Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

Also, to tack on the polio discussion - less than 1 percent of polio infections lead to any serious consequences, but I'm quite happy we worked to get rid of it. Personally, as far as the mandate, I'm a bit on the fence. Generally, I don't like mandates, but I do think vaccines are an area where the government should mandate them in certain circumstances. Is this that kind of circumstance? I think we are mostly at the end of this as a pandemic, so not sure it is worth the cost.

One area that I'd agree with Mdot here is that this vaccine doesn't appear to be capable of "eradication".

Per the things I posted about the polio vaccine, the original oral polio vaccine would provide the level of immunity that would stop you from contracting or passing on polio. Once polio was basically eradicated [although it's not 100% in all geographies of the world] countries moved to an inactivated polio vaccine that protects you but isn't as good at preventing infection/transmission. They did this for safety--the oral polio vaccine could potentially give you polio, making it risky. The inactivated polio virus cannot under any circumstances give you polio. 

The reason this works is that if you're statistically unlikely to ever come across the virus in your entire life (because it's been basically eradicated in the US) then you don't need a vaccine that prevents transmission. 

But that's not the case with COVID. We didn't have time to produce and test a live or attenuated virus vaccine. The risk of such vaccines is much higher than the mRNA vaccine, because the mRNA vaccine cannot give you COVID, whereas a live or attenuated virus has a small chance of doing so. 

So all we had was a vaccine that significantly reduces the chance of severe illness or death, but isn't capable of 100% preventing infection or transmission. 

I don't think a vaccine mandate makes sense in this case, because a vaccine mandate won't lead to eradication. 

national ABC news reporting tonight a surge in Arizona as well - pretty warm there

national ABC news reporting tonight a surge in Arizona as well - pretty warm there

I know, Covid in AZ is spiking, all the way here in Iowa.

Dad could not find a hospital for a non-covid condition in Tucson last week while in a stand alone ER. Then when they found a hospital, they could not find an ambulance for about 14-hours, a week ago. Eventually, he was transported to a hospital in Queens Creek, over an hour away. He was discharged in about 24-hours about 10-days ago. He is not back to his old self, but we think that over the past 3-days he has improved. This COVID-19 pandemic is not limited to COVID-19.

Nearly two years into a global health crisis that has killed more than 5 million people, infections are again sweeping across parts of Western Europe, a region with relatively high vaccination rates and good health care systems but where lockdown measures are largely a thing of the past.

The World Health Organization said coronavirus deaths rose by 10% in Europe in the past week, and an agency official declared last week that the continent was “back at the epicenter of the pandemic.” Much of that is being driven by spiraling outbreaks in Russia and Eastern Europe — where vaccination rates tend to be low — but countries in the west such as Germany and Britain recorded some of the highest new case tolls in the world.


While nations in Western Europe all have vaccination rates over 60% — and some like Portugal and Spain are much higher — that still leaves a significant portion of their populations without protection.

Dr. Bharat Pankhania, senior clinical lecturer at Exeter University College of Medicine and Health, says that the large number of unvaccinated people combined with a widespread post-lockdown resumption of socializing and a slight decline in immunity for people who got their shots months ago is driving up the pace of infections.

Thanks largely to vaccination, hospitals in Western Europe are not under the same pressure they were earlier in the pandemic, but many are still straining to handle rising numbers of COVID patients while also attempting to clear backlogs of tests and surgeries with exhausted or sick staff. Even the countries experiencing the most serious outbreaks in the region recorded far fewer deaths per person over the past four weeks than the United States did, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.


https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-lifestyle-germany-europe-western-europe-be9a84ddaf7b9b3cc927d47428683201

The odd thing we encountered was at two McDonald's near Macon, both with no inside service.  I stopped to get some coffee.  We went to the gas station next door, no masks or anything.  The first stop was for lunch and we had it normally at the Wendy's next door.    Everything but McDs was open.

Savannag was pretty much all open.

Saturday afternoon euchre league??

it's like a buckets tournament only indoors where its warm

Must be in the Front R-o-o-o-h-w