[HN Gopher] The Coronavirus Is Here Forever
___________________________________________________________________
The Coronavirus Is Here Forever
Author : prostoalex
Score : 506 points
Date : 2021-08-23 12:36 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theatlantic.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theatlantic.com)
| joelbondurant wrote:
| If you wore 7 masks to sleep, coronavirus would become extinct in
| 2 weeks. - Math Illiterate Diaper Face Communists
| JackPoach wrote:
| Though coronavirus is very different in many respects, it's
| worthwhile (especially if you are older like me) to remember the
| history of AIDS. We've learned to live with it and limit its
| spread very effectively in the western world.
| smallerfish wrote:
| https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/deaths-and-new-cases-of-h...
|
| HIV deaths were 348k in 1990 (which is the earliest year I
| found stats for on a quick googling). Around 4m people died
| from covid over the past year. We definitely would not want
| covid's mortality trajectory to follow HIV's, which peaked at
| 1.95 million, a 5.5x multiple of 1990's figure.
| js8 wrote:
| Yeah, we learned to limit its spread, but with "masks"
| (condoms).
| nickthemagicman wrote:
| Condoms have a 99.9% effectiveness.
|
| Studies have shown that face mask policies have around a 1%
| effectiveness.
| joshuaissac wrote:
| According to this study by the University of Cambridge,
| FFP3 masks provided "31-100% protection (and most likely
| 100%)": https://www.authorea.com/users/421653/articles/5275
| 90-ffp3-r... (preprint).
| nickthemagicman wrote:
| Face mask policies on a community level.
|
| Not with trained healthcare workers.
| smallerfish wrote:
| What studies?
| Expirat wrote:
| Do you need a study to understand that a latex condom can
| catch infected seminal fluids while a cloth mask cannot
| stop the spread of droplets, or aerosols containing
| covid?
| erhk wrote:
| A cloth mask does reduce the spread of aerlsols as well
| as droplets. Anything telling you otherwise is false and
| i will happily bury you in a dozen backing studies.
| nickthemagicman wrote:
| It's clear masks stop droplets. That's not in question.
| It's clear masks work for healthcare workers who are
| trained in their use.
|
| But is wearing a filthy rag until the waiter brings the
| breadsticks an effective community mask policy?
| [deleted]
| valeness wrote:
| yes
| gruez wrote:
| That's comparing apples and oranges because you're
| comparing the effectiveness of a particular treatment
| (condoms) with the effectiveness of a particular policy
| (mask mandates).
| postalrat wrote:
| Not sure you can call it limiting the spread. We slow the
| spread. Which potentially prevents overrunning our hospital.
|
| It seems like eventually everyone is going to get it. Slowing
| the spread also deepens the chain of infections and may lead
| to more mutation.
| Bostonian wrote:
| AIDS never spread broadly among heterosexuals who did not share
| needles or have partners who are bisexual or shared needles.
| Everyone is at risk for covid, like the flu.
| goodpoint wrote:
| This is plain false. The majority of infections have been
| across heterosexuals, and also by blood transfusions.
| lazyjones wrote:
| Plenty of people got it from blood transfers, among other
| things.
| [deleted]
| evgen wrote:
| Spoken like someone whose knowledge of the world ends at the
| US border. Hate to be the bearer of unpleasant news, but
| there are parts of the world where HIV was mostly a
| heterosexual disease. The nature of the main infected
| population depended upon how HIV was first introduced a
| country and what cultural behaviors helped or hindered its
| spread.
| NoPie wrote:
| Even in Eastern Europe currently most HIV transmissions
| happen with heterosexuals. I was surprised to learn that in
| the Western countries it is mostly spread by MSM (men
| having sex with men) and IDU (intravenous drug use).
| cmsefton wrote:
| This certainly was not the experience of other countries such
| as South Africa where the majority of transfer (roughly 80%)
| was via heterosexual transfer.
| joshuaissac wrote:
| Reference: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8420583/
| redis_mlc wrote:
| I'll do a PSA here for younger people since I've followed
| AIDS since the beginning of news reports in the 1980s:
|
| - In Africa, men using hookers is a common status thing. So
| heterosexual men get it from hookers and take it home to
| their wives.
|
| - If you look at the links in this thread, you can see that
| black Americans are around 5x more likely to get HIV than
| other US groups. Mostly this is an aversion to condoms for
| several cultural reasons.
|
| - This may sound surprising to men who are well-read, but
| American women (and others) often don't use or demand
| condoms. You'd be amazed at how little they're actually
| used. I expect an epidemic of infertility and STDs as
| women's partner count for all groups climbs above 100 each
| (thanks, Tindr.)
|
| If you're in the US and need larger condoms, most chains
| carry the brand-name "Magnum."
|
| The California Family court is awarding $2,000+/month to
| baby mamas from engineers, so wrap it up, guys.
| ISL wrote:
| The continent of Africa would tend to disagree with such an
| assertion.
|
| Heck, in some countries, more than 15% of HIV infections are
| contracted at birth.
|
| https://www.verywellhealth.com/hiv-statistics-5088304
| pixel_tracing wrote:
| So work from home is going to last longer then?
| typest wrote:
| I think the answer is yes.
|
| Most of the people setting the remote work/in office policies
| seemed to be thinking that vaccines offered a path back to
| normalcy. Delta seems to have blown that idea out of the water.
|
| It is possible that in the endemic covid world, there always
| remains a significant health risk due to breakthrough cases,
| especially for folks who are older or have comorbidities. Given
| that, it seems employers may face difficulty mandating people
| to work in person.
| [deleted]
| 4e530344963049 wrote:
| https://trimread.org/articles/352
| beloch wrote:
| "The transition to endemic COVID-19 is also a psychological one.
| When everyone has some immunity, a COVID-19 diagnosis becomes as
| routine as diagnosis of strep or flu--not good news, but not a
| reason for particular fear or worry or embarrassment either. That
| means unlearning a year of messaging that said COVID-19 was not
| just a flu. If the confusion around the CDC dropping mask
| recommendations for the vaccinated earlier this summer is any
| indication, this transition to endemicity might be
| psychologically rocky."
|
| Diseases that are endemic today, such as chicken pox, once caused
| epidemics with massive body counts, notably in North America. No
| vaccines, no advanced medical care, and no natural immunity meant
| that some villages just ceased to exist.
|
| Today, thanks to air travel, the world is a village. Wuhan is
| exposed one week, and the world the next. We, the natives of that
| village, have vaccines and advanced medical care in finite
| quantities, plus a better understanding of how to reduce
| transmission rates. That's gone a long way to soften the blow.
| The transition from pandemic to endemic usually kills a _lot_
| more people in a given area, and the area effected right now is
| _everywhere_.
|
| The thing is, COVID-19 is _not_ endemic yet and, even once it is,
| will likely retain the capability of mutating into a strain that
| causes a new deadly pandemic. Flu is endemic, but another 1918
| could happen at any time. Until we 've built up immunity to
| several different strains of COVID-19, every new strain has the
| potential to overwhelm our medical systems, and a unusually
| contagious and deadly mutant will always be a possibility.
|
| It's not as simple as flipping a switch from "life threatening
| pandemic" to "quotidian endemic". There are shades of grey in
| between that cause varying strain on hospital ICU's, and the
| transition isn't one-way.
|
| Our village will be hit far less hard if we behave intelligently
| about disease prevention. Turning vaccines into a political wedge
| issue is one of the stupidest things I've seen in my life.
| autokad wrote:
| There is lots of competition for the top of the stupidity list.
|
| NYC locking down all summer and then 'opening up' in September
| seemed top of the list to me. It's not that I thought they
| should have stayed locked down the entire time, its that they
| should have opened in the summer so they could lock down in the
| winter if they really needed it. But seriously though, locking
| down in the summer to only open up in flu season, really?
|
| Or maybe the whole 'if we just lock down for two weeks, this
| will be over' tops the list of stupidity. or the fact people
| still want to lock down despite how epically they have failed.
| Germany masked, distanced, and locked down better than anyone
| could expect, and here they are sitting with 4 million cases,
| 100k dead and are still in the pandemic. They don't even share
| a porous border with Mexico/South America. To no fault of their
| own, they are hardest hit by the pandemic, and the US sharing a
| border with them the way it is meant no rosy outcome was in our
| future.
|
| Or how about how everyone was anti mask in the beginning,
| including the CDC, WHO, and my very liberal coworkers. When I
| said it would be advisable to wear a mask when in crowded
| places March, 2020 - I was heckled for not following the
| science.
|
| Or what about the fact we are 2 years into this and we still
| haven't built a significant amount of hospitals? if we had to
| lock down because of lack of hospital beds, well we better
| f'ing demand they have enough hospital beds, like real soon.
| This is why the lockdowns should have came at a price, you want
| to lock down then we need a metric that you are trying to
| achieve by the lockdown, we need timely updates on your
| progress to that metric, and we need an action plan such that
| this will never happen again (such as building more hosptials -
| hey, how about just opening the thousands we shut down in the
| last 5 years to make hospitals more profitable!). my views on
| that were called 'myopic'. so we gave them lockdowns without
| restrictions, and nothing was done. here we are in the same
| situation, odd.
|
| As far as making the vaccines political, well they don't have
| to be. some research has shown that they don't do very well at
| stopping spread, so why all the fuss to force people to get
| vaccinated? just say do it for yourself if you want to,
| politics removed.
|
| edit: just to be clear - I am not anti vax, I am vaccinated and
| I recommend to everyone to do the same. There is unrefutably
| evidence the vaccine prevents sever cases.
| werm82 wrote:
| > some research has shown that they don't do very well at
| stopping spread, so why all the fuss to force people to get
| vaccinated?
|
| Do you have a link/links to where you read that vaccines
| don't do well at stopping the spread? Everything I've read is
| that vaccines, while not 100% effective at stopping the
| vaccinated person from infecting someone else, significantly
| lower the risk of spreading the virus[0]. That risk drops
| dramatically when both parties involved are vaccinated.
|
| [0] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/keythi
| ngs..., see Effectiveness --> What we know
| criticaltinker wrote:
| GP's statement contradicts the scientific literature -
| vaccination _does_ reduce viral load of subsequent
| infection, and consequently reduces transmission [1].
|
| However folks should be aware that immunity acquired
| through natural infection is robust and durable, and _also_
| has the same effect of reducing viral load and transmission
| [2].
|
| It has been documented that people with asymptomatic
| infection will clear the virus quickly compared to those
| who are symptomatic [3]. Recent meta-analyses [4] and large
| population serological studies [5] have estimated the
| asymptomatic proportion lower bound to be at least ~33%,
| and the upper bound to be ~65% (even higher for young
| adults). Considering recent evidence that cases may be
| massively under-reported, the true asymptomatic proportion
| could be even higher than suggested [6].
|
| Taken together, these results imply that a majority of the
| population has been already exposed to the virus, and
| either through natural infection or vaccination has
| acquired some degree of immunity that reduces the
| transmission of the virus.
|
| Analogous to antibiotic resistance, vaccine resistance can
| evolve if vaccines are used indiscriminately [7][8][9][10].
| So the benefits of _compulsory mass vaccination_ may not
| outweigh the risks of such a policy, given the current
| state of affairs.
|
| > so why all the fuss to force people to get vaccinated?
|
| It is an important question with tremendously complex
| factors that go beyond the expertise of most lay people.
|
| [1] Initial report of decreased SARS-CoV-2 viral load after
| inoculation with the BNT162b2 vaccine https://www.nature.co
| m/articles/s41591-021-01316-7?origin=ap...
|
| [2] Longitudinal analysis shows durable and broad immune
| memory after SARS-CoV-2 infection with persisting antibody
| responses and memory B and T cells
| https://www.cell.com/cell-reports-
| medicine/fulltext/S2666-37...
|
| [3] The Natural History and Transmission Potential of
| Asymptomatic Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus
| 2 Infection https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/p
| ii/S266652472...
|
| [4] The Proportion of SARS-CoV-2 Infections That Are
| Asymptomatic
| https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/full/10.7326/M20-6976
|
| [5] Estimating the asymptomatic proportion of SARS-CoV-2
| infection in the general population: Analysis of nationwide
| serosurvey data in the Netherlands https://link.springer.co
| m/article/10.1007/s10654-021-00768-y
|
| [6] Evaluating the massive underreporting and undertesting
| of COVID-19 cases in multiple global epicenters https://www
| .sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S253104372...
|
| [7] Risk of rapid evolutionary escape from biomedical
| interventions targeting SARS-CoV-2 spike protein
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33909660/
|
| [8] Can we predict the limits of SARS-CoV-2 variants and
| their phenotypic consequences?
| https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/long-term-
| evoluti...
|
| [9] Why does drug resistance readily evolve but vaccine
| resistance does not? https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi
| /pdf/10.1098/rspb.2016...
|
| [10] The adaptive evolution of virulence: a review of
| theoretical predictions and empirical tests
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26302775/
| makomk wrote:
| Covid-19 vaccination used to reduce viral load of
| subsequent infections. Unfortunately, this doesn't seem
| to work with the current Delta variant - both the CDC in
| the US and PHE in the UK have released studies finding
| that the viral load of vaccinated and unvaccinated people
| is basically the same. They're also not so effective at
| stopping people from catching the Delta variant, and when
| you combine that with its higher infectivity it's
| basically impossible to get herd immunity using them.
| autoexec wrote:
| Even in the case of the delta variant vaccinated people
| who get infected are more likely to have reduced symptoms
| (if they have any noticeable symptoms at all). That means
| a lot less coughing up huge plumes of virus over great
| distances. Nothing is perfect, but in the end the
| vaccines increase your odds of not being infected while
| decreasing your odds of spreading the virus. Herd
| immunity may not be reached but we can drastically reduce
| deaths and serious illness. That's already a win for
| vaccines.
| dubyah wrote:
| Round 13 of the Imperial College REACT-1 study did still
| indicate an average lower viral load(higher Ct values) in
| vaccinated individuals.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| Yeah, GP has a couple of interesting ideas mixed in there
| (NY lockdown policy and building hospital capacity) but the
| rest are bog standard anti-mask, anti-vax talking points.
| Masks help, vaccines help -- it's all about pushing R below
| 1, and a measure doesn't have to be 100% effective (or
| anywhere near that) to push.
|
| Lockdowns do flatten the curve, and while we might have
| built new hospitals in a parallel universe, in _this_ one
| we _really_ don 't want to saturate the beds (again). I was
| pleasantly surprised by the "flatten the curve" narrative
| -- usually the telephone game ensures that this kind of
| nuance gets buried under simpler, incorrect versions like
| "if we just lock down for two weeks, this will be over,"
| but this time around I was pleased to see "flatten the
| curve" start strong and keep its legs.
|
| CDC's initial mask take was wrong, but evidence changed
| their minds, and that's a good sign. GP, if you want to
| harp on this, tell me: if I were to dig through your post
| history would I find a bunch of poorly aged posts about a
| silent first wave?
| autokad wrote:
| I am not anti vax, I am vaccinated and I recommend to
| everyone to do the same. However, relying on this vaccine
| as a long term solution is a very bad idea.
|
| Also you are stating I am anti mask when I stated how I
| recommended mask usage. Do you not read or do you just
| force your expectations on people?
|
| Sure, go ahead and dig through my history. not sure what
| you mean by 'a silent first wave'.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| Complaining about vaccine inefficacy is absolutely anti-
| vax: these vaccines aren't just good enough to be useful
| to the population, they're actually good enough to
| significantly protect individuals. The only scale on
| which these vaccines are ineffective is a scale with a
| heavy thumb on it.
|
| "CDC was anti-mask at one point" is absolutely an anti-
| mask talking point. They quickly figured out their error
| and fixed it. There's only one reason to bring up the old
| policy.
|
| I'm not familiar with the Germany talking point, but I am
| familiar with the Texas talking point and the Sweden
| talking point -- which both aged _very_ poorly. I tend to
| suspect Germany is the new pivot.
|
| The silent first wave is an anti-lockdown talking point
| that became prominent on the downswing of the first and
| second waves, the idea being that a silent first wave of
| asymptomatic infections had already immunized everyone
| and that we could therefore lift the lockdown because
| there wouldn't be another wave. Then... there was another
| wave.
| sam345 wrote:
| Accusing somebody of following a talking point seems
| needlessly provacative and ad-hominem, and not in the
| spirit of HN. Better to just give reasoned cited
| responses and leave it at that.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| I think it's important to discuss the points, but I also
| think it's important to discuss the game of "I'm not
| anti-vax or anti-mask, but here are a bunch of anti-mask
| and anti-vax talking points." It's popular, it's
| spreading, and I think it's important to call it out when
| one sees it.
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| > while we might have built new hospitals in a parallel
| universe, in this one we really don't want to saturate
| the beds (again).
|
| Unfortunately, while hospitals can be built, you can't
| train enough medical professionals to staff the hospital
| in two years.
|
| More generally, rather like nobody expects the Spanish
| inquisition, no health care system can cope with a global
| pandemic. We'd need to 10x health care capacity, most of
| which would sit unused for most of the time.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| >Or what about the fact we are 2 years into this and we still
| haven't built a significant amount of hospitals?
|
| I don't think 2 years is enough to just "build new hostipal",
| let alone staff them, supply them to hospital standards, and
| start taking business.
|
| It's not land that's short, it's talent.
| orthoxerox wrote:
| > I don't think 2 years is enough to just "build new
| hostipal", let alone staff them
|
| It totally is enough time to build one. Staffing is more
| problematic, but if it was a state-run hospital you
| could've converted a lot of national guardsmen into nurses
| in the meanwhile. You don't need a lot of talent to handle
| most Covid cases, just people able to follow the protocol.
| gremloni wrote:
| This comment is every right wing talking point about the
| epidemic with a marked attempt to come across casually.
| throwawayzz007 wrote:
| Hospital bed / ICU capacity is really just Hollywood
| accounting. They can prepare for surges and make more meds.
| There are federal and local incentives that get handed out to
| hospitals that are at or near capacity. So they're always at
| or near capacity.
| lrem wrote:
| Care to share your source on "don't do very well at stopping
| spread"? When I searched arxiv, it seemed to be 4-10x
| reduction in viral loads.
| mirroregami wrote:
| Only time CDC and WHO were anti-mask were when there were
| shortages. Save the masks for the healthcare workers,
| essentially.
| nerdponx wrote:
| But they burned huge amounts of their social trust capital
| in doing so, because they didn't just say "there are
| shortages, please stop hoarding masks", they outright lied
| about the efficacy of masks and perpetuated the lie for
| months. If people have no idea what to believe, it's
| because the government led a catastrophically inept
| response.
| mike00632 wrote:
| No. The CDC said AT THE TIME that they didn't recommend
| everyone wearing masks because hospitals were facing
| shortages. They have always been open about their
| reasoning and data. Quit repeating this terrible lie.
| malkuth23 wrote:
| That is not quite true. The CDC listed several reasons
| not to wear masks. They definitely mention a shortage of
| masks and retaining supply for medical personnel, but at
| the same time they also said they were unnecessary and
| unhelpful for anyone not working directly around
| symptomatic sick people. Also, most people do not
| differentiate the CDC from the Surgeon General. This is a
| quote from the LA Times quoting Jerome Adams:
|
| "Seriously people -- STOP BUYING MASKS!" he wrote in a
| tweet that was later deleted. "They are NOT effective in
| preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus, but
| if healthcare providers can't get them to care for sick
| patients, it puts them and our communities at risk!"
|
| This is a good article about the changing position on
| masks: https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2021-07-27/t
| imeline-cd...
|
| Here are a few other sources I found with a quick google
| search:
|
| https://www.aaha.org/publications/newstat/articles/2020-0
| 3/c...
|
| https://www.marketwatch.com/story/surgeon-general-wants-
| you-...
|
| marketwatch.com/story/the-cdc-says-americans-dont-have-
| to-wear-facemasks-because-of-coronavirus-2020-01-30
| wwweston wrote:
| Regarding the surgeon general quote, if you understand
| that he's referring to protective masks (such as N95s)
| and their capacity -- and it's pretty clear that he is --
| the contents of his statement holds up very well, even
| now. PPE _is_ extra crucial for those working around
| infected people. Most members of the general public _are_
| unlikely to use N95s in such a way they 'd be
| significantly protective (after watching how most people
| wear any kind of mask including x95s, I don't know anyone
| could argue differently, and that's before you get into
| the kind of fit testing that people who count on these
| things professionally do and speak of as difficult).
|
| What happened subsequently was a shift to _cooperative_
| masks whose benefit is primarily reducing transmission
| from the wearer.
|
| These two things are both discussed under the header of
| "masks" but they are _very_ different interventions. It
| 's less that the position changed, it's more that what
| authorities were actually talking about changed.
|
| You can fairly argue that this counts as a messaging
| failure and I'd agree, but a lot of people seem to be
| missing what the issue actually was (especially some who
| set this up as dishonesty or an attack on expertise).
| Graffur wrote:
| You're trying hard to rewrite what happened
| gowld wrote:
| Blaming the US Southern border for coronavirus spread is a
| racist and Republican (anti-immigration excuse-making) trope.
| [deleted]
| kansface wrote:
| A quick search shows ~20% of immigrants being deported
| testing positive (up to 25%). There are something like 200K
| immigrants currently encountered by border patrol per
| month. Naively that's 50K people coming to the US each
| month with covid who are poor (probably can't self
| quarantine), live in dense, multi generational households
| and exist outside of the law. Realistically, we'd expect
| that ICE (deportation) contributes to the spread. At any
| rate, I don't see how illegal immigration could be
| qualified other than a significant vector in the spread of
| covid.
| mike00632 wrote:
| Shouldn't you think about a control group? Legal
| immigrants? Law enforcement gatherings? Prisoners? Local
| area positivity rate?
| kansface wrote:
| Maybe if their rate of infection were significantly lower
| than the local population, you could argue that we would
| be decreasing the percentage of the infected population
| which doesn't feel particularly compelling to me... but
| we'd really need to know how much each group contributes
| to the spread. My expectations is that illegal immigrants
| make larger contributions than average given their
| density in living arrangements, lack of access to health
| care, inability to take sick days, etc.
|
| I think we are only in the business of arguing the
| counterfactual of what percentage of them get covid from
| interactions with law enforcement vs otherwise.
| autokad wrote:
| I'm not blaming the southern border, I am pointing out a
| fact that has implications on how we manage our
| expectations, and what actions to mitigate the corona virus
| that will work better than others given our situation. if
| you think facts should be suppressed then you hardly
| believe in science. its sad that russdpale thinks this
| comment should be removed by moderators. I also didn't
| state this is the only reason, nor that the solution should
| be stopping the border crossings.
|
| In fact, I am arguing for increased capacity to handle the
| corona virus long term. short term measures like trying to
| lock down borders is going to have little meaning in the
| long run, and hurt a lot of people.
| [deleted]
| xdennis wrote:
| > racist and Republican
|
| Are both of those insults?
| wootangflan wrote:
| The problem is mosaic and pretending one of the myriad
| factors is marker of a hatemongerer is itself
| hatemongering.
| russdpale wrote:
| Those types of contents are becoming more and more common
| on this forum. Doesn't seem like mods care.
| dstaley wrote:
| > Or what about the fact we are 2 years into this and we
| still haven't built a significant amount of hospitals?
|
| If I understand correctly, there isn't a lack of literal
| beds/space; it's a lack of personnel. Basically hospitals are
| unable to staff themselves at the levels needed to accomodate
| being basically 100% full. This is compounded by the fact
| that hospitals are struggling to retain healthcare workers,
| who are burnt out, and the fact that healthcare isn't
| something that someone can easily switch to.
| amatecha wrote:
| Unfortunately, there is absolutely a lack of beds. Someone
| I know was in emergency last week (totally unrelated to
| pandemic) and had to wait an entire day before actually
| being properly admitted to a ward because there were no
| beds available for them. So they layed in an emergency room
| "booth"[0] for close to 24 hours, until a bed became
| available. There are lots of news articles about the lack
| of beds/capacity all over the place [1][2][3]
|
| [0] I don't know the right word for it, but a small room
| usually used for short-term (<few hours) evaluation of a
| patient before passing them along to the next phase, like
| admitting to a ward or sending them home or etc.
|
| [1] https://vancouversun.com/news/covid-19-kelowna-general-
| hospi...
|
| [2] https://www.kgw.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/ore
| gon-e...
|
| [3] https://richmond.com/news/national/with-no-beds-
| hospitals-sh...
| Negitivefrags wrote:
| When you are told there is a lack of beds, it really
| doesn't have to mean a lack of physical beds.
|
| A bed that isn't staffed with a nurse is no more useful
| then laying in your bed at home.
| [deleted]
| pacomerh wrote:
| > some research has shown that they don't do very well at
| stopping spread, so why all the fuss to force people to get
| vaccinated?
|
| So why are they calling this the pandemic of the
| unvaccinated?
|
| - https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/08/21/how-
| unvac...
|
| - https://www.healthline.com/health-news/risks-of-the-delta-
| va...
|
| - https://abcnews.go.com/Health/statistics-show-risks-
| vaccinat...
|
| and the list goes on and on.
|
| I have personally seen unvaccinated family members get
| sicker...plus countless of people mentioning the same.
| [deleted]
| tialaramex wrote:
| > Or maybe the whole 'if we just lock down for two weeks,
| this will be over' tops the list of stupidity
|
| New Zealand had 26 deaths in over a year of the pandemic. Not
| 26 per 100k population. Not 26 per day. Twenty six people
| full stop. Because in fact "We go hard and we go early"
| works.
|
| Right now they are locked down (since last week) because they
| had _one_ case in their community, but of course it isn 't
| ever _one_ case and they knew that, since that lockdown began
| there are now over 100 patients linked to that single
| infection. Under a lockdown the people who are surprised to
| discover that they 're infected are (mostly) bored at home,
| not out infecting yet more people.
|
| I think there's a fair chance they'll beat it again, and exit
| that lockdown as they did earlier ones. Because elimination
| strategy works.
| hcurtiss wrote:
| Yes. For small island countries like New Zealand it works
| "great." This was never an option for countries like the
| US, or even most of Europe. Much less so for countries like
| India.
|
| But we'll see how it goes. If New Zealand and Australia
| persist in this notion that they're going to stay locked
| down until the virus goes away, particularly with its
| endemicity now inevitable, I think you will soon find vast
| swaths of those countries in open, violent revolt.
| nerdponx wrote:
| You can't really look at the US and say "it doesn't
| work", because even the slightest restrictions were
| leveraged into a major political issue.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| You can't say it looking at the US, but I think it's hard
| to find fault with the strength of the initial lockdowns
| in France or Spain or Italy.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Agree. I don't think anywhere in the US did anything that
| could reasonably be called a lockdown.
|
| "Try to gather in groups of no more than six (at a
| time)." "When you need food, go to the grocery store (as
| often as you see fit)."
|
| Is anyone surprised that a highly contagious virus was
| able to escape these "lockdown" measures?
| abraae wrote:
| I live in NZ and can assure you from the front lines of
| the revolt that we don't think we're going to stay locked
| down until the virus goes away.
|
| The game has always been to play it by ear. That's been a
| great call so far, we've lived normal lives for the last
| year while incredible scientific advances have delivered
| vaccines.
|
| This is a long game, and we've done well in the first
| quarter. I hope the politicians continue making good
| calls as the game goes on.
|
| Don't assume that because we locked down hard that that
| will always be the path forward. That's your straw man
| talking.
| chinathrow wrote:
| I wish you well.
|
| What I feel is a real problem in the makes is that you
| eventually have to open up again but with not enough
| folks vaccinated.
|
| And suddenly, you are in a situation many other countries
| have right now.
| mikedilger wrote:
| While not disagreeing with that, I think we can continue
| to eliminate. During level-4, the R value is clearly
| lower than 1.0 meaning the infection shrinks. And the
| infection is small since we locked down immediately when
| a community case was first found. Six weeks will probably
| do it... so long as we don't have (a) new cases coming in
| through the border, or (b) infected people flaunting the
| lockdown rules and spreading it faster than we can
| contain it. Indeed, if it blows out past a couple
| thousand or so, we will need to pivot.
| abraae wrote:
| I agree, elimination still looks a good strategy, it's
| too early to give it up yet. If we can punch out the
| current outbreak (I'd put money on it, but not too much)
| and get back to zero then that will re-legitimise
| lockdown as a strategy for a bit longer.
|
| We've got a few "open 'er up and let it rip" friends and
| I just don't get it. There are so many potential game
| changers when you are an island. If a reliable saliva-
| based test appeared that produced results in say 2 hours
| we could reduce MIQ and use waiting booths at the
| airport. Even if it was only 99% accurate we could pool
| groups of 20 into rooms together while waiting for
| results. So many possibilities if we continue to think
| critically instead of politically.
| koyote wrote:
| > During level-4, the R value is clearly lower than 1.0
| meaning the infection shrinks
|
| Delta is a different beast.
|
| Here in Australia, Victoria managed to get the Reff rate
| down to ~0.75 during their OG outbreak last year with a
| strict lockdown. Delta has an R0 that is multiples higher
| than the OG strain so the same lockdown would not get it
| below 1. You can look at Victoria's current outbreak for
| evidence of this.
|
| Now that doesn't mean NZ can't beat it. A part from
| Auckland, the population density is very low and as long
| as compliance is high you might be able to just about get
| it back down again; especially if you manage to keep it
| out of large households and essential workers.
|
| I just wouldn't base my expectations on what worked last
| year as Delta is quite a different game.
| moonchrome wrote:
| They are a bunch of islands in the middle of nowhere with a
| population of a larger city - how is their situation
| applicable to any major nation in the world ?
| tialaramex wrote:
| Uhuh. Hawaii, an entire US state that is "a bunch of
| islands in the middle of nowhere" and yet somehow didn't
| eliminate the virus has _far_ fewer people than New
| Zealand.
| schnable wrote:
| Did they lockdown travel into the state like NZ did?
