Tag Archives: #VaccinePassports

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If it’s just those evil reich wing Trumpelstiltskins who are refusing to be vaccinated, why doesn’t Philadelphia have an 80% vaccination rate?

Our good friends on the left love to blame evil reich wing Republicans for lower COVID-19 vaccination rates than they believe are acceptable. Of course, only 100% vaccination compliance is acceptable to the left, because the needs of the state outweigh the rights of the individual.

Surprisingly enough, that “anti racist news organization,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, loath as they are to print anything which could be construed negatively on BIPOCs[1]Black, indigenous, people of color., included an interactive map of city vaccination rates by zip code:

Philadelphia’s least-vaccinated zip codes at the beginning of the summer remain its most undervaccinated now, despite door-to-door outreach, targeted clinics, a lottery, and advertising to encourage people to get COVID-19 inoculations.

As the delta variant spreads, and the threat of other variants looms, these parts of the city are the most vulnerable to serious illness and death.

Five of the city’s zip codes had less than 40% of their residents fully or partially vaccinated as of Aug. 9, according to city data — rates that are on par with Arkansas and Louisiana.

You can click on the image, which is a screen capture, to enlarge it, but it is not interactive on this site. I did, however, rather painstakingly create a Microsoft Excel file of the of the data contained in the interactive file, including percentage having received at least one dose of vaccine, the median household income, racial demographics,[2]In the Inquirer’s interactive map, “white” is not capitalized, but “black”, “Latino” and “Asian” are. and the neighborhood names, something traditionally important in Philadelphia.

You can click on the image to enlarge it.

Of the 15 most heavily vaccinated zip codes, white Philadelphians are the plurality in 14 of them, with over 50% of the population in 12 of them, and 49% and 47% in the other two. Only in zip code 19104 are whites not the plurality.

In only two of the fifteen zip codes with the lowest rates of vaccination, 19116 and 19135, do white Philadelphians compose the largest racial/ethnic group. In nine if the fifteen zip codes with the lowest vaccination rates, blacks make up 70% or more of the population, and over 90% in zip codes 19132 and 19138.

It’s true enough that it takes an [insert slang term for the rectum here] like me to notice the racial disparity in those statistics, but I’d bet I’m not the only one. One wonders: just whom publisher Elizabeth Hughes will fire for looking up and printing those racially disparate statistics.

In the 2020 elections, Philadelphians gave 603,790 (81.44%) of their votes to Joe Biden, and only 132,740 (17.90%) to President Trump; Mr Biden’s margin of 471,050 votes in the city was far larger than his 81,660 statewide margin; without Philadelphia, President Trump would have carried the Keystone State by 389,390 votes.[3]This is clearly evidence that Philly needs to be walled off, like Manhattan in Escape from New York, all the inhabitants therein considered convicted felons and not be allowed to vote. If the vaccination resistance is all among the evil reich wing Trumpelstiltskins, why aren’t over 80% of people in the City of Brotherly Love vaccinated?

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↑1 Black, indigenous, people of color.
↑2 In the Inquirer’s interactive map, “white” is not capitalized, but “black”, “Latino” and “Asian” are.
↑3 This is clearly evidence that Philly needs to be walled off, like Manhattan in Escape from New York, all the inhabitants therein considered convicted felons and not be allowed to vote.
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Kneel before Zod!

I have been pretty diligent about checking for the ruling from the Kentucky Supreme Court on Governor Andy Beshear’s (D-KY) claim that the state legislature’s changing the law governing his ’emergency’ executive authority is unconstitutional, but, as of yet, I cannot fins anything which states that the Court has ruled.

However, I suspect that the Court has already decided, and that the Democrat-leaning justices were simply unable to find any way to throw out the legislation, and that Governor Beshear has already been informed of the decision:

    “Beshear calls on employers to enforce vaccine mandates as COVID-19 cases surge in KY

    By Alex Acquisto | August 5, 2021 | 3:29 PM EDT

    Gov. Andy Beshear on Thursday called on the private sector to enforce COVID-19 vaccine mandates in workplaces, in yet another attempt to convince more people to get inoculated as the virus rages across Kentucky.

