Covid-19 Updates & Info

[Deuce]

Why would you want a fraudulent vaccination certificate? If you are anti-vaxx, you wear that as a badge of honor. You are not and will not be vaccinated, and you will say that proudly. If you believe in vaccination, you really want to be vaccinated, not carry a fake certificate. There is no profit motive to buy a vaccine certificate if the vaccine is available and relatively cheap.

Umm... if you don't want to be vaccinated, but you do want to attend basketball games, or concerts, or to fly in an airplane, etc...
As such, I would think there would be a significant market for fraudulent certificates.

[ti-amie]

[ponchi101]

Superb animation but: my understanding is that that is the mechanism that EVERY virus uses to replicate itself. Hijacking your cells' replication functions to multiply.
Are there other types of viruses? Too lazy right now to go look in my library.

[mmmm8]

Re: Smartphones.

I don't know if it's millions who in fact have no cell phones or a "dumb" phone only, but another factor is that to get a smartphone plan from a provider, which gives it to you at a discount and a "loan" (i.e. you don't pay for the phone outright), you often need credit history and maybe proof of income and a lot of New Yorkers are recent immigrants or unemployed/don't have credit history, or are children. For them, the smartphones may be registered to relatives or otherwise not tracked, so I would guess that group accounts for some of the "millions"

[Deuce]

Superb animation but: my understanding is that that is the mechanism that EVERY virus uses to replicate itself. Hijacking your cells' replication functions to multiply.
Are there other types of viruses? Too lazy right now to go look in my library.

So... you have a library of viruses that you're just waiting to unleash on the world?!!?

[dryrunguy]

Sidebar: According to this morning's NY Times e-newsletter, roughly 125 people in Brazil are dying every HOUR due to COVID--and those are just the ones we know about.

[ti-amie]

Sidebar: According to this morning's NY Times e-newsletter, roughly 125 people in Brazil are dying every HOUR due to COVID--and those are just the ones we know about.

The numbers out of Brazil have always been suspect as you know dry. The same with the numbers out of India. There are many, many people in both countries who are not being tested or monitored.

[Suliso]

What I hear anecdotally from my Indian friends is that everything seems normal and not too many people affected. Brazil at least right now is completely different.

[ti-amie]

What I hear anecdotally from my Indian friends is that everything seems normal and not too many people affected. Brazil at least right now is completely different.

Maybe ask them about the tribal areas of their country suliso.

[Suliso]

What I hear anecdotally from my Indian friends is that everything seems normal and not too many people affected. Brazil at least right now is completely different.

Maybe ask them about the tribal areas of their country suliso.

They are upper middle class folks from Mumbai and Bangalore. Would know nothing about tribal areas...

[ti-amie]

What I hear anecdotally from my Indian friends is that everything seems normal and not too many people affected. Brazil at least right now is completely different.

Maybe ask them about the tribal areas of their country suliso.

They are upper middle class folks from Mumbai and Bangalore. Would know nothing about tribal areas...

[JazzNU]

Re: Smartphones.

I don't know if it's millions who in fact have no cell phones or a "dumb" phone only, but another factor is that to get a smartphone plan from a provider, which gives it to you at a discount and a "loan" (i.e. you don't pay for the phone outright), you often need credit history and maybe proof of income and a lot of New Yorkers are recent immigrants or unemployed/don't have credit history, or are children. For them, the smartphones may be registered to relatives or otherwise not tracked, so I would guess that group accounts for some of the "millions"

This is no longer the case though. Prepaid phones which don't require any credit check being readily available counteracts that previous large barrier to having a cell phone of some kind. They don't need to be registered and can be bought with cash, hence the name burner phones.

[mmmm8]

Re: Smartphones.

I don't know if it's millions who in fact have no cell phones or a "dumb" phone only, but another factor is that to get a smartphone plan from a provider, which gives it to you at a discount and a "loan" (i.e. you don't pay for the phone outright), you often need credit history and maybe proof of income and a lot of New Yorkers are recent immigrants or unemployed/don't have credit history, or are children. For them, the smartphones may be registered to relatives or otherwise not tracked, so I would guess that group accounts for some of the "millions"

This is no longer the case though. Prepaid phones which don't require any credit check being readily available counteracts that previous large barrier to having a cell phone of some kind. They don't need to be registered and can be bought with cash, hence the name burner phones.

But those are mostly not smartphones or very low model smartphones and not what people not looking to hide their identity are after. Case in point, my partner doesn't have a US credit history but there was a Black Friday deal we found where Verizon (my provider) was giving away the latest iPhone at a net negative cost (we got back ~$50 above the phone retail price) for new customers (he probably wouldn't have qualified for financing) OR if I added a new line, so we did that and now his phone is in my name.

[ti-amie]

[JazzNU]

But those are mostly not smartphones or very low model smartphones and not what people not looking to hide their identity are after. Case in point, my partner doesn't have a US credit history but there was a Black Friday deal we found where Verizon (my provider) was giving away the latest iPhone at a net negative cost (we got back ~$50 above the phone retail price) for new customers (he probably wouldn't have qualified for financing) OR if I added a new line, so we did that and now his phone is in my name.

I mentioned burner phones because they are just a well known way to refer to them in pop culture in case people weren't sure of the phones I was talking about, not because this is an instance where people are concerned about their identity. But the point remains.

Prepaid phones and plans are all over the place and many users may not get the latest and greatest iPhone, but it's not just the worst smartphones on the market either. It all comes down to what you want to spend. When you're talking about Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile? That's different. They are known as mostly postpaid carriers. But their have prepaid carriers either as part of their business now or one of their partners and those carriers run on their networks. Cricket, Boost Mobile, Metro PCS, TracPhone, etc. are where you need to go for prepaid plans that do not require credit checks.

You don't have to take my word for it, you can see the kind of smartphones you can get on those sites. And there are in-store options for this as well. Walmart, for instance, is a big seller of prepaid phones and plans or pay as you go minutes. This segment of the cell phone market is significant, I don't remember the more recent estimates, but know it passed 50 million awhile ago.


https://www.cricketwireless.com/cell-phones/smartphones
https://www.boostmobile.com/phones
https://www.metrobyt-mobile.com/shop/phones