Autzen Stadium: Fans allowed in this year?

[pezsez1]

Phalanx, I am no longer reading your rambling walls of text. You got triggered because you misunderstood my comment about COVID in rural communities. Now you're defensive and trying to save face.

Seriously, just stop. For your sake.

[Phalanx]

I really do have questions about how you got Covid, and how that has affected your express resentment for others who are not doing their part to stop the spread. I mean, you have inundated multiple threads with your opinions on this - you can't just throw me a bone and answer my question? Ah well, if it gives you pause at all, maybe it wasn't time wasted.

[pezsez1]

I really do have questions about how you got Covid, and how that has affected your express resentment for others who are not doing their part to stop the spread.

My likely bout with COVID (was in January 2020 before anyone was testing for it) has nothing to do with my annoyance at people who don't take it seriously.

"Resentment," though, is too strong of a word. I have friends who don't take it seriously; I simply don't hang out with them for now and won't until everyone in my family is vaccinated. I love my friends, but I'm not their keeper. Once I'm vaccinated then I won't need to care about their personal choices on this matter.

EDIT: I do resent people who actively spread misinformation (Plandemic, anti-vaccine propaganda, etc.) that fuel people's unsafe choices. But propaganda is powerful and I don't resent every single person who falls for it.

[Phalanx]

I'm doing my best to be nice here, but honestly, I have a lot of resentment toward people who are resistant to being part of the solution. We should be dunking all over COVID starting now and yet I still don't have faith that we'll collectively choose to do it. It's pretty maddening.

I'm just using your own words - you know, so that I don't have to write a wall of text to explain what mine mean to you later. Anyway, I could have sworn you said months ago that you hadn't had it, so is this a new discovery in retrospect that you had it in January? Sorry if I got confused.

[pezsez1]

Yes, there are levels to this. I wouldn't be friends with someone who actively sabotages our collective efforts to control this. But I also don't resent people who are simply products of their bubbles. I know that other liberals may not be so forgiving, but -- as I've said before -- I'm probably more moderate than you think.

I don't know for a fact that I had COVID... it was back in January and nobody was testing for it. (We didn't even know it was here.) I went to the doc with pneumonia symptoms and a lingering high fever... was tested for flu, but it wasn't flu. I never went in for antibody testing because the results seemed like they'd be somewhat irrelevant... nobody knew how long natural immunity would last and now we have variants more capable of reinfecting people. I figured this would drag on long enough that any natural immunity I might have would fade before it ended.

[nogerO]

Pez, you lost me at Republican hotbeds of COVID outbreaks and deaths. Your ultra-partisan lense for viewing the world blinds you to who is actually refusing vaccinations and why, and your projections for people to die that you don't agree with is in poor taste. It has nothing to do with political party - Trump was the one pushing the vaccine as a solution for months.

You mention 'sacrificing for the greater good' and being ready to move on, and I think you miss in your political blinders that everyone around you has been in that same situation. I am glad that you are experiencing fatherhood, but there are entire communities of people WAY more invested in that institution than you will ever be, and yet they come to a different conclusion about how to manage the virus problem. I know I'm trying to get blood from a turnip, but maybe try considering why that is and stop posting like a snot-nosed ideologue.

Just wow! Pretty easy to trigger some of you O'boner fans.

It's unfortunate that you seem to lack the ability to share your opinion in a thoughtful and insightful manner. I've seen your posts on other boards and you sure don't deviate from your script.

Sorry lefty, just don't beat around the bush when talking to neandethals.
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[pezsez1]

Trump was the one pushing the vaccine as a solution for months.

I find it ironic that conservatives (as a whole) praise Trump for Operation Warp Speed, but they're also the ones most likely to be vaccine-hesitant/resistant.

That said, Trump urged everyone to get vaccinated during his CPAC speech. My feelings about him don't even matter on this topic... I applaud him for using his platform to urge people to get vaccinated.

[OregonFan4Life]

Trump was the one pushing the vaccine as a solution for months.

I find it ironic that conservatives (as a whole) praise Trump for Operation Warp Speed, but they're also the ones most likely to be vaccine-hesitant/resistant.

That said, Trump urged everyone to get vaccinated during his CPAC speech. My feelings about him don't even matter on this topic... I applaud him for using his platform to urge people to get vaccinated.

I notice you sometimes stereotype conservatives/Republicans and I hope you know we’re not all the same, just like Liberals. As a Conservative, I was very critical of operation warp speed. I don’t ever want a vaccine with a name like that. Vaccines are important and I want a highly tested vaccine that we can all feel confident in (besides the crazy anti-vaccers). I’ve been weary of the covid vaccine since the start due to how rushed it was. I get all other vaccines but again, with my wife and I wanting another kid soon, we don’t want to risk getting a vaccine that can negatively affect our fertility. If we were done having kids we’d probably get it even though we’re weary of it just so we can see this world go back to normal.

[buckmarkduck]

Do you not hang out with friends who don’t get the flu shot every year either? If your vaccinated, and you believe it works, why are you scarred to be around anyone?

Politically, making this virus and now vaccine about conservative vs liberal is just another stupid attempt to divide the people. I’m glad to see it works on people still.

[Duck07]

Apologies to the board for the off topic response.

I chuckled.

[pezsez1]

OregonFan, your earlier post is actually why I've been trying to avoid the term anti-vaxer. I get it that some people have unique concerns with this situation.

[Phalanx]

Do you not hang out with friends who don’t get the flu shot every year either? If your vaccinated, and you believe it works, why are you scarred to be around anyone?

Politically, making this virus and now vaccine about conservative vs liberal is just another stupid attempt to divide the people. I’m glad to see it works on people still.