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _Not 26 per 100k population_
|
| I know people like to think that doing the per-capita
| calculation puts every country on an even footing for
| comparison. But it's kind of silly to straight compare
| countries with vastly different geographies and economies,
| regardless of population normalization.
|
| > _I think there 's a fair chance they'll beat it again_
|
| If they are locked down, again, 16 months into this thing,
| they never beat anything.
| tialaramex wrote:
| > If they are locked down, again, 16 months into this
| thing, they never beat anything.
|
| They eliminated this virus across Aotearoa. _We_ didn 't
| eliminate it everywhere else (actually almost anywhere
| else) and infected people continued to arrive at their
| border, eventually one of those infections (from
| Australia) leaked into their community about two weeks
| ago.
|
| Unless your point is some purely nihilist position like
| "In the end nothing matters" (then why are you posting?)
| they beat this and now they're going to have to do it
| again.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| The point is that you can't just draw a line around
| obvious failure modes and say they're not part of the
| strategy. If you compare the median global response to
| "we beat the virus with a single lockdown!", that sounds
| like an obvious winner, but it's a much more equivocal
| story if you compare it to "we'll be doing snap lockdowns
| 1-2 times a year for the foreseeable future, and even
| then we may need to give up on elimination if one of the
| lockdowns doesn't work".
|
| (As someone mentioned upthread, this shouldn't be seen as
| a slight against the people or leadership of New Zealand,
| who generally seem to understand that lockdowns weren't
| meant to be a one-and-done measure.)
| ghettoimp wrote:
| Uh. The US is suffering another 9/11 every few days. In
| huge parts of the country, life is nowhere near normal.
|
| That's what they beat, and God willing will beat again.
| trompetenaccoun wrote:
| As others have pointed out they're able to totally control
| their border and quarantine every single arrival.
|
| But more importantly, how will it end for them? Australia
| and New Zealand are among the worst corona zealot nations.
| New Zealand just shut down everything over a single case
| and the PM told people to not even talk to each other
| anymore. How will they get out of this? If they looked at
| the facts they'd understand they will have to open up
| eventually, might as well do it now. Instead they're now
| trapped in eternal 'zero covid'.
| monkeynotes wrote:
| My household has had zero cases per capita. Population
| count and relative isolation make a huge difference.
|
| You can't directly compare NZ with places like Germany or
| the US.
| dongping wrote:
| When we talk about population count, maybe China is a
| country worth mentioning here?
|
| The success in New Zealand seems like the elephant in the
| room, that the Atlantic article failed to refer to. Not
| to mention China.
| DangsBaldHead wrote:
| NZ has no cities. Auckland, the country's largest town,
| consists of 4 or 5 blocks of high density "city".
| Wellington another 2 or 3 blocks of high density "city".
| Outside of those few blocks the entire country is low-
| rise detached apartments, quickly giving way to semi-
| detached housing, which quickly gives way to endless
| suburbia. NZ has zero density.
| thorin wrote:
| Does anyone really believe the reported stats for China?
| dongping wrote:
| I'm not saying that Wuhan's number is 100% accurate, feel
| free to inflate it by 10 times. But even with the
| censored social media in China, words do get across, and
| there's no evidence of any big outbreaks like in Wuhan or
| New York after April last year.
|
| Virus cannot teleport from person to person, so why
| wouldn't NPIs like real lockdowns with full food delivery
| and mass testing (unlike mockdowns in some other
| countries) work?
| vkou wrote:
| If you don't believe the numbers, ask anyone you know who
| has relatives in China.
|
| Lockdowns, or mass hospitalizations/deaths from Covid are
| a bit difficult to hide from the people living through
| it, if either of those two things are happening, everyone
| would hear about it through the grapevine.
| megablast wrote:
| Of course you can. They just did compare them.
| monkeynotes wrote:
| > better f'ing demand they have enough hospital beds
|
| I am pretty sure people not getting sick in the first place
| is the priority, rather than making enough infrastructural
| medical capacity for something that is preventable. It's not
| like you can just magic up more doctors either.
|
| > you want to lock down then we need a metric that you are
| trying to achieve by the lockdow
|
| Well, this is obviously the vaccine
|
| > Germany masked, distanced, and locked down better than
| anyone could expect, and here they are sitting with 4 million
| cases, 100k dead and are still in the pandemic. They don't
| even share a porous border with Mexico/South America
|
| Are you saying you advise lockdowns (especially in winter)
| and then saying lockdowns are ineffective?
| paulddraper wrote:
| > Flu is endemic, but another 1918 could happen at any time.
|
| True, though usually viruses mutate into less virulent forms.
|
| There's good reason to suspect that long-term COVID will be on
| the order of influenza or the common cold -- common and mild
| for most patients.
|
| > Turning vaccines into a political wedge issue is one of the
| stupidest things I've seen in my life.
|
| Probably, but even the question of whether vaccines should be a
| policy issue is in itself a policy issue.
| edejong wrote:
| > True, though usually viruses mutate into less virulent
| forms.
|
| Citation needed. The delta variant is the prime counter-
| example with higher R0 and slightly higher mortality. SAGE
| admitted SARS-CoV-2 will very likely mutate to defeat all
| build-up immunity. Variants of SARS-CoV-2 (SARS and MERS)
| showed the potential to have very high infection fatality
| ratios.
|
| There is no reason at all to suspect COVID will suddenly
| become mild.
| linuxftw wrote:
| > such as chicken pox, once caused epidemics with massive body
| counts
|
| Never happened. Almost nobody ever died of chicken pox. Fear
| mongering like this is exactly why nobody trusts the CDC and
| FDA. It's all quackery.
| nvrspyx wrote:
| Why would you reply with such confidence in something you
| clearly know nothing about?
|
| Chicken pox is caused by the varicella-zoster virus, which
| can certainly be fatal if contracted as an adult (i.e
| shingles) and never been exposed to it as a child. _Now_,
| most people are exposed to it when they're children, when
| it's much less serious, but vaccination is still the
| preferred method because it can still be deadly in children
| in certain cases.
|
| FYI, ~6.4K people still die every year to chicken pox and
| shingles. It may seem comparatively small, but that's still
| people who die. Before a vaccine was created, it was around
| 4x that.
|
| Vaccination has empirically been shown to reduce the number
| of major hospitalizations and deaths as a result of the
| virus. It's an injustice to undermine _any_ number of lives
| potentially saved or thousands in hospital bills avoided
| because you believe science is "quackery".
| gowld wrote:
| > ~6.4K people still die every year to chicken pox and
| shingles
|
| Worldwide? That's a lifetime risk of 1 in 10,000 per
| person.
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/chickenpox/vaccine-infographic.html
|
| Before vaccination, chickenpox killed 100 people in USA per
| year.
| linuxftw wrote:
| > FYI, ~6.4K people still die every year to chicken pox and
| shingles
|
| BS. Maybe if you have AIDs or are terminally ill or have
| some genetic abnormality.
| datameta wrote:
| So those people aren't worth taking into account and can
| be written off? The number of Americans with an
| autoimmune condition is in the single digit millions.
| linuxftw wrote:
| I'm saying, they didn't die of Chicken Pox. They might
| have died from some underlying condition and simply
| contracted Chicken Pox.
| eropple wrote:
| Can you prove it?
| gowld wrote:
| That's what immunocompromised means. It means that you
| are at heightened risk from _everything_.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| They didn't die from cardiac arrest, they died from
| anoxia of the brain!
| midnitewarrior wrote:
| Everybody has pre-existing conditions, whether they know
| it or not, the cause of death is typically reported to be
| the straw that breaks the camel's back. People with
| chronic conditions often does due to acute causes, like
| contracting a virus. We often call this the cause of
| death.
|
| If you're living with cancer and not terminally ill in
| hospice and die 2 weeks later after contracting COVID,
| you likely died of COVID.
| nvrspyx wrote:
| That's not how Cause of Death works. The specific
| complications of the zoster virus that typically lead to
| death are pneumonia and encephalitis. In other words,
| it's typically from inflammation of the lungs or brain.
| HIV/AIDS, cancer, etc. won't do that on its own. It's
| specifically from the virus due to a compromised immune
| system. If an underlying condition compromises the immune
| system, it's not that condition that killed them, it's
| the actual disease that happened to be more effective as
| a result.
|
| For example, if someone dies from the zoster virus due to
| a compromised immune system from chemotherapy, you
| wouldn't consider that person died from chemotherapy or
| from cancer, you'd consider that person died from the
| virus _due_ to a compromised immune system from
| chemotherapy.
|
| This discussion is absolutely bonkers. How can one person
| be so dense and not practice critical thinking? Your
| arguments don't even work on surface level intuition.
| linuxftw wrote:
| > For example, if someone dies from the zoster virus due
| to a compromised immune system from chemotherapy, you
| wouldn't consider that person died from chemotherapy or
| from cancer
|
| Speak for yourself. I would consider them killed by the
| chemo/cancer.
|
| If you're in an accident, and lose your lungs, they don't
| report your death as suffocation. 'Technically, it was
| the lack of oxygen to the brain that killed him.'
|
| But, if you're trying to make the argument that chicken
| pox is actually deadly and we should vaccinate for it,
| you're losing that argument.
| nvrspyx wrote:
| You're right. They wouldn't report your death as
| suffocation because that'd be a symptom, not the
| underlying cause. Just because a cause is more fatal
| because of something else, that doesn't mean that
| something else killed them.
|
| Using your own analogy, you're arguing that the speed of
| the car killed them because it made the accident more
| effective in killing them.
|
| Using your logic, it could be an indefinite number of
| causes. If someone died of encephalitis from zoster, you
| could say that their brain killed them with as much
| equivalence as the chemotherapy or cancer. In other
| words, it could be anything.
|
| If you died tomorrow, someone could say that this comment
| caused it because it influenced the chain of events that
| lead to your death. It would be just as absurd.
|
| > Speak for yourself. I would consider them killed by the
| chemo/cancer.
|
| Thank god you're not the FDA. Otherwise, we wouldn't have
| any type of medical procedures or medications. There'd be
| no difference between going to a doctor or your pastor
| for that brain tumor.
| linuxftw wrote:
| > If you died tomorrow, someone could say that this
| comment caused it because it influenced the chain of
| events that lead to your death.
|
| Yes, this is exactly the same as dying from chemotherapy
| when contracting a virus. /s
|
| I suppose a more direct example would be a shellfish
| allergy. Nobody dies from eating shrimp, you die from the
| allergy. Dying with chicken pox is the same, it's not the
| direct cause of death.
| windowsftw wrote:
| And what triggered the allergic reaction if not the
| shrimp that you ate? If I have allergy to peanuts and eat
| in a restaurant and the cook slips some peanut in a food
| that is tagged "nuts free" and I die, can the family of
| the diseased press charges to the restaurant?
|
| The answer is yes. A restaurant can be liable for food
| allergies. Whether a restaurant has legal liability or
| harm caused by a food allergy depends on whether the
| restaurant was negligent. Because it's the ingested food
| that caused it.
| rednerrus wrote:
| What's all quackery?
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| > Fear mongering like this is exactly why nobody trusts the
| CDC and FDA.
|
| Do you believe beloch speaks for the CDC and FDA?
| svachalek wrote:
| According to wikipedia, it still kills 6400 per year.
| javagram wrote:
| What quackery? A quick google confirms that chickenpox has
| been speculated to have caused a serious epidemic among
| Native Americans. We know that European diseases wiped them
| out, it just isn't necessarily clear which ones due to the
| lack of record keeping and medical knowledge at the time.
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2957993/
|
| > In the years before English settlers established the
| Plymouth colony (1616-1619), most Native Americans living on
| the southeastern coast of present-day Massachusetts died from
| a mysterious disease. Classic explanations have included
| yellow fever, smallpox, and plague. Chickenpox and
| trichinosis are among more recent proposals. We suggest an
| additional candidate: leptospirosis complicated by Weil
| syndrome.
| MatteoFrigo wrote:
| Your case would be stronger if you linked an article that
| argues that chickenpox was the culprit. The article you
| quote suggests that the disease was leptospirosis.
| eropple wrote:
| This is a statement that cannot be substantiated with any
| confidence. In particular, the Native American side of the
| Columbian exchange saw massive body counts due to a mixture
| of diseases and my understanding is that chicken pox is among
| the suspects.
|
| It isn't "quackery" just because you don't like it.
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2957993/
|
| (edit: 'javagram got there first!)
| baxtr wrote:
| I like your comment, but not this part:
|
| _> The thing is, COVID-19 is not endemic yet and, even once it
| is, will likely retain the capability of mutating into a strain
| that causes a new deadly pandemic._
|
| I don't think that's possible, since I am not aware of a
| precedent. Meaning: the other 4 endemic coronaviruses which
| also started as pandemic and now are harmless cold viruses
| never caused a new deathly pandemic in a mutated form.
| criticaltinker wrote:
| Documents from scientists in the UK government articulate in
| great detail that it is a "realistic" possibility that the
| virus mutates to be deadlier and/or more transmissive [1].
|
| One key difference between this coronavirus and the other
| endemic 4 is that mass vaccination strategies were never
| used. Analogous to antibiotic resistance, vaccine resistance
| is a realistic consequence if vaccines are used
| indiscriminately [2][3][4][5]. So that is one way we may be
| setting a new precedent here. If you take a look at what
| happened with Marek's disease virus in chickens, it's not
| pretty - none of us wants a world where it is literally
| impossible to survive without vaccination, because multiple
| generations of vaccines were undermined by viral evolution.
|
| [1] Can we predict the limits of SARS-CoV-2 variants and
| their phenotypic consequences?
| https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/long-term-
| evoluti...
|
| [2] Risk of rapid evolutionary escape from biomedical
| interventions targeting SARS-CoV-2 spike protein
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33909660/
|
| [3] Why does drug resistance readily evolve but vaccine
| resistance does not? https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/p
| df/10.1098/rspb.2016...
|
| [4] The adaptive evolution of virulence: a review of
| theoretical predictions and empirical tests
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26302775/
|
| [5] Imperfect Vaccination Can Enhance the Transmission of
| Highly Virulent Pathogens https://journals.plos.org/plosbiolo
| gy/article?id=10.1371%2Fj...
| boc wrote:
| Then why did the "worst" variant so far come from a place
| (India) with extremely low vaccination rates at the time?
|
| It's a numbers game. With chickens there are billions of
| chickens created and destroyed annually, and almost all of
| them are vaccinated in utero, so it makes sense that we'd
| see the disease get selectively deadlier. With Covid if you
| knock down the disease rate to something that's basically a
| few cases per month via vaccinations, you won't have enough
| chances for mutations to occur.
| peakaboo wrote:
| We have immunity, it's called the immune system.
| seagullz wrote:
| Ever heard of "cytokine storm"?
| AzzieElbab wrote:
| but your immune system response is what is causing lethal
| symptoms
| SQueeeeeL wrote:
| People will always be sceptical of deviations from the status
| quo and politicians will always be there to capitalize on those
| fears for substantial gains of power. We have the most educated
| populis in human history and we're still seeing these problems.
| I'm not sure how you could fix vaccines becoming a political
| issue without major changes to the political structure.
| polote wrote:
| > We have the most educated populis in human history and
| we're still seeing these problems
|
| This is not really true. Maybe more educated in some areas
| but not in all of them. People used to be much better
| educated to build a garden, better educated to understand the
| nature. I don't think people think differently than they did
| hundreds of times ago, I don't feel like we are individually
| smarter
| grillvogel wrote:
| "The largest decrease in hesitancy between January and May by
| education group was in those with a high school education or
| less. Hesitancy held constant in the most educated group
| (those with a PhD); by May PhD's were the most hesitant
| group. "
|
| https://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/news/news-
| stories/2021/july/cov...
| Tobani wrote:
| That is pretty hard to interpret still. It could be that
| people with "some college" respond with oh 100% I'm getting
| it or 0% I"m not getting it. Where as somebody with a PHD
| is like yeah. I have concerns so I'm 20% worried, but I'm
| still planning on getting it. Also I would expect the more
| educated to 1) be more skeptical, 2) not change their mind
| when the information hasn't changed much.
| IncRnd wrote:
| Looking at the link that was posted, people who said
| "probably not" or "definitely not" to taking a vaccine,
| if offered one today, were considered to be vaccine
| hesitant.
| kazinator wrote:
| Since I've had two shots, and it's too early for a third,
| I would have to answer "definitely not".
| BobJackienine wrote:
| "educated populis in human history"
|
| populous
|
| I was going to say "That's not what I see as I get older" but
| your post speaks volumes.
| ravenstine wrote:
| > politicians will always be there to capitalize on those
| fears for substantial gains of power.
|
| And there will always be millions of saps and pollyannas who
| believe _their_ politicians just want to help them.
| xadhominemx wrote:
| Vaccine refusal has not become a major partisan political
| issue in any other country. It happened here because of the
| shameless cynicism of the Republican Party and aligned media
| apparatus.
| lobocinza wrote:
| Vaccine refusal is a major partisan political issue on
| Brazil. Current president didn't want to take proper action
| and pushed for "herd immunity". And created, shared and
| supported the craziest conspiracy stories with his
| alienated supporters. Like Trump but worse.
| paul_f wrote:
| I think the issue of vaccine hesitancy is much more nuanced
| than this. For example, according to the CDC, the
| population least vaccinated in the US are black.
| https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-
| brief/latest-...
| xadhominemx wrote:
| Black people have their own idiosyncratic reasons for
| vaccine skepticism, unrelated to partisan politics. But
| anyway, Trump support is still a stronger correlation: ht
| tps://mobile.twitter.com/gelliottmorris/status/1420745331
| 8...
| paul_f wrote:
| We should stop with the "it's just the Trump supporters"
| thinking. Yes them, but various other groups including
| PhDs. A Carnegie Mellon study identified the groups with
| the most vaccine hesitancy.
|
| "independent hesitancy risk factors included younger age,
| non-Asian race, having a PhD or <=high school education,
| living in a rural county, living in a county with higher
| 2020 Trump support, lack of worry about COVID-19, working
| outside the home, never intentionally avoiding contact
| with others, and no past-year flu vaccine. " https://www.
| medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.20.21260795v...
| snikeris wrote:
| > having a PhD or <=high school education
|
| This is interesting.
| pbourke wrote:
| All PhDs are not the same.
| rcpt wrote:
| Having a PhD seems like a sample size issue
| calvinmorrison wrote:
| More like a polling one. I routinely astroturf all
| surveys because I hate surveys. I am both a PhD holder, I
| am under 21 and I am LGBTQ, A veteran, and everything
| else at once
| s5300 wrote:
| Ahh, I bet you really think you're doing something to the
| system by being so cool.
|
| No lol, you're flagged and omitted. Do you think
| everybody is as dumb as you?
| calvinmorrison wrote:
| good. I only do it for required surveys. I dont do other
| surveys
| jonnycomputer wrote:
| more than 93% of the faculty, staff and students at my
| research institute are vaccinated.
|
| Having a PhD is pretty conflated with both race and
| political affiliations. Who knows what the effect would
| be after attempting to control for those things.
| tomtung wrote:
| Anecdotally, my unvaccinated roommate is Chinese, holds a
| PhD degree in a very difficult field, and works as a
| researcher in a FAANG company.
|
| I was very surprised to learn that they were unwilling to
| get vaccinated. They are actually very worried about
| infection, and have been very careful with wearing masks,
| disinfecting things, and avoiding in-person contacts
| whenever possible. They explained that they were mostly
| worried about the unknown long-term side-effects of the
| vaccines. Maybe having a PhD degree is correlated with
| having this kind of caution.
| acdha wrote:
| It's definitely not just Republicans but note that
| they're the only one of those groups with bullion-dollar
| companies pushing a constant stream of messages
| downplaying they risk of COVID and hyping any plausible
| concern about vaccination or masks. If Rubert Murdoch
| gave the word, the amount of energy pushing antivax
| messages would go down by an order of magnitude
| overnight.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I'm not sure it's a guarantee that the power is flowing
| from the top down. It seems more likely that the big
| players are just going where the money is, i.e. where
| their voters already are.
| tomcooks wrote:
| Please can you explain a non-american what are those
| idiosyncratic reasons?
| kj4ips wrote:
| We've done some pretty f'd up stuff to folks of color in
| the past.
|
| One of the most notable examples is that of the Tuskegee
| study on untreated syphilis, where we denied effective
| treatment w/o informed consent.
|
| PoC have higher infant mortality rates, and the myth that
| PoC have more tolerance to pain (and therefore require
| less anesthesia) is still quite prevalent.
|
| It was bad enough that we had to actually produce a
| report on what is considered the "bare minimum", but even
| that has not been totally effective.
| (https://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/regulations-and-policy/belmont-
| repo...)
| 542458 wrote:
| https://www.webmd.com/vaccines/covid-19-vaccine/news/2021
| 020...
|
| There is a grim history of poor medical ethics
| surrounding the treatment of African Americans that has
| resulted in feelings of distrust from some.
|
| https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/history/40-years-human-
| exp...
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-
| history/wp/2018/...
|
| Additionally, medical debt is such a massive burden to
| many lower income households that there's this additional
| layer of distrust, a feeling that you should steer clear
| of any medical establishment otherwise they'll try to pin
| something on you and charge you mountains of money (even
| though the vaccine is free).
| [deleted]
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| It happened in tons of countries
|
| People are not that different
| lisper wrote:
| That's not true. The same thing has happened in France and
| Brazil. Possibly other places too, I haven't really been
| keeping up.
| jacoblambda wrote:
| Vaccine refusal has gotten pretty close in Japan. The LDP
| has been capitalising on this to justify their incredibly
| poor COVID response and their "nothing could be done and
| nothing can be done" mentality.
| onetimeusename wrote:
| I think making a comment like yours is exactly how things
| become politicized or at the very least contributes to it
| being so. It creates a climate of mutual distrust which in
| turn can feed paranoia on both sides and create a hostile
| environment where propagandizing and skepticism fuel a
| downward spiral in discourse.
| [deleted]
| laurent92 wrote:
| Same in France: Macron, the entire government and their
| health advisors said the following:
|
| - Everyone should go to the opera/cinema to fight Covid
| (7th March 2020)
|
| - Lockdown for everybody (20th March) (I guess people
| caught it in the theaters...)
|
| - Masks are useless, absolutely useless for the general
| public (June 2020),
|
| - Masks are mandatory (September),
|
| - Blocking borders is useless, Covid will be here,
|
| - Borders blocked during Lockdown II and III, if I remember
| the dates, because it's useful (so maybe we should have
| stopped the direct flights between WUHAN and Lyon earlier
| than September 2020?),
|
| - The idea of Passe Sanitaire (a generalized QR code
| suspending entrance in public buildings) is a conspiration
| theory (10th May 2021)
|
| - Passe Sanitaire mandatory on August 1st, live and
| enforced in all public places except offices, including
| outdoor restaurants and public transport.
|
| - Trust us this time, the vaccine is the right thing,
|
| - But both research companies and ministers are exempt from
| legal responsibility on these vaccines,
|
| - Given they injected 10,000 patients with AIDS in 1989,
| and took 6 years to admit it, and press wasn't under Etat
| d'Urgence Sanitaire at the time,
|
| (and also, they didn't know that Benalla had kept and used
| 6 diplomatic passports after being fired, just to show how
| they work).
|
| If anything, they have taught us to doubt everything they
| say: They clearly didn't know what they were doing, and did
| governance-by-lying.
| phh wrote:
| Overall I agree, however:
|
| > But both research companies and ministers are exempt
| from legal responsibility on these vaccines,
|
| What does that even mean? You're in France, you'll be
| treated no matter whether someone is responsible or not.
| I don't think you can be liable of something going wrong
| if you did everything properly (which is the case).
|
| Everyone, governement and research companies, followed
| all the laws. Legal responsability exist only if you
| didn't respect the laws. If they didn't follow the laws,
| they won't be exempt from lawsuits.
|
| So. What does "But both research companies and ministers
| are exempt from legal responsibility on these vaccines,"
| mean?
| aiilns wrote:
| It means that no one wants to take responsibility for any
| side effects. And it obviously creates mistrust.
|
| If the state is practically mandating you to be
| vaccinated for covid they (or the companies that make the
| vaccine) should be held responsible for anything that
| happens to you.
|
| You can't have it both ways; either there are no
| distinctions between vaccinated and unvaccinated people
| (no measures that only affect unvaccinated people) or
| someone can be held responsible for any resulting
| disability or death.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| None of these are contradictions, they are reactions to a
| disease we don't know much about.
|
| - The population is panicking for only a few cases,
| people are even avoiding Chinese restaurants even when
| the owners have never been in China. The government wants
| people to stop panicking, the risks are still extremely
| low.
|
| - Cases rise exponentially, faster than expected
| (possibly due to a new variant), hospitals are filling
| up, now we need to take it seriously
|
| - That one is actually subtle, they told that surgical
| masks are for the sick and FFP2 (N95) masks are for
| health professionals, there was a shortage of masks and
| we didn't have enough for the general public. But they
| try to say it in a way that would limit fighting over
| masks, people still fought and stole masks, leaving
| people who really needed them without protection, I guess
| saying that masks are vital would have made things worse.
|
| - Masks are back in stock
|
| - Blocking borders is indeed mostly useless when covid is
| here in large numbers, it is only useful when you have a
| strict eradication policy and your country is not well
| connected, not the case of France.
