More News on Chip Shortage...

https://www.theepochtimes.com/surge-in-virus-deepens-global-supply-chain-woes_3995729.html

 

Add to it the perpetual covid shutdowns and we won't even be able to get this:

 

I'd be a little more concerned about fuel & real food shortages. Remember when you would go into a tire store and whiff that great smell of new rubber? Not anymore, tire stores can NOT maintain floor stock anymore due to shortages. One tire dealer took me behind the counter to show me his inventory sources - zero zero zero for their most popular tires. If they are lucky enough to get a set of tires in for inventory the MFG will recall them if not sold in 30 days! Sad times we're going through right now...

 

I live in the area where most of the fuel in the US is made (or used to live there). It's not the fuel, there is plenty.

It's the HazMat certified truck drivers able to deliver it. The shortage is drivers for that.

 

Makes sense..

 

Sadly, this economic impact will continue until most people worldwide are vaccinated. The longer it takes the greater the chance of even worse variants evolving.

 

Not sure is only the vax, Israel has 60% + vax rate (both shots of Pfizer) followed by US at 50-some (CDC does count only the 2 shots of Moderna and Pfizer and 1 Johnson as fully vaxed) and lots of vaxed are getting tested positive in both countries, which is weird, although they blame the delta as being a mutation where vax is loosing the efficiency, so now they push boosters... Need to get some Moderna and Pfizer stock, lol. Also, PCR tests are known to provide false-positive, I remember Musk being tested positive and then negative (or the other way), same day, I believe last year... Covid is here to stay and there will be more and more variants as the virus mutates, but good news is that the virus effects diminish as it mutates. Who knows what will happen, if you listen to politicians you will burry yourself in a bunker, surrounded by canned food and TP, lol...

 

So what does it report?…it’s behind a paywall

 

About the supply chain issues and chip factories in Asia being intermittently closed/opened due to covid. Try to clear your cookies, Epoch Times usually gives you few free articles a month, so if you don't want to pay, you'd have to clear cookies from them constantly.

 

So, interestingly enough gents, I've driven by my local Toyota dealers, and absolutely nothing on the lot... Maybe a couple of Tundras. We spent 2 weeks in Mexico and there are three Toyota dealers near our house there, and their inventory was ok. Now granted, 4Runners aren't really available there, but I just found it odd the difference in stock... Makes ya think what really is going on?

Cheers,

Sean

 

It’s my understanding the delta variant is making folks sicker, so I don’t agree that as the virus mutates it gets weaker.

 

In general, as viruses evolve, they tend to get more infectious (spreads easier) but less deadly. That’s the typical evolutionary trajectory for viruses.

If viruses made people too sick too fast, the virus itself would meet a dead end in those individuals.

Again, generally speaking.

 

Maybe sometime in the future it will be more benign. But for now this is what we’re dealing with, some hospitals are essentially in wartime triage. If you’re an older person and get into a car accident in Idaho, good luck getting hospital care:
https://www.idahostatesman.com/news/coronavirus/article254285123.html

 

I also stopped at my local Toyota dealer today for parts. Before the covid crisis the lot was full of new cars and trucks and 4Runners. You could barely find a place to park just to get into the parts department. Today there were no 4Runners and the lot was half empty. At least I easily found a parking spot.

 

Seems the same for a lot of vehicles, I'm looking to trade my 4runner on a HD truck for towing a tractor and can't find jack I may try to sell on CL and just wait until something comes in. edit: But then I'd be scared of not having a 4x4 for the winter.

 

You are correct, and the Delta variant proves it. Viruses mutate. There can be "weak" mutations that cause little disease and die out like the early variant. There can be "strong" mutations that spread easily and cause more severe disease like Delta. There could possibly be a mutation down the road that is immune to the vaccines, and the longer so many people are unvaccinated the more likely that can happen. The virus will get "weaker" when there is herd immunity which will happen when enough people die off, get the disease and survive with some immunity, or get vaccinated. When you consider how much of the world is further from herd immunity than even the USA and how variants can pop up anywhere you can imagine how far away the end of the pandemic is. We may need yearly boosters or an altered vaccine.

