Pirate's Cove

And please, people, get vaccinated to do so

Fauci: ‘Go out there and enjoy Halloween’

Dr. Anthony Fauci on Sunday urged parents celebrating Halloween to get vaccinated against the coronavirus but described the holiday’s activities as low risk, given that they are mostly outdoors.

“Particularly if you’re vaccinated, but you can get out there. You’re outdoors for the most part — at least when my children were out there doing trick-or-treating — and enjoy it,” Fauci said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

He added: “This is a time that children love. It’s a very important part of the year for children. I know my children enjoyed it.”

Fauci, President Biden’s chief medical adviser, made the comments after CNN host Dana Bash asked for his guidance to parents who are concerned about staying safe while handing out candy and walking through their neighborhoods.

Although Fauci described trick-or-treating as a generally safe activity, he said it would be even safer if people get vaccinated first.

“If you’re not vaccinated — again, think about it, that you’ll add an extra degree of protection to yourself and your children and your family and your community. So it’s a good time to reflect on why it’s important to get vaccinated,” he said.

About the only parts he got right is that kids enjoy Halloween and that the point of getting vaccinated is to protect yourself. The strange part is how there are all these packed college football games going on and we aren’t hearing about superspreader events.

Cases, hospitalizations and deaths are all declining, raising the possibility that the pandemic could become more endemic — a less disruptive threat that would allow life to increasingly return to normal. But the tens of millions of people who have not yet been vaccinated threaten that prospect as winter approaches, he suggested.

Why? If they get COVID that’s on them. That’s the chance they take. Unless Fauci is saying that the vaccines do not work as advertised?

Fauci’s advice last year for winter holidays such as Thanksgiving and Christmas, when people frequently travel and spend time indoors with large groups, rankled some of his critics. Widespread vaccinations have mitigated some of the risk as the same holidays approach again.

Strangely, he was good with people traveling on airplanes last year before the vaccines were rolled out, saying it was safe to fly.

Meanwhile (direct Washington Post article, behind paywall, here)

Hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops have not yet complied with vaccine mandate as deadlines near

Hundreds of thousands of U.S. service members remain unvaccinated or only partially vaccinated against the coronavirus as the Pentagon’s first compliance deadlines near, with lopsided rates across the individual services and a spike in deaths among military reservists illustrating how political division over the shots has seeped into a nonpartisan force with unambiguous orders.

Overall, the military’s vaccination rate has climbed since August, when Defense Department leaders, acting on a directive from President Joe Biden, informed the nation’s 2.1 million troops that immunization would become mandatory, exemptions would be rare and those who refuse would be punished. Yet troops’ response has been scattershot, according to data assessed by The Washington Post.

For instance, 90 percent of the active-duty Navy is fully vaccinated, whereas just 72 percent of the Marine Corps is, the data show, even though both services share a Nov. 28 deadline. In the Air Force, more than 60,000 personnel have just three weeks to meet the Defense Department’s most ambitious deadline.

81% of the Army is supposedly vaccinated. The order also applies to Guard units who deploy on federal orders after December 15. So, what will the military do? Will they lose that many members? Kick them out? Lose all that experience? The White House wants them booted with some sort of not-honorable discharge.