|
| - The point of a lockdown is to limit movement in
| general, blocking borders is part of it
|
| - In May the situation was improving, vaccination was
| extremely successful, we were on our way to being mostly
| covid-free in the summer. There was no reason for such
| restrictions.
|
| - Delta variant
|
| - Vaccine is the right thing, it has always been the
| right thing, just look at the data if you don't trust the
| government. Even a less effective vaccine protects you.
|
| - It is an emergency situation, no time to waste in
| lawyering, and I am glad they did, delta breakouts in
| unvaccinated areas are deadly (see DOM/TOM). It doesn't
| mean safety wasn't taken seriously, all vaccines
| available in France passed the trials.
|
| - off topic
|
| I am not a fan of Macron, or any political party for that
| matter, but without the benefit of hindsight everything
| looks reasonable considering the information available at
| that time and the specificities of the country. If you
| think it is bad what would you have done differently?
| Remember: you have no crystal ball, an unruly population,
| and a budget.
| dongping wrote:
| The budget is as large as the (perceived) danger. And
| there was no excuse for being ill informed, after China
| locked down the whole province.
|
| And there's no better way to help the virus than lying to
| people about the masks. Even the Chinese government
| didn't lie about masks, while all the western governments
| did. If masks became a strategic product, then there are
| enough laws to regulate them (and France did so).
| partiallypro wrote:
| You must be joking? As bad as (some) Republicans are let's
| not forget Biden, Harris, Schumer, etc saying they wouldn't
| take the "Trump Vaccine." Not only did that put distrust
| into the hearts of people on the left, it also gave
| ammunition for the people on the right. It should have
| never been a political issue. Unfortunately this is a
| bipartisan problem (though right now it's more prevalent on
| the right, I suspect if Trump had won the number on the
| left would balloon,) a lot of people on the West Coast
| you'd otherwise call "liberal" are anti-vaxxers and have
| been for decades. It's a weird coalition of people on the
| left and right.
|
| Now outside of the US, anti-vaxxers are in every country
| including Germany, Australia, the UK. It's a global
| problem. It's actually the "third world" that seems to have
| less vaccine hesitance. Probably because they've seen the
| recent benefits of vaccines and they have less access to
| misinformation.
| TenJack wrote:
| As far as I can tell Biden and Harris said they
| distrusted the Trump rollout of the vaccine but not the
| vaccine itself.
| https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/jul/23/tiktok-
| pos...
| beerandt wrote:
| What is that supposed to mean, except don't trust the
| product being rolled out?
|
| The factcheck word twisting is getting out of control.
|
| But if anything, this distinction is worse, because
| instead of saying don't trust a controversial product,
| it's saying don't trust this controversial product
| because you shouldn't trust the/this government promoting
| it.
|
| And that's largely what made this, or magnified it, as a
| political issue: the broader acceptance of saying it's ok
| to distrust the government depending on what politician
| is speaking.
| QuercusMax wrote:
| Not trusting that it's being distributed in the best way
| is in no way the same as distrusting the vaccine itself.
| btilly wrote:
| No, definitely not joking. As
| https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/lockdown-
| effectiveness... notes, there is essentially zero
| correlation between any European government's policy at
| one time or another. They all adjusted to what was
| happening with COVID, no matter what other political
| alignments those in power had. (Yes, even Sweden.)
|
| By contrast in the USA, and ONLY in the USA, COVID became
| a partisan issue so state policies didn't change much.
| dmdmmdmdmd wrote:
| lol another user gave an example of how this is a
| partisan issue in France
| greedo wrote:
| That's a distortion of what Harris et al said.
| monkeydreams wrote:
| > let's not forget Biden, Harris, Schumer, etc saying
| they wouldn't take the "Trump Vaccine."
|
| Could you point me in the direction of a source on this?
| I have done my own research and pulled up absolutely
| nothing. Actually that's inaccurate. I pulled up a BUNCH
| of 2020 articles where Biden talks about inadequate
| vaccination orders, etc. But I'd be interested in seeing
| the basis of your claims.
| Wohlf wrote:
| The US isn't even the most anti-vaccine country in the
| developed world, that goes to France.
| xadhominemx wrote:
| No, their single dose rate is already 10% higher than the
| US and increasing at a faster rate.
| hadlock wrote:
| Do you have a link to the most recent data? I recall The
| Netherlands having some severe resistance to masks etc,
| but I haven't seen a breakdown of vaccine uptake by
| country in recent months.
| ithkuil wrote:
| You can have a strong and vocal anti-vaccine population
| and yet not have a strong divide on party lines. One
| factor is that not all countries have such a strong two
| party system that polarizes every single thing.
| boringg wrote:
| We might have one of the most educated populations of all
| time but it's still woefully uneducated.
| imbnwa wrote:
| Yeah, the value of "most educated populations of all time"
| depends on the outcome you value: "everybody has a minimum
| accreditation"? "Everyone is capable of robust reflection
| that presumes change over time"?
| l30n4da5 wrote:
| > Turning vaccines into a political wedge issue is one of the
| stupidest things I've seen in my life.
|
| This is just history repeating itself, unfortunately. The
| Spanish flu had people protesting the counter-measures put in
| place to reduce transmission, as well.
| craftinator wrote:
| It just boggles my mind that with modern understanding of how
| these things work (and we have a MUCH more complete
| understanding than they had during the early 1900's), we
| repeat this ignorant mistake.
| Clubber wrote:
| "Masks aren't effective"
|
| "Masks are effective"
|
| "Vaccinated don't have to wear masks"
|
| "Vaccinated should wear masks"
|
| "COVID is not airborne"
|
| "COVID is airborne"
|
| "COVID came from a wet market"
|
| "COVID came from a lab"
|
| "If you caught it, you have immunity"
|
| "If you caught it, you might not have immunity"
|
| It's not difficult to understand why there is so much
| confusion. Our government was and has been quite inept at
| its messaging in both Trump's and Biden's administrations.
| The sad thing is many people still hold up the government /
| bureaucrats / politicians as omnipotent. It's called the
| _novel_ corona virus because it 's new. What we think today
| may not be true next month or next year.
|
| I think one of the big problems of course is the government
| / bureaucrats / politicians are afraid to be straight with
| us. They think we'll freak out set everything on fire or
| something at the first hint of bad news. I feel their
| elusiveness is much, much worse; now trust is pretty low
| which makes the already ineffective government /
| bureaucrats / politicians' messaging even more ineffective.
| The government / bureaucrats / politicians found a hole and
| made it much bigger.
| kevinob11 wrote:
| Is this really so confusing to most people? I feel like
| it was pretty clear throughout that the first statement
| in most cases was: "We expect X is [not] effective based
| on history, but we aren't certain because this is so new"
| and the second statement was "Our initial research shows
| that we were [right / wrong]" followed sometimes by a
| third statement which is "As more information arrives we
| were right about Y and wrong about Z".
|
| I agree with you that politicians are afraid to give it
| to us straight, but I attribute their hesitance not to
| how they expect the people to respond but how they expect
| media to respond. You get in a little trouble for being
| wishy-washy, but you get big trouble for giving a
| straight, honest well-informed sounding (described this
| way because its not like the announcers are the ones
| actually doing the research) detailed response and then
| finding out some of your details are wrong.
|
| I have been thinking about this a lot, we all hate the
| way politicians speak (me included) but we made them
| speak this way because while they may not impress anyone
| they don't give definitive sound bites that will then be
| repeated over and over on the news when they happen to be
| wrong.
| [deleted]
| Covzire wrote:
| It's not just that the CDC/Fauci and the Government have
| been a major contributor to the disinformation out there,
| it's that there is a political force running at full
| power pushing vaccines as the one and only possible
| solution to COVID-19. Before Trump left the White House,
| the Democratic party leadership came out against the
| vaccine. NOw that they're in power again, every signal
| and message they send is Pro Vaccine and Anti Everything
| else, and it seems all of SV is ready to help by any
| means necessary, including a lot of people on HN calling
| anyone and everyone who even questions the safety or
| necessity of these vaccines as Anti-Vaxxers. We're
| rocketing towards a new civil war if you ask me.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| Honestly at this point in the game I have no clue what is
| factual and isn't. I don't know who the hell to trust
| anymore.
|
| > The sad thing is many people still hold up the
| government / bureaucrats / politicians as omnipotent
|
| And so-called "experts"... by which I mean only the ones
| that say this is the worst thing ever. Any expert in the
| field with any objections or criticisms to what we've
| done immediately gets the online equivalent of being
| letter bombed.
|
| The public health messaging for this whole thing has been
| absolutely horrific and has only been getting worse.
| They've managed to cast so much fear, uncertainty and
| doubt on what are in fact remarkable vaccines... I don't
| know how they will ever repair their trust or
| credibility.
| ragingrobot wrote:
| > They think we'll freak out set everything on fire or
| something at the first hint of bad news.
|
| Could it be that they've used this tactic so often just
| to get this effect when they so desire it, that now they
| fear that it will be our only reaction?
| endgame wrote:
| The smug confidence when the outlets assert these things
| is one of the most galling parts:
|
| > Babies and young children study faces, so you may worry
| that having masked caregivers would harm children's
| language development. There are no studies to support
| this concern.
|
| https://twitter.com/AmerAcadPeds/status/14258570414579425
| 42
|
| There are "no studies" because you can't do studies like
| that on humans! I guess absence of evidence = evidence of
| absence now. What about on monkeys?
|
| > The face-deprived monkeys and control monkeys were
| scanned by fMRI when they were six months old to measure
| their neural responses to faces and other visual stimuli.
|
| > Control monkeys had face patches by the time they were
| six months old; the face-deprived monkeys did not.
| Patches for other visual categories that both sets of
| monkeys saw equally, such as hands and bodies, were
| roughly equivalent between the two groups.
|
| https://massivesci.com/articles/facial-recognition-
| patches-b...
| Tobani wrote:
| Almost all of the statements were true. They just needed
| more context with them.
|
| > "Masks aren't effective"
|
| The point of the (non n-95) masks is not to protect the
| wearer. They didn't want everybody to cause a run on the
| n-95 masks for healthcare workers. The cloth masks may
| not very effective at protecting the wearer.
|
| > "Masks are effective"
|
| Masks are very effective when the infected wear them.
| Everybody should wear them because they don't know if
| they're infected or not.
|
| > "Vaccinated don't have to wear masks"
|
| Currently we don't believe vaccinated people. If you get
| vaccine you don't have to wear a mask.
|
| > "Vaccinated should wear masks"
|
| Unvaccinated people were the first to go everywhere with
| out masks. That carrot didn't work.. Everybody put them
| back on.
|
| > "COVID is not airborne"
|
| This could be true!
|
| > "COVID is airborne"
|
| But it catches a ride on water droplets!
|
| > "COVID came from a wet market"
|
| I haven't seen this as part of government messaging
|
| > "COVID came from a lab"
|
| I haven't seen this as part of government messaging
|
| > "If you caught it, you have immunity"
|
| For some amount of time, yes
|
| > "If you caught it, you might not have immunity"
|
| Yep we've got new variants that yo _might_ not be immune
| to.
| filoleg wrote:
| > _Almost all of the statements were true. They just
| needed more context with them._
|
| You nailed the issue in the first 2 sentences. All of
| those things listed are technically true, as long as the
| context is provided and understood. But when you have the
| whole situation turn into a bipartisan shitshow, context
| goes immediately out of the window (both intentionally
| and unintentionally, just like nuance being lost in
| twitter discussions). It is you vs. them for everyone
| emotionally invested into this.
|
| "CDC said COVID is airborne, and if you disagree, you are
| a science denier and probably a nazi too. No, I am not
| gonna listen to your 'context'".
|
| "CDC said there is no evidence that COVID came from the
| wet markets, which means that you claiming that it is
| possible is a conspiracy theory".
|
| "CDC said that people don't have to wear masks, but now
| they say people have to wear masks, they don't know what
| they are doing and are just trying to pacify the
| population. I don't need context, I am just reciting what
| CDC said."
|
| Actually looking into the context of the official
| statements on COVID, there isn't really a contradiction,
| and their recommendations make sense. But then if you
| actually absorb the context, then there is no team sports
| fight to be had, there is no side to cheer and root for,
| and there are no opponents to defeat who are dumb and
| wrong (unlike you and your team). The intensity and
| excitement of the "battle" is positively correlated with
| willingness to omit context and refusal to consider it.
| Tobani wrote:
| If it ain't in the headline it's "SO CONFUSING"
| collaborative wrote:
| The one thing that still bothers me is that we don't yet know
| how quickly this coronavirus evolves, and from what we know it
| very likely escaped from a gain-of-function laboratory that
| specializes in quickly mutating viruses. I didn't see Delta
| coming. I want to believe that this is the worst of it. But
| this coronavirus has so far kept us on our toes so it may well
| have a few more surprises in store
| tboyd47 wrote:
| Any time you use the government to force people to do something
| against their will, you have made the issue political. Politics
| is the business of force.
| masklinn wrote:
| > Diseases that are endemic today, such as chicken pox, once
| caused epidemics with massive body counts, notably in North
| America. No vaccines, no advanced medical care, and no natural
| immunity meant that some villages just ceased to exist.
|
| You may be confusing chickenpox and smallpox? Chickenpox is
| generally considered a pretty mild disease (many countries
| still don't routinely vaccinate against it), and was so
| historically as the infectiousness ensured essentially
| everybody would be infected as a child.
|
| WHO guidelines are actually to only vaccinate if rates can be
| kept above 80% consistently, otherwise it'll likely hit older
| populations with much more dire consequences.
| senderista wrote:
| Chickenpox _seems_ like a mild disease, until it develops
| into shingles, decades later. I sure wished I had gotten the
| chickenpox vaccine after I nearly lost my eye from shingles.
| recursive wrote:
| Chickenpox is mild in children. More severe in adults.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chickenpox#Adults
|
| If you get you case in childhood, as most do, then you have
| immunity through adulthood. If introduced in a new
| population, the consequences to adults would be much
| different.
| nkozyra wrote:
| > If you get you case in childhood, as most do, then you
| have immunity through adulthood.
|
| Sort of. I got shingles (early 40s) this year. Completely
| knocked on my ass for a week and maybe 2-3 months to be
| mostly back to normal. I recommend the shingles vaccine to
| anyone who will listen.
| waych wrote:
| Did you get shingles shortly after getting a vaccine?
| sokoloff wrote:
| I just got the shingles vaccine this year (two shots
| about 3 months apart). That vaccine knocked me down from
| hour 6 to about hour 54 both times. Worse than any other
| vaccine experience, including Pfizer C19. Still recommend
| it, but schedule it wisely.
| chrononaut wrote:
| > That vaccine knocked me down from hour 6 to about hour
| 54 both times
|
| Not sure I understand this. Can you elaborate?
| sokoloff wrote:
| Sorry. I had relatively strong reaction (weakness,
| soreness, slight fever, and overall malaise) starting
| about 6 hours after the shot and lasting for two full
| days.
|
| Get the shots, but if you get them on a Friday, you might
| be writing off the weekend.
| masklinn wrote:
| > If introduced in a new population
|
| Ah true, I had not considered that unlike eurasians
| american populations would obviously not have had it as
| children.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| > Turning vaccines into a political wedge issue is one of the
| stupidest things I've seen in my life.
|
| Something tells me that this is just history repeating. The
| difference here is the same as your metaphor; the world is a
| village and now its much easier to see that one conspiracy nut
| every village has that gets outcasted.
|
| The problem of course is that now those nuts can band together
| in the thousands thanks to worldwide communication and argue
| against the (still vast majority) of the village now.
| criticaltinker wrote:
| The SARS-CoV-2 vaccines are a "political wedge issue" not
| because of the "conspiracy nut in every village", but because
| the scientific literacy of the general public is
| astonishingly low, and the second and third order
| consequences of public health policy are tremendously
| complex.
|
| We _must_ encourage discussions that move beyond overly-
| simplistic dualistic framing such as "vax versus anti-vax",
| "individual choice versus public health", etc.
|
| Looking back through human history we can find numerous
| examples where scientific consensus was wrong, or where we
| created powerful new tools that backfired in unexpected ways.
| Diversity in opinion and choice is natures way of arriving at
| optimal decisions. Although it feels like friction and
| divisive arguments to us now, these are critical discussions
| that help expand everyone's knowledge and awareness.
|
| At one level it appears to be chaos, but at a higher level it
| appears as harmony. We are now living in the age of the
| super-organism. The age where we all must become acutely
| aware that the separation between you and I - the separation
| between self and other - must be dissolved and reformulated,
| for the survival of our species and our planet.
| dpweb wrote:
| Also, the question of should a government force its
| citizens to have a medical procedure. Or de-facto forcing
| by requiring proof for common daily activities.
|
| This issue was then weaponized for political purposes, and
| people got militant about it.
|
| But governments have consistently lied/been wrong about
| this virus, so there is no trust either in their messaging
| about this crisis.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| > Also, the question of should a government force its
| citizens to have a medical procedure.
|
| There's a Supreme Court decision[0] about whether states
| can mandate a vaccine (they can).
|
| [0]
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobson_v._Massachusetts
| paulddraper wrote:
| > The SARS-CoV-2 vaccines are a "political wedge issue"
|
| They are a political wedge issue because some want them to
| be policy.
|
| Anything that is policy -- taxes, marriage, controlled
| substances, international trade -- is political.
|
| And always someone says "why is policy X political?"
| without realizing what "politics" is. Usually, they mean to
| say "why doesn't everyone agree with me?"
| wiremine wrote:
| > "The SARS-CoV-2 vaccines are a "political wedge issue"
| not because of the "conspiracy nut in every village", but
| because the scientific literacy of the general public is
| astonishingly low, and the second and third order
| consequences of public health policy are tremendously
| complex."
|
| This. Feels like the future depends on identifying the root
| cause of these issues and working to overcome them.
| spfzero wrote:
| It is a political wedge issue because it generates fear.
| Anything that causes people to be fearful is going to be
| exploited, and amplified, by political parties in whatever
| way they feel would benefit them.
|
| It's a handle they can pull, so they pull it. It can be
| xenophobia, it can be "look at what they're doing in country
| X, what if they did that here?" It can be fear of loosing
| jobs, fear of wildfires, sea-level change, and it can be fear
| of getting sick.
| gfodor wrote:
| Yes, calling people nuts is a sure fire way to solve this
| problem.
|
| The "nuts" were also saying covid was coming and was
| dangerous and were called crazy xenophobes.
|
| I'm vehemently pro-vax but there are as many idiots on both
| sides of this issue as there are non-idiots. Note that I need
| to disclose that, since the scarlet letter being handed out
| now has the power to prevent you from being on YouTube and in
| some places soon will probably bar you from your local
| grocery store (now that that is normalized.)
| vlunkr wrote:
| I don't disagree about name-calling, but the responsible
| thing to do is to adapt your opinions as new knowledge is
| revealed, not everyone is doing that.
| mewpmewp2 wrote:
| You can never convince someone by calling them stupid,
| selfish, irresponsible or in general blaming them. All
| you will do is create hatred toward yourself as well as
| your viewpoint and further the disagreement.
|
| Best way to convince someone is to make them think it was
| their idea all along.
|
| At this point, I figure much of the anti vax crowd may be
| actively hoping something would go wrong here, due to the
| hate they are receiving.
|
| Why does anti vax crowd look at things like Ivermectin
| etc which hasn't been tested at all compared to vaccines
| and could potentially have more unknown risks? Because it
| wasn't shoved down their throat and they were able to
| find it by themselves.
|
| Even those who are in the middle, vaccine hesitant for
| example may be feeling the hate that is coming towards
| them, making them avoid vaccines altogether out of anger
| towards the other vaccinated side.
| Tobani wrote:
| > The "nuts" were also saying covid was coming and was
| dangerous and were called crazy xenophobes.
|
| I only ever saw people saying that calling it things like
| "Wuhan Flu" was xenophobic.
| mrkramer wrote:
| >Today, thanks to air travel, the world is a village. Wuhan is
| exposed one week, and the world the next.
|
| Why didn't China impose strict lockdown in the early days of
| epidemic in Wuhan area instead they let millions of Chinese
| people travel around the world and spread COVID?
|
| But then we wouldn't know "the true power of mRNA therapies and
| medications".
|
| Honestly death rate of 0.1% is not something to go crazy about.
| The thing to worry about is the intensity of the attack on
| COVID which is akin to abuse of antibiotics which led to
| occurrence of "superbacteria" which no antibiotic at the time
| can kill. The same can happen with viruses.
| salamandersauce wrote:
| It's not a 0.1% death rate. Over 1.6% of US confirmed covid
| cases have resulted in death for example. To get a 0.1% death
| rate you either have to assume there is 10 times more
| unreported cases (in which case everybody in the US has had
| covid once or multiple times already at this point) or claim
| stupid shit like people with comorbidites were going to die
| then anyways.
|
| Please don't spread misinformation.
| ianai wrote:
| Wow, no mention of long covid in the entire article. People are
| making a lot of assumptions about a disease with billions of
| people naive to it (the unvaccinated) and selective pressure from
| the vaccinated. I think we could all benefit from some humility.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| > ""A big question mark there is long COVID," says Yonatan
| Grad, an immunologist and infectious-disease researcher at
| Harvard. There are still no data to prove how well the vaccines
| prevent long COVID, but experts generally agree that a
| vaccinated immune system is better prepared to fight off the
| virus without doing collateral damage."
| ianai wrote:
| I did miss that. I still think humility and caution are
| warranted. The preliminary numbers for long covid in
| breakthrough infections were similar to the unvaccinated in
| the Israel report, for instance.
| xyzzy21 wrote:
| Yes. And it will evolve into a fairly benign endemic virus just
| like its cousin: the common cold coronavirus.
| jhpankow wrote:
| Or as TFA speculates: an endemic virus like the flu that kills
| 10k-60k in the US every year.
| codehawke wrote:
| What if it evolves into SARS?
| KaiserPro wrote:
| SARS is simpler because people become sicker quicker and
| don't spread it about anywhere near as much.
| api wrote:
| The virus will evolve so as to make more copies of the virus.
| This can go more than one way.
|
| The viral evolutionary definition of benign is "does not kill
| the host or harm the host in such a way as to greatly reduce
| its ability to spread the virus."
|
| Making the host brutally ill and totally non-functional for
| weeks is generally fine. Causing harm to the host that reduces
| its vitality or life span in the long term is fine. Polio met
| these criteria. It did not usually kill its host.
|
| Benign is only one evolutionary path though. Another
| evolutionary path for a virus is to boost the R factor so high
| that it can burn through its hosts _and still find more hosts_
| , especially if there are say... seven to eight billion hosts.
| Smallpox was more like this. A more contagious form of Ebola
| could be like this.
| nradov wrote:
| It's not that the virus will necessarily evolve to become
| benign, but rather that most people will get infected when
| they're young and build up natural immunity which protects them
| later in life. This is what already happens with the other 4
| endemic common cold coronaviruses. Each of them probably killed
| a lot of people when they first emerged.
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7252012/
| MontyCarloHall wrote:
| Yes. Hopefully, vaccines confer the same immunity as exposure
| during youth. Based on their efficacy, it seems they're quite
| close, at least for current strains--even with delta, the
| overwhelming majority of breakthrough cases are benign or
| totally asymptomatic, just like with a common cold.
| Pyramus wrote:
| This is the correct answer and should be highlighted more.
| The virus doesn't evolve to become benign, it's the hosts
| that will evolve. In addition to the endemic coronaviruses
| that you stated, another example are endemic/seasonal
| influenza strains vs. new strains.
|
| (Yes the virus will evolve but in general mutations will
| optimise for transmission and be indifferent to lethality.)
| lamontcg wrote:
| Mutations will optimize for transmission, but once there's
| a high level of immunity against this strain (all the
| variants are still one strain) then the virus will face the
| pressure to mutate to achieve actual immune escape. There's
| 20 epitopes on the spike that need to change, and some of
| those should come at a cost to fitness, and eventually it
| should face a choice between trying to increase its
| transmissibility to find immunologically naive humans
| (where delta variant is probably reaching its limit) and to
| better transmit in recovered/vaccinated individuals due to
| immune escape.
| q1w2 wrote:
| This is not exactly true. Keeping your infectious host
| alive longer, will increase transmission.
|
| This is why there is an evolutionary pressure for all
| diseases to keep your host alive, and why some
| diseases/parasites ultimately evolve to be less
| harmful/lethal.
| defgeneric wrote:
| > This is why there is an evolutionary pressure for all
| diseases to keep your host alive
|
| Lethality should be distinguished from "keeping the host
| alive." For example, HIV is more than 90% lethal
| (untreated) but can take a decade before killing the
| host.
| Pyramus wrote:
| No, there is no "evolutionary pressure for all diseases",
| only for those where lethality precludes transmission,
| i.e. there is some cap at a some max.
|
| Which is not the case for SARS-Cov-2 - viral titers peak
| after 2-4 days and population-weighted IFR is relatively
| low.
| peteradio wrote:
| It seems like lethality can become a first order
| evolutionary driver though by turning our focus on it and
| quickly smothering any "hot" virus but allowing "warm"
| virus to spread. Can't humans play a part in the
| evolutionary process of the virus?
| Pyramus wrote:
| In theory yes - and that's what's happening in many
| countries. E.g. in Germany there is a differentiation
| between high risk areas and virus variant areas, with
| different testing and quarantine protocols etc.
|
| However on a global scale only some countries are
| sequencing some of the time, and only in humans (with ad-
| hoc exceptions)! Which is simply not enough.
| erhk wrote:
| We cant stop it from spreading during its asymptomatic
| phase.
| HarryHirsch wrote:
| How do you know? HIV hasn't evolved to be any less deadly in
| the 40 years it has been around. Instead, there's most
| excellent treatment available and people have changed their
| behaviour.
| argvargc wrote:
| And despite killing ten times as many people as COVID, these
| changes were achieved without destroying small businesses and
| jobs, plunging millions into poverty (and likely later
| starvation), gross human rights violations and police
| brutality, and reintroduction of segregation into previously
| free democratic societies. (Just like with all other
| communicable diseases of modern times.)
|
| Go us.
| HarryHirsch wrote:
| You have to give it to the homosexuals - they started using
| condoms and shut down the clubs where you would have sex
| with ten different men every night. Meanwhile, in large
| tracts of the country we are still arguing if masks are a
| good idea.
| argvargc wrote:
| Well that comparison might make sense if the masks were
| made of latex.
| Expirat wrote:
| Yes, condoms = face masks. Expert tier logic.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| > And despite killing ten times as many people as COVID
|
| That's an INCREDIBLY disingenuous comparison considering
| that COVID-19 has been with us for less than two years.
|
| And, though I object to your characterization of said
| measures, extreme measures weren't taken because you
| couldn't catch it just via proximity. Also important to
| point out one big similarity - denial of both was used to
| dehumanize swathes of the population who were especially
| vulnerable.
| argvargc wrote:
| Not really, at the rate death is declining overall COVID
| will almost certainly kill far fewer in the same
| timeframe.
|
| And given differences in policy, and differences in
| resistance to them have not resulted in any discernible
| difference in result (ie, it's wild mess that makes no
| sense and more typically returns results opposite to
| expectation), it largely appears this would have been the
| case had we not ruined everything over it.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| > Not really, at the rate death is declining overall
| COVID will almost certainly kill far fewer in the same
| timeframe.
|
| Looking at Google's worldwide deaths I don't see much of
| a decline. Sure, it's down from a peak, but it's actually
| on the way back up. What data are you using for that
| assumption that deaths are on the decline?
|
| > And given differences in policy, and differences in
| resistance to them have not resulted in any discernible
| difference in result
|
| South Korea, with a population of 51.71 million, is
| currently sitting at just over 2,000 deaths. Do you
| believe it to be sheer chance that their deaths are so
| low when compared to America?
| argvargc wrote:
| Sweden and UK saw an almost identical death curve per
| million despite diametrically-opposed policy decisions.
|
| Gibraltar had almost no COVID, vaccinated literally
| everyone and then had a massive (and ongoing) outbreak.
|
| We can go back and forth for hours with many examples
| proving and countering each factoid of the "narrative" -
| and only make my point; it's an inconclusive mess.
|
| Rigid adherence to the prevailing dogma is clearly
| foolish in such a situation.
|
| As for deaths, if you really want to argue about it, you
| need to exclude the "died within 28 days of a positive
| test"'s, the ridiculously-ignored co-morbidities, and the
| "cases" that resulted in death that were based on RT-
| PCR's at cycle thresholds above 35, obviously. Those
| coronavirus "high score table" sites don't do that nor
| bother to account for any of many subtleties in reporting
| that can and do have major impact on results.
|
| Good luck trying to figure any of it out then. But hey,
| don't let that stop you entertaining a false adamancy -
| I'm sure it feels just great.
|
| Using Ioannidis and others you can make some attempt
| using seroprevalence studies if you're really interested,
| suffice to say it's just generally much, much less
| overall than the SAGE-induced nonsense, you've
| undoubtedly succumbed to, would have you believe.
|
| Finally, as now hundreds of peer-reviewed RCT's worldwide
| have shown, it's now one of the most treatable illnesses
| out there, if you bother to understand its mechanism of
| cell infection and how to inhibit that, instead of not
| doing anything to help and then putting people on a
| 25%-survival-rate ventilator, which thus far has been the
| most common response.
|
| The problem is not scientific or medical anymore, its
| political and social. The science and medicine has been
| worked out for months now.
| [deleted]
| erhk wrote:
| He didnt die of a gunshot wound he had a comorbidity of
| blood loss.
|
| Ah well, he tested positive for gunshot wound but thst
| was 28 days ago.
|
| This is not an inconclusive mess in the peer reviewed
| scientific community when people use real data and
| studies to back their claims. The problem is that you are
| not sourcing your opinion from that community you are
| sourcing it from pointless online bickering and a
| confirmation biased perspective.
|
| As for sweden your comaprison to the UK is disingenuous.
| Compare it to norway and finland for real understanding.
| argvargc wrote:
| Governments the world over have made repeated, clear
| statements that if someone tests positive for COVID, and
| then dies within 28 days _for any reason_ , the death is
| counted as a COVID death.
|
| _That is the end of any validity in test-derived deaths
| data._
|
| I am sourcing my opinion exclusively from published,
| peer-reviewed science in well-established journals. If
| you are not aware of _any of it_ , as it appears you just
| admitted, you are not a sufficiently qualified researcher
| and should refrain from comment.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| You do understand in vivo and in vitro are different
| terms for a reason right? That chloroquine worked in the
| lab but that the coronavirus can use a different pathway
| than the one chloroquine inhibits?
| argvargc wrote:
| You're completely misinformed.
|
| There have been hundreds of peer-reviewed RCT's _in vivo_
| , in _live human COVID-infected patients_ of many
| differing treatments for COVID, several of which have
| demonstrated high efficacy in reducing hospitalisation
| and death as both prophylaxis and treatment.
|
| https://c19early.com/
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Please explain how this is completely misinformed with
| regard to chloroquine, which is all I mentioned.
