The long-term effects of the vaccine ARE that up to 100,000 citizens in the US have NOT died and will NOT die. The future indisputable facts ARE that thousands of unvaccinated US citizens WILL, unfortunately, die this summer! Then, when school starts the children of unvaccinated parents will bring CV into the school - and thousands of vaccinated parents will be AFRAID to send their children to school because they love them.

There is another indisputable scientific fact - terrible long-haul CV symptoms will forever haunt unvaccinated young people - scientists have recently discovered that the virus can actually eat at their brains causing lower IQs and possibly (?) a whole generation of mediocrity? What parent upon realizing that fact will be eager to send their unvaccinated children indoors to school? Google Dr. Paul Hotez at Baylor U. for verification.

COVID variant first gained foothold in rural Missouri

COVID variant first gained foothold in rural Missouri

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A highly contagious coronavirus variant that is contributing to a surge of cases in Missouri first gained a foothold in rural areas of the state where vaccinations rates are low, a pattern not seen previously, state health officials say.

The delta variant, first detected in India, is becoming the predominant strain detected in wastewater in some parts of the state, particularly in the southwest corner, where COVID-19 hospitalizations are on the rise. And it is spreading much differently than the alpha variant, which first was detected in the United Kingdom, said Jeff Wenzel, who oversees the wastewater surveillance program for the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services.

“With the U.K. variant,” he said, “we started seeing that in the larger cities and we saw that spread out into smaller communities, and we are seeing the opposite now with this delta variant.”

The delta variant also has turned up in wastewater samples in the Kansas City and St. Louis area. But Wenzel said, “In the larger cities, it just doesn’t seem, we just aren’t seeing it as readily as we are in some of the smaller communities.”

Officials aren’t yet sure why the spread has been so different but are exploring the possibility that lower vaccination rates in rural areas of the state are playing a role.

In St. Louis County, for instance, 48.4% of residents have received at least one dose. But the percentage is half that across a large swath of southwest and northern Missouri, where the biggest rise in cases have been reported, state data shows.

The variant is worrisome because it is not only more contagious, but also more likely to lead to hospitalizations.

Dr. George Turabelidze, the state epidemiologist, said that Missouri was vaccinating about 50,000 people a day in March and April but that the number has since fallen to about 10,000 a day, making the state’s vaccination rate among the lowest in the country.

“That is concerning because this new emerging variant is highly transmissible and the primary target is unvaccinated people,” he said in a video posted on the health department’s website Wednesday night.

Missouri now leads the nation with most new cases per capita. Over the past 14 days, it has recorded 144.9 new cases for every 100,000 residents, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

Lisa Cox, a spokeswoman for the health department, said the agency is exploring a variety of incentive options at the state level. But she said Thursday that she had no details.

An email message left for Republican Gov. Mike Parson’s communications staff was not immediately returned.

Besides inundating hospitals, cases are again causing problems for schools. In St. Joseph, the school district had to shift summer classes online last week at two schools because about 50% of the students were out sick with COVID-19 or another illness, quarantining or vacationing, said Bethany Clark, director of elementary education for the St. Joseph school district.

She said that wasn’t what she envisioned when the district was planning for the summer. Case numbers were so low this spring that the district even decided to make masks optional for summer school.

“I really thought, ‘Things are looking good. Summer school is a great option for opening up some of our restrictions. Let’s see how things work and we can return to as close to normal as we can in the fall,’” she recalled thinking. “And then yeah these cases. It was a hard hit because we really wanted, we really want to be post-pandemic.”

But the district is in Buchanan County, where just 20.8% of residents have received at least one shot.

“What you are looking at now is, Where is the virus most able to circulate?” said Dr. Bill Powderly, the co-director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Washington University’s School of Medicine. “Where are the pockets of vulnerability? And the pockets of vulnerability across the United States are those communities with very low vaccination rates because that means they have lots of people who are susceptible to the virus and therefore the virus is much more likely to circulate.”

He noted that younger people are more likely to get sick than with earlier strains. But it is unclear whether even that will drive more vaccinations.

