Asylum Seekers Bring Deadly Covid Strain

Fantine said:

Methinks refugees are a convenient scapegoat.

After all, they were called murderers and rapists by the former president. Drug dealers. Gang members.

So why not disease carriers?

My formula for immunity;

Mandatory vaccinations--with a few exceptions for those with certain medical contraindications.

Masks where recommended by the CDC.

It's so much easier to deploy prejudice and etnic hatred than deal with the real problem.

If you haven't been vaccinated, you are the problem.

The greatest danger to our reaching herd immunity isn't immigrants. It's the science deniers and conspiracy theorists who spread lies about microchips in the vaccines.

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whatbogsends said:

Kindly explain how i, who am not vaccinated, but masks, socially distances, and doesn't engage in high risk behaviors am "the problem".

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whatbogsends said:

I haven't gotten Covid, i haven't transmitted Covid. I am not a vector of transmission.

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whatbogsends said:

However, during a pandemic, not having a process to test for Covid and restrict access/quarantine accordingly, they are definitely part of the problem in controlling the disease.

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whatbogsends said:

The OP doesn't call out immigrants as the problem, it calls out the policy by which they are being let in without proper restrictions the problem.

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sfs said:

By being a potential vector. Masking, social distancing, and avoiding high risk behaviors reduce the probability of being infected and transmitting but they don't eliminate it. Unvaccinated people who don't take precautions are of course a much larger part of the problem.

Unless you've been tested every few days, or have had periodic tests for antibodies, or have been completely isolated, you can't know that.

We certainly should be both testing and isolating (as needed) immigrants.

That would be a more convincing take if the OP had been accompanied by other posts condemning our failure to test and isolate (as needed) everyone arriving by plane into the US.

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Fantine said:

Any American who is not doing everything he or she can to prevent getting sick and transmitting that disease to others is part of the problem.

As for the article, "Asylum Seekers Bring Deadly COVID strain," the appropriate response should not be to blame Biden's border policy, which he is dealing with as we speak.

The appropriate response should be: "I am glad I got the vaccine and following CDC guidelines," or, "I DON'T have the vaccine. I am going to run, not walk, to the pharmacist and get the vaccine today--and I will also follow CDC guidelines."

Yes, I am angry. 81% of the residents of my county are unvaccinated, and that means that everywhere I go 81% of the residents are showing callous disregard for me, my neighbors, and my community because of completely irrational fears or rebelliousness.

If Joe Biden did not act so decisively to end COVID, we would probably have at least twice as many cases as we do (64 million compared to 32 million.) But nine months of disinformation, rebelliousness, and disregard for Americans' safety by the previous president has taken its toll, and preventing those who are still in his thrall from doing the right thing.

Brazilian immigrants are not the main problem. In my county, the 81% who aren't vaccinated are.

I got my second Pfizer shot February 24, along with my husband.

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sfs said:

I've read a lot of the relevant scientific studies; I've also written some of them. I was on a call today with the CDC and most of the public health labs and academic centers that are monitoring SARS-CoV-2 in the US. I have a pretty good idea what people are thinking in this space.

Correct.

Correct, but we have no idea of how likely complete vaccine escape is or on what time scale it might occur. As it happens, we're already seeing the same mutations occurring over and over again, and so far none have been in that category, so it's quite possible that complete vaccine escape is not likely.

Strict control meaning what? If a true vaccine escape variant appears (assuming it doesn't appear in the US -- we've already contributed our share of alarming mutations), I'm fine with having mandatory quarantine for anyone entering the US, as long as it includes everyone, citizen or not. Good luck getting that through the American political process, though -- we can't even get Americans to wear a piece of cloth on their face, so I doubt we're going to convince them to let themselves be confined for two weeks if they take a trip abroad. And those measures would need to be back-stopped with ongoing intensive test-and-trace programs (which are also politically unacceptable in much of the country), mandatory isolation and quarantine in locations where vaccine-escape variants have gotten in (and they will get in), coupled with local mandatory social distancing and masking. If we as a nation had the political will, we could do as well as other countries have but I see no evidence that we have the necessary will and discipline.

That's all dealing with a hypothetical situation, though. Where we are now, asylum-seekers are a negligible contribution to the progress of the pandemic in the US.

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rjs330 said:

It's interesting you call out Americans for not wanting to wear masks while.at the same time wanting to excuse illegal immigration which brings a greater risk into the country. It's a g ad scratcher.

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TLK Valentine said:

The "filthy disease-spreading vermin" schtick has been used quite often in the past in order to argue against immigration-- legal or illegal.

It's not often that we get a actual disease to attach to the routine... so there's that.

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