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32698190/
| nobleach wrote:
| Well, keep in mind that the transmission vector of HIV and
| SARS COVID are completely different. If we had found in the
| 80's that HIV was transmissible by simply breathing the
| same air as those infected, we'd likely have seen a similar
| response... without all the "work from home" benefits that
| we currently enjoy.
| argvargc wrote:
| I doubt it. Pandemic preparedness, including for airborne
| diseases, was the same for decades until it was all
| thrown out the window to do something wildly different
| that had never been done before.
|
| Which - evidently, as we're still having "lockdowns" and
| "resurgences" 1.5 years after that "two weeks to flatten
| the curve" experiment - didn't work.
| dont__panic wrote:
| What was the old preparedness that we "threw out the
| window" in favor of lockdowns and masks? As far as I
| know, humanity has rarely bothered with any pandemic
| reaction beyond "stay away from the visibly ill" and "go
| out less".
| argvargc wrote:
| In pandemics, you isolate _only_ the sick, treat them,
| and offer prophylaxis to vulnerable groups.
|
| In COVID, we isolated everyone, sick _and_ healthy
| (utterly unprecedented), then flooded the most vulnerable
| with sick people (bizarre care home mismanagement), and
| refused to give treatment or prophylaxis to anyone until
| they couldn 't breathe, at which point they were put on a
| ventilator.
|
| In some places, that's still the protocol. Others have
| learned from these mistakes and moved on.
|
| When everyone has, COVID will cease to be a problem.
|
| The original approach has worked for every other novel
| virus pandemic we've had - which happen regularly every
| few years. Even the very same people at Imperial College
| made similarly dire predictions for some of those
| pandemics at the time - and yet none registered more than
| a fraction of a flu season.
|
| That original protocol, used repeatedly for years, was
| abandoned and effectively reversed for COVID, with
| ongoing disastrous results as anyone can plainly see.
| monkeyfacebag wrote:
| I'm old enough to remember when we didn't know who was
| infected and who wasn't infected.
| erhk wrote:
| Iirc theres images of 1908 spanish flu protestors
| inciting others to wear masks.
|
| Also i believe there was a pandemic response force that
| trump admin threw out.
| stackbutterflow wrote:
| Conversely, I'm trying to imagine what would have
| happened if hiv had appeared in the social media age.
| erhk wrote:
| Well in this thought experiment do you also have a
| government that wants to use HIV to kill off the
| homosexuals?
| mrfox321 wrote:
| HIV _has_ evolved to be less deadly:
|
| https://www.pnas.org/content/111/50/E5393
| q1w2 wrote:
| ...and also, 40 years is not a long time for disease
| evolution. ...especially one like HIV which has a much
| lower transmission rate than a respiratory virus.
| oblio wrote:
| We'll probably do a bunch of these. Vaccines, treatment for
| the worst symptoms and potentially treatment against the
| virus itself.
|
| I think we're working on all these fronts.
|
| I wonder how much we'll change/have to change our behavior
| long term, for example 10 years from now. I'd imagine not
| much.
| HarryHirsch wrote:
| _I wonder how much we 'll change/have to change our
| behavior long term, for example 10 years from now. I'd
| imagine not much._
|
| I'd say it's the exact opposite. It's known that immunity
| against coronaviruses isn't long-lasting (look at the Rev
| Jackson and his wife, both of whom were vaccinated early
| this year and are now in hospital) and that antiviral
| treatment needs to start early (does everyone really want
| to do a PCR test every other day so they can start antibody
| treatment early like Governor Abbot?)
|
| We'll have to start wearing masks indoor and stop being in
| crowded rooms until the virus is eradicated. Right now,
| with the population half vaccinated, we are setting
| ourselves up for a re-run of Marek's disease, this time in
| people.
| erhk wrote:
| If we got every human being vaccinated with a 100%
| efficacious vaccine for all strains at the exact same
| time globally without pause then MAYBE eradication would
| be feasible.
|
| Eradication is a fever dream, did you bother to read the
| attached article?
| oblio wrote:
| What we should do and what we'll do will be very
| different.
|
| 5 years of reduced socialization will turn a large
| percentage of the population into nervous wrecks.
| ilammy wrote:
| > _until the virus is eradicated_
|
| But doesn't COVID have animal reservoirs? If it does,
| good luck vaccinating all the bats and monkeys of the
| world. Or what's the plan there? Wait until the virus has
| subsided "enough", then... what exactly? Still be on
| guard 24/7/365/4, paranoidally testing each and every
| traveler, ready to quench a cluster formed around some
| volunteer returning from a distant part of the world?
| HarryHirsch wrote:
| Nonpharmaceutical interventions work pretty good. Plague
| is endemic in rodents in the Western US, there are
| actually a dozen human cases every year, but there aren't
| epidemics because we do rodent-proofing. Rabies has an
| animal reservoir, but we vaccinate our dogs.
|
| Honestly, I don't understand the appeal of the ostrich
| strategy. Vaccination rates in Florida and Illinois are
| similar but in Florida, where they pretend Covid doesn't
| exist, the only thing they get is overflowing hospitals.
| ilammy wrote:
| I'm more talking about some humans getting infected
| somewhere, then bringing it in from wherever they were,
| where precautions are lower than where you came from.
|
| The way I see it, the long-term route is treating COVID
| like, say, malaria. You would get your vaccine when you
| travel places. Doctors would know what to test for based
| on your symptoms. But still, the contagiousness here is
| radically different. By the time you get to see your
| doctor, you could have infected dozens of people. So the
| most effective strategy is still isolation and pervasive
| testing?
|
| IDK, I guess we will just have to sit there and see where
| we'll be with COVID in 5 years from now. Maybe the virus
| will really just get bored and go away (unlikely). If
| not, maybe people will get bored of being freaked out and
| more comfortable with the thought that electing a new
| government won't eradicate the virus but you can build
| more hospitals and keep getting your yearly COVID booster
| shots.
| erhk wrote:
| Maybe if the chinese keep their same lockdown and close
| their border indefinitely, or maybe for new zealand this
| is the case but for countries in the EU and NA the cats
| out of the bag and it wont ever be eradicated.
|
| I dont know who told you eradication was still an option
| but it stopped being one in feburary of 2020 when nCov19
| started commmunal spreading.
|
| This. Does not. Go. Away.
| RegBarclay wrote:
| HIV is a different family of viruses, so the comparison to
| the corona family of viruses doesn't apply.
| erhk wrote:
| Excuse me?
| manojlds wrote:
| HIV is what it is because of its type. If all viruses are
| like that we probably won't exist or would have evolved to
| fight it better.
| alecst wrote:
| I downvoted for an opinion-based answer. Yea generally viruses
| evolve to be less deadly and more infectious, that's the trend
| (but certainly not a law), but the important thing is the time
| scale. Plus there are endemic viruses that are not benign. So
| this comment came across as a bit too confident. Feel free to
| expand on it.
| exDM69 wrote:
| With regards this claim, the UK Scientific Advisory Group for
| Emergencies (SAGE) addresses it in their recent paper about
| future evolutionary scenarios [0].
|
| Scenario Four: SARS-CoV-2 follows an evolutionary trajectory
| with decreased virulence
|
| Likelihood: Unlikely in the short term, realistic possibility
| in the long term.
|
| Which makes sense as most transmission occurs in the
| presymptomatic phase, there's no selection pressure to evolve
| to be less deadly.
|
| [0] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploa
| ds/...
| alecst wrote:
| > Which makes sense as most transmission occurs in the
| presymptomatic phase, there's no selection pressure to
| evolve to be less deadly.
|
| That was my thought too.
|
| That was in interesting read, by the way. Thanks for
| sharing.
| lambdaba wrote:
| Didn't the Spanish Flu (which was way more virulent)
| basically evolve in this way?
| Pyramus wrote:
| As far as I know the virus H1N1 itself didn't really evolve
| in the sense that it got milder - all hosts either
| developed immunity or died off. Now our immune systems
| encounter one of the endemic, seasonal strains of H1N1 when
| we are young (or we get a flu vaccine) - however from time
| to time a new strain of H1N1 emerges that is dissimilar
| enough, see e.g. 1977 flu or the 2009 flu outbreak.
| manojlds wrote:
| What about the original SARS?
| rossdavidh wrote:
| The original SARS had a much higher mortality rate, which
| meant that trace-and-isolate responses actually had a
| chance of working. The mortality rate of Covid-19 is
| nowhere near that of SARS, which actually allows it to
| kill more people in the end because it can spread
| stealthily, and no lockdown or trace-and-isolate has
| worked. There are also more reports of animal reservoirs
| for Covid-19 than for SARS.
| erhk wrote:
| It also didn't incubate the same way
| mongol wrote:
| SARS really seems like a bullet we should be lucky we
| have dodged
| erhk wrote:
| No, it was never possible for original SARS to have r0
| comprobale to nCov19. However that was the fear from the
| start.
| Pyramus wrote:
| I think it's a key point to mention that it's more that the
| hosts will evolve, i.e. develop immunity or die off, rather
| than the virus. The virus will continue to mutate but mutation
| activity is invariant to lethality (up to a certain point where
| lethality precludes transmission - where SARS-Cov-2 is far away
| from). In fact, because there is a correlation between viral
| load and lethality, the virus will actually get less benign on
| average in the short term.
| kirillzubovsky wrote:
| Finally a thoughtful truthful article on the topic. It's a year
| too late, but better now than never. It's time to accept the
| reality and move past the hysteria.
| rossdavidh wrote:
| Good article, but doesn't mention the other reason that covid-19
| is never going completely away: animal reservoirs. We know that
| dogs, cats, hamsters, guinea pigs, mink, white-tailed deer, a
| gorilla, and a tiger have been found to have been infected with
| covid-19. It is implausible that it will ever cease to have an
| animal reservoir, especially given the finding in Canada of 30%
| of white-tailed deer having it.
|
| Of diseases that get as widespread as this, with animal
| reservoirs, I don't believe there is any case of eliminating it.
| But, like vaccines can teach the immune system how to respond
| more intelligently (and less self-destructively) to covid-19,
| hopefully society can learn to respond more intelligently, and
| less self-destructively, to the fact that it's always in
| circulation.
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| How does covid transmit to wild animals like deer that have
| almost no interactions with humans ? The transmission chain
| must be very long. I'd appreciate any links or resources to
| read more.
|
| Perhaps we can learn to be more mindful of our interactions
| with other animals, wear masks in public spaces or public
| transport, and hopefully WFH becomes a permanent option.
|
| It seems that I stepped on many nerves, please, feel free to
| disagree or argue.
| Miner49er wrote:
| People interact with deer all the time. They are all over
| neighborhoods in certain areas, people hunt them, they often
| are hit by vehicles, etc.
| jandrese wrote:
| It would only take a handful of transmissions to a community
| to have something like COVID spread like wildfire through the
| deer population. They may not interact with humans much, but
| only one carrier could infect several others and then that
| cascades to the entire population. Deer don't get vaccinated
| and don't wear masks.
|
| The good news is that even if COVID is running rampant
| through the deer populations they shouldn't pass them on to
| humans very often, so if humans are good at identifying and
| stopping isolated outbreaks then we can live with the risk.
| nomel wrote:
| > but only one carrier could infect several others and then
| that cascades to the entire population
|
| Which is exactly how we got here.
| tootie wrote:
| Per CDC, "three out of every four new infectious diseases
| come from animals"
|
| https://gothamist.com/news/germs-spill-from-animals-to-
| human...
|
| Think about it like online ads. Even though you've never
| clicked on one and don't know anyone who clicks on them, the
| market is worth hundreds of billions. There are so many novel
| pathogens floating around the world that if humans are
| exposed to 0.01% of them we'll still see regular epidemics
| and occasional pandemics.
| dahfizz wrote:
| > How does covid transmit to wild animals like deer that have
| almost no interactions with humans ?
|
| I've been within a few feet of wild deer plenty of times in
| my life. Humans have a lot more interaction with wild animals
| than you would think once you move outside of urban areas.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| There's literally a market in Brian Head Utah where a bull
| moose hangs out on the front porch most of the day. I'm
| sure there are plenty of "wild" animals with petting-zoo-
| like relationships with random people. This can't be the
| only one.
| erhk wrote:
| That sounds like an exciting video once it gets realized
| mr_overalls wrote:
| > how does covid transmit
|
| It seems likely that they were drinking sewage-contaminated
| water. Ingestion of contaminated water is the source of a
| staggering variety of illnesses for both humans and animals.
| Souce: I work in environmental monitoring.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| Which towns in Canada are dumping untreated sewage into the
| water? As far as I'm aware every province has an
| environmental ministry that doesn't grant exemptions from
| sewage treatment. So if it's still ongoing...
| shkkmo wrote:
| AFAIK, most of the cities on the west coast of Canada
| dump untreated sewage into the ocean.
| alex_c wrote:
| Most towns do, occasionally - overflows happen. Article
| is from 2018 but I assume nothing has radically changed
| since then.
|
| https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ont-enviro-
| report-1.4...
| eloff wrote:
| I don't think that's perfectly done. I was hiking on the
| North Shore in Vancouver and there's a sign over a stream
| warning about untreated sewage. If it's a problem in the
| one of the biggest and wealthiest cities, I can easily
| see it being an issue in smaller towns.
|
| In very rural areas, especially on reservations, I
| believe water and sewage treatment is an ongoing issue.
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| In my city we JUST started treating our sewage:
| https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/victoria-
| sew...
| voxic11 wrote:
| https://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/many-cities-still-
| dump-r...
|
| That's from 2009 but it seems unlikely to have been
| completely resolved since then given the scale of the
| issue (200 billion litres a year).
| q1w2 wrote:
| You are assuming that it was humans that infected the deer,
| while it could have easily been another wild animal.
|
| Wild animals are not commonly tested for covid-19, but those
| that have been have seen widespread infection. ...which means
| most populations of mammals and possibly birds are infected
| as well.
|
| ...so the deer could have caught it from any number of other
| animals in the wild - or more likely, from their droppings.
| rossdavidh wrote:
| As to "how does covid transmit to wild animals...", I think
| it is an excellent question, but I don't think we have a
| definitive answer. Clearly there is something about the
| transmission we don't understand (which suggests why current
| measures to halt the spread such as lockdowns, masks, etc.
| don't seem to work well).
|
| As for the "stepped on many nerves", I think your comment was
| interpreted as meaning "we should stay at home and wear masks
| forever", whereas the general patience for such measures is
| wearing thin. My guess is that part of the reason for a
| rising rate of violent crime in the U.S. in the last twelve
| months is simply more people with rising frustration, such
| that they are more willing to resort to violence.
|
| By the way it appears that white-tailed deer in the US have
| now also been found to have antibodies likely indicating
| covid-19 exposure: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/20
| 21.07.29.454326v1....
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| The replies I received are mostly insufficient or very
| handwavey.
|
| Interactions with humans transmitting the Delta variant, in
| very extreme (NB shortest) cases need upwards of 50-60
| seconds, where common transmissions need longer. Which
| suggests that people need quite long 1-1 interactions with
| multiple animals to spread it, which to me appears very
| unlikely.
|
| This belief is based on research that supported that covid
| was unlikely to happen until the first super-spreader event
| in the wet market.
|
| Furthermore, given the symptoms observed in humans, if we
| are to assume similar symptoms in the wild animals, then
| odds are these animals become easy(er) pray, which reduces
| odds of mass transmission. Finally, even if wild animals
| spend a lot of time in 'close proximity', they are
| constantly out-doors and in much larger distance than
| humans sitting in public transport, which suggests there
| are super-spreader "events" or viral-sources that dump
| virus particles on wild animals and allow the virus to
| enter the population.
|
| So I do agree that there may be something we are
| overlooking, perhaps related to waste-water, but this is
| why I am asking. Even if it doesn't matter anymore wrt
| covid, it matters for the future.
|
| As for the people that misinterpret the noun 'option'
| accompanied with the adjective 'permanent', they need to
| understand that the ability for those willing to WFH, will
| help deal with covid, reduce road congestion, gas
| emissions, time wasted in commute, and ease measurements. I
| am not advocating for permanent lockdowns or anything
| alike. But it is common knowledge that flu infections have
| reduced significantly, and masks can help deal with smog in
| cities, as is done in cities in Asia.
| N1H1L wrote:
| It could be simply from a human being to their dog, who
| chases a deer and passes it on.
| uCantCauseUCant wrote:
| Thats quite a nice way of putting it, that covid will lower the
| average life expectancy even of a vaccinated person by 20
| years. Cause repeated tissue damage to lungs, heart and neural
| pathway tissue, accumulates and those 20 today will sound all
| like darth vadder in there sixties.
|
| I still think this is a problem, but hey, if your are already
| that old and on your way out, who cares. Same attitude as with
| global warming..
| alex77456 wrote:
| It's not the society that we need to worry about. In the
| beginning a good chunk of society was ringing alarms to close
| borders, but the economy was too important to protect.
| mrkramer wrote:
| >Good article, but doesn't mention the other reason that
| covid-19 is never going completely away: animal reservoirs.
|
| You realize there are thousands and thousands of viruses that
| are circulating every day for billions of years. New epidemic
| or pandemic can happen anytime anywhere. You can only mitigate
| it not prevent it.
|
| >It is implausible that it will ever cease to have an animal
| reservoir, especially given the finding in Canada of 30% of
| white-tailed deer having it.
|
| >Of diseases that get as widespread as this, with animal
| reservoirs, I don't believe there is any case of eliminating
| it.
|
| Exactly
|
| >But, like vaccines can teach the immune system how to respond
| more intelligently (and less self-destructively) to covid-19,
| hopefully society can learn to respond more intelligently, and
| less self-destructively, to the fact that it's always in
| circulation.
|
| For example society and in particular Institutes of Virology
| should take extra security precautions when experimenting with
| gain of function viruses.
| erhk wrote:
| This is mostly irrelevant from my understanding. Of the few
| diseases that humanity has eradicated, one is found in wild
| animals. Animal resevoirs are simply not the problem.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| In some Countries, one of the current common shouts is
| "vaccinate everything". It seems that in part, this is to
| relieve the hospitals, and in part, to reduce contagion as
| much as you can (the transmission rate in the vaccinated is
| lower or, in the exceptions emerged, resolves faster).
|
| Now, let us suppose that cats may be vehicles. "Vaccinate
| everyone" and "cats do not matter" is inconsistent.
| q1w2 wrote:
| Airborne diseases with wild animal reservoirs cannot be
| eradicated, and never have been.
|
| It's unclear why you think a wild reservoir isn't a problem,
| nor which eradicated disease you're referring to.
| WillPostForFood wrote:
| What disease are you talking about? Smallpox doesn't have an
| animal reserve, Rinderpest doesn't infect humans.
| skohan wrote:
| As far as I understand, MIRS is continuously reappearing in
| humans due to reservoirs in camel populations, and it's only
| able to be controlled du to vigilant monitoring in vulnerable
| areas.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Add ferrets to the list of natural reservoirs.
|
| Thankfully birds and pigs seem to be immune, which could have
| had a _huge_ impact on food supply and transmission.
|
| https://science.sciencemag.org/content/368/6494/1016
| rossdavidh wrote:
| I seem to recall them walking back the conclusion that dogs
| do not transmit well, but don't have the reference at hand. I
| wonder if they were actually mistaken at first, or if the
| virus has simply evolved in the direction of being better
| transmitted by dogs?
|
| I wouldn't be surprised if they end up concluding that pigs
| can catch and transmit as well, eventually. Birds does seem
| to be more likely to hold true, as I don't know of any non-
| mammals that have been found susceptible yet.
| verall wrote:
| I dunno what you're on about, dogs do not realistically
| transmit covid. Their respiratory system is more different
| to humans than a cat's. Ferrets and other animals with
| extremely similar respiratory systems are known reservoirs
| and have already been culled in some countries.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Animal reservoirs are also responsible for helping to breed
| illnesses that are able to evade our attempts to stop their
| proliferation, like with antibiotics, antivirals, and vaccines.
| SuoDuanDao wrote:
| >We know that dogs, cats, hamsters, guinea pigs, mink, white-
| tailed deer, a gorilla, and a tiger have been found to have
| been infected with covid-19.
|
| And at least one papaya, apparently.
| https://globalnews.ca/news/6910821/coronavirus-papaya-goat-t...
| h3cate wrote:
| Unpopular opinion but as countries get majority vaccinated they
| have to learn to not be as scared of it.
| Zigurd wrote:
| That is only unpopular when it serves as an excuse for being
| against mitigation measures. Those same people are clogging
| the hospitals, diverting medications from people who
| genuinely need them, and raising the noise level for real
| advice to overcome. Everyone wants to go back to normal. The
| people who from the beginning were contrary just for the lulz
| are ruining our return to normal.
| rossdavidh wrote:
| I think the people who don't like that opinion, although
| very, very loud online, are not actually in the majority.
| But, it sure sounds like it online though.
| h3cate wrote:
| I hope that's the case. The question becomes though, what
| influences politicians in their policy making the most?
| pohl wrote:
| Even less popular opinion: fear is irrelevant. What we
| actually have is a cultural gap in how risk is assessed. Some
| only consider individual risk of death. Others also consider
| risk to beyond death, and beyond themselves. Casting the
| latter as afraid is unhelpful.
| h3cate wrote:
| If you are a healthy person then you are low risk. If you
| are unhealthy (smoke, overweight, health condition) then
| you are at risk. I think a lot of people demanding the
| mandating of vaccines and mask wearing are in the smokers /
| overweight category and yet those people are never told to
| become healthy in themselves. People with health conditions
| have thought about illnesses long before covid. Thoughts?
| t-writescode wrote:
| I think a look at Texas shows the real danger of Covid.
| Near 0% ER (edit: availability).
|
| If you're in a car accident, you may not get the life
| saving attention you need, because so many someones
| refused to vaccinate.
|
| That's the cascading effects we need to deal with, here.
|
| I'm not worried about getting covid, myself. I wasn't too
| worried before I was vaccinated and I'm not worried at
| all, now.
|
| I'm terrified of needing normal, emergency medical care,
| or so-called elective surgeries (which is almost all
| surgeries, even the vital ones), and being unable to get
| it because thousands of beds are filled with people on
| respirators.
| luckylion wrote:
| Casting those who have a higher risk threshold than you as
| "only considering individual risk", while the other, better
| people also consider others ... yeah, that's helpful.
| spideymans wrote:
| "I'm young, so I have nothing to worry about", is a
| sentiment I've seen expressed all to commonly.
| luckylion wrote:
| I'm not young, I'm overweight, my risk is elevated. I'm
| also vaccinated, but chose to get it way later than I
| could have based on priority, because I calculated my
| personal risk to be minimal, and others' to be
| significantly higher despite lower priority.
|
| And "I'm so wise and noble and everyone who doesn't share
| my opinion is a selfish ass" is still a dumb way to frame
| it.
| colmvp wrote:
| I'm not scared of Covid-19, I'm mostly concerned that as the
| numbers continue to rise and the hospitals/ICUs around me get
| more Covid-19 cases, it'll force the government to have to
| issue harsher measures to prevent the system from bursting at
| the seams because hospitals don't have limitless resources.
| People who don't want strict measures can't hand-wave that
| potential reality away.
| doubled112 wrote:
| It was pretty much this for me and at this point more so.
|
| I've received both shots and was pretty low risk to begin
| with.
|
| However, local hospitals were shipping patients off to
| other cities, and sending adults to the children's
| hospital.
|
| I don't think it's a stretch to believe that the outcome of
| something like being in a car accident would be worse now
| than normal.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| At some point prior to saturation, hospitals and the public
| _deserve_ to have unvaccinated COVID-19 patients (without a
| medical reason) turned away.
|
| We can do one of two things as communities:
|
| (1) Mandate vaccination for everyone, and provide everyone
| care
|
| (2) Allow everyone the freedom to remain unvaccinated, and
| limit care
|
| There's no other "normal" world where a highly communicable
| disease that causes a sufficient number of hospital cases
| exists and circulates in the human population.
