New York Times article: Reaching herd immunity in the USA against Covid-19 unlikely to happen

[thewayne]

I was feeling this in my bones with the rate of vaccination declining and the growing opposition against vaccination, not to mention the rising number of variations.

Personally, I have no problem with getting an annual Covid vaccination, I can accept that. I really hate the possibility of always having a mask around my neck and pulling it up every time I go on the floor and into the stacks. Plus, one of my student workers won't get vaccinated, she "has convictions". I wonder if she has convictions against polio and tetanus, or if she's in favor of them. At least she'll complete her education at some point and leave.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/03/health/covid-herd-immunity-vaccine.html

https://science.slashdot.org/story/21/05/03/167239/reaching-herd-immunity-is-unlikely-in-the-us-experts-now-believe

Comments

[silveradept]

We do not wish harm upon anyone, but it would be nice if those people who "have convictions" would understand the soul-shattering loss that is how many people have died of the thing and how probable it is they will be harmed severely or dead if they get it, too. Or that the people they love will be harmed or dead, and they might be the reason for it.

It seems like a lot of those "convictions" are of the order of "I'm not letting someone inject me with a tracking device in the guise of fighting a nonexistent virus," nonsense.

[thewayne]

She has a very poor ability to use tech, which would correspond to a poor understanding of it.  So that would add up and could be part of the reason.  When we were doing weekly Zoom meetings during the lockdown, she was unable to get Zoom working in a browser, or in a program, and frequently just had to dial in on her phone.  And even then frequently ended up muting herself.

[silveradept]

In a completely non-condescending way, is there training for that, and does the job require sufficent technical proficiency so that she would have to complete the training course? It seems like the sort of thing someone needs to know how to do as a function of their job, rather than something optional that can be ignored because they don't want to learn.

[thewayne]

She’s sufficient in Alma for checking books in and returning them. Students have to pass a Word minimal proficiency test before they’ll be interviewed. I don’t know what her coursework plan is, it’s possible that her skills are sufficient for her field of study.