18 minutes ago, Dashinka said:

The health plan where a Covid19 test is required simply for travel purposes.  Not sure what health plan you have that covers voluntary Covid19 testing without any symptoms, but it is what it is.  We even looked at the local CVS/Rite-Aid/Walgreens, and all of them are now asking the question if the testing is solely for travel purposes.  We could have gotten away with a $10 discount (meaning $140 instead of $150) at CVS, but they would not guarantee the results timing.

United Health Care High deductible.  This is our second set of tests.  I am not sure if it is funded by the state but anyone can walk up at anytime and get a test. They only ask you the standard symptom tests, no qualifiers.  All results in 24 hours. If you dont have insurance, you wont pay anything.  I don't know what arrangements insurance has with the county for payment.

I avoid CVS lik the plague ( no pun intended)

22 hours ago, Dashinka said:

Yes, it looks like it will be fairly simple.  I wonder what the cost will be.  I know my wife needed a test for a recent trip and it was $150 out-of-pocket.

What health plan is that under? We paid zero.

On 8/9/2021 at 11:47 PM, Dashinka said:

Just to add, there is also an arrival test that is required.

Not a big deal, when we went last month they told us the nurse went home and gave us the self admin kit.

We are heading tomorrow and crossing at Blaine. I will keep you posted here.

So far:

Uploaded to ArriveCan app (new version is needed)

Proof of Vaccine

Proof of negative test within 72 hours

Puppy has rabies document (not really part of the covid deal but the family is dying to meet him)

Last month we went up as Citizens(no quarantine) and the kinks were getting worked out in proof of Vaccine and the test at the border. We took the swabs with us and fedex took them.

Here's hoping the long lines are done.

I guess barnyard humour in the face of existential threat is one way to go.

The planet is on track to exceed very dangerous warming levels, leaving us with fewer and fewer options.

by James Temple August 9, 2021

firefighters in Athens
Scientists says climate change is fueling increasingly severe fires, such as the ones recently in Greece.

AP PHOTO/THANASSIS STAVRAKIS

The UN’s long-awaited climate report, released on Monday, offered a stark reminder that removing massive amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere will be essential to prevent the gravest dangers of global warming. But it also underscored that the necessary technologies barely exist—and will be tremendously difficult to deploy.

Global temperatures will continue to rise through midcentury no matter what we do at this point, according to the first installment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s sixth assessment report. How much hotter it gets, however, will depend on how rapidly we cut emissions and how quickly we scale up ways of sucking carbon dioxide out of the air.

Climate scientists say we’ll need to do carbon removal, in part, to balance out the emissions sources we still don’t know how to eliminate or clean up, like flights and fertilizer. The other, more ominous reason is we may well need to pull the planet back after it blows through dangerous temperature thresholds.

The UN report found that greenhouse gases are likely to drive worldwide temperatures at least 1.5 ˚C above preindustrial conditions within the next 20 years, fueling more common and more severe heat waves, floods, and droughts. Once that happens, carbon removal is essentially the only way to bring the climate back to a safer zone, because the greenhouse gas persists for hundreds to thousands of years in the atmosphere. (A last alternative is, perhaps, some form of geoengineering that reflects heat back into space, but that controversial idea presents all sorts of concerns.)

https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/08/09/1031450/the-un-climate-report-pins-hopes-on-carbon-removal-technologies-that-barely-exist/amp/

Is there a maximum number of Covid related threads that we can run with here?

11 hours ago, Dashinka said:

This makes a lot of sense.

 

The zero COVID delusion

 

The moral and patriotic imperatives of our current moment are different. (A 2020 version of that same poster might read, ‘When you ride TOGETHER, you ride with Death!’) But they offer the same comforting assurance: that together, if we just try hard enough and follow the rules, we can beat this thing.

 

Therein lies the problem.

 

We cannot beat this thing.