|
| * Where normal means "normal freedoms of movement" +
| "normal social interactions allowed" + "normal economic
| operation" + "hospitals aren't overwhelmed and have
| capacity for normal care"
| jcadam wrote:
| By this logic, we should also turn away the morbidly
| obese, all smokers, anyone who injured themselves while
| participating in risky activities (e.g, skiing), and so
| on and so forth.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| No. Everyone deserves medical care, even if you and I
| consider the decisions that led to that care to be
| illogical. You are proposing a slippery slope. Currently
| you could say that we should turn the unvaccinated away
| but why not the obese? If someone is obese, generally it
| is a personal choice much like the unvaccinated. What
| about homosexuals that contract AIDS. I am all for
| vaccines and I even support businesses requiring their
| employees be vaccinated. But I am very much not for
| beginning to play the game where your lifestyle choices
| determine if we provide treatment. Everyone deserves to
| be treated to the best of the hospitals ability.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Yes. Everything about health insurance (which is what
| we're basically talking about) is a slippery slope.
|
| Our health care system is unsustainable. And it's
| unsustainable because of one very simple reason: we want
| people to have absolute freedom _and_ an absolute right
| to emergency care.
|
| I don't think those two are compatible. I don't think
| they've ever been, but historically that contradiction
| has been papered over with others' money (either in the
| form of your insurance premiums or your tax dollars).
|
| Cue present situation.
|
| We have a scenario where there is a (1) free, (2)
| available, (3) well-tolerated, (4) effective preventative
| option in vaccines.
|
| If someone chooses to remain unvaccinated, without
| medical reason, that is a pure personal choice.
|
| And moreover, unlike in normal scenarios, their making
| that choice _directly_ burdens everyone else.
|
| Economically, through damage to normal economic
| functioning. And medically, through consuming limited
| hospital capacity.
|
| These arguments could be made for other conditions (e.g.
| obesity), but in a much murkier and more tortured manner.
| COVID is crystal clear: if you _can_ be vaccinated, and
| you _choose_ not to be, you are imposing a greater burden
| on society.
|
| Last I heard, the anti-vax crowd was big on personal
| responsibility. So why shouldn't individuals pay that
| debt of their own making?
| wonderwonder wrote:
| I hear what you are saying but I can see this spiraling
| out of control. What happens when global warming and over
| population is considered to be a dire threat to the
| continued existence of human life? Do we allow hospitals
| to refuse services to women on their third child or men /
| women that refuse to be sterilized after the government
| approved x children. Seems far fetched but our definition
| of clear and present dangers can shift over time to fit
| the scenario something similar has already happened in
| China. I am very much not for allowing institutions to
| make those sort of decisions regarding the care provided
| to people as entities don't usually relinquish power once
| granted.
|
| Edit: I am ok with triaging the vaccinated over the
| unvaccinated in a scenario with limited space as
| mentioned by another poster below.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| What's the alternative?
|
| You can't solve a resource limitation problem by
| mandating access.
|
| And pretending to have free access, while in reality
| prioritizing the wealthy, is just a free market with
| ethical window dressing.
| h3cate wrote:
| Do hospitals turn away people with the flu away if they
| are not vaccinated? Or is it only Covid that you would
| impose this rule for?
| pbourke wrote:
| Has there been a flu season in recent history that caused
| the hospital system to collapse?
| nradov wrote:
| Hospitals in some areas were overwhelmed with influenza
| cases as recently as 2018.
|
| https://time.com/5107984/hospitals-handling-burden-flu-
| patie...
| ethbr0 wrote:
| For reference, when I looked up the numbers, influenza
| hospitalizations (estimated, total annual US) vary from
| around 150,000 to 550,000, depending on the year and
| strain.
|
| So yes, year to year has a lot of variance.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Fair question.
|
| It looks like flu (influenza) hospitalizations run at
| about 0.15% of total population, per year.
|
| SARS-CoV-2, at 1-5%? Although that might be vs confirmed
| cases (?), which would muddle the numbers.
|
| But suffice to say substantially higher. So I think
| there's an argument to be made for this being a COVID
| only measure (and probably measles, etc too).
|
| IMHO, people are entitled to freedom regarding their
| choice to vaccinate.
|
| But _if_ they choose to exercise _their_ freedom in ways
| that limit _my_ freedom (via resulting lockdowns,
| mandatory masking, banned social gatherings, preventing
| businesses from operating normally, etc.), then that
| doesn 't feel very fair.
|
| They're externalizing the consequences of their decisions
| onto me, and the rest of society.
|
| So yeah, IMHO, their decisions: their bill to pay. With
| their life, if necessary.
|
| (But I may be biased, as I have family working ICU,
| triaging unvaccinated coronavirus deniers who show up at
| the ER, begging to be saved, who are then sapping care
| from non-COVID patients...)
| luckylion wrote:
| > But if they choose to exercise their freedom in ways
| that limit my freedom (via resulting lockdowns, mandatory
| masking, banned social gatherings, preventing businesses
| from operating normally, etc.), then that doesn't feel
| very fair.
|
| You can easily make that argument for plenty of things
| though. Didn't care for education and wanted to party
| instead? No welfare for you! Overweight? Sorry, you're
| limiting my freedom via increased healthcare costs. Broke
| your leg while skiing? Sorry, you knew the risk, now live
| with it, insurance is for _real_ accidents only.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| All of those other examples have additional
| characteristics that cast the argument differently.
|
| Education and obesity both have income and access issues.
| In that, if you are poor, you don't have access to the
| same options as those who are wealthy.
|
| Skiing is actually the best example (Alaska aside!),
| given that it's a purely personal decision to engage in
| or not.
|
| So hypothetical...
|
| If hospital ICUs were filling with ski accident victims,
| to the extent they were unable to provide normal care to
| non-ski patients, and the economy was being impacted
| (businesses unable to operate, jobs lost, etc.) due to
| this ski pandemic, then you would say "Skiing is a
| personal choice that everyone deserves to make, and I
| have no problem with my tax and insurance dollars paying
| for skiers"?
| luckylion wrote:
| > Education and obesity both have income and access
| issues.
|
| Some, but not primarily, so it still stands. I'm sure you
| can find similar reasons with vaccine-anxiety. People
| aren't choosing to be afraid of vaccines "just because",
| there's something going on that terrifies them.
|
| > then you would say "Skiing is a personal choice that
| everyone deserves to make, and I have no problem with my
| tax and insurance dollars paying for skiers"?
|
| Yes, because that's the principle the system is built on.
|
| I mean, I think lots of people somewhat consciously make
| lots of terrible decisions all the time, and the
| consequences of their decisions do cost giant sums of
| money that I have to pay lots of taxes for and that
| cannot be used for people who face truly accidental
| hardship (think extreme skiing vs walking and a suitcase
| dropping from a plane).
|
| But we've generally decided that that's totally fine, and
| I've accepted that and I pay taxes to make sure they
| don't have to face the consequences of their decisions.
| We cannot say "that's fine for everything, but not here"
| if we operate on a principle. It's either "you're on your
| own" or it's not, but it has to be consistent.
| h3cate wrote:
| I don't think anybody that's unvaccinated wants any
| restrictions either. So if it was proposed there would be
| no more restrictions on society would you still turn away
| unvaccinated people from hospital? Going off your logic
| they are no longer impacting _your_ freedoms.
| gilbetron wrote:
| Health systems operate by prioritizing, via an imperfect
| system, patients based on need. If you run a red light
| and slam into another car, but you're more injured than
| the other person, you will be prioritized even though you
| were culpable. I think that is the appropriate, ethical,
| and practical approach.
|
| However, the calculus changes when the health system is
| at or over capacity. Now, if two people come in and both
| are critically ill, but you only have room for one, I'm
| ok with choosing the one that was vaccinated. Likewise
| with many other situations and illnesses. If you cause a
| car accident, and both you and the person you hit require
| the ICU, but there is only one spot open, I'm ok with the
| person that got hit getting the spot.
|
| Now, I'm assuming you are jaded like me and know that
| _actual_ answer is probably the person with the most
| money tends to get the treatment, but that 's another
| bitter, cynical discussion.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Here's my current level of jade -- listening to repeated
| stories about hospital staff having to argue with a
| patient's family (all unvaccinated) about why they can't
| visit the patient (also unvaccinated) in the COVID ward,
| when care is being withdrawn due to organ failure.
|
| At some point, it's like, "Jesus. Just stop talking, and
| please let me help you not kill yourself."
| adrr wrote:
| People aren't scared up. Concern is around ICU usage and that
| elective surgery in hot areas are put on hold which include
| critical cancer removal surgeries.
|
| Also we have a large group of unvaccinated group which are
| under kids under 12. With life going back to normal, the
| standard diseases are back like RSV, paraflu and others. Get
| two at the same time and it's a emergency room visit. Get 3
| at the same time and it's life threatening. Two at the same
| time isn't uncommon before covid. Now my pediatrician says 3
| is happening and it's a kid killer. It boggles my mind why
| there is pushback on mandating kids to wear masks in schools.
| h3cate wrote:
| Are there any studies into the effects of being infected by
| multiple of these viruses at the same time? Or is this just
| what your doctor has told you? Also what do kids under 12
| have to do with any of this?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Studies will take time. That said:
|
| https://www.npr.org/2021/08/14/1027663917/rsv-covid-
| children
|
| > At Texas Children's Hospital in Houston on Thursday, 25
| of 45 hospitalized pediatric patients were diagnosed with
| RSV as well as COVID-19. "A hospitalization rate much
| higher than for either virus alone," according to
| officials.
|
| > At the moment there is little data available on the
| impact of contracting both viruses and whether the two
| together can make a person sicker. But health officials
| worry it could put young patients -- who are not eligible
| for the vaccine -- at greater risk.
| AndrewBissell wrote:
| > _At Texas Children 's Hospital in Houston on Thursday,
| 25 of 45 hospitalized pediatric patients were diagnosed
| with RSV as well as COVID-19. "A hospitalization rate
| much higher than for either virus alone," according to
| officials._
|
| Would be interested to see the exact breakdown here. If
| 19 children are hospitalized with RSV+Covid, 5 with just
| RSV, and 1 with just Covid, it could just indicate RSV is
| particularly virulent for children and they are likely to
| also have Covid given they have been exposed to RSV. This
| would certainly fit with what we already know about the
| relative risks posed to children by RSV vs Covid.
|
| This article from the Guardian suggests that the reason
| RSV is having an off-season surge is because children now
| have an "immunity debt" from being isolated as part of
| Covid protocols. It would probably not be a good idea not
| for us to double down on the measures that have brought
| us to this point.
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/08/new-
| zealand-ch...
|
| Good thread by an MD here discussing these issues and
| saying that coinfection rates are 50% for kids: https://t
| witter.com/contrarian4data/status/14298548764151316...
| h3cate wrote:
| Interesting but until there is some real data around this
| personally I would rather see people who we know are at
| risk, elderly in poorer countries, get the vaccine over
| under 12s in first world countries. That's just my
| opinion though
| fxtentacle wrote:
| Only recently did we reach the threshold where the majority
| believes in evolution, as opposed to "God created
| everything".
| titzer wrote:
| > It boggles my mind why there is pushback on mandating
| kids to wear masks in schools.
|
| It doesn't really boggle my mind, it's just that the
| conclusions it suggests about fellow Americans are really
| hard to swallow. There is a lot of political polarization
| in the US and cranking through the implications and reasons
| for ostensibly pro-COVID policies and attitudes is really
| disheartening. It's a schism that isn't healed easily.
|
| If anything, an impersonal virus, an implacable,
| impossible-to-anthropomorphize, zero-upside health hazard
| could have easily been something for the _entire world_ to
| unite against. Instead, we got more and deeper division and
| louder and more extreme and more destructive arguments. And
| we lost a lot of people and maimed even more. And the
| reason that couldn 't happen: Money. The economy. Me.
| Freedumbs!
|
| COVID exposed people's real priorities and objectives and
| showed how craven and myopic our political leaders really
| are.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| > mandating kids to wear masks in schools
|
| There's no evidence that wearing masks prevents contracting
| Covid (or any other airborne virus). It does a bit toward
| preventing spreading it if you already have it, but if you
| already have it, the schools send you home anyway. It's
| also not as if masks are themselves neutral either -
| constant mask wearing is associated with higher rates of
| bacterial pneumonia. Even medical professionals never wore
| masks all day (until last year), just when they were
| performing surgery.
| bobsomers wrote:
| > There's no evidence that wearing masks prevents
| contracting Covid (or any other airborne virus). It does
| a bit toward preventing spreading it if you already have
| it
|
| What you just described is the same thing, it's simply a
| matter of perspective. If _you_ wear a mask, it helps
| _me_ by reducing the chances that you spread it to me if
| you have it but aren 't experiencing symptoms yet. It
| works the same way in reverse. I don't wear a mask to
| protect myself, I wear it to protect others in the case
| that I'm shedding virus and don't know it yet.
| jdavis703 wrote:
| > It does a bit toward preventing spreading it if you
| already have it, but if you already have it, the schools
| send you home anyway
|
| Most of the schools that do testing due so weekly. With
| delta someone can be contagious up to 36 hours after
| infection. That means someone who gets tested on Friday
| morning, goes to a poorly ventilated party with a
| COVID-19+ that evening and returns to school on Monday
| could spread the disease for a week.
| martin_bech wrote:
| The masks part is easy.. it has no effect..
|
| We have been on and off masks here in Denmark, and it seems
| to have no effect on spread. Also mostly you get covid when
| not wearing one.. from a family member or a friend..
| baron_harkonnen wrote:
| > The masks part is easy.. it has no effect..
|
| > Also mostly you get covid when not wearing one..
|
| The conclusion I would draw from your own beliefs here is
| that we should be wearing _masks_ all the time,
| especially around family... not that masks don 't work.
|
| Personally while I wear a mask most of the time when out,
| I do feel that we really don't know as much as we'd like
| to think about mask efficacy. The trouble is your own
| reasoning here is inconsistent. Either masks don't work
| as well as we think and risk of infection is equally
| likely in public or at home, or they do work effectively
| but we don't wear them at important times.
|
| The argument you should have from your own beliefs here
| should be for more mask wearing not less.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| > it seems to have no effect on spread
|
| We wore them for a year. Covid is still here. It won't go
| away if we wear them for another year. It won't go away
| if we wear them for another ten years.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| And it might be a shocker to some, but there is more to
| life than myopically focusing on slowing the spread of
| exactly one disease. We have the rest of our lives to
| worry about. Expecting society to live a covid centric
| lifestyle where all that matters is "does it slow the
| spread" for 1.6 years and counting is does not make for a
| mentally healthy population.
| darkarmani wrote:
| > We wore them for a year. Covid is still here.
|
| That sounds like an argument against bullet proof vests.
| People still die while wearing them. LEO have been
| wearing them for years. Obviously, they don't work.
|
| You don't understand the actual goal of wearing masks:
| protected people and reducing the spread of covid. It's
| not going to magically eliminate covid when half the
| country doesn't actually wear them.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| > LEO have been wearing them for years
|
| So in other words, your expectation is that we'll be
| wearing masks for the rest of our lives?
| code4money wrote:
| "Compared with a baseline of 1-foot separation with no
| masks employed, particle count was reduced by 84% at 3
| feet of separation and 97% at 6 feet. A modest decrease
| in particle count was observed when only the receiver was
| masked. The most substantial exposure reduction occurred
| when the aerosol source was masked (or both parties were
| masked). When both the source and target were masked,
| particle count was reduced by more than 99.5% of
| baseline, regardless of separation distance or which type
| of mask was employed."
|
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00
| 256...
| GeekyBear wrote:
| We no longer believe that Covid is spread by large
| droplets that will fall to the ground within six feet of
| being sneezed or coughed out. Cloth masks catch those
| droplets just fine.
|
| We now know that Covid is spread by minute particles so
| small that they float on the air for hours. Cloth masks
| do not filter the air you breathe from particles of that
| size.
|
| You would need an n95 mask or better to do that job.
|
| Remember that mask wearing almost completely did away
| with last year's Flu season while we simultaneously had a
| huge Covid surge.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| > You would need an n95 mask or better to do that job.
|
| And not just that but you have to wear it properly. This
| means if you have a beard, you better shave it.
| GeekyBear wrote:
| Indeed. If you need to filter out tiny particles from the
| air you breathe, you can't allow unfiltered air to leak
| in and out through the sides of the mask.
|
| >Studies that have been done show that if an individual
| might get infected within 15 minutes in a room, by time
| and concentration of the virus in the room, add a face
| cloth covering you only get about five more minutes of
| protection.
|
| On the other hand if you use the n95 respirators and fit
| them tight to your face, you can actually spend 25 hours
| in that same room and still be protected.
|
| https://www.pbs.org/wnet/amanpour-and-company/video/do-
| masks...
| tehjoker wrote:
| There's even speculation that low quality masks create
| selective pressure for higher binding affinity to ACE2.
| We should all be wearing N95s...
| orhmeh09 wrote:
| What if we gave N95 masks to everyone? Several countries
| have mandated N95 or FFP/equivalent masks. America can
| afford it.
| tazjin wrote:
| All the pro-mask studies are like this: Some simulated
| situation that doesn't take into account whether spread
| actually happens like that in real life.
|
| They can simulate blowing stuff through various types of
| filter material all they want, it doesn't change that
| none of the epidemiological curves reacted to mask
| mandates anywhere.
|
| They do work great as an ideological symbol though,
| thanks to the topic's polarisation.
| throwaway4good wrote:
| It has a quite an effect.
|
| If you notice at the moment the corona numbers are high
| in Netherlands and Denmark while low in Germany.
|
| Because Germany has kept more restrictions in place, in
| particular mask wearing in shops and transport.
| martin_bech wrote:
| The case count for Germany atm is very impressive, but we
| ditched masks in June, and cases actually plummeted after
| that, and only started to rise with the delta variant. We
| still compared to most have a low infection rate.
| martin_bech wrote:
| There is nothing to support the theory that shops are
| hotspots for spread, if that was true alot of supermarket
| employees etc, would have been infected, at a larger rate
| than average. However this has not happened anywhere.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| Correlation is not causation. Just because "cases went
| down" doesn't mean masks (or lockdowns) were responsible
| for the drop.
| AndrewBissell wrote:
| You can cite 100 counterexamples when using this
| simplistic kind of reasoning. Covid numbers are quite
| high in South Korea and Japan which both have sky-high
| mask compliance, for example.
| AdamN wrote:
| Isn't that part of the scientific process? Is there some
| other way to come to the truth aside from observation and
| examining variables related to the observed outcomes?
| martin_bech wrote:
| Thanks for the downvotes.. still wont make the masks
| work. Get vaccinated.
| playguardin wrote:
| Bad news. The vax doesnt work either. :(
| open-source-ux wrote:
| There remain differences of opinion among scientists on
| how effective _non-medical_ masks are in reducing
| COVID-19 transmission.
|
| However, on the question of medical-grade masks, there is
| clear research that now shows some masks (e.g. FFP3
| masks) are effective in stopping COVID-19 infection.
|
| _Covid: Masks upgrade cuts infection risk, research
| finds_ : https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-57636360
| grumpitron wrote:
| Isn't this a contradiction?
|
| "Masks don't work" and then in the next paragraph "mostly
| you get COVID when not wearing [a mask]"
| jandrese wrote:
| I think this works like condom statistics, where the
| statistic is that they are 98% effective, but that
| statistic includes people who go "we normally wear
| condoms, but we didn't that one time and she got
| pregnant" as a condom failure.
|
| So basically, the masks are effective, but people take
| the masks off around family and friends and if one of
| their friends or family has COVID they will pass it on
| during the unmasked time.
| heywherelogingo wrote:
| Only if you truncate the sentence as you have done.
| grumpitron wrote:
| Can you help me understand how "catching COVID while not
| wearing a mask" is meaningfully different from "catching
| COVID from a family member while not wearing masks" in
| the context of whether masks are effective in preventing
| the spread of COVID? Seems an irrelevant distinction to
| me.
| anang wrote:
| I think:
|
| You're not catching covid in situations where you'd
| typically wear a mask (regardless of masking), rather
| where you typical don't wear a mask, like from family
| member.
|
| I'm not really saying I agree, but I think that is the
| context.
| rayiner wrote:
| > It boggles my mind why there is pushback on mandating
| kids to wear masks in schools.
|
| It really shouldn't if you're an educated person who is
| following what scientific authorities are saying. The
| science here is still uncertain, but leaning towards masks
| for kids in schools not being worth it. See:
| https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/08/the-science-of-
| maski...
|
| > At the end of May, the Centers for Disease Control and
| Prevention published a notable, yet mostly ignored, large-
| scale study of COVID transmission in American schools...
| Distancing, hybrid models, classroom barriers, HEPA
| filters, and, most notably, requiring student masking were
| each found to not have a statistically significant benefit.
| In other words, these measures could not be said to be
| effective.
|
| > In the realm of science and public-health policy outside
| the U.S., the implications of these particular findings are
| not exactly controversial. Many of America's peer nations
| around the world -- including the U.K., Ireland, all of
| Scandinavia, France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and
| Italy -- have exempted kids, with varying age cutoffs, from
| wearing masks in classrooms.
| cageface wrote:
| Delta wasn't dominant by May. Does this still hold?
| JeanMarcS wrote:
| Well I can't speak for other countries, but in France
| mask is mandatory in schools from age 6. It's been like
| this for a year and will most likely continue in
| september for the new school year.
| unityByFreedom wrote:
| Long-term we should just adopt the practice of wearing
| one if you're symptomatic. It helps reduce spread. This
| is what Asia started doing after SARS. It's considered a
| courtesy, just as we consider it a courtesy to cover your
| mouth when coughing or sneezing.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| Japan kept doing it after Spanish Flu.
|
| Unfortunately, given that 1910s America and 2020s America
| both had significant (and in my mind, unwarranted)
| resistance to wearing face masks; I would not be
| surprised if "wear a mask if you feel sick" fails to make
| it into common understanding in America a _second time_.
| hackersword wrote:
| Have you looked at the actual report and not the anti-vax
| site summation of the report?
|
| >. The 21% lower incidence in schools that required mask
| use among students was not statistically significant
| compared with schools where mask use was optional.
|
| I'm not sure how 21% lower is considered "not
| statistically significant", in trying to suppress the
| spread, ANYTHING > 0% is helpful. Full stop.
|
| Other stand out qualifiers from same report
|
| >This finding might be attributed to higher effectiveness
| of masks among adults, who are at higher risk for SARS-
| CoV-2 infection but might also result from differences in
| mask-wearing behavior among students in schools with
| optional requirements. Mask use requirements were limited
| in this sample;
|
| >The findings in this report are subject to at least four
| limitations.
|
| > * First, many COVID-19 cases were self-reported by
| staff members and parents or guardians, and prevention
| strategies reported by administrators or nurses might not
| reflect day-to-day activities or represent all school
| classrooms, and *did not include an assessment of
| compliance* (e.g., mask use).
|
| >* Second, the study had limited power to detect lower
| incidence for potentially effective, but less frequently
| implemented strategies, such as air filtration and
| purification systems; only 16 schools reported
| implementing this ventilation improvement.
|
| > * Third, the response rate was low (11.6%), and some
| participating schools had missing information about
| ventilation improvements. However, incidence per 500
| students was similar between participating (3.08 cases)
| and nonparticipating (2.90 cases) schools, suggesting any
| systematic bias might be low.
|
| >* Finally, the data from this cross-sectional study
| cannot be used to infer causal relationships.
|
| Basically was relying on self reporting. If a student
| contracted and was asymptomatic, not shown here, etc.
| traek wrote:
| > I'm not sure how 21% lower is considered "not
| statistically significant", in trying to suppress the
| spread, ANYTHING > 0% is helpful. Full stop.
|
| Statistical significance has a specific meaning in the
| context of hypothesis testing. It is a measure of
| likelihood that the observed result occurred due to a
| real difference between groups (rather than random
| chance).
| eliasmacpherson wrote:
| It seems that they are adding up the margin of errors for
| 82/1461 and 87/1461, (schools responded divided by
| schools surveyed), giving a total margin of error of ~20%
| for these optional vs. mandatory masked student
| statistics. This is a problem with using surveys with a
| low response rate.
|
| In their own words in that section, by the incident rate
| ratio it is statistically significant, even after having
| been adjusted for county level 7 day incidence.
|
| You can try and figure it out on page 4 of the cdc
| report, it does not appear to be a null hypothesis test.