    “I think the fact is clear that with private-sector leadership, we see more individuals getting vaccinated that we otherwise could not reach as state government,” the governor said during a coronavirus update in the state Capitol. He was joined by leaders of nine health care and hospital systems across Kentucky, each of whom advocated for vaccine requirements among health care workers.

Translation: the Governor wants to force Kentuckians to take the vaccine, under the threat of losing their jobs if they don’t. The vaccines have been available, for free, to all adults since March; if someone hasn’t taken the vaccine yet, it is because he has chosen not to do so.

    “This is not a political statement. This is what is right for the lives of the good people of the commonwealth,” said Donald H. Lloyd, president of St. Claire Healthcare in Morehead.

Of course it’s a political statement! A (sort of) non political statement would be a request to the public that more people get vaccinated. The Governor is bringing whatever political power he has to bear to persuade corporations to threaten people’s jobs if they do not kneel before Zod. Continue reading →

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Neoconservatives want to fight for American-style freedom and democracy everywhere, but don’t seem to want Americans to have individual rights

If someone was asked to put names to a list of neoconservatives in the United States, Irving Kristol, Nathan Glazer, and Norman Podhoretz might come to mind. Irving Kristol was an editor and publisher who served as the managing editor of Commentary magazine, founded the now-defunct magazine The Public Interest, and was described by Jonah Goldberg as the “godfather of neoconservatism.” His son, William Kristol, founded the magazine The Weekly Standard, which quickly took hold to challenge National Review for primacy among conservative opinion journals.

The Weekly Standard failed because, as a fervent #NeverTrumper, Mr Kristol guided the journal into being all-Never Trump, all the time, while National Review, with plenty of Never Trumpers in its fold, still tried to allow pro-Trump articles in its pages and on its website. Mr Kristol (probably) realized that yes, Donald Trump was a factor in Republican politics, and yes, some conservatives really did like his views and his style, but The Weekly Standard was never going to tolerate the views of the riff-raff to pollute its pages and website!

We have already noted how neo-conservative Max Boot of The Washington Post wants to make vaccinations against COVID-19 mandatory. The Post’s other neocon, Jennifer Rubin, while I have not seen anything from her yet urging making vaccination mandatory, certainly wants to do everything that can be done to stifle opposing views. The Post also supports “vaccine passports.”

Now comes the younger Mr Kristol, who, like so many others, wants to force you to be vaccinated. Not trusting Mr Kristol not to delete that tweet, this is a screenshot of it, but the hyperlink will take you to the original. If it’s difficult to see, you can click on it to enlarge it.

Mr Kristol and the neoconservatives, frequently fairly liberal when it comes to domestic and social issues, very much wanted to spread the ideas of American-style freedom and democracy around the world. But I have to ask: when so many of them are now opposed to individual liberty and individual rights, just what does their commitment to American-style freedom and democracy mean? One of the most basic freedoms of all, the right to decide what you will put into your own body, is a freedom they would deny people who have decided differently than they have.

Full disclosure: I have been vaccinated myself, a choice I made freely, and I believe that others should take the same decision I did. While no vaccine is 100% without risk, the benefits of being vaccinated outweigh the risks. But I respect the right, and yes, “right” is precisely the word I mean to use, of other people to choose whether or not to take the vaccine. That’s a right that the neoconservatives don’t seem to want you to have.
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Related Article:

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The left are pro-choice on exactly one thing

The Centers for Disease Control, and President Joe Biden, have decided that “fully vaccinated” people, by which they mean people who are 14 days past their final vaccine dose, no longer need to wear masks in public, other than in some specialized and crowded conditions, such as hospitals, nursing homes, or prisons.

The new advice comes with caveats. Even vaccinated individuals must cover their faces and physically distance when going to doctors, hospitals or long-term care facilities like nursing homes; when traveling by bus, plane, train or other modes of public transportation, or while in transportation hubs like airports and bus stations; and when in prisons, jails or homeless shelters.

