There’s plenty of valid reasons to worry about how the Trump admin is dealing with vaccines. But... the government themselves is not making the vaccine in a black box, and most of the leading vaccine contenders are being extensively tested, and being manufactured by many different companies across multiple countries.…

Worth noting that all Obamacare (ACA) marketplace plans, Medicare, Medicaid, and virtually all private health insurance plans are required by ACA law to cover flu vaccination (and most other preventive vaccines) at no out of pocket cost, even if you would normally have a deductible or a copay. It does have to be taken…

You know what’s even more refreshing than ditching Facebook (I’m over a year clean!)... ditching the mental obligation of remembering *anyone’s* birthday.

I’m not saying speeding is the same thing as disease - I only brought that up as an example of a dangerous behavior unrelated to race, but which criminal enforcement still disproportionately affects minorities (even though it shouldn’t). That’s all.

I am genuinely curious to see how you could see punishments for anti-maskers targetting minority groups? Will the US not punish the very white and proudly anti-mask groups and only the minority anti-mask groups?

Again, you’re choosing to have sex.

And by the way, yes, there were lots of HIV conspiracies in the 80s and 90s. On every side: in the gay community, thinking it wasn’t real, in the conservative religious communities thinking HIV was divine punishment, even in public health, with government officials proposing radical containment strategies and stirring…

Well, I disagree with HIV criminalization laws. But if you’re going to support them, it’s important to recognize that you can’t actually be charged with the crime unless you actually have HIV.

Those laws have proven over and over again to be used to disproportionately punish people of color, and to discriminate against the gay community. As I said above. If you want severely criminalize doing anything that might spread disease or be dangerous to anyone else, then that’s a valid position to take. But there’s…

And if you paid any attention at all to the HIV community, you’d know that this is a highly controversial law that most experts and activists think should be repealed. 

Look, I get it. COVID is real, is very contagious through the air, and is deadly. But I get very, very nervous at this trend toward gleefully and creatively punishing people for potentially spreading an infectious disease, criminalizing a biological process that is inherently hard for humans to control. Because we…

You MUST get a flu shot for the same reason you have to wear a mask now: you can pass influenza on to others even if you don’t get very sick.

Covid antipodes are fading in people with mild/no illness, but if you were quite symptomatic and sick, you’ll probably have detectable antibodies for quite a while. We don’t know for sure, mostly because this virus hasn’t existed in large amounts to study and track for that long. So a lot of “only a couple months”…

Did you and your family get a flu shot last fall?

Yes, a vaccine tailored to one mutation of the virus might not target a significantly different mutation later on. That happens with the flu. But keep in mind, a lot of the vaccine development and trial process is about getting all the other “infrastructure” for a vaccine right - like what parts of the virus need to…

What’s interesting about that? I deactivated my Facebook account last year and haven’t looked back. I use Instagram to look at pictures of airplanes and post pictures of my dog. I’m not under any illusion that Facebook doesn’t track me on Instagram... I just think Facebook “Main” is a mess, and I really have no…

The CDC just recently said that people are probably immune for *at least* three months - they are making a conservative, careful estimation there.

Point me to the thousands of cases which have been traced to infection on airplanes then. There isn’t many. I’m not saying airplanes are perfectly safe, I’m saying that they are, relative to other public places where you *must* be in proximity to other people, not really a cause for extraordinary concern or terror,…

You’ll be fine. I’ve flown a couple times since March. Modern aircraft have extremely high air circulation, making it about as well ventilated as being outdoors. Turn on the air vents and point them at your face (that air is coming from the outside). You won’t find any public place where mask usage is more enforced…

I didn’t say I thought it was going to be fine in 2020, I was just pointing out that international observers normally do observe US elections, as they do in other OSCE countries and less-developed countries too.