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/pdfs/mm7021e1-H.pd
| f
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| ericb wrote:
| Self-report is a notoriously bad way to "study" almost
| anything.
| timr wrote:
| > _did not include an assessment of compliance_ (e.g.,
| mask use).
|
| This is not a rebuttal.
|
| If you establish a policy, and people _do not follow the
| policy_ , that's on you, not on the people. You don't get
| to compare your intervention against an ideal world and
| claim that "it would have worked, if only for those
| darned humans!"
|
| > Basically was relying on self reporting. If a student
| contracted and was asymptomatic, not shown here, etc.
|
| A great many of the pro-mask papers in 2020 that claimed
| to "prove" that masks work started from self-reported
| data (the infamous "hairdressers" CDC report comes to
| mind...if a customer was asymptomatic, they were ignored;
| there was no control, so it's impossible to know what
| would have happened otherwise; etc.) The standards for
| "proof" across the pandemic have been dismally low, and
| tribalism and politics have supplanted science.
|
| The difference here is that we actually have examples
| from across the globe where kids _weren 't_ masked in
| schools, and no matter how you look at it, it doesn't
| seem to make much of a difference. If we're going to be
| skeptical (we should!) let's be skeptical of _every
| claim_ , and demand proof of effectiveness for our
| medical interventions before imposing them across all of
| human society.
| jdavis703 wrote:
| This is like saying antibiotics don't work because many
| people don't complete their course of treatment.
| detaro wrote:
| It depends what you are looking at. "Do antibiotics
| work?" is a slightly different question than "Is
| prescribing antibiotics effective?".
|
| Of course you'd want data on how people actually take
| them, because to make decisions you'd like to know if the
| result means "prescribing antibiotics just doesn't work"
| or "we need to figure out how to make sure people
| actually take the prescribed antibiotics effectively"
| timr wrote:
| Exactly. A more apt analogy would be the hypothesis _" do
| antibiotics reduce the prevalence of MRSA, if prescribed
| for everyone?"_
|
| We can know that antibiotics work, but still fail
| spectacularly when used improperly. It's important to
| test both.
| chlodwig wrote:
| _I 'm not sure how 21% lower is considered "not
| statistically significant", in trying to suppress the
| spread, ANYTHING > 0% is helpful. Full stop._
|
| 1) Is your government adopting a comprehensives and
| realistic plan to achieve zero covid? (Such a policy must
| include 100% international travel shut-down, zero
| exceptions. If there are exceptions, your government does
| not have a zero covid policy.)
|
| 2) Is ICU or hospital usage approaching capacity in your
| area?
|
| If the answer to those questions is both "no" (as it is
| in my jurisdiction which is requiring school kids to
| mask) then your statement is not true. A 21% lower
| incident rate is not helpful at all, everyone will still
| all get exposed to covid eventually.
| cookingrobot wrote:
| If we can keep kids from catching it for another few
| months, they can get the vaccine. That's a huge benefit.
| chlodwig wrote:
| The net-benefit of the vaccine in kids is likely to be
| borderline at best. That is because 1) kids are already
| at very, very low risk from covid 2) the side effects of
| the vaccine seem to be as bad or worse in the young in
| healthy 3) actually getting the virus allows the immune
| system to see a much more complete picture of the virus
| which may lead to better long term immunity. The kid who
| actually gets the real thing may end up having a better
| chance of being protected at age 25 or 45 than the kid
| who just gets the vaccine. See this article for some
| discussion of this issue:
| https://www.bbc.com/news/health-58270098
| rayiner wrote:
| > anti-vax site summation of the report?
|
| New York Magazine is an "anti-vax site?"
| hackersword wrote:
| Looking at the authors listed contributions to that site,
| he specifically appears to have a distinct bias and
| railing very specifically on something near and dear to
| him.
|
| https://nymag.com/author/david-zweig/
|
| 7 articles about kids/scool/covid in last year, and one
| "asking the question" if vaccine is causing a dangerous
| heart condition in young men.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| > The science here is still uncertain, but leaning
| towards masks for kids in schools not being worth it
|
| The science is uncertain but leaning towards masking
| children at schools being worth it. The fact that a study
| that included mask intervention in Georgia schools showed
| a double digit percent reduction in community
| transmission but was underpowered to be statistically
| significant by itself should not cause us to update
| beliefs very much, let alone update them in the direction
| of the null hypothesis, let alone update them _all the
| way to the null hypothesis_ as Zweig has done, given that
| our priors are informed by CERN simulations, mechanistic
| experiments, and adult transmission studies that
| demonstrate effectiveness. That just demonstrates Zweig
| 's poor understanding of statistics terminology.
| eli wrote:
| Yes, scientific uncertainty is a thing. It would be great
| if we instantly had tons of studies and replications
| showing exactly how effective different measures are, but
| that is just not how it works. I can cite many models
| that show masking works, if you're curious.
|
| This same line of argument was used to question climate
| change for decades and to support the argument that we
| should not take any aggressive measures to avoid it.
|
| There's a good chance wearing masks in schools makes the
| community safer from serious illness. And the risk in
| wearing masks if they prove to be useless is...what
| exactly? That masks are a little uncomfortable?
| techbio wrote:
| Serious illness, bad as it is, is a lot more predictable
| than fear/security driven social engineering, and when
| cover-your-smile is rolled into cover your cough, I'd
| expect unintended consequences, socially,
| developmentally. You must realize there are other
| problems than COVID, and some are much more important.
| Your Pascal's Wager about masks is a bit revealing vis-a-
| vis any certainty about the evidence.
| crateless wrote:
| I am reminded of Slavoj Zizek's story about Niels Bohr
| having a horseshoe above his door:[0]
|
| "surprised at seeing a horseshoe above the door of Bohr's
| country house, the fellow scientist visiting him
| exclaimed that he did not share the superstitious belief
| regarding horseshoes keeping evil spirits out of the
| house, to which Bohr snapped back: "I don't believe in it
| either. I have it there because I was told that it works
| even when one doesn't believe in it at all." This is
| indeed how ideology functions today: nobody takes
| democracy or justice seriously, we are all aware of their
| corrupted nature, but we participate in them, we display
| our belief in them."[1]
|
| [0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8859145
|
| [1] - http://brooklynbooktalk.blogspot.com/2010/02/its-
| ideology-st...
| eli wrote:
| Unlike horseshoes, there is credible research and wide
| consensus among experts that masks work
| commandlinefan wrote:
| > leaning towards masks for kids in schools not being
| worth it.
|
| The problem is that we're dealing with "if it save even
| one child's life it's worth it" (for any "it") reasoning,
| which is impossible to argue against.
| AdamN wrote:
| This makes it sound like there was some groundbreaking
| CDC study that got hidden for political reasons.
|
| It was a study of a single month in Georgia before Delta.
| Aside from the narrowness of the inputs I highly doubt
| school policy and ground truth were aligned.
|
| That study is not enough to be driving policy.
| rhino369 wrote:
| The evidence for cotton and surgical mask--as used in
| actual practice--being effective at reducing the spread
| is pretty weak in general.
|
| Most I've seen cited by mask proponents either don't use
| control groups (and thus can't really distinguish btwn
| other factors that correlate with mask wearing) or are
| laboratory tests just testing what % of particles are
| blocked by masks--which ignores almost every relevant
| question about mask mandates and relies on suspect
| theoretical models about how covid actually transmits
| between people.
|
| I'm mystified why people on both sides are so up in arms
| about masks, but nobody gives one shit about
| uncontroversal and more effective mitigation techniques
| like air filtration and circulation.
|
| An infected kid in classroom without proper air
| circulation could fill the classroom with enough virus to
| cause a super spreader event--mask or no-cotton/surgical
| mask.
| guelo wrote:
| The riled-up anti-mask parents get all the attention but
| in every district there are also parents pushing for more
| ventilation, testing, vaccinations, etc. In my school
| we've been able to get the ventilation upgraded with
| MERV-13 filters.
| triceratops wrote:
| > nobody gives one shit about uncontroversal and more
| effective mitigation techniques like air filtration and
| circulation.
|
| How much would it cost to retrofit a bunch of schools
| with this stuff?
|
| Ideally you'd do both. Have better air circulation, and
| institute masks when the regional caseload goes above a
| certain threshold.
| AdamN wrote:
| Billions in the US and it's part of the infrastructure
| bill and alot of investment right now. This is a multi-
| year effort (although IMHO functioning windows should be
| more normalized instead of going all in on HVAC).
| rhino369 wrote:
| I don't know, but it should pay dividends for generations
| given it'll probably slow down colds and flus too.
|
| Even things like a box fan in a window are probably
| significantly more effective than scooby doo masks.
| triceratops wrote:
| > box fan in a window
|
| That's fine year-round in the south and southwest. Not so
| much in the rest of the country though.
| edmundsauto wrote:
| Why should one preclude the other? Defense in depth and
| all that.
| johnold wrote:
| I know that our teacher's union and the district we work
| for negotiated for almost a week about air filtration and
| circulation.
|
| The HVAC is continuously circulating air from the time it
| is on until after school when it turns off. There is some
| time before school and maybe 20min after school when it
| is on.
|
| They have settled on only pulling air from the outside
| instead of recycling the warm or cool air in the room.
|
| And having some kind of agreement on the merv rating of
| the filters. It may be merv 7(but I'm not sure.)
| spookthesunset wrote:
| The default policy should be a normal non-masked school
| year. People pushing masks need to produce a hell of a
| lot of evidence that masks work and are worth all the
| negative effects they might have on kids. In addition
| they need a clearly defined exit strategy. They should
| also articulate what problem masks on kids are trying to
| solve.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| People claiming "all the negative effects they might have
| on kids" "need to produce a hell of a lot of evidence" of
| that.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| That isn't how this works. It isn't my job to provide
| that evidence. Y'all want to force my 4 year old to wear
| a mask at her preschool. Prove it is necessary and won't
| cause long term development issues.
|
| It isn't my job to prove it _isn 't_ necessary. I'm the
| one that needs to be convinced, not the other way around.
| Y'all are the ones trying to force this, not me.
| IX-103 wrote:
| How full is your local pediatric ICU?
| https://www.google.com/search?q=pediatric+icu+beds
|
| If it's full then risking developmental issues for your
| child should probably be a less important to you than
| risking a highly contagious illness with the
| complications that entails (complications include death,
| permanent cognitive, neurological, respiratory and
| cardiovascular damage).
|
| Ideally every responsible* parent could choose how they
| want to manage the risk for their child, but that's not
| always practical. With limited daycare and schooling
| facilities, there's a strong push to follow the more
| ~conservative~ (cautious) approaches. And this is at it
| should be. As they say "Your freedom to swing your arm
| ends at my face", so to should your freedom to choose the
| level of risk you are comfortable with be limited by the
| freedom for others to choose their level of risk.
|
| *A responsible parent considers the welfare of the child
| first and foremost, not using children as tools to make
| points or demonstrate a commitment to a particular
| ideology or to otherwise serve their own interests.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| Hospitals aren't full. ICU's will never fill up with kids
| having covid. It just won't happen.
|
| Kids aren't at risk. We have more than a year and a half
| of data to support this.
|
| > A responsible parent considers the welfare of the child
| first and foremost, not using children as tools to make
| points or demonstrate a commitment to a particular
| ideology or to otherwise serve their own interests.
|
| Correct. And I'd argue almost everybody in favor of
| forcing kids to wear masks at school forgot this.
| chlodwig wrote:
| Depriving kids of seeing facial expressions, depriving
| kids _of seeing the smiles on the faces_ of their friends
| and teachers, for an entire year (or more?), during most
| of their socialization hours, is in and of itself a
| direct and terrible harm. It 's one thing to require
| masks in the grocery store and at the doctor's office
| just to be on the safe side. Not much harm in that. But
| all-day, every day at school, a place which is the
| primary place to make friends, and not being able to see
| friend's smile? That is a horrible thing. If covid was
| actually so dangerous that we needed to worry about kids
| dying, then the proper response would be shutting down
| the schools entirely. If it is not dangerous, then we
| should allow kids to attend mask free and have an
| actually fully human experience.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| If covid was so dangerous to children that they were
| dying all over the place, they'd have been first in line
| for vaccines way back in December.
|
| Also it sickens me that people downvote your valid
| concerns. Kids need facial expressions. They need to hear
| and see each other to learn. I don't know why that is so
| controversial.
| op00to wrote:
| Please list the negative effects. Should be easy since
| there are so many.
| chlodwig wrote:
| Not being able to see the facial expressions and smiles
| of their friends and teachers.
| Retric wrote:
| "masks need to produce a hell of a lot of evidence" vs
| "all the negative effects they might have on kids"
|
| Those are some wildly different standards. You can
| convince yourself of anything if you assume it's correct
| and raise the bar high enough for counter evidence.
| adambard wrote:
| There's an intuitive model that makes some sense of this
| finding: Masks, air filters, and distancing are effective
| at preventing transmission by reducing -- not eliminating
| -- viral load. What suffices to prevent infection from a
| 15-second encounter with a stranger in line at the
| supermarket, may not be enough when kids are in the same
| room breathing the same air 6 hours of every day.
|
| We now know what it takes to protect a person from COVID
| in an environment where they are likely to be exposed to
| significant virus concentrations; unfortunately, getting
| kids to scrub up like COVID ward nurses is probably not
| realistic.
| gilbetron wrote:
| So the CDC are not educated nor intelligent, I guess?
|
| "Due to the circulating and highly contagious Delta
| variant, CDC recommends universal indoor masking by all
| students (age 2 and older), staff, teachers, and visitors
| to K-12 schools, regardless of vaccination status."
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/schoo
| ls-...
|
| Also, the very study NYMag talks about still recommends:
| "Because universal and correct use of masks can reduce
| SARS-CoV-2 transmission (6) and is a relatively low-cost
| and easily implemented strategy, findings in this report
| suggest universal and correct mask use is an important
| COVID-19 prevention strategy in schools as part of a
| multicomponent approach."
| Miraste wrote:
| The CDC's public guidance during this pandemic is going
| to end up in communications classes alongside New Coke
| and the Osborne 1. They're so lucky they were bailed out
| (mostly) by vaccines. They opened by saying masks didn't
| work (a straight up lie, even if a well-intentioned one)
| and stuck to that line for at least a month. Then they
| did a 180, deleted their tweets, and spent the rest of
| 2020 saying masks were necessary. Then it was no masks
| for the vaccinated. Now it's masks for everyone again.
| Along the way they've somehow managed to lag _and_ jump
| ahead of the actual research on masks and public trust in
| the CDC, their greatest asset, is now around 52% -
| poetically the same as the US vaccination rate.
| h3cate wrote:
| I'd love to see a teacher try and mandate correct use of
| masks on a bunch of 2 year olds :D
| spookthesunset wrote:
| CDC doesn't make public policy. Nowhere did you mention
| what the harms of this forced mask use could be on kids.
| Even if masks offered some protection it has to be
| balanced against all manner of long term social, language
| and developmental effects caused from wearing a mask.
| darkerside wrote:
| Critically, this is all pre-Delta. It seems common sense
| to me that kids should wear masks at school, and I don't
| think we have science that can dispute that common sense
| at this point.
|
| Of course, the problem is, and always has been with
| COVID, that my common sense is different from yours and
| vice versa...
| simonw wrote:
| How is "the science here is still uncertain" an argument
| against masks in schools?
|
| If it turns out they are useful, wearing them will have
| been a good idea.
|
| If it turns out that they weren't useful, what harm has
| been caused?
|
| (I'm aware that there are people out there who think
| wearing masks for a year or two will scar children for
| life, but for the most part I don't think those people
| are arguing in good faith. The biggest harm I see is to
| children with hearing problems who are prevented from lip
| reading.)
| op00to wrote:
| Muh freedoms is why there are still people fighting
| masks.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| Good question. Who are they now protecting? People who
| refuse to get a vaccine?
| h3cate wrote:
| Exactly this. This is why the vaccines have been rolled
| out. If somebody doesn't want to wear a mask now they
| shouldn't have to if the vaccine has been offered to
| everyone in their country.
| danenania wrote:
| It seems obvious that wearing masks all day would hinder
| social and verbal development in toddlers and small
| children, at least to some extent. I think everyone can
| agree that they wouldn't _help_ in these areas?
|
| You might think the public health benefits outweigh this
| concern, but it's disingenuous imo to just assert that
| there are no conceivable negative effects for a two year
| old having their first social experiences.
| simonw wrote:
| This is a good answer. I've not been thinking in terms of
| two year olds - I've been assuming this debate is mostly
| about children who are elementary school and above.
| [deleted]
| BoxOfRain wrote:
| Not to mention the effects on children who struggle with
| their hearing and need to lip-read, from a disability
| rights point of view I don't think it's quite as simple
| as "masking kids is great, end of story".
| rayiner wrote:
| You're absolutely wrong about the last point. The people
| raising risks to childhood development from masking are
| serious people making serious arguments:
| https://healthpolicy.usc.edu/article/mandatory-masking-
| of-sc...
|
| This is as an article by medical professors at USC and
| Stanford:
|
| > At the same time, the long-term harm to kids from
| masking is potentially enormous. Masking is a
| psychological stressor for children and disrupts
| learning. Covering the lower half of the face of both
| teacher and pupil reduces the ability to communicate. In
| particular, children lose the experience of mimicking
| expressions, an essential tool of nonverbal
| communication. Positive emotions such as laughing and
| smiling become less recognizable, and negative emotions
| get amplified. Bonding between teachers and students
| takes a hit. Overall, it is likely that masking
| exacerbates the chances that a child will experience
| anxiety and depression, which are already at pandemic
| levels themselves.
|
| I don't know if you have young children, but facial
| expressions are a huge part of communication. My kids are
| constantly looking at my face to for "is this okay"
| signals. Kids learn to look at facial expressions of
| peers to understand what they're thinking and feeling.
| There's just tons and tons of research on this.
|
| Masks for kids isn't like masks for adults, where you can
| say "well even if they don't work there's no harm." What
| we don't have is research showing that wearing masks has
| persistent negative effects on kids, but based on what we
| do know that's a real possible harm that has to be
| weighed against the possible benefits of masking.
| rcpt wrote:
| > My kids are constantly looking at my face to for "is
| this okay" signals
|
| Nobody's expecting you to wear masks at home.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| Whats your point, that doesn't invalidate the argument at
| all.
| timmytokyo wrote:
| The article discusses a few of the potential harms to
| young children. At that age, children are learning how to
| read social cues, and they do that by observing faces. An
| indefinite mask mandate that lasts for years could have
| developmental consequences for these children.
| Godel_unicode wrote:
| One possible harm I've seen postulated is moral
| licensing, i.e. wearing a mask makes people feel safer
| and thus makes them more willing to be indoors in close
| proximity for longer.
|
| A counter-argument says that wearing a physical thing can
| act as a constant reminder of covid, causing people to
| act more responsibly.
|
| Back on the harms side again, there's a possibility that
| teaching kids "just do this and don't ask questions" can
| have negative consequences. Again, the counter argument
| of letting them ask questions and carefully explaining
| what we do and don't know can be a positive.
| ummwhat wrote:
| >Back on the harms side again, there's a possibility that
| teaching kids "just do this and don't ask questions" can
| have negative consequences.
|
| Don't worry. The schools teach that with or without
| masks.
| simonw wrote:
| I wonder if there has been research that attempts to
| answer the question of whether masks encourage less safe
| or more safe behaviour - it feels to me like something
| that would respond well to a well designed study.
| BoxOfRain wrote:
| Anecdotally speaking, in my corner of England social
| distancing went out of the window shortly after masks
| were mandated in shops.
| nerdponx wrote:
| In addition, several of the "masks don't work" studies I
| saw had to do with people touching or messing with their
| masks undoing any benefits of actually wearing a mask.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| A year of a kids life is an eternity for them. Two is
| forever! You are stealing their childhood away from them
| to protect who, exactly? What is even the point of
| masking them.
|
| Teachers have been vaccinated. Parents have been
| vaccinated. Kids aren't at risk. Why this obsession with
| reducing cases if we took the sting out of covid?
|
| Kids need to be children. They aren't human shields for
| adults. Adults are expect to sacrifice for kids, not the
| other way around. Kids deserve their one and only
| childhood. They don't deserve to be treated like disease
| vectors that need to be muzzled to make frightened
| parents and educators feel safe. Double so when all those
| adults can get a free, highly effective vaccine.
|
| Making them mandatory is even worse. The state has no
| right to force my kid to wear a mask at school in order
| to have an education. Parents should be making that call
| for their own kid.
| peder wrote:
| Exactly right. The parent poster you replied to is
| another in the long list of people that flippantly
| disregard the harms of masking. Good luck dealing with a
| generation that has developed unhealthy phobias and has
| severe emotional attachment issues that's also unequipped
| to enter college.
| tehjoker wrote:
| Delta infects and kills kids. PICUs are getting full in
| some areas.
| amatecha wrote:
| As a former kid (lol), I can't say having to wear a mask
| would have had any adverse effect on my school
| experience. It sucked anyways. I hated being there and
| hated wasting my life every day being shown material that
| was of zero benefit to me, and being treated like crap by
| people who don't even know me.
|
| Honestly back then I would have felt the same thing that
| I do now: that I am happy to wear a mask so I and/or my
| parents/grandparents or other people around me don't die
| of a completely preventable virus, and that people who
| refuse to wear masks are idiots for not doing the most
| simple, effortless thing to help prevent the needless
| spread of the virus.
|
| Wearing a mask doesn't steal anyone's childhood. Does
| wearing glasses steal your childhood? How about braces?
| We do A LOT of uncomfortable things in our life for our
| health and future. Wearing a mask is one of those things,
| due to the ongoing pandemic.
|
| I mean, added bonus, I haven't had a single cold or flu
| or anything like that in over a year and a half. I'm
| guessing you (and anyone reading this) can probably say
| the same, if you strictly masked up, used hand sanitizer,
| etc. Yeah I've been sick for other reasons, but not a
| single time have I been sick from something transmitted
| by another person. First time in my decades of life that
| I've gone this long without any transmissible illness.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| Honestly, all of your stuff sounds like rationalization.
| Rationalizing putting masks on kids despite there being
| little evidence they work, are something society wants,
| and won't have any negative impact on kids. Don't forget,
| kids have agency. Has anybody asked them what they want?
|
| And it isn't my job to provide proof or data. I'm the
| critic. I'm the one that wants things to operate as
| normal. All the burden of proof is upon those who wish to
| force my child to wear a mask her entire school day 5
| days a week. Thus far, all I hear is "OMG CASES", "kids
| are resilient", and a bunch of weak rationalizations.
| Nobody has made a case who or what we are protecting.
| Nobody has provided an end game. Nobody has proven it
| won't harm kids. Nobody has even asked kids. It's
| disgusting, really.
| jackson1442 wrote:
| Aren't we protecting our health systems? Mississippi is
| out of ICU beds[0]. As in, if you are in critical
| condition for ANY REASON, you're just out of luck. Kids
| are gross. They're going to spread disease. Why not take
| a (relatively simple) precaution that can save lives,
| including people who didn't even catch COVID.
|
| It's like how I look both ways before turning onto or
| crossing a one-way. Sure, it probably doesn't help much,
| but there's a chance that it could save my life and
| another driver's.
|
| [0]: https://msdh.ms.gov/msdhsite/_static/14,21994,420,87
| 3.html
| spookthesunset wrote:
| From everything I've read Mississippi is out of ICU beds
| because they test everybody for covid and if you are
| covid positive, regardless of symptoms, you get the
| "covid protocol" treatment. Said protocol adds
| significant overhead to everything. Perhaps they should
| revisit testing every individual for covid or maybe stop
| freaking out over every positive case.
|
| Also, they had 1.6 years to build infrastructure to deal
| with this. That was the entire damn point of this in the
| first place. "Flatten the curve for two weeks to make
| sure healthcare systems can handle the load" There is
| literally zero excuse for society to suffer because no
| capacity was added. Zero.
|
| You cannot even blame staffing shortages... they could
| have thrown truckloads of money at doctors and nurses to
| get them onboard. It would have still been cheaper and
| more effective than the nonsense we are doing now.
|
| In short, yeah it sucks hospitals might be "full" but
| that ain't societies fault and we shouldn't be punished
| for it.
| pettusftw wrote:
| Judging by your stance across this thread I doubt it will
| matter, but I'll share it anyway for the readers. Take it
| for whatever you think it's worth.
|
| My anecdotal experience via my SO who is an ICU nurse is
| that what you've read is not accurate. In the ICU I'm
| familiar with they do not have fewer beds available due
| to the covid protocols. The protocols do make their job
| more difficult and time consuming, but they have more
| beds than ever. Still, they're at capacity across our
| state due to an extreme influx of severe covid cases
| since delta made its way here over the past 6 weeks.
| Previous to that this particular ICU was ~20% covid, 60%
| capacity. Now it is ~90% covid, 110% capacity. This is
| not just because they tested positive - these are people
| on various levels of oxygen. They are intubating covid
| patients in the ER because there's no room anywhere else.
|
| I'm in arguably the reddest state in the US where most
| people share your views. I'm not sure how you can say
| apathy toward spreading a contagious virus is not
| societies "fault".
|
| PS: they are throwing truckloads of money at doctors and
| nurses, luckily for us.
| nostrademons wrote:
| "You are stealing their childhood away"
|
| Stealing their childhood away, really? It's an article of
| clothing. My kid objects to wearing pants a whole lot
| more than he objects to wearing a mask. He still needs to
| wear pants.
|
| Come to think of it, maybe that's why this is such a huge
| deal. People have come to think of clothing as a marker
| of your tribe, and not wearing the expected clothing as
| social deviancy. That's why wearing a hajib is so
| triggering for so many Americans, or why guys wearing
| skirts is an affront against nature (but strangely not in
| Scotland!), or why folks get killed over wearing gang
| colors, or why I desperately wanted a denim jacket when I
| was in 1st grade in the 80s.
|
| And if that's the case, sure, you can have your tribe and
| I'll have mine, and my kid will wear a mask because
| that's what the people around him do, and yours won't
| because that's what the people around _her_ do, and then
| maybe my tribe will still have ICU units available and
| yours won 't. Okay. But I can assure you that kids in
| Singapore or Taiwan or now California, where mask-wearing
| is just accepted, grow up just fine.
| [deleted]
| h3cate wrote:
| I never considered this argument. Glad this comment
| thread hasn't descended into silly name calling and
| people are actually putting their arguments forwards
| nerdponx wrote:
| It's a surgical mask, not a ball and chain.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| You are forcing children, who are entirely dependent upon
| the judgment of adults, to wear a mask every day of
| school--indefinitely. That is a pretty big ask.
| Especially with almost no proof that it is required,
| works, and doesn't harm children.
| orf wrote:
| What's the difference between that and asking them to
| wear a uniform?
| simonw wrote:
| "Teachers have been vaccinated. Parents have been
| vaccinated."
|
| I really wish that was true! Sadly in the USA the amount
| of "vaccine hesitancy" remains unbelievably high.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| Who cares? If you and your loved ones are vaccinated
| y'all are good to go.
|
| As the article this discussion is about... covid is here
| forever. Time to accept it and move the hell on.
| EForEndeavour wrote:
| > Who cares? If you and your loved ones are vaccinated
| y'all are good to go.
|
| The effects of COVID complications aren't somehow
| magically isolated to the patient. Good luck to anyone
| who's young, healthy, and COVID-vaccinated, but has a
| bike or car accident, gives birth in a hospital, falls
| down some stairs, or otherwise requires inpatient care.
|
| Remember the endlessly repeated mantra to "flatten the
| curve" from circa March 2020? The "curve" refers to ICU
| occupancy. Max that out and suddenly the effects of COVID
| spill beyond just sickening and killing its direct
| victims to complicating your health system.
| jstanley wrote:
| I thought we already flattened the curve. In March 2020.
| So why aren't we back to normal now?
| simonw wrote:
| I care.
|
| I'm vaccinated. I can still catch it - I'm much more
| unlikely to end up in hospital, but it's still an
| unpleasant illness to have, with a small chance of long-
| term complications that are not at all well understood.
|
| And if I do catch it I can still spread it to others, who
| may not be vaccinated.
|
| I very much care about not killing someone else by
| spreading Covid to them, even if they deliberately chose
| not to get the vaccine. I'm furious with them (and with
| the information sources they consumed that lead them to
| that decision) but I absolutely don't want to contribute
| to their suffering or death.
| peder wrote:
| >I can still catch it
|
| Yes, you can still catch it regardless what we do with
| NPIs. Stop living in fear.
| umvi wrote:
| I advise you don't go into forests to enjoy nature, there
| is a small chance you'll get bitten by a tick and
| contract chronic lyme disease which happened to my
| brother in law. It could happen to you too, there's a
| chance. Better not risk it.
| h3cate wrote:
| I hate to be blunt but sometimes life is unpleasant, even
| more so now. Do you think that it's fair to demand people
| change their way of living because you don't want an
| unpleasant illness? I think it's unpleasant when people
| eat seafood (I don't like the smell) but I don't demand
| everybody stop eating seafood.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| You do you. Just don't force society to continue doing
| any of this, that's all I ask. It's time to move on.
| FiberBundle wrote:
| It's obviously perfectly fine for you to feel that way
| about Covid, but in my opinion the correct thing for you
| to do would be to isolate yourself and try to minimize
| the chance of being infected instead of wanting further
| damaging restrictions to be forced on other people (I
| don't mean relatively non-intrusive measures such as mask
| wearing, but any form of lockdowns).
| jstanley wrote:
| Let me try and follow your logic here.
|
| You say the vaccine doesn't stop you from catching or
| spreading the virus, it just stops you from getting as
| badly sick. If that's the case then why do you care
| whether others are vaccinated or not? If it doesn't
| change the chances of them passing it on to you, and just
| changes how sick they'll get, then surely it doesn't make
| any difference to you?
| detaro wrote:
| > _If it doesn 't change the chances of them passing it
| on to you_
|
| Where are they saying that?
| chlodwig wrote:
| _If it turns out that they weren 't useful, what harm has
| been caused?_
|
| Socializing in masks is massively inferior. It sucks
| talking to other people and not being able to read facial
| expressions or to see smiles. Right now American health
| officials are asking children to an spend the majority of
| their waking hours for an entire year of their lives (or
| more??) around friends and teachers without that
| essential human experience of _seeing smiles_. That is
| harm in an of itself. Even if the kids bounce back, and
| you can 't find a developmental difference in any
| statistic, that year of their life, a year they will
| never get back, will still have been a year of being
| deprived of essential human connection.
| pyronik19 wrote:
| Because I don't want to is a perfectly acceptable reason
| to say no. "Muh Freedoms" is all the argument you need.
| pengaru wrote:
| > If it turns out that they weren't useful, what harm has
| been caused?
|
| If masks are ineffective, wearing them amounts to
| theatrics/fiction.
|
| If that fiction creates a false sense of safety, it can
| encourage people to take risks like interacting in closer
| proximity than they would otherwise.
|
| I have no knowledge or expertise on if masks are
| effective nor have any children, this is just an
| observation of what seems like an obvious potential harm.
