?

We now can depend on 1,000,000 a day with 1,500,000 goal starting in February. :icon_wink:

Let’s see Germany about size of Texas?

Very good. My thoughts exactly. 😊

We have been promised 1M/day, we haven't seen it yet. Given that the promises of the recent past have not yet been realized, the 1M per day may be wishful thinking too. I hope not.

Depend huh. Exactly can we start depending on this?

It was on majority news channels reporting from our new administration so it must be true.

I'm so confused, there were 8.6 million doses reported delivered this week.

New White House press didn’t have kind words on sending more vaccine to FL. Due to holding back the second dose for 65 and over.

Many healthcare workers are not taking vaccine, so those doses are going to the public. Out of almost 200 staff in my department, only 11 took the vaccine. Not surprised, or disappointed. But glad the facility gave them the option, instead of forcing the vaccine.

I hope it is safe? Both parents getting theirs today. I'm too young to get mine, 66. Hopefully I stay safe since I take care of them 24-7.

Maybe they some seen the side effects first hand?