William Teach noted President Biden’s declarative tweet that “The rule is now simple: get vaccinated or wear a mask until you do. The choice is yours.” The President, of course, has no authority in any of this: the mask mandates which existed were issued not by the federal governments, save on federal property or in federally licensed transportation modes, but by state Governors.

But for the left authoritarians, that ain’t good enough!

Streiff from RedState noted that “her inner fascist emerges,” as though we didn’t already know about it. I do wonder if the lovely Mrs McCormick[1]Jill Filipovic is married to a gentleman named Ty McCormick, a senior editor of Foreign Affairs. I always show the proper respect for married ladies by referring to their proper names. thinks we should do things the old-fashioned way, as the Germans pioneered it some eighty years ago, or whether she’d like something 21st century, like implantable, scannable microchips.

It’s kind of amusing that the left want everybody to have a #VaccinePassport to be allowed to do almost anything, but are wholly resistant to the concept of requiring identification to vote.

More amusing, though sadly so, are all of the messages from people complaining that there is no enforcement mechanism. One guy tweeted, “I hope you have a plan to track people who are not vaxxed. Otherwise, no one will wear masks. This is scaring me.” There are thousands upon thousands of other like-minded sheeple.

The vaccine itself? Yeah, I’ve had it; first dose on April Fool’s Day, and the second on Cinco de Mayo, something I find mildly amusing. I think it wise to get vaccinated. But I’ll lay in Hell before I carry around a ‘vaccine passport’!

We have reached the state — actually, we reached that point in March of 2020! — that it is more important to fight for freedom and liberty and our constitutional rights than it is to fight this disease! The ‘progressives,’ to whom William Teach refers as “nice fascists”, would surrender all of our freedoms, because they value compliance over liberty.

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↑1 Jill Filipovic is married to a gentleman named Ty McCormick, a senior editor of Foreign Affairs. I always show the proper respect for married ladies by referring to their proper names.
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Wir müssen Ihre Dokumente sehen. When the CDC say that "fully vaccinated" Americans can go maskless, does that mean states will require vaccine passports?

In an attempt to boost President Biden’s status reopen the closed economy, the Centers for Disease Control are stating that Americans can start to take off their masks. From The New York Times:

Vaccinated Americans now may go without masks in most places, the C.D.C. said.

May 13, 2021 | 2:20 PM EDT

In a sharp turnabout from previous recommendations, federal health officials on Thursday advised that Americans who are fully vaccinated against the coronavirus may stop wearing masks or maintaining social distance in most indoor and outdoor settings, regardless of size.

The advice from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention comes as welcome news to Americans who have tired of restrictions and marks a watershed moment in the pandemic. Masks ignited controversy in communities across the United States, symbolizing a bitter partisan divide over approaches to the pandemic and a badge of political affiliation.

Permission to stop using them now offers an incentive to the many millions who are still holding out on vaccination. As of Wednesday, about 154 million people have received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, but only about one-third of the nation, some 117.6 million people, have been fully vaccinated.

But the pace has slowed: Providers are administering about 2.16 million doses per day on average, about a 36 percent decrease from the peak of 3.38 million reported in mid-April.

“The science is clear: If you are fully vaccinated, you are protected, and you can start doing the things that you stopped doing because of the pandemic,” the C.D.C. said in a statement on Thursday.

The new advice comes with caveats. Even vaccinated individuals must cover their faces and physically distance when going to doctors, hospitals or long-term care facilities like nursing homes; when traveling by bus, plane, train or other modes of public transportation, or while in transportation hubs like airports and bus stations; and when in prisons, jails or homeless shelters.

In deference to local authorities, the C.D.C. said vaccinated Americans must continue to abide by existing state, local, or tribal laws and regulations, and follow local rules for businesses and workplaces. Individuals are considered fully vaccinated two weeks after the one-dose Johnson & Johnson shot or the second dose of either Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccine series.

Still, the changes are likely to galvanize Americans who have become unaccustomed to appearing in public unmasked — or to seeing others do so.