 

The notion that we could literally stop the spread of COVID by locking down and vaccinating it out of existence was always a fantasy. As National Geographic recently noted, ‘only two diseases in recorded history that affect humans or other animals have ever been eradicated’. (Only one of these viruses, smallpox, was a danger to human beings; the other is a bovine disease.) Every other virus, from ebola to influenza to the bubonic plague, still exists among us; we’ve just learned to live with them, and to control them as best we can through inoculation, preventive measures, and treatment for those who get sick.

 

https://spectatorworld.com/topic/zero-covid-blame-pandemic-fauci/

"and to control them as best we can through inoculation, preventive measures, and treatment for those who get sick"

So I agree with you here: take the vaccine unless you have health or moral objections, wear masks indoors and when around the vulnerable wash your hands and keep your distance where prudent.  

1 hour ago, Dashinka said:

So you are an expert on filtration efficiency?

Did I say that? No. It's common sense.

4 hours ago, laylalex said:

Some people call it Miracle Whip, other people call it rat poison.

 

Seriously, why would anyone eat Miracle Whip when mayonnaise is a real thing? Alex loooooooves salad cream, which is nasty and luckily not that easy to locate in the US. Occasionally he spots it at Bristol Farms, and I am a good wife and do not remove it from the shopping cart (like I do the Hostess Fruit Pies).

Where can you find Hostess Fruit Pies? asking for a friend,

41 minutes ago, LIBrty4all said:

So you are saying that the mask you wear, which is for MY benefit, stops all droplets?  And that is why you believe in them with what borders on religious fanatacism?

 

Don't you think that SOME of your droplets escape AROUND the mask?  Haven't you worn your mask outside in the cold?

Obviously 99 % of the mask types and how they are put on do not provide 100% protection, but they reduce risks.  Reducing transmission rates are the goal. 

The science proves that and the common sense of not having someones spittle broadcast to everyone in a pandemic is obvious, but not obvious enough I guess. 

So back to the question, if the goal is to filter out virus laden moist droplets which the masks have shown to help, why are you debating filters for the virus alone and airborne, which never happens? 

4 hours ago, Ban Hammer said:

As a solid Jackson Browne fan, I approve of this message.

1 hour ago, LIBrty4all said:

Sorry, I forgot you were an expert in epidemiology.  Good thing we all put on masks and no one got sick for months, eh?

I am not an expert, unlike some on this site.  There are easy to understand explanations on how this virus is transmitted and how to reduce the risk of infection. If you have information that shows this virus just floats all alone around mid air, by all means bring it here. 

1 hour ago, LIBrty4all said:

Love how if someone doesn't agree with your postulations, then there is no point in further discussion.  But I'll play along.

 

1) Yes

2) No (try 1.7% using your preferred method.  Or 0.190% using the less scary numbers)

3) Too early to tell

Okay so because you are agreeing with number one, why do you continue to talk about the virus passing through masks when the obvious target "particles and droplets that infected people exhale" is what we are filtering on?   

46 minutes ago, LIBrty4all said:

Well, you kinda started it by trying to make it look like I am too stupid to understand "what VAERS is and is not".  I only brought up your college because you have bragged about it more than once, so you must think it's noteworthy, and thereby gives you a superior knowledge of how to interpret the data.

 

Disagree or agree, it doesn't really matter.  But try to paint me as less educated or less able to understand what is happening in the world around me, and suddenly it becomes personal, see?
 

I can only judge what I am seeing in this mess using my life's experience.  And in my experience, it has never been a good idea to put too much faith and trust in the government.  I reckon we will all know more in about 5 years.

 

Also, VAERS has data that is publicly available.  But guess what?  It is VASTLY under-representative of what is happening, because not many people bother reporting their issues on it.  I did once, years ago.  Haven't since.  And care to take a wild guess how many Americans even KNOW about the site, or have access to it?

You have already told us you are an expert in this topic, why should we doubt you?

1 hour ago, Dashinka said:

So states are now people?

Isn't that the point of the Electoral college and Senators being two to a state?  We are not even close to proportional representation.