 

~80% of the UK is fully vaxxed. Yikes.

 

I personally know 7 people over the age of 70, who live in Idaho, and who all got fully vaccinated. Out of those 7, 3 of them developed heart valve issues within 2 months of each other, and within 3 months of getting the vaccine. All three have to go to Washington hospitals to get surgery. The remaining 4 are scared to death that they are next.

Just weird. I'm fully vaccinated, but am younger, and haven't had any issues.

 

Israel is also one of the most vaxxed places on the planet (I think). Also yikes.

I think most of their population has been fully vaxxed since last spring. My guess is that when the US graph starts looking similar to the up-slope of the right side of the Israeli graph (as opposed to Sept 20), there’s gonna be a mad rush to get the boosters done here. But I ain’t no expert.

 

When the virus came about it was more of a 'medical thing', but when politics became involved, I lost lots of respect for the political machine. Hospitals getting paid for positive test results... what crap! My wife and I got vaccinated due to underlying medical conditions, this was after she got sick with covid, of course I tested positive and was put on quarantine. Wife got pretty sick, but I was bored out of my skin, had to go outside, do chores, split wood etc. I believe there is something out there (the virus), but we've dealt with several epidemics as the years progressed, don't you think this is medical and not so much 'political'? BTW- I hope the pandemic passes soon, the world can do without it. Stay healthy!

 

I am not a doctor or a medical expert. I believe this virus is serious. I believe it was a man made super virus, but that will probably never be proven but in the end it is here and we have to live with it.

One thing I am tired of hearing is that the vaccine is the savior. I believe it helps out for sure (no doubt), but people who have gotten Covid have natural immunity and the case studies done in Israel with 2.5 million people have shown that people who have natural immunity are significantly less likely to need medical attention upon re-infection than someone who has been vaccinated. But are both the vaccinated and the naturally immune still contagious for a period of time? (I believe they are but the body doesn’t overreact as much). So heard immunity is 2 fold. People who have recovered from Covid and are no longer contagious, and people who have been vaccinated. With all these surprising numbers of people who have caught Covid and people who are vaccinated it blows my mind that we still see these crazy numbers.

What people will do for money is evil. I know people who have tested positive for Covid and got re-tested 1-2 days later and the first test was wrong. No symptoms and nothing was ever wrong. Did the medical facility with the positive test use those numbers to get federal funding? Idk but I won’t be surprised.

Anyways this is like something most (if not all of us) have never seen in our lifetimes and only heard/read about in history. I believe this virus has done some good to how life should be viewed. When you leave your house do you hold onto your kids or spouse that much longer? We all don’t know when our last breath will be or where we will be when we take it. Prior to Covid society took a lot of things for granted. (ie: how easy it was to find and negotiate a good price on a 4Runner).

Cherish the time with the family, be in prayer with God, find peace in how you live and with whom you live, leave a legacy behind to be remembered beyond your days on this earth.

God bless you all, be safe, and hope to see you all on the trails.

 

Just checked on a price for a 2021 TRD PRO near Delaware. Basically a leftover at this point. $20K over MSRP! These dealerships are crazy. And the people paying that much over MSRP, well you just have to question their sanity. I hope a lot of car dealerships go out of business and they let us start ordering directly from the factory.

 

AMEN BROTHER!

 

The Dealerships probably can't believe people are willing to pay these asking prices. Since the dealer can't get enough new inventory to meet current demand, the new strategy going forward is to sell fewer vehicles at higher prices.