“If you are in a rural community where maybe a couple people got infected and nobody got sick, you think it is overblown and your political leaders are telling you it is no big deal,” he said. “You can understand why people start off the way they do, but I don’t want people to die in order to convince the rest of the population that they need to be vaccinated. I so hope that people will start to realize that this is not trivial.”

That IS true, but the number is very small. There is NO perfect vaccine. Nothing in life is PERFECT. Overall the risk of NOT taking the vaccine is GREATER than the risk of taking it. When calculating mentally the risk of NOT taking the vaccine, do NOT go by JUST the deaths due to CV - factor in the long-haul complications percentage which is MUCH greater than the percentage of the deaths.

Good logical post!

Very good post!

So you only fear things that are contagious?!? Even when the likelihood of dying from that contagious virus, at this point, is truly minuscule…
To avoid that minuscule probability, you are willing to join the largest drug trial in history. A trial where the long term effects are completely unknown. That’s pretty much the definition of a sheep…

The long-term effects are not completely unknown, they are not completely known. there is a difference.

No one knows what the long term effects will be. No one.

Depending on your definition of "long term effects" no one knows the long term effects of anything.

Helmets don't protect football players perfectly, seatbelts don't protect drivers and passengers perfectly, polio vaccinations don't protect people perfectly. While so many are waiting for perfection and proof it is perfect, people are dying that don't have to die.

There is NO guarantee. All we have are lots of people working to learn how to do something and recommending that the vaccine is safer than not taking the vaccine.

As long as there is no law requiring vaccinations, then people can make up their own minds. Personally, I would like to see vaccinations REQUIRED by law.

But, that is not going to happen, so all these arguments more or less sound like an old couple just repeating the same old arguments they have been having for the past 40 years. Round and round the argument goes, and nothing new is ever said, and neither side is willing to actually listen to the other side.

In my Ohio city, a high-profile, local talk radio propagandizer ran his mega-mouth, sewing seeds of doubt about the virus. Then Covid hit close to his life, including killing a good friend.

Now, he tells his listeners to get the shot. But during all those months of ranting on the radio — before real life changed his mind — I have to wonder how much damage he caused to those in his audience who tune in to be kept all whipped up into a frenzy of anger and paranoia. (I have always felt that those who make a living spewing poison have nothing but contempt for the American people — and the ones for whom they have the most contempt are their loyal followers.)

Missouri does not seem very capable of changing. The “Show Me State” is now showing us all that cult mentality has taken over common sense and medical advice. I wonder how their big tourist attraction Branson is holding up. I read recently that the average age for Covid hospitalizations in MO is 54.7. That is young — young and dumb?

Like Pogo said, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

Boomer

I disagree, not all people out in sticks has ability to get shots or access to web, and may only antenna TV. You don’t know their circumstances so you’re political view are irrelevant and IMO kind of mean with natural selection statement. These people have families.

Political view babble and mean thinking you’re state more knowledge when in fact EVERY state in union has been affected by Virus. You have NO clue what’s going on in Missouri other than you political sites you frequently visit.

More deflection. Or do you actually fear car accidents, hurricanes & smokers? :faint:
A huge reason that the chances of dying from Covid are so small is that some people are accepting the scientific advice & evidence from around the entire world and taking the vaccine and slowing the spread and mutation of the virus.

Drug trial? The vaccine manufacturers based their vaccines on 10+ year-old mRNA technology and did highly successful field trials. What alternative are you proposing - that we had waited through several more years of studies (and correlated deaths) until the FDA can announce that it is safe? Is that the one government agency that you totally trust? The CDC and NIAID are lying maybe?? A better definition of a 'sheep' may be somebody who ignores scores of scientists & experts from all over the globe to follow the paranoid rants of a few tv & internet entertainers.

I guess you think EVERYBODY has different views than you’re. Yes, the world all on the other side. Get use to it.

You do realize Brittany wasn’t there testifying on virus right? O I sorry you failed to comprehend that part.

Why is that? Mmmmm, maybe cause the world traveling in and out of Florida every day?