Note what is being said here: when the CDC say “Americans who are fully vaccinated against the coronavirus may stop wearing masks,” they are talking about Americans who are completely indistinguishable from any other American. At least so far, I haven’t seen any proposals from the CDC that getting that second dose of the vaccine be accompanied by a six digit tattoo on my forearm, complete with the date that the final dose was given, so that anyone could tell that I was two weeks past receiving the second dose.

Upon receiving my second dose of the Moderna vaccine, on Cinco de Mayo, the Estill County Health Department indicated the vaccine lot number and the date I received it on a CDC-provided COVID-19 Vaccination Record Card, with a special plastic container in which to keep it, and the record-keeper told me that I should carry it with me.

Well, not just no, but Hell no! She had no real authority, of course, but she was giving me the message that the government would like us all to have: Wir müssen Ihre Dokumente sehen.[1]Ich spreche kein Deutsch. Dies war die Antwort von Google Translate auf “We need to see your documents.”

So, what will the CDC, or President Joe Biden, or Governor Andy Beshear (D-KY) try to do now? Yes, I will be considered “fully vaccinated” on May 19th, which just happens to be our 42nd wedding anniversary, but I will look no different then from the way I look now, nor from the way I looked on March 31st, the day before my first dose. Will Governor Beshear order the Staatspolizei to stop everyone they see not wearing a mask, and demand to see their vaccination cards?

As we noted previously, Governor Beshear has been trying to finesse his executive orders, to try to render the legal cases against his illegal and unconstitutional executive orders moot before the state Supreme Court decides on them. He stated earlier that he would ease — not lift — his capacity restrictions on businesses on Friday, May 28st, just before the Memorial Day holiday weekend, and his most recent renewal of the mask mandate expires the day prior to that.

The Governor said that he hoped that the Bluegrass State would have no restrictions at all by July. That, of course, is designed to end all restrictions before the (probable) time the state Supreme Court would issue its rulings on the cases concerning his executive orders, so that the Court could simply dismiss the cases as moot. That would mean that the injunctions by Franklin Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd, a Democratic partisan, would expire, so the laws restricting the Governor’s executive orders would go into effect, but, without a ruling, if the Governor decided that he wanted to issue such orders again, he would still have a basis on which to file suit, again with the odious Judge Shepherd, to enjoin enforcement of those laws, and another several months of legal limbo.

Can you tell that I have exactly zero trust in either the Governor or Judge Shepherd?

While it will be a relief when all of these ridiculous restrictions are gone, we cannot forget that our constitutional rights were restricted by government orders, frequently by executive decrees only and not with the consent of state legislatures, and if this can be done once, it can be done again. If tyranny is excused, tyrants will return.
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Update:

From the Lexington Herald-Leader:

Beshear: Fully vaccinated Kentuckians can take off their masks in most settings

By Alex Aquisto | May 13, 2021 | 3:54 PM | Updated 4:11 PM EDT

Heralding it as a return to “normalcy” for many, Gov. Andy Beshear announced Thursday that Kentuckians who are fully vaccinated will no longer be required to wear a mask in most indoor and outdoor settings.

The announcement comes on the heels of a recommendation issued earlier Thursday by the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who says it’s safe for vaccinated people to remove their masks and not practice social distancing in most indoor public spaces. Everyone will still need to mask in crowded groups of others, like when using public transportation, in hospitals and in congregate settings such as nursing homes and correctional facilities.

“Anyone who is fully vaccinated can participate in indoor and outdoor activities — large or small — without wearing a mask or physically distancing,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said at a White House briefing. “If you are fully vaccinated, you can start doing the things that you had stopped doing because of the pandemic.”

Beshear, in a brief video update, called the change “outstanding,” and said he would alter Kentucky’s statewide mask mandate to reflect the easing of that restriction. Nearly 1.9 million Kentuckians have received at least their initial dose of a COVID-19 vaccine — 53% of the population age 18 and older, and 43% of the total state population.