| sk2020 wrote:
| For the same reasons, I think that lucky rabbit's feet
| should be mandatory. Also, horoscopes should be consulted
| prior to attending schools. If you can think of anything
| else that didn't work for this or any other illnesses in
| history, then I think that you should demand schools make
| them mandatory, just in case.
| epmaybe wrote:
| Would note that the report found 21% reduced risk of
| infection in required mask use for students vs optional.
| Not considered statistically significant because the
| confidence interval included 1.0. (CI was 0.50 - 1.08)
|
| One could argue that an increased sample size would yield
| a statistically significant result, and on the flip side
| another could argue that the effect size would be minimal
| if you need a larger sample size.
|
| The rebuke, of course, is that even one extra case could
| kill a loved one that the kid would spread disease on to.
|
| Personally, perhaps reframing the argument that one
| should wear a mask at school so that they shouldn't have
| to wear one at home would be a more compelling argument,
| but I suspect many would disagree..
| edejong wrote:
| The author of the article doesn't understand science:
|
| "Distancing, hybrid models, classroom barriers, HEPA
| filters, and, most notably, requiring student masking
| were each found to not have a statistically significant
| benefit. In other words, these measures could not be said
| to be effective."
|
| No! If you cannot find a statistically significant
| benefit, perhaps your experiment design is flawed.
| Perhaps your sample size is too small. Perhaps you have
| too many confounders. But you cannot conclude the
| measures are not effective!
|
| It gets better! Read the article. It says:
|
| "COVID-19 incidence was 37% lower in schools that
| required teachers and staff members to use masks and 39%
| lower in schools that improved ventilation. Ventilation
| strategies associated with lower school incidence
| included dilution methods alone (35% lower incidence) or
| in combination with filtration methods (48% lower
| incidence)."
|
| In other words, the study actually found many significant
| interventions in schools, among which masks. Unbelievably
| bad reporting from Intelligencer.
| JeremyNT wrote:
| Notable is that the article is referring to a pre-delta
| study of _elementary_ aged school children (elementary
| school normally caps out at around age 11 in the US).
| Young kids have long been known to be less prone to
| infection, less prone to suffering ill effects from
| infection, and less prone to spread the disease. Delta
| doesn 't really change much of that, they are not the
| primary victims nor spreaders.
|
| It's the older kids (who could have received the vaccine
| but opted out) who will have more "adult-like" patterns
| of transmission and should be more of a concern (not for
| their own health, really, but they might infect their
| elderly or infirmed unvaccinated relatives). One would
| expect masking to help prevent spread from these people.
|
| But of course... these kids and their families likely
| already self-select and associate closesly with other
| anti-vaxers outside of school to begin with, so school
| seems like the least of their worries. At a certain point
| you kind of have to ask whether it's worth trying to
| protect people from themselves.
| grimjack00 wrote:
| > Delta doesn't really change much of that, they are not
| the primary victims nor spreaders. And yet, in some parts
| of the US, government guidance requires masks from age 2.
| JeremyNT wrote:
| My own suspicion is that it does probably help on the
| margins with young kids and delta, but we obviously don't
| have data on it yet. On paper, erring on the side of
| caution is desirable even if it proves needless
| eventually, since there's no direct health downside.
|
| Unfortunately, since this is also a political issue,
| erring on the side of caution with mask requirements and
| being wrong generates more mistrust amongst the older
| people who have opted out of the vaccine (i.e. those
| already distrustful of the CDC and at risk of serious
| illness just have one more reason to dig in and ignore
| the advice to get vaccinated).
|
| It's possible that such mask mandates for young children
| may prove harmful because they further entrench anti-vax
| sentiment (even if is ultimately proven that they have
| marginal benefits in reducing spread).
|
| This is a fascinating and complicated issue indeed...
| spookthesunset wrote:
| > On paper, erring on the side of caution is desirable
| even if it proves needless eventually, since there's no
| direct health downside.
|
| Being treated like a toxic disease vector for two years
| surely has direct health downsides. Not learning to read
| faces surely has direct health downsides. Breathing god
| knows what those masks are made of every day surely has
| health downsides.
|
| And it isn't even my job to prove any of that. People
| that want to force kids to wear masks at school need to
| prove those aren't something to worry about. They can't
| just shrug they crap off and say "yeah well covid". We
| are well beyond being able to simply use covid as an
| excuse to enact some restriction. Prove kids need masks
| and prove they won't suffer long or even short term
| effects from wearing masks all day. Then and only then
| can you even dream of forcing kids to wear masks.
| darkerside wrote:
| My understanding is that Delta is being spread more
| easily by children of school age
| rayiner wrote:
| Right, but the CDC guidance recommends masking
| elementary-age children (2+). We'd be having a different
| conversation if the CDC guidance was 12+ like several
| European countries.
| op00to wrote:
| Delta actually changes that.
|
| https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theatlantic.com/amp/arti
| cle...
| Aeolun wrote:
| If they're spending the whole day in a classroom together
| the effect of masks is going to be minimal.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Masks is too broad of a term as being used. There are
| OSHA environments where proper N95-type masks can protect
| you from aerosol risks for 8 hours a day.
|
| The likelihood that a cloth mask can do that in a
| classroom however...
|
| Best mitigator would be good HEPA room air purifiers,
| ideally multiple per classroom.
| handrous wrote:
| > Best mitigator would be good HEPA room air purifiers,
| ideally multiple per classroom.
|
| They can be too loud to run while class is in session,
| especially if they move enough air to be worth a damn.
| Double-especially if you're also masked (so speaking is
| already a bit muffled).
| tehjoker wrote:
| Why don't we shift classes to be outside and swap summer
| and winter for now?
| patentatt wrote:
| I've got a couple of Coway HEPA purifiers, and they can
| be quiet enough for a classroom. At low speeds, the
| closest to inaudible that I've ever heard, and at higher
| speeds a very even and tolerable white/brown noise.
| handrous wrote:
| I'm sure some that are good-enough and not loud exist,
| and some classrooms probably have them, but I can also
| say for a fact that some schools that have managed to get
| ahold of good purifiers for every classroom haven't also
| managed to get ahold of _quiet_ good purifiers, which is
| why those schools only run them part of the time. It 's
| another hurdle to the solution of "just filter the air",
| which isn't _per se_ a bad idea--but, whoever 's
| procuring them must think to look into the noise when
| choosing which to buy, must have the budget to buy quiet
| ones that move as much air as appropriately-effective
| louder models (I assume there's a cost premium for "quiet
| and _also_ effective "), and if someone's _already_
| bought purifiers and they 're too loud, you're out of
| luck on getting anyone to pony up cash for a second set
| of (maybe even more expensive) purifiers.
| cpuguy83 wrote:
| We seem to be forgetting something here: the aerosols we
| are protecting from are from other peoples nose and
| mouth, which are covered by a cloth mask which vastly
| reduces how much makes it into the air.
|
| There is no "best" here, mitigations all mitigate
| different things and work together to provide a safer
| environment.
| GeekyBear wrote:
| Here's one of the scientists on President Biden's Covid
| advisory council being interviewed on PBS.
|
| TLDR: To get the sort of protection people imagine that
| cloth masks provide, you would need to be wearing an n95
| mask, tightly fitted to your face so no air leaks in
| through the sides.
|
| https://www.pbs.org/wnet/amanpour-and-company/video/do-
| masks...
| stetrain wrote:
| But what's the actual effectiveness of most people
| wearing their normal cloth masks?
|
| It doesn't have to personally protect you at high
| effectiveness from getting infected to reduce spread at a
| population level.
|
| Even a 50% reduction in spread is huge in a population.
| Maybe we aren't getting that with masks, but it's not a
| binary "you are protected"/"you are not protected"
| problem.
| GeekyBear wrote:
| From the interview:
|
| >Needless to say, masking is political hot button beyond
| anything I've ever seen in public health.
|
| At the same time i think we've all done a disservice to
| the public.
|
| When you actually look at face cloth coverings, they
| actually only have very limited impact in reducing the
| amount of virus that you inhale in or exhale out.
|
| Studies that have been done show that if an individual
| might get infected within 15 minutes in a room, by time
| and concentration of the virus in the room, add a face
| cloth covering you only get about five more minutes of
| protection.
|
| I've been really disappointed with my colleagues in
| public health for not being more clear about what can
| masking can do or not do.
|
| On the other hand if you use the n95 respirators and fit
| them tight to your face, you can actually spend 25 hours
| in that same room and still be protected.
|
| The bottom line though is by telling people that in fact
| just putting a face cloth covering on is going to protect
| you is simply not true.
|
| https://www.pbs.org/wnet/amanpour-and-company/video/do-
| masks...
|
| Cloth masks are nowhere near good enough protection to
| allow children too young to be vaccinated to return to
| school.
| stetrain wrote:
| I agree.
|
| I'm just asking if we have info on population spread
| effects for masks / no masks.
|
| "Masks won't protect you" isn't an answer to that
| question. I don't wear a mask when requested by local
| guidelines or businesses as some kind of guarantee that I
| don't get COVID.
|
| And yes, having kids not all go to school and then return
| to their families on a daily basis would probably have a
| much bigger affect on community spread. But if we can't
| get political will for masks or vaccinations then I don't
| know where we're going to find it for another round of
| kids staying home.
| GeekyBear wrote:
| > Masks won't protect you" isn't an answer to that
| question.
|
| The answer to the question is that cloth masks are
| effective against viruses with a droplet based spread,
| but not against a fully airborne virus.
|
| Note that cloth masks almost completely did away with
| last year's Flu season, while we were right in the middle
| of a huge Covid surge.
| chlodwig wrote:
| _Even a 50% reduction in spread is huge in a population.
| Maybe we aren 't getting that with masks, but it's not a
| binary "you are protected"/"you are not protected"
| problem. _
|
| A 50% reduction and we still all get covid. It is
| actually binary -- either we have a realistic and
| obtainable plan for zero-covid (which we do not) or
| everyone gets exposed to covid eventually.
|
| A 50% reduction in spread might be helpful in certain
| areas where the hospitals are on the verge of being
| overwhelmed (in which case just close the schools for a
| few weeks), but in the United States there are a lot of
| mask mandates in schools being pushed in areas where the
| hospitals are not under any significant pressure. That is
| nonsense.
| stetrain wrote:
| One issue is that with exponential curves it's often
| difficult to make these big policy changes as local
| conditions change.
|
| Sure in an ideal world as soon as hospitalizations or
| case rates went above some metric we'd introduce stricter
| local procedures, hopefully fast enough that the wave of
| hospitalizations 1-2 weeks later isn't too bad.
|
| But so far it seems like we're too slow on that. Things
| get bad, _then_ we start changing our behavior. Time
| matters and it 's not binary. That's been the whole
| principle of managing this thing in the US at the
| beginning. If you let the spike get too big too quickly
| then it gets bad before we can take corrective action.
|
| And how would we even manage changing these guidelines on
| a week-by-week basis in every zip code? How do you even
| disseminate that information to all businesses, citizens,
| parents?
|
| Of course I don't think all restrictions make sense in
| all places, nor do I want them to go on forever.
| Vaccinations for a large majority of eligible individuals
| would go a long way to reducing spread and
| hospitalization load.
|
| In theory we are trying to bide time until we get there
| (manageable COVID, not zero COVID) but in the US at least
| we're not heading towards "large majority" very quickly,
| and we are still having those exponential local spikes.
| NationalPark wrote:
| That's simply not what the research has found.
|
| Edit: Allow me to clarify - the research everyone is
| citing that says masking is effective in teachers and
| ineffective in students (the 37% number) predates both
| the delta variant and widespread infection in Southern
| states. Further, masking is understood etiologically as a
| prevention method and has been used successfully in other
| outbreaks and in other countries. Clinicians and policy
| makers as a rule work with incomplete data in an emerging
| situation, so unequivocally stating that masking kids in
| schools doesn't help is a very bad misrepresentation of
| both the data/research and the implications to policy.
| AndrewBissell wrote:
| Here's an NPR article discussing a CDC study which found
| no statistically significant impact from kids wearing
| masks in school:
| https://www.npr.org/2021/05/21/999106426/schools-are-
| droppin...
|
| Key paragraph: _Between Nov. 16 and Dec. 11, researchers
| found that infection rates were 37% lower in schools
| where teachers and staff members were required to wear
| masks. The difference between schools that did and did
| not require students to wear masks was not statistically
| significant._
|
| A good recent article in NY Mag also discussing this
| issue, including the fact that the _World Health
| Organization_ recommends against masking kids under six:
| https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/08/the-science-of-
| maski...
|
| Many countries in Europe have decided against masking for
| any students in K-12 schools because it is unclear that
| the harms outweigh the benefits. The idea there is some
| "simple" scientific & research consensus on this is
| wrong.
| only_as_i_fall wrote:
| Can you provide a source?
|
| My understanding was that masks were primarily effective
| at preventing high viral load droplets from spreading the
| virus during short interactions.
|
| I don't have any source to prove that to be the case
| because data on the effectiveness of masks seems
| frustratingly sparse.
| gzer0 wrote:
| When a novel situation presents itself, sometimes we do
| not have all of data we would like and clinicians have to
| make judgement calls to the best of their knowledge.
|
| We may not have trials or studies (these things take
| time) to back a very certain and/or specific claim such
| as "do masks prevent the spread of Covid 19?" What we do
| have, is fundamental knowledge and common sense and so
| typically, in a clinical setting we ask these questions
| when any new situation arises (as it happens often in
| medicine):
|
| - Does this reccomendation cause more harm than good?
|
| - is there even a slight chance that this clinical
| decision would increase the percentage chance of
| survival?
|
| - is it worth the inconvenience it could cause?
|
| This is called Clinical Reasoning. Thinking critically
| and clinically is a core tenet of the field.
| only_as_i_fall wrote:
| I don't disagree with anything you said, and I'm
| certainlynot an anti-masker, but was skeptical of the
| parent claim which seems to be
|
| "Research shoes masks are still effective even when
| spending the whole day in the same room"
|
| I'm not aware of any evidence that this is the case and I
| worry that people are putting too much stake in masks
| when really social distancing is much more effective than
| masks ever will be.
| [deleted]
| AdamN wrote:
| Keep in mind the initial dose is highly relevant to the
| impact of the virus in your body. There's a big
| difference between getting a single virus, enough to
| cause an infection, and enough to be highly overwhelmed
| before your immune system kicks in.
| nradov wrote:
| There is no real scientific evidence that disease
| severity is correlated with initial viral dose. It's a
| plausible hypothesis but so far due to ethical concerns
| no one has done the human challenge trials that would be
| necessary to settle that issue.
| AdamN wrote:
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8045461/
|
| This is a common attribute of infections and is really
| more of a math issue than anything SARS-specific. The
| bigger the initial dose, the sooner it will get to the
| impact stage, and the less prepared your immune system
| will be at that time.
| heywherelogingo wrote:
| Is there any point spending the day in the classroom with
| reduced oxygen to the brain?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Are you under the impression surgeons in hospitals are
| chronically hypoxic?
| thephyber wrote:
| Do you have any evidence to support your assertion that a
| cloth or N95 style mask reduces oxygen to the brain by
| any measurable amount?
| cpuguy83 wrote:
| Is that from that one Armchair U study?
| dboreham wrote:
| Isn't that the mainstream opinion?
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| The fact this is an unpopular opinion drives me crazy.
| eli wrote:
| Cases are more than doubling every 2 weeks. Hospitalizations
| are up every day.
|
| If the numbers were flat maybe you would have an argument,
| but I strongly disagree that we need to "learn to live" with
| a situation that is rapidly getting worse. I do not want to
| learn to live with full hospitals and oxygen shortages, as is
| currently happening in parts of the US.
| thingification wrote:
| Long COVID exists. Personally, it's always worried me more
| than the risk of death from COVID.
|
| I think people who haven't had a chronic condition (including
| doctors) tend to underestimate the impact they can have on
| your life. Long COVID symptoms may not be "severe" or
| "serious" in a medical coding dictionary, but those terms in
| a medical dictionary are quite distinct from their everyday
| meanings.
|
| The best evidence we have seems to be that somewhere very
| roughly around 20% of people who get infected (vaccinated or
| not) get it -- more if you're older, less if you're younger.
| Experts don't seem to be willing to say much about what
| fraction of those people will have symptoms forever, or to
| what extent (very happy to hear otherwise if somebody knows
| better!).
|
| While case numbers are high again (in the UK) and with the
| more infectious and virulent Delta variant having replaced
| others, it's not totally clear to me that the risks from long
| COVID are even all that much changed since before the
| vaccines.
| [deleted]
| yourapostasy wrote:
| As someone in a cognitive-dominant industry on an industry
| board, I'm baffled why more people aren't discussing long
| COVID-caused brain fog here. The chances of getting long
| COVID once infected are better than 1 in 3,000, the odds of
| a US residential structure fire, an insurable event. If you
| live in the US, then unless you have established gold-
| plated short- and long-term disability insurance, then long
| COVID-caused brain fog for an average HN participant is
| likely a career-altering diagnosis.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| People just aren't generally interested in small but
| severe risks like that. I've seen about as much long
| Covid discussion as I see carpal tunnel discussion.
| thingification wrote:
| Curious why the downvote?
|
| Perhaps because "always worried me more than the risk of
| death"? If so: this is because the evidence always seems to
| have said that the risk of long COVID has been at least an
| order of magnitude higher than the risk of death. Also, if
| you have no dependents, death involves less suffering: in
| the unlikely event it happens, you're out of the picture
| already after a short period of misery. On the other hand,
| chronic illness can come with a lifetime of suffering.
| rossdavidh wrote:
| Yes, but, the reality is that everyone is going to get
| exposed to this virus eventually. Probably not that long
| from now, if you haven't yet. Pretending that evading it
| forever is possible, is not helping people to make wise
| decisions; I think many of the unvaccinated currently
| believe they can evade both the virus and the vaccine (they
| are incorrect). Eventually, long covid or not, we are all
| getting exposed. We should act accordingly.
| thingification wrote:
| One point is that the consequences of getting COVID are
| likely to become less serious over time as prevalence is
| controlled (via better vaccines, we hope, masks etc., if
| we're not fatalistic), better drugs are found.
|
| Another important point is that currently, the risks of
| long COVID seem not at all well understood. "Unknown
| risk" is quite a different thing than "low risk" or "high
| risk". The lengths to which it makes sense for people to
| go to avoid it right now depend on those risks, so lying
| low seems quite sane to me.
|
| A worse problem still is, I think, that "we're all going
| to get it" is a self-fulfilling prophecy: viruses have
| been unconquerable in the recent past, but this is 2021,
| we have incredible understanding of the mechanisms (no,
| not most of the details: they're not all worth knowing)
| that _should_ give us incredible power over them at some
| point in the relatively near future (as in the next few
| decades). If the next few decades, why not the next few
| years? If we believe it 's "inevitable", we'll make it
| so. (not to mention abandoning effective measures like
| masks)
| orhmeh09 wrote:
| Speak for yourself or get on respirator crew.
| gunshai wrote:
| Why is this unpopular.
| Miner49er wrote:
| Maybe because the vaccines are looking like they aren't
| going to be be as effective as they were originally made
| out to be, but I still think we need to return to normal at
| some point.
| tootie wrote:
| They are as effective as we thought they were. Delta is
| just more virulent than previous strains and we're at
| barely 50% vaccination rate. We're still waiting on safe
| doses for children and the millions of stubborn people
| who think public health is a personal decision.
| [deleted]
| h3cate wrote:
| Post it on twitter/reddit and see what response you get
| bin_bash wrote:
| Well that's the case expressing any kind of opinion about
| COVID
| h3cate wrote:
| Unfortunately
| lp0_on_fire wrote:
| Because there is a non-insignificant portion of the
| population that is thriving off corona hysteria.
| SamPatt wrote:
| And a not insignificant proportion of politicians more
| than happy to take advantage of the fear and expand their
| power.
| lp0_on_fire wrote:
| Tale as old as time.
|
| I'd say I'm disappointed and surprised that more people
| aren't concerned about it but there's a reason it's a
| historical trope.
| xunn0026 wrote:
| > more people aren't concerned about it
|
| I think a lot of people are concerned about it. And I'd
| further say for a segment of population this also
| triggers vaccine hesitancy.
| lijogdfljk wrote:
| Also because of how terrible hospitals are in many
| places. Wait times insane, staff overworked, etc.
|
| I'm vaccinated but quite fearful of anything which puts
| me in needing medical attention. The unvaccinated are a
| burden i'm tired of supporting.
| outside1234 wrote:
| I don't think that's unpopular. More precisely, once the
| vaccine is available to all age groups, the only people that
| need to be scared of it are the unvaccinated.
|
| And they will have had every opportunity to get vaccinated,
| so we shouldn't optimize for them.
| h3cate wrote:
| Why do you need to be scared of the unvaccinated?
| pasquinelli wrote:
| i think they're saying only the unvaccinated need to be
| afraid.
| h3cate wrote:
| Ohh I see. Is that a warning or a threat? :D
| outside1234 wrote:
| Its a reality. If you not vaccinated, you will get COVID,
| and you could die or end up with Long COVID for 12 months
| -- and we will not feel sorry for you or shutdown.
| h3cate wrote:
| You're stating that as if it is fact when you know it is
| not. I don't think we should shutdown for unvaccinated
| and I have never said we should. I also don't think we
| should shutdown for those who are "at risk" but
| vaccinated.
| greyivy wrote:
| Not the immunocompromised or those who are legitimately
| unable to get vaccinated? Not a very nuanced take.
| mwint wrote:
| What can we do for those people, assuming forever-
| lockdowns aren't an option?
| [deleted]
| jjoonathan wrote:
| Pressure those who choose to go unvaccinated for
| misguided "personal freedom" reasons to reconsider their
| choices.
| pc86 wrote:
| How's that been working out so far?
|
| At some point life returns to normal.
| SamPatt wrote:
| The article explains why a vaccination is not a long term
| guarantee you will not get and or spread this new flu.
| erhk wrote:
| Yes, and parachutes do not prevent airplanes from
| crashing.
|
| Brushing your teeth doesnt guarantee you will have no
| cavities.
|
| Radiation doesnt guarantee you will be cancer free.
|
| At no point did the vaccine promise full immunity.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| "It's not a perfect solution so we might as well do
| nothing instead!"
|
| Come on. Getting vaccinated has more than enough utility
| for you and for others to make it a good choice on either
| principle alone.
| camjohnson26 wrote:
| Wearing a helmet on an airplane isn't a perfect solution
| to airplanes crashing but it could potentially save your
| life, but we seem fine with the risk trade off of not
| wearing one. No decisions we make about responding to
| COVID will be risk free, the question is which trade offs
| we should accept. No matter how much pressure is put on
| the unvaccinated some people will refuse to get it, and
| unless you're suggesting administering it by force
| eventually that tactic will meet diminishing returns.
| shkkmo wrote:
| You picked the wrong example. Helmets will do very little
| to reduce fatalities from air travel simply because the
| mechanics of how those fatalities occure.
|
| Wearing a helmet while driving a car, however, has a
| pretty good chance of reduxing injuries and fatalities
| (probably even better than wearing a helmet when riding a
| bike on a seperated bike path.)
|
| I don't think this is really a question of people
| analyzing the trade-offs. This how to do with how the
| risks and the activity are percieved, people are
| generally really at accurately assessing such risks.
| ineedasername wrote:
| The article also explains about the significant risk
| reduction for getting & passing it on, so I think the
| point still stands.
| erhk wrote:
| Have ICU beds ready to accommodate them and not have them
| filled with unneccesary cases from unvaccinated
| individuals that have chosen freely to be unvaccinated.
|
| But in my callousness I would simply illegalize treating
| people that are anti-vaccine.
| h3cate wrote:
| Is any country with high vaccination numbers struggling
| for ICU beds at the minute?
| base698 wrote:
| We should do this with people who are obese and ride
| motorcycles as well. Given obese take up hundreds of
| thousands of beds a year.
| orthoxerox wrote:
| > But in my callousness I would simply illegalize
| treating people that are anti-vaccine.
|
| What about not treating lung cancer in smokers? Or
| diabetes in morbidly obese?
| outside1234 wrote:
| There are very few people who can legitimately not get
| vaccinated for science reasons.
|
| The immunocompromised will have accelerated shots etc.
|
| More generally, we can't solve for the 0.5%, we have to
| solve for the 98%.
| h3cate wrote:
| What would you have us do instead? The elderly are
| severely at risk from the flu but we don't have winter
| lockdowns for them?
| Cd00d wrote:
| I'm not totally sure what point you're making, but we
| _do_ strongly recommend the flu vaccine for people
| interacting with the elderly.
| h3cate wrote:
| Yes we do. But do we have yearly winter lockdowns to
| protect the vulnerable from flu?
| ineedasername wrote:
| Then those people should be at least as scared of the
| unvaccinated as COVID itself. That will be their primary
| infection vector.
| h3cate wrote:
| You still spread covid whether you are vaccinated or not
| ineedasername wrote:
| Sure, there's just many fewer vaccinated people getting
| infected, so many fewer spreading it. And when they do
| get infected, they are infectious to others for
| significantly less time.
|
| Either way, you're still less of a risk to your own
| health and the health of other people if you get
| vaccinated.
|
| You seem to be trying to make a black & white argument:
| The vaccine isn't 100% effective, and therefore isn't
| necessary/people shouldn't feel obligated/it doesn't
| reduce risk/or something like that. But it doesn't have
| to be perfect in order for it to be much much much much
| much much much much much much better _than nothing_
| logicalmonster wrote:
| > Either way, you're still less of a risk to your own
| health and the health of other people if you get
| vaccinated.
|
| Both potential short and long-term side effects of the
| vaccines put aside for a moment and how important things
| like fertility and reproduction cannot have been
| adequately tested yet, I think the comment about risking
| others' health is completely backwards once you think
| through the logic of it. If my reasoning is in any way
| illogical, please clarify for me how you think it is
| wrong.
|
| If the vaccines are reducing symptoms to the point that
| the vaccinated might not quickly realize that they're
| Covid carriers and are still going about their days,
| wouldn't they be more likely to encounter and put at risk
| more people than the unvaccinated who know that they're
| sick and far more likely to stay at home and isolate?