Thank you for this post. It is funny, isn't it, how people have all this faith in the vaccine to make everyone well again, but if they have to come in contact with anyone among the unwashed, suddenly all their faith in vaccine salvation is out the window. What exactly does the vaccine do in that case, if not protect one from possible exposure to the virus? What was your confidence in, exactly?

Also interesting to me is how many people I have met - scores of them - who believe they contracted the virus last year between December 2019 and February 2020 (pre-hysteria) and got over it. Almost everyone I have met who fall under that heading have concluded that it wasn't a big enough deal to justify shutting everything down - which seems like a natural conclusion if you personally got over it. And yet, once in awhile, you run into someone who insists on dying many times anyway, complete with public hand-wringing and spreading fear. It's illogical. When my parents were young, the measles was just something people got and got over it. I was vaccinated for it as a kid, but then caught it later from a girl at school anyway, and then I got over it. Now, it's like a massive public emergency if anyone gets it - they shut down schools and close hospitals to all guests and basically are thrown into a general panic. I just think we have a lot less fortitude as a society today, and we are allowing the wrong people - the fearful ones - to control the message.

[pezsez1]

Do you not hang out with friends who don’t get the flu shot every year either? If your vaccinated, and you believe it works, why are you scarred to be around anyone?

Politically, making this virus and now vaccine about conservative vs liberal is just another stupid attempt to divide the people. I’m glad to see it works on people still.

While we're talking about politically divisive language, let's also take words like "scared" and "afraid" out of the conversation.

I honestly don't think I know anyone who is cowering in fear from COVID-19. What folks are doing, though, is being smart and attempting to limit spread before more people can be vaccinated. This isn't fear; it's a calculation. And we wear masks and practice safe social distancing so that we can go out and enjoy ourselves with sensible risk involved. I love going out to dinner with my wife knowing that we're not putting others at unnecessary risk and vice versa.

Anyway, back to vaccines.

The data shows the vaccines work, so my beliefs aren't really a factor. But we don't yet know whether vaccines prevent transmission. That's extremely important. Once my wife and I are vaccinated, can we still carry the virus to our baby son? We won't let our guards down much until that question is answered. Conversely, one of my best friends is high-risk and he's extremely reluctant to get vaccinated. So, we won't be hanging out closely with him, either, until we know we won't infect him.

Again, it's not fear. It's calculation. It's using the best-available data to make the most informed decision. Fear is the absence of rational thinking.

Regarding the "liberal vs conservative," everything I've said about conservatives is based on recent polling data. This isn't me just spouting out from the feelings in my heart. This is me asking questions based on the best-available public opinion data. I wouldn't be raising questions about the collective willingness of conservatives to get vaccinated if polling data didn't show that was the most at-risk demographic for vaccine hesitancy. I think that's been a massive misunderstanding throughout this little back-and-forth.


EDIT:

The real issue here seems to be disagreement over whether this virus was worth the closures -- and that's something we'll probably never agree on. I look at the 500,000+ who've died despite masks, distancing, improved treatments, etc., and I shudder at the thought of how many might have died had we done nothing. Other people aren't convinced that safety measures work and probably believe the deaths would have happened anyway. Some people blame comorbidities. Some people simply value the economic losses over human life losses.

Because we'll never agree on that, I don't think it's productive to dwell on that issue. We are where we are, and the issue now is finding our best path forward. Does that mean getting vaccinated? Does that mean hoping for a hybrid herd immunity if only part of the population is vaccinated? What is our plan when previously infected people start passing along new variants? What are the societal benefits of not achieving a 75+ percent vaccination rate? Etc. Those are the real questions right now. Those are the things we have the power to control.

And to bring things back full circle: What might the upcoming football season look like? Given the political climate of Oregon and the Pac-12 footprint, what is our best path forward to packing Autzen Stadium to the fullest extent possible?

[lukeyrid13]

One thing I don't like to see in all of this, is I have numerous friends that are definitely more left leaning and I've seen the following from them in regards to states like Texas fully opening up

- Calling the governor of TX a cu**
- Wishing death on the masses of "idiots in Texas"
- Gleefully prematurely celebrating there will be fewer conservatives after all of this

It's insane to me that we have gotten to the point of rooting death on the opposing political party and presupposing that anyone who lives in a certain state is of any certain political party. Instead, we should be rooting that Texas shows us that we can achieve 'normalcy' by returning to our everyday lives and not seeing further uptick in cases or deaths. Sadly, we are so rooted in our blue team vs. red team battle, that we root for death upon folks just so we can say "ha, I told you so". That is what is truly sad in all of this.

[pezsez1]

I especially take issue with any liberal who says stuff like this:

- Wishing death on the masses of "idiots in Texas"
- Gleefully prematurely celebrating there will be fewer conservatives after all of this

It's no secret that COVID-19 is more rampant among lower-income people who are forced to go to work, forced to live in shared housing situations, etc... and often this means people of color. Comments like these are wrong no matter how you slice it, but I really don't understand the logic in liberals egging on a virus that disproportionately kills disadvantaged people.

Regarding the TX policy, I'd love it if it works out and we don't see an increase in spread there. Do I think that will happen? Absolutely not. But would I love to see a full reopening with no masks lead to no increase in spread? Absolutely! That would indicate a change in our immunity or the virus that the scientific community has missed. Any good news is great news. My real concern is what the TX governor will do if he gets a surge in virus following this policy change. Some epidemiologists believe we're on the brink of another nationwide surge because of the new variants spreading here, and now wouldn't be the time for political leaders to bury their heads in the sand in order to save face.

But if this policy works out, then fantastic. On a purely selfish level, my income has taken a beating during this pandemic and I'm very excited for an economic rebound.