These long weekends used to scare me a bit because it’s like flying blind for a few days. We might wake up Tuesday morning to find 3,000 dead and 400,000 new cases. It never happened (not even close), thankfully, and I guess that’s why when B.C. decided to pull the plug on weekend updates, they never came back. But I certainly appreciated they updated numbers today… and they were as good as we can hope for… beautifully following that descent to zero. Today’s less-than-300 new cases was the lowest since Feb. 1st… before the 3rd wave.
For the most part, the other interesting numbers to follow these days (barring a 4th wave appearing suddenly and out of nowhere) are the vaccination numbers. On a per-capita basis, we’ve pulled ahead of our southern neighbours, and it’s to no great surprise. We are vaccinating as fast as we can; they are not.
Other broad brush strokes… our military is 85% vaccinated, and that number would be higher were it not for logistics… so it’ll keep rising. On the flip side, the American military refusal rate is somewhere between 33% and 50%, depending who you ask.
Military aside, what about the general population?
In the U.S., it looks like this…
Democrats: 67% vaccinated + 24% asap or waiting = up to 92% eventually, with 8% saying never.
Republicans: 46% vaccinated + 22% asap or waiting = up to 68% eventually, with 32% saying never.
In Canada, it looks like this…
Already vaccinated or will eventually / outright refusal:
NDP: 79% / 9%
Liberal: 84% / 5%
Conservative: 69% / 19%
Seriously, what is it with right-leaning mindsets? Why does conservative equal vaccine hesitancy? Is it because they don’t trust the government? Is it because they don’t trust science? Is it because it’s not in the bible? Or it IS in the bible in some hidden way?
The first time I ran across this sort of horseshit was when I was only 13 and it was pointed out to me that the new American president (Ronald Wilson Reagan) had 6 letters in each of his names. 666… the sign on the beast. Clearly, he was the anti-christ… notwithstanding he was himself a staunch Republican. Seems about as valid as the fact that Reagan can be spelled/pronounced Ray-gun – queue the space lasers and World War III.
If you like this sort of nonsense, get this:
C=3
O=15
R=18
O=15
N=14
A=1
——
6 66 — run for the hills!!!!
… or just trust the science and get vaccinated. Jeez.
So, I call myself a small C conservative and can’t wait to get my second shot!!
Lately I’ve been thinking that not wanting to be vaccinated is all about lacking social responsibility, and that tends to fit with the conservative mindset.
As a a conservative voter, the 19% represents the full
Idiocy of it/them/us all. But it would be interesting to see the discrepancy between the Center and the Left as well.
But to conserve is in the name. So to abdicate responsibility is the height of idiocy.
As far as I can tell, the right wing resistance to the vaccine is borne from the mindset that getting vaccinated would validate all the measures that have been taken to date, which they generally oppose.
That and the opposition to doing anything that “the government “ says they must do.
I saw a good meme today:
How do you tell if someone is fully vaccinated or has not got the vaccine?
Ask then who won the election.
The trust science is probably fine. It’s the “trust the guy that’s telling you it’s science since you didn’t test it yourself, see the results, or engage directly with the process” I imagine.
It’s the “trust me” that’s the issue likely. The same voices telling you the virus didn’t escape from a lab.
Any government initiative lost the default trust a long time ago.