Ask Lemmy

You can't be concerned about things you don't know...

5th stage of grief... Acceptance.

We know we're fucked and the government believes it's role is to wield power, not help people.

d e s p e r a t i o n

50 years of cuts to the education system and the demonization of the Liberal Arts (history, sociology, etc...)

A country that would rather keep a football program than an arts program is always going to suffer.

HATE: They are willing to accept anything as long as the people they hate suffer.

Because, quite frankly, Americans are idiots. They would rather scarf down misinformation given by their news anchors than open a book and/or think for themselves.

How Not To Die in 82 minutes

How Not To Die in only 17 minutes

How Not To Die from Heart Disease, the leading killer of Americans

The leading causes of death of Americans are all preventable, and none of them are viral infections. (Though COVID might have moved the numbers somewhat.)

Asking Americans why they are like they are is just going to result in a bunch of denial, obfuscation, rationalization, and misdirected aggression.

This is what kills Americans the most: https://nutritionfacts.org/video/uprooting-the-leading-causes-of-death/ And almost all of them are preventable.

Anyone know why someone would think being in a house fire means you're relatively unconcerned about dying in a fire?

This is one of those scenarios where it may be better to look at fiber detail

• life expectancy by state has an 8 year range, from 72 to 80 years
• our nightmare of health coverage … In 2018, …coverage rates ranged from 82.3% of people in Texas to 97.2% of people in Massachusetts.
• average income almost doubles, from $87,063 down to $46,511.

You can go down a list of stats related to quality of life, and see similarly large ranges by state, and the ones on the low end correlate strongly with people who voted Republican. These are poorer people with worse education, worse health, much less income, voting for disrupting the status quo without understanding what that means

Almost every person I know got a measles booster in response to the recent outbreaks (all were vaccinated during youth).

Perhaps turn an eye on your biases.

Many Americans are exactly as the stereotypes about them say they are, loud and stupid.

If you're referring to the gains in the anti vax movment

It's the same reason why a large portion of Americans are anti environment.

It got politicized and instead of using critical thinking one side wants to win and thinks the other is lying to them about everything

Our educations system has been in decline for the last 20 years. Instead foreign money has combine with private interests to blast us with complete made up bullshit propaganda 24/7. Almost all of our major news sources are now owned or operated by MAGA donors, who care more about money than public well being. Basically, half this country is now too stupid to determine if the information they're viewing is corporate propaganda, or foreign government propaganda. Both are exploitative, and both want Americans sick because it's profitable to them. So despite having a president that publicly threw out our pandemic response killing more Americans than in all the wars we've ever faught in combined - 4 years later we reelected him. That's how bad the propaganda is here. Combined with poor education, we can no longer agree on how basic cause and effect works.

TL:DR - We're now too stupid and hopped up on propaganda to understand how preventing diseases works.

For a disease to be prevented from spreading, you need a certain percentage of people to be immune. It's different from disease to disease and also depends on the vaccine itself. Some diseases like Covid can still be spread to people who are vaccinated (though obviously the worst of the symptoms are mitigated).

For the sake of example, let's say you need 90% immunity for a disease to not spread. Maybe 5% of the population cannot be vaccinated due to immune conditions, being too young, etc. That gives 5% of wiggle room.

Then there are acolytes of the fraudster, Andrew Wakefield, who faked data to get a flashy headline to get published in a prestigious journal. That includes RFK jr., Jenny Mccarthy, mayim bialik, etc. Clinging to their views for so long makes them unable to change them even if you show them proof that they are wrong. That might be another 1% of people.

There are a very small percentage of people who shun vaccines for lets say "true" religious reasons. Most of the people who try to claim religious reasoning for refusing vaccines are members of religions that are completely fine with vaccines. They are usually just really stupid people who are scared of needles and/or don't think it's that big of a deal with modern medicine. That's probably another 1% of people.

Then there are people that are homeless or otherwise outside of the system. Vaccines are one of the most cost effective methods to improve health of a country, so despite the nightmare that is our healthcare system, you typically should never have to pay for a vaccine. It may be a bit more work than someone who is homeless and/or has substance abuse or mental health problems can prioritize. That might be another 1%.

All together, that would put us at 92%, above the threshold for a widespread epidemic, but all of those categories of people who don't get vaccinated tend to be in communities, and so we can have outbreaks in those communities.

Because "totally preventable" is financially unaffordable for most of us. My insurance won't help pay for vaccines unless I get them done during a PCP appointment, but those are scheduled months in advance. I normally go to my local pharmacy and pay $20 for a flu shot, but covid vaccines are like $100-300 without insurance.

I've had gastro problems for a few years now, but because insurance and bureaucracy, I JUST got a scope done yesterday and they found a bunch of ulcers in my intestines that I've just been living with, untreated, because there's no option to speed things up without money. It COULD have been caught years ago, but getting prompt medical care is too bougie for me.