 

The new thing is to test your antibodies level. The time for everyone is very different for the booster. Once your antibodies come down to a specific level it’s wise to get the booster. I recently got my first Phizer shot only because we knew a few people that got sick from different areas of the country. Between seeing the results of people I knew, the FDA finally giving full approval and watching enough people be the test subjects I was finally ready. Some of the people I know had the vaccine and some didn’t. The ones that had received the vaccine were a lot less sick and once they got the antibodies injection they were much, much better the next day. The couple that had the vaccine are a bit older and had just hit 6 months and 2 weeks from when they had their 2nd shot. As for the ones that didn’t have the vaccine in their system one much older man died and the couple had a very rough go of it, but did recover. They actually still have some lingering effects. Not trying to convince anyone or create argument. Simply sharing my recent experience. It’s extremely unfortunate this has been treated more of a political event. We need facts (all the facts) and not opinions or twisted idealism for personal gain.

 

FYI this is a single data point, and taken with many different contexts, could tell a story of complete failure to a complete success.

There's 3 things as part of the scientific method that you must consider when testing data against validation models.

Causation
Correlation
Confounding

Look them up, determine why they exist, and some examples of each of them. I believe people are correlating data when they believe they are linking causation, and I also think there's a lot of confounding data when it comes to specific symptoms and age. For example, a 70 year old developed heart disease 3 months after the shot. Some people believe this is causation (they think it's the reason). However, most will correlate that data (age + shot = heart disease). In truth, it's likely confounded data because there are no controls (they are 70, they might develop heart disease because they are 70. Diet, age, exercise level, batch numbers of shots, etc).

 

The vaccines are too new to have an assessment on protection time span, 6 month's, 8 month's a year. We don’t know yet. Part of the problem is social networks & conspiracy theorist's influencing people.

In case we would have the entire country vaccinated in a time frame 6 months to a year and be smart keep on wearing masks and gloves or use alcohol, Lysol wipes, UVC light, wash your hands more often, go to the store, before getting in the car, use Lysol wipes to clean your shoes. This is being preventive in a health emergency situation and can save your life and other peoples life that might otherwise be infected by you. Connecting all the above, I believe that the C-19 picture would look different and maybe life could go back to normal (pre-C-19) talking medical, not economics. People with underlaying conditions for sure should follow a similar path.

How would we feel if our child would die because someone else’s morality must be questioned?

In case everyone would cooperate, this pandemic would have shrunk significantly; unfortunately, I know this is a pipe dream, looking at the gathering masses on sport events and the likes, which is worldwide. Look at Formula 1 sometimes more than 100.000 spectators, almost no masks, unbelievable.

Regarding the vaccine, every vaccine has been in an early stage, development took much longer, hence, the technology was not available to expedite the process. We had Polio, Malaria, Yellow fever to mention a few.

Understanding the process of a mRNA vaccine is important; mRNA from vaccines does not enter the nucleus and does not alter DNA; like assumed by many. (Science is not based on assumptions).

mRNA vaccines work by introducing a piece of mRNA that corresponds to a viral protein, usually a small piece of a protein found on the virus’s outer membrane. (Individuals who get an mRNA vaccine are not or less exposed to the virus, nor can they become infected by the vaccine).

Let’s go back in time a bit, what about anesthesia, maybe some would prefer a stick of wood in the mouth to get an amputation; I don’t think so’ and I can go on from penicillin to heart bypass surgery, etc.

My grandparents were born 1885 & 1887 look at the life expectancy facts in 1920.

Life expectancy in the USA

men and women

1920: 53.6 - 54.6

Tremendous effort's have been made, nevertheless all takes time.

This is only a couple of years ago. World Polio Day is observed on the 24th of October; officials announced that one of the three strains of the wild polio virus has been finally wiped out due to persistent vaccination efforts across the globe.

 

Well stated Roland.

 

That is insane! happened so fast. my buddy and I both bought 21' Tacomas exactly 12 months ago. We both got $2,000 under MSRP. crazy.

 

Wow! I'm glad to see a lot of thoughtful, well constructed points of view on this thread instead of a bunch or conspiracy theory nonsense.

Well done everyone! Seriously.

I expected to see a political shitstorm, tbh.