1 hour ago, Nature Boy 2.0 said:

Great California and New York would be out 

California is barely out with 12 dollars per person recieved, these are the 10 net exporter states, 

COLORADO

NEBRASKA

WASHINGTON

NEW HAMPSHIRE

ILLINOIS

NORTH DAKOTA

NEW YORK

MASSACHUSETTS

NEW JERSEY

CONNECTICUT

https://howmuch.net/sources/federal-budget-receipts-and-expenditures-across-the-united-states

30 minutes ago, Nature Boy 2.0 said:

If only people who paid more in than they took out voted, the Democratic party would cease to exist 

If only states who were net importers of tax dollars had fewer votes.

7 hours ago, LIBrty4all said:

You seem to be a really nice fella, so I'll try to be nice here.  

 

It is a PROVEN FACT that covid can pass right thru a mask,  similar to a train passing thru a tunnel.  Masks can stem the movement of droplets, yes... care to take a guess at how many millions or billions of virus particles are in a single droplet?

 

 

Not only that, but very little actually goes THRU the mask, but travels AROUND it.   Don't believe me?  Put on a pair of glasses and breathe normally while reading a book. 

 

Your nose smells the tiny particles that are released into the air, exactly as your nose can take in the virus particles not inhibited by the mask.  

 

To see it from a different perspective, tobacco smoke ranges from 0.01-4 microns.  Does your mask prevent you from smelling cigarette smoke?  No.   Why not?  Because the mask cannot filter out particles that small.  Do you know what the filtration level of a standard surgical mask is?  Roughly 0.3 microns.  The corona virus ranges between 0.06-0.14 microns.  At the smaller end, that means that 5 covid virus particles could pass between any two threads in a mask.  So while yes, you WILL block a FEW particles with a standard surgical mask, it will be much like trying to prevent a sunburn by sitting in a screened-in porch.

 

Masks are mostly a part of virtue signaling control methods being employed.  If you are sick, and sneezing and coughing, they will slightly reduce the amount and distance your viruses can travel each time you sneeze.  If they worked as well as you seem to be claiming, no one in Korea or Japan would have gotten sick the past 50 years.

You are uneducated about how the virus is transmitted, all the information above is not applicable to stopping the transmission of the virus. When you breath out the virus is attached to a larger particle and that is what is filtered.  

12 hours ago, Ban Hammer said:

i'll disagree with fox on this one.  on the other hand, i think a wiser course would be those who actually pay federal income taxes should be the only ones who vote.

if one isn't paying into the coffers, why should one have a vote as to how the money is spent?

Good luck in convincing  SCOTUS that this is constitutional. 

56 minutes ago, jg121783 said:

How about the people who are paranoid about a virus with a 99.9% survival rate go hide out on an island or live in a bubble or whatever makes you feel safe and allow the rest of us to carry on with our lives?

So now we are down to the crux of the issue:

1. Do you agree the virus is what medical experts agree upon: A highly contagious virus transmitted by particles and droplets that infected people exhale?

Yes or No?

2 Do you.agree that this is a virus with high fatality (an apparent 1to 4 % case fatality rate? 

Yes or No?

If you  don't agree on the two points above, there is not much point in discussing masks, social distancing or vaccines but;

3. Do you think the vaccine has a lot of side effects or risks?

Yes or No or Maybe (we don't know yet)?

22 hours ago, TBoneTX said:

If you're prohibited from living your life freely if you don't do what the authoritarians (of government or business or the military) say, then they're forced.

You don't need to do anything. If you object to the wearing a mask, stay out of my place if business, work from home, stay off of my airline flight and out of our classrooms. Who forced you to leave your home? 

Here is an idea...if you refuse the vaccine and have no moral /medical exemption we will pay folks to move to an Island. Molokai might be a nice tropical location for the unvaccinated. 

24 minutes ago, TBoneTX said:

It's objective fact that masks, even with borders plastered around one's face, can't come close to blocking tiny viral particles.

 

I don't know whether or not "building a chain-link fence to keep mosquitoes out" is an accurate description in terms of the size differential between viral particles and mask pores.

I think there is a misunderstanding here. The virus doesn't get exhaled on its own. It embeds itself into the droplets and moisture people exhale. You are not stopping the virus, you are stopping it's vehicle of transmission.