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I agree. Once my kids can get jabbed, I will cease giving
| covid much thought. I don't want to get a breakthrough
| case, even if it's not dangerous, because I loathe being
| ill, but getting sick periodically is an unfortunate fact
| of life.
| erhk wrote:
| Depending on the age of your children you can mostly
| cease giving it thought already.
|
| https://www.aap.org/en/pages/2019-novel-coronavirus-
| covid-19...
|
| Barring unusual preconditions
| ryantgtg wrote:
| > there is an urgent need to collect more data on longer-
| term impacts of the pandemic on children, including ways
| the virus may harm the long-term physical health of
| infected children, as well as its emotional and mental
| health effects.
|
| Thanks, but I'll still be thinking about it.
| deelowe wrote:
| Data for Delta is still coming in, right? I thought there
| are concerns about it causing more complications in
| children than previous variants.
| fidesomnes wrote:
| the vaccinated still spread it. side effects of the
| vaccine are increasing at an alarming rate. it's a
| bioweapon and you would be wise to challenge your
| assumptions.
| OJFord wrote:
| Vaccine efficacy isn't 100% though. People can (and are)
| getting infected even after (enough time has passed but not
| so long they'd be due a booster since) being vaccinated.
| tomp wrote:
| I wish this was true. Most Europe is still under various
| lockdown restrictions, even though in a lot of countries,
| there's been enough vaccine for everyone (who wanted) to
| get vaccinated by now.
| sgc wrote:
| Children under 12 are a major group that drop vaccination
| percentages down significantly everywhere. The hope is
| that once this age group can also be vaccinated, we can
| find the new normal and let people individually hedge
| their own bets.
| h3cate wrote:
| Why vaccinate children under 12? The only good reason I
| can see is if they have some sort of known health
| condition. Is there any other reasons why you would do
| this?
| danans wrote:
| The same reason to vaccinate everyone else: to minimize
| the opportunity for a more virulent strain to emerge -
| one against which current vaccines are ineffective.
| SuoDuanDao wrote:
| Given that viruses respond to evolutionary pressure such
| as vaccines, this seems like a strange position.
| base698 wrote:
| I think you have that backwards:
|
| https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.newsweek.com/leaky-
| vaccines...
|
| Selection pressures and non sterilizing vaccines are what
| causes more virulent strains to emerge.
| h3cate wrote:
| But covid mutates and replicates in people whether
| they're vaccinated or not?
| robocat wrote:
| Vaccinating the ~50 million kids of the US would make a
| 1% dent in the ~5 billion unvaccinated worldwide.
|
| That won't really make much of a difference in new
| strains emerging.
|
| https://fortune.com/2021/07/14/covid-vaccine-tracker-
| update-...
| xorcist wrote:
| Why not vaccinate kids for every other endemic virus
| under the sun then?
| outside1234 wrote:
| We should if that virus kills people at a high rate like
| COVID!
| spookthesunset wrote:
| Given the flu kills more kids than covid, we should
| probably require them to get that vaccine. Given more
| kids drown than die of covid, we should probably restrict
| their access to water. Given more kids die in fires, we
| should keep them out of structures made of wood. Given
| more die in auto accidents, they shouldn't be allowed in
| cars.
| handrous wrote:
| > > We should if that virus kills _people_ at a high rate
| like COVID!
|
| > Given the flu kills more _kids_ than covid
|
| Emphasis mine.
| h3cate wrote:
| When did adults become so afraid of kids? :D
| [deleted]
| saalweachter wrote:
| ... we do?
| fxtentacle wrote:
| Lower risk of heart muscle infection.
| h3cate wrote:
| This.
| anonymouse008 wrote:
| > the only people that need to be scared of it are the
| unvaccinated
|
| We often overlook those who were previously infected. I
| believe this is a common mistake that makes for inaccurate
| groupings, which negatively affect the common good.
| bialpio wrote:
| Can you elaborate a bit on how they are overlooked? You
| can still get vaccinated after recovering (high-profile
| example: D. Trump), and the recovered that have been
| processed by health care system can for example get the
| same QR code that the vaccinated get in the EU (helps
| with travel I believe).
| anonymouse008 wrote:
| The most prominent example I can offer is when speaking
| about hospitalizations.
|
| Headlines and policy have adopted the narrative that the
| unvaccinated are driving the most severe cases. Those
| previously infected are not acknowledged and could
| significantly overlap with the unvaccinated population.
|
| Those who have previously had an infection with mild to
| no symptoms should be acknlowedged as a third group in
| evaluating public health policies (vaccinated, previously
| infected, and unknown exposure).
| ineedasername wrote:
| _We often overlook those who were previously infected_
|
| What aspect of them are we overlooking, and what is the
| impact on the common good? I know they have some
| resistance, though not as much as if they also got
| vaccinated, so it seems like the original point still
| stands: Unvaccinated should still be scared of it.
| thedevil wrote:
| > not as much as if they also got vaccinated, so it seems
| like the original point still stands
|
| If previously-infected had as much resistance as
| vaccinated, they should not be more scared than the
| vaccinated. Even if they would have more resistance if
| they were also vaccinated.
|
| Did you mean to say that previously-infected have much
| less resistance than the vaccinated? I would very
| grateful for a source on that. I tried to find out
| numbers on that but couldn't find apples-to-apples
| comparison.
| ineedasername wrote:
| _Did you mean to say that previously-infected have much
| less resistance than the vaccinated? I would very
| grateful for a source on that. I tried to find out
| numbers on that but couldn 't find apples-to-apples
| comparison._
|
| I'm saying that the previously infected w/o a vaccination
| are more likely to get reinfected that those who were
| infected and then get vaccinates: about 2.34x as likely.
| Reinfection rates are low [0]
|
| The risk of reinfection if not vaccinates may also be
| higher than the risk for an initial infection if
| vaccinated: Reinfection rates are about 0.31% [1] and as
| high as 0.7% in some populations [2] while infection
| rates among vaccinated are about 0.18% [3]
|
| [0] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7032e1.htm?s
| _cid=mm...
|
| [1] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine
| /fullar...
|
| [2] https://medicine.missouri.edu/news/study-finds-
| covid-19-rein...
|
| [3] https://www.medpagetoday.com/special-
| reports/exclusives/9392...
| sreque wrote:
| The CDC report that 2.3x number is based off of was bogus
| science and it's been debunked repeatedly:
| https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/08/more-
| voodoo-e...
|
| TLDR: The CDC is dishonest and cherry-picks data to meet
| their narrative. Multiple peer-reviewed studies have
| shown natural immunity to work at least as well as
| vaccine immunity for COVID.
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8209951/pdf/
| RMV...
|
| https://www.cell.com/cell-reports-
| medicine/fulltext/S2666-37...
|
| https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S2589-5370(2
| 1)0...
|
| https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2781112
| [deleted]
| da_chicken wrote:
| Previous infection provides relatively short-lived
| natural immunity to COVID-19.
|
| I tested positive the last week of December 2020 (exactly
| three weeks before I was scheduled to get the vaccine,
| which I did also eventually get). When I spoke to the
| county health department, they said they had already seen
| repeat infections. They said immune protection from
| direct exposure only seems to last 3-6 months, which is
| backed up by the fact that the virus had only been in my
| state about 10 months at that point.
|
| Vaccine protection is much more robust.
| krona wrote:
| The vaccine will prime your immunity to one (important)
| protein. Natural infection could prime your immunity to
| up to 29 proteins. I'm not sure 'robustness' right word
| in the context of rapidly evolving variants.
| wang_li wrote:
| According to data from Israel, immunity from having
| gotten the infection is much better at stopping the delta
| variant by a factor of around 7x.
|
| Other research shows that natural immunity is long
| lasting.
|
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03647-4
| shkkmo wrote:
| That's not what that study shows.
| wang_li wrote:
| The link is for the second sentence. To quote from the
| abstract:
|
| > Overall, our results indicate that mild infection with
| SARS-CoV-2 induces robust antigen-specific, long-lived
| humoral immune memory in humans.
|
| As far as the reports from Israel:
|
| > By contrast, Israelis who were vaccinated were 6.72
| times more likely to get infected after the shot than
| after natural infection, with over 3,000 of the
| 5,193,499, or 0.0578%, of Israelis who were vaccinated
| getting infected in the latest wave.
|
| https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/309762
| newbamboo wrote:
| Neither you nor the parent are paying attention to recent
| science. Natural immunity lasts longer than the current
| vaccines. And it's likely the virus will escape the
| current vaccines over a long enough timeline. That's not
| a problem if we can roll out new vaccines quickly enough
| to stay in front of new mutations. But that's an if. This
| is the reason Fauci and others who understand the science
| are focusing on treatments.
| newbamboo wrote:
| Here's the source for my claims. Still preprint but the
| best (only randomized) study to date.
| https://www.ndm.ox.ac.uk/covid-19/covid-19-infection-
| survey/...
| erhk wrote:
| No its not and this kind of speculation is incredibly
| harmful.
|
| Please stop using atomic anecdotes to percieve the world,
| or at least stop propogating them.
| kurthr wrote:
| How do you know it is not more robust?
|
| Almost certainly vaccine immunity is more robust than
| asymptomatic infections (especially those that rely on
| the innate immune response rather than adaptive immune
| response). Asymptomatic infections (especially in the
| young) are extremely common and possibly in the majority
| for those under 30.
| pc86 wrote:
| We know it's not robust because this anecdote of N==1
| directly contradicts peer-reviewed longitudinal studies.
| kurthr wrote:
| Should I assume that you're referring to a JAMA article
| or perhaps one of the Nature publications?
|
| Those only measured patients who suffered acute symptoms.
| Those are unlikely to represent even a bare majority of
| infections although it's quite difficult to get accurate
| data for asymptomatic infections.
|
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03696-9
|
| "only 10% had been hospitalized"
|
| I look forward to your citation of relevant peer-reviewed
| longitudinal studies.
|
| Even more interesting from a medical point of view, what
| mechanism do you propose for developing long term
| immunity, where the innate immune system rapidly controls
| infection?
| sreque wrote:
| https://www.cell.com/cell-reports-
| medicine/fulltext/S2666-37...
|
| "Longitudinal analysis shows durable and broad immune
| memory after SARS-CoV-2 infection with persisting
| antibody responses and memory B and T cells".
|
| Is that good enough for you?
| erhk wrote:
| Your article only suggests that getting vaccinated after
| infection is still better than not getting vaccinated
| after infection.
|
| The point I made was that vaccination is not more robust
| than being infected, or at least dont assume it is
| without solid evidence to support it.
| h3cate wrote:
| Are there any links to studies that say antibodies
| produced from having covid only last 3-6 months?
| AndrewBissell wrote:
| The myopic focus on antibody levels is misplaced. We know
| that for Covid there are much broader forms of immune
| response which are not captured by antibody titers and
| are quite long lasting.
| da_chicken wrote:
| Here's a recent study from this month:
| https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/joim.13372
|
| A quick scan says:
|
| * 13% of those with natural immunity "lost detectable IgG
| titers" after 10 months
|
| * Protection durability from the vaccine is still mostly
| unknown, but appears to be good for 2-3 years
|
| My anecdote is from 8 months ago, so I'm not surprised
| the data has been revised. I got my first dose of the
| vaccine less than a week after I'd recovered, which at
| the time was the recommendation of the CDC and health
| department. Less than three weeks after my first dose,
| they revised that to have people wait six to eight weeks.
| h3cate wrote:
| Strange as vaccines were only starting to be rolled out 5
| months ago and yet my country and already starting
| booster shots next month
| da_chicken wrote:
| Did your country do a staged rollout where healthcare
| workers, the elderly, and the infirm were vaccinated
| first? That's how I got mine in January. I work at a
| public K-12, where our staff were vaccinated in Phase 1b.
| h3cate wrote:
| Yes frontline staff started getting them around January
| but the elderly are the ones getting the boosters over
| here and that was around March time if my memory serves
| correctly
| majkinetor wrote:
| > Vaccine protection is much more robust.
|
| This is insane. No vaccine works better then natural
| protection from real stuff - simply because its less
| stressful to the body and more stress equals better
| immunity.
|
| I have nothing against vaccines in general but this is
| nothing but pharma propaganda.
| WoodenChair wrote:
| > They said immune protection from direct exposure only
| seems to last 3-6 months
|
| I'm sorry about your experience. Having Covid sucks. But
| your anecdotal data here is inaccurate at best,
| especially since it was from pre-Delta variant (you said
| December 2020 was your time of this happening) and we do
| have studies from that time showing how robust immunity
| was for those who had natural infections:
|
| "Available scientific data suggests that in most people
| immune responses remain robust and protective against
| reinfection for at least 6-8 months after infection (the
| longest follow up with strong scientific evidence is
| currently approximately 8 months)." [0]
|
| No offense, but these kind of anecdotal reports that
| "someone said" (even a health official), which sound
| authoritative because of the context, are how
| misinformation spreads.
|
| 0: https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/34124
| 1/WHO-...
| da_chicken wrote:
| While my figure of 3-6 months has been revised upward to
| 6, 8 or 10 months, the core sentiment of my post remains
| unchanged: Vaccine immunity is believed to be better.
| Vaccines are still believed to be good for 2-3 years
| based on how similar vaccines for other coronaviruses
| have worked. That is either enough time for the immune
| system's natural protection to atrophy, or for the virus
| to change. That still means vaccine immunity is likely to
| be more robust protection than natural immunity, even
| though the general sentiment seems to be a shrug for how
| long protection from the vaccine will actually last. [0]
|
| _That 's_ why they still exclusively discuss being fully
| vaccinated, and discount natural immunity. They believe
| it's better.
|
| Furthermore, I have seen _no-one_ in the health community
| that has recommended _not_ getting the vaccine if you 've
| already had the virus. Compare this to, for example,
| chicken pox, where they only recommend the vaccine if you
| haven't had it.
|
| In the context of this thread where the comment I was
| responding to was trying to argue that natural immunity
| is being short-changed somehow, I think the sentiment I'm
| expressing is perfectly accurate regardless of how exact
| timelines have been shifted in the past year. You still
| need to get fully vaccinated even if you've had the
| disease. Nothing about that has changed.
|
| [0]:
| https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/joim.13372 --
| This study was published this month
| majkinetor wrote:
| There is nothing at [0] claiming vaccine protection is
| longer then natural one. It literary claims that it
| remains to be seen in future research.
| sreque wrote:
| Actually we are seeing the opposite to be true. Recent
| Israel data shows vaccine antibody counts can drop
| sharply in as early as 2-3 months: https://www.i24news.tv
| /en/news/coronavirus/1617185858-antibo...
|
| Also, Most of the re-infected in Israel were from the
| vaccinated population, even after you adjust for
| vaccinated vs. unvaccinated population sizes: https://www
| .deseret.com/coronavirus/2021/7/20/22584134/whats...
|
| On the other hand, with natural immunity, even after your
| antibody count wanes in your bloodstream, you still have
| your bone marrow and memory B cells to protect
| you:https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34030176/
|
| It's looking more and more like natural immunity will be
| more long-lived than vaccine immunity:
| https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01442-9
| polished85 wrote:
| Once my family and I are vaccinated I assume we are
| protected and don't have much to worry about. Why should I
| care if someone else is not vaccinated? If everyone that
| wants the vaccine can get it, why does it matter if some
| people don't get it?
| ajross wrote:
| Alternatively: the unvaccinated are simply mistaken, and
| represent people's cousins and friends and children and
| grandparents, and their suffering and death would represent
| real loss and tragedy even to people who did everything
| right and got their shots.
|
| The desire to see this pandemic solely in terms of an
| individual moral play (on all sides of the debate!) is
| really strong on this website, and I think it's very
| unhelpful.
|
| We're all in this together. I got my shots. All my family
| members of age are vaccinated. All our friends and regular
| acquaintances are vaccinated.
|
| I still wear my mask where I have to be near people in
| public, because every little bit helps. My risk is not
| zero, and if I get sick so might someone else who isn't as
| protected. I still avoid restaurants. I still work at home.
| I still limit travel.
|
| We can stop this when the pandemic is controlled. Until
| then, it remains all of our collective responsibility. And
| I for one am willing to bear that.
| zarzavat wrote:
| Your compassion is noble but the reality is that few
| share it. Very few vaccinated people are willing to
| accept restrictions on their liberty to help protect
| people who are unvaccinated by choice.
|
| Besides, the virus is not standing still. It is
| responding to selective pressure by becoming ever more
| transmissible. The more we try to control the virus by
| social distancing, the more the virus responds by
| becoming easier to transmit. We cannot control this
| pandemic long term via social distancing, even with
| perfect compliance.
| h3cate wrote:
| Do you think that there should be restrictions on society
| to protect people that are unvaccinated by choice?
| ajross wrote:
| > The more we try to control the virus by social
| distancing, the more the virus responds by becoming
| easier to transmit.
|
| That is a mischaracterization. I mean, it's true, but
| only in a specious sense that all organisms respond to
| changes in their environment (including vaccination
| techniques!). It's absolutely not an argument that
| pandemic mitigation strategies are universally doomed to
| failure!
|
| > We cannot control this pandemic long term via social
| distancing
|
| Again, this is wrong. And in fact it worked to control
| covid (not perfectly, but well, well under what you'd
| expect from the early exponential curves in places like
| Milan and New York) for almost a year before vaccines
| showed up.
|
| You're making another common mistake here, and imagining
| that all arguments are about absolutes. In your mind,
| mask wearing either Works Perfectly or Must Be Abandoned.
|
| In the real world, you wear masks when the pandemic is at
| a high infection rate and growing, (like now) because
| marginal improvements are important ("every little bit
| helps"), and not as much when it's low and shrinking (as
| it was in June, when I even went to a few restaurants
| unmasked!).
| zarzavat wrote:
| Pandemic controls are already doomed to failure in the
| case of COVID. If you look at countries where they have
| had very strict and successful pandemic controls, such as
| Vietnam, Australia and New Zealand, they are finding it
| impossible to contain the delta variant. It has several
| attributes that make control difficult.
|
| Would the delta variant have arisen were it not for
| social distancing? Perhaps, that's unknowable. But we
| certainly created a lot of selective pressure for it to
| exist.
|
| That's not to say that social distancing was bad or
| wrong. It was our only choice at the time. But in a
| future where social distancing is much less effective and
| where compliance by vaccinated people will be low, the
| utility of these interventions is becoming ever smaller.
| You can of course do whatever you want individually
| according to your conscience.
|
| Where do we go from here? The world needs to increase
| vaccine production to billions per month, and decrease
| response times to new variants so that if there is a new
| vaccine-resistant variant we can vaccinate the world
| again quickly.
| ajross wrote:
| No. No, no, none of that is correct. Stop saying things
| that are untrue simply because they feel like they should
| confirm your priors. Delta outbreaks in many places have
| peaked and subsided well short of saturation. Look at
| India, where it was first detected. They peaked in May
| and are now at about 9% of peak infection rate.
|
| In fact objectively India's net response to Delta, both
| in width of infection wave and peak outbreak rate, has
| been _better_ that the US 's, despite near zero net
| vaccination.
|
| And why is the US so bad at this? Largely because of
| _PEOPLE LIKE YOU_ who insist on crazy pseudoscience
| theories like "Masks don't work" or "treat it with
| dewormer" or (sigh) "Pandemic controls are already doomed
| to failure" instead of just doing the right thing. Stop
| it. Stop trying to be smarter than everyone. Just get in
| line and do the right thing.
| dom96 wrote:
| > Your compassion is noble but the reality is that few
| share it. Very few vaccinated people are willing to
| accept restrictions on their liberty to help protect
| people who are unvaccinated by choice.
|
| It's not about protecting those that are unvaccinated by
| choice. It's also about protecting those that cannot get
| vaccines for whatever reason and also to stop
| breakthrough infections.
|
| Also the majority of UK residents at least are still
| wearing masks[1] so I think at least that's some evidence
| that people do share this compassion.
|
| 1 - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/20/uk-
| still-weari...
| defgeneric wrote:
| I refuse to massively change my lifestyle and limit my
| freedom because some people have incorrect beliefs.
|
| Post-vaccine, we are not all in this together.
| rajin444 wrote:
| > We're all in this together
|
| No, we aren't. Obesity is an epidemic. Nearly all of
| those people made a decision to make themselves more
| likely to contract covid, more likely to exhibit symptoms
| longer (thus spread it), and more likely to occupy
| critical healthcare infrastructure - as well as more
| likely to die from covid.
|
| There has been almost 0 acknowledgement of this as well
| as 0 promises to fix this issue. If you're still obese
| (or not calling for mandatory weight loss) and upset
| others aren't getting a vaccine you're not fairly
| applying "every little bit helps".
|
| You're picking and choosing which issues we should bear
| "collective responsibility" for. It's some kind of irony
| we're passing out krispy kremes when you get your
| vaccination.
| h3cate wrote:
| This is the most annoying point. One of the biggest
| factors in whether you will end up in hospital is obesity
| and smoking and yet for some reason this is never
| addressed.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| Unfortunately we are not all in this together. One group
| is vaccinated and has done their part to protect
| themselves and others including those that cannot be
| vaccinated due to age limitations. There is another group
| that refuses vaccination, sees it as an impediment to
| their freedom and if they don't think Covid is a hoax
| then are quite willing to sacrifice others. There is no
| common ground between these groups and the vaccinated
| group very much sees the second group as needlessly
| prolonging this pandemic and engaging in a lifestyle
| choice that is very much a risk to their children.
| lovich wrote:
| > We're all in this together
|
| I used to think this too, but the "Covid is a hoax" crowd
| have made it very clear that we are not
| guscost wrote:
| Yep, you're gonna leave us alone from now on. Also I'll
| decide for myself what to fear, thanks.
| smt88 wrote:
| If you get Covid and are hospitalized, do you feel that
| your treatment should be paid for by others (meaning
| through your insurance or govt assistance)?
|
| If so, doesn't that mean your decision affects others?
|
| I hope that you would do the responsible thing and offer
| to pay your full medical bill in that scenario, in which
| case, disregard my question.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Ummm, you could use this reasoning on obesity, STDs,
| etc...
| smt88 wrote:
| Obesity is not a disease with a clear diagnosis. You
| can't just say someone got rectal cancer _only_ because
| they 're obese.
|
| STDs don't have a vaccine. You can get one entirely
| unpreventably as well, e.g. because your spouse is
| cheating.
|
| Most importantly, preventative measures for obesity and
| STDs are not:
|
| - nearly 100% effective
|
| - totally free
|
| - easily available
|
| - universally recommended by health organizations
| erhk wrote:
| Great so did you decide to fear a vaccine or are you
| happily doing your civic duty for the sake of your
| countrymen.
| guscost wrote:
| The latter. I'm probably not at risk from either the
| virus or the shot.
|
| Unfortunately you can't isolate a world-altering issue
| like this from its psychological and political context,
| so for me any respiratory-disease-related risk is
| secondary to the much bigger threat. "Live free or die"
| is not an empty slogan. I will be standing with the
| unvaxxed to the bitter end, although it probably won't go
| that far.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Almost nobody is at risk from COVID-19. The 600k+ people
| who died from it so far in the US represents a tiny, tiny
| percentage of the population. Even after every single
| person has been exposed to the virus, it seems likely
| that the individual risk will remain extremely small.
|
| The problem with COVID-19 has never been the risk it
| poses for you as an individual, but the public health
| aspects. It is highly infectious; some number of cases
| require hospitalization; if too many people require that
| at the same time, the public health implications are
| substantial, much broader than COVID-19 itself, and
| potentially lethal.
|
| Ergo, we have a civic responsibility to take steps to
| reduce the chance of this happening, and the simplest way
| to do that is vaccination and masks.
| adventured wrote:
| > Almost nobody is at risk from COVID-19. The 600k+
| people who died from it so far in the US represents a
| tiny, tiny percentage of the population.
|
| True for the US, sure, because of its healthcare capacity
| and financial resources (rapid development and deployment
| of potent mRNA vaccines). Peru has likely lost near 1% of
| its entire population due to Covid (200k deaths, 32m
| population, guaranteed vast undercount due to local
| conditions). They'll recover from that no doubt, and the
| population will ultimately acquire widespread immunity
| with or without vaccines (which would bring down the rate
| of deaths), however it's definitely not a tiny percentage
| of the population to lose so quickly.
|
| It's going to be an incredible rolling challenge to
| handle the bottom ~3-4 billion people getting Covid
| vaccinations every year to prevent millions of people
| from dying annually. And that's assuming the mass
| propogation of Covid to all humans and a lot of animals
| isn't going to eventually unleash super deadly strains.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| >... isn't going to eventually unleash super deadly
| strains.
|
| The Guardian had an interview last week or the week
| before with someone who appeared to know what they were
| talking about. They made the point that there are dozens
| of known respiratory viruses already, and that although
| they constantly mutate and pose new challenges, we have
| not seen them ever mutate into "super deadly" strains.
|
| I take some comfort from that (even though it is clearly
| not a sure thing).
| erhk wrote:
| You misunderstand me. Being vaccinated is your civic
| duty. Failing to do so is unpatriotic.
| outside1234 wrote:
| But then you spread it someone else that is at risk.
|
| Getting vaccinated is not about you only. It is about
| reducing the risk to all of us.
| eagsalazar2 wrote:
| It is an empty slogan coming from you. You apply it so
| nonsensically here that it is obvious you care more about
| chest pounding faux-nationalism than the true meaning of
| those words. Consider the fact that right now _in the US,
| no one is being forced to take the vaccine_. No one. So
| your choice to defiantly refuse the vaccine is just
| defiance against a boogeyman you have self-servingly
| created, not an act of defiance against oppression.
|
| Note: there _are_ _half-way_ decent arguments against
| taking the vaccine. Resisting govt oppression is not one
| of them.
| guscost wrote:
| You are of course entitled to your own opinion, but I am
| still going to do what I feel is right, and you are going
| to deal with it. Simple as that.
| OJFord wrote:
| Well to be fair there's significant 'peer pressure' (just
| look at this thread!) and there's debate about 'vaccine
| passports' for non-travel, i.e. restaurants etc.
|
| I had my second dose today, but I'm against having to
| 'prove' (or comment on) that when I decide to go anywhere
| (within the UK, I don't mean for travel) again.
| eagsalazar2 wrote:
| Why? As a private business I can exclude you for many
| reasons. If I believe you pose a health risk to me, and I
| demand you prove you've been vaccinated, that's my choice
| and it is your choice to take your business elsewhere. I
| might piss off or lose all my customers but that is my
| right. Again, no govt oppression or threat to your
| liberty.
| Bhilai wrote:
| Very curious to know, are you and your family (if you
| have kids) have not vaccinated for other kinds of stuff
| like Polio, HepA, HepB, Varicella etc. or is your
| objection just for Covid vaccines?
| pasquinelli wrote:
| being scared doesn't actually do anything for anyone, but
| the vaccinated do not have zero risk. if the virus is
| always kicking around, then there will always be vaccinated
| people dying of it.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| tens of thousands of people in the USA die every year
| from influenza. This does not cause most of us to be
| "scared" of influenza. Why not? Because (1) the
| individual risk is vanishing low except for a relatively
| small high risk demographic (2) the public health aspects
| (i.e. overloaded health care systems) are generally easy
| to control because it is not extremely infectious.
|
| (1) is and always has been true for COVID, but (2)
| remains unresolved at this point.
| thingification wrote:
| The risk of long COVID sticking around in immiserating
| form long-term once you have it is unknown, but the risk
| of getting long COVID (defined along the lines of at
| least a few COVID symptoms sticking around for a few
| months) is much higher than the risk of death from Flu
| (starting from the assumption of not yet having caught
| either in a given year). I hesitate to post anything here
| on this subject that's not carefully worked out, so all
| I'll say is my personal back-of-the-envelope order of
| magitude calculation based on public data, comparing with
| other per-year risks such as cancer, didn't give me any
| confidence at all.
| heywherelogingo wrote:
| To think the unvaccinated should be scared of it reveals a
| perspective born of mania. I'm unvaccinated, had covid last
| week, it's preferable to a common cold. There is no way I
| will bother with the so-called vaccine, which is more of a
| mere remedy, when covid is so insignificant to people who
| are healthy. If you are so unhealthy that you need the
| vaccine (remedy) then you have bigger concerns.
| pasquinelli wrote:
| the point of the vaccine for healthy people is to limit
| the spread of the virus. a virus turns your cells into
| virus making factories. immunized people have a lower
| risk of infection by the virus, so are less likely to
| become virus factories, and so are less likely to spread
| it.
| outside1234 wrote:
| So you are selfish, because you could have passed it on
| to a number of people in the meantime for whom it will
| not be a common cold.
| heywherelogingo wrote:
| Right, because 0.1% of the population expecting 99.9% of
| the population to lockdown and inject things too isn't
| selfish?
| shkkmo wrote:
| Made up numbers are made up.
| erhk wrote:
| What is a remedy in this context? Can you put this
| chicken scratch in real terms or are you simply so far
| into pseudoscience that you've disregarded language as
| well?
|
| 90% