Topic: Corona Virus Panic/Discussion Thread

@Th3solution Yeah, there definitely needs to be balance. It doesn’t help anyone if one corporation controls what is listed and in what order. At the same time, without some sort of order then you’ll get ESPN, the Evangelical Song and Prayer Network being listed above y’know, the ESPN people want to search for. Ideally, the best way to do it would be to have a rotating board of representatives across the world who’s job is to maintain a level of control over what content is suitable and what isn’t. That’s how most other guidelines are set, through the Internet Engineering Task Force for things such as network protocols.

I'm pretty sure you can get child porn to come up through Google as well. Not sure that's exclusive to any one search engine.

But in any case, I want a search engine to search the internet. That's it. Not curate based on my gender, age, location, spending habits, etc. Just search. The existence of child porn on the internet, while concerning, is so not my problem when I'm trying to find a recipe for orange banana bread.

For me it feels like Kobe died like 5 years ago so I know I've experienced some hellacious time dilation since this all started.

Still not seeing much info on how much this vaccine will cost. Is it just free across the board, paid for by federal government? Is the cost picked up by insurer? Is it covered under Medicaid and/or CHIP? Is there an out of pocket cost if you don't have insurance? Does it depend on where you get the vaccine?

Just seems like we could be doing more to make this as easy to get as possible, especially if we're wanting to vaccinate at least 70-80% of the population.

@zupertramp I totally forgot that you lot Stateside would have to pay for it. You’d think that it would be a small price to pay for the government to help get everything back to normal but I’m sure they wouldn’t miss an opportunity to bleed people dry.

@nessisonett Yeah well if you want the 37th best healthcare in the world, you gotta pay for it I guess.

@zupertramp Insurances cover it, I assume. Similar to the flu shot. Probably some employers will pay for it, similar to the flu shot. And that one article that I can’t find anymore that was referenced by someone on here had the prices in the $4 - $20 range per dose, depending on which vaccine you’re talking about. I’m certain some people will not pay $20 to be 95% assured of not missing 2 weeks worth of work when they get sick, but alas, these are the same people who won’t pay $10 for their prescription medicine because they need to stock up on cigarettes, booze, and the latest skins on Fortnite.

For @zupertramp and others, this is quite a good breakdown on how the vaccine was developed so quickly and easy to read too.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/dec/26/ten-rea...

@Thrillho
Nice article, thanks for sharing.

Part of me did think it would be lowkey funny if they gave the first person the vaccine on live TV and they spontaneously combusted.

@nessisonett I think everyone's reaction would just be, "yeah, okay".

@zupertramp And by way of follow up, it does look like the government says they’ll cover the cost of the vaccine for the uninsured, just so long as you have a social security number.

@Th3solution Yeah I still can't find anything concrete on that. In fact, where I've found it mentioned that the vaccine is covered, it also mentioned providers can still charge for the syringe etc, and the service more generally which is kind of funny in it's own ridiculous way.

Guess I'll see though whenever my state gets to 30-40 year olds who aren't essential and have no pre-existing conditions.

@Thrillho Thanks for article. Haven't checked it out yet but I will.

@nessisonett I thought of you yesterday as I saw my neighbors outside and I brought up the vaccine during our extremely socially distanced conversation about things hopefully returning to normal by mid year but my neighbor wasn't having it. He said he wasn't trying to turn into a zombie and then literally cited the movie Legend (the Will Smith one not the Tom Hardy one) as his reason.

So I feel less of an ass for my mild trepidation.

Edit: my bad, I believe the Will Smith film is called I Am Legend. It's that old Tom Cruise film that shares a name with the Tom Hardy gangster flick.

@zupertramp That line of reasoning kinda baffles me. Like, at this point, Covid is fact and we know that it’s at the very least having dreadful, long-lasting effects on your respiratory system. Whereas the vaccine having side-effects is a mostly unknown quantity. So it’s like... ‘no vaccine that might, if I’m very very unlucky, turn me into a zombie, I’ll take my chances with the widely reported virus instead’?

@nessisonett I'm not gonna lie, I mostly just don't like the idea of injecting obscure sounding ingredients into my body. Kinda have the same view with processed food. But the idea of becoming a zombie really doesn't factor into my assessment at all.

For what it's worth, I tried to reason that he and I both will at least have quite some time to observe whether anyone turns into a zombie but I still don't think he was sold.

@TheIdleCritic
What if it was trump or biden?

Throw in the lack of support from much of the African American community on account of the Tuskegee thing and we might have a real hard time getting the coverage we need.

There's this large local hospital that was hit extremely hard by Covid received an allotment of vaccines but had so few takers on staff they had to open it up to other segments of the community they thought could benefit. Really seems like something the employer should make mandatory in this case but I guess not.

https://www.brownsvilleherald.com/2020/12/21/health-workers-d...

@Gaming365247
"Yeah, okay"
as in
"Yeah, seems about right. Sigh. What else can go wrong?"

@TheIdleCritic that was the meaning i got from it. Kinda like, oh, a spontaneous combustion on live tv... So business as usual for 2020 then.