“The CDC says it is safe to take that mask off,” and Kentucky will “immediately follow that guidance,” Beshear said. “It means that we are so close to normalcy, and we’re going to be changing Kentucky’s mask mandate to be the same with those CDC guidelines.”

How interesting it is that, among the laws passed by the General Assembly, was House Bill 1, to allow businesses and other organizations to reopen as long as they followed CDC guidelines. Governor Beshear vetoed that bill, which was then passed over his veto, yet he has almost immediately followed the changes in CDC guidelines anyway. It’s almost as though his primary objective was to exercise his power, rather than allow the state legislature to do so.

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↑1 Ich spreche kein Deutsch. Dies war die Antwort von Google Translate auf “We need to see your documents.”
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Zeigen Sie uns Ihre Papiere!

We can see where Governor Andy Beshear (D-KY) wants to go with this one! Our wannabe dictator tweeted:

The “^AB” at the end of the tweet indicates that it was written by the Governor himself, not one of his minions.

Note that the article from the Louisville Courier-Journal was entitled Kentucky Libertarian Party compares ‘vaccine passports’ to star IDs Jews wore in Holocaust. Vaccine passports, not the vaccine itself.

The Libertarian Party of Kentucky compared coronavirus “vaccine passports” to star-shaped identification badges people of Jewish descent were forced to wear during the Holocaust in a tweet this week, drawing outrage from across the nation.

The post, sent just after 5 p.m. Monday, compared “vaccine passports” – credentials that would show whether a person has received the coronavirus vaccine and would theoretically grant access to businesses and other spaces that will require proof of vaccination before entry – to “the stuff of totalitarian dictatorships” that the party considers a “complete and total violation of human liberty.”

“Are the vaccine passports going to be yellow, shaped like a star, and sewn on our clothes?” the party wrote on Twitter.

The tweet had been reposted more than 4,000 times as of Monday afternoon, with many reposts adding messages disavowing its message. Nearly 7,000 comments were left in response as well, including one from Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt that called the post an “ignorant and shameful comparison” and another from Jewish actor Seth Rogen, who (explicitly) suggested the party take its message elsewhere.

I had, of course, suggested something other than the sewn on yellow stars, something that couldn’t be mistakenly left at home.

Perhaps the Governor’s ideas would sound better in the original German: Zeigen Sie uns Ihre Papiere!

Governor Beshear’s tweet indicates what we might expect from him: he will probably try to issue executive orders mandating that people carry their vaccination records, and, with the General Assembly’s 2021 session ending on March 30th, and Democratic state judges willing to support his authoritarian dictates, Kentuckians will have little protection other than massive public resistance to this bovine feces.

Will you have to update your vaccine passport? The Washington Post noted on Monday that we do not know for how long the vaccine will be effective:

But based on clinical trials, experts do know that vaccine-induced protection should last a minimum of about three months. That does not mean protective immunity will expire after 90 days; that was simply the time frame participants were studied in the initial Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson trials. As researchers continue to study the vaccines, that shelf life is expected to grow.

In the real world, the protection should last quite a bit longer, though the length of time still needs to be determined with further studies, experts said. . . . .

Immunity could also depend on what happens with future variants. If a person were exposed to a variant capable of evading vaccine-induced antibodies, for instance, a vaccine might not be as effective as initially expected, said Lana Dbeibo, an infectious-disease expert at the Indiana University School of Medicine.

Although researchers do not yet have all the answers, previous knowledge of other coronaviruses, as well as emerging research about the current strain, may provide clues.

Looking at studies on natural immunity from the coronavirus, experts hypothesize that protective immunity from the vaccines will last at least six to eight months. And if immunity from SARS-CoV-2 ends up being similar to other seasonal coronaviruses, such as “common colds,” it is even possible the vaccines could provide protection for up to a year or two before requiring a booster, the experts said.

So, what? Should we have to have our booster shot record on the passports as well? How often? Six to eight months? Maybe up to two years?

But, what the Hell, it’s only one more bit, one tiny little bit, of government control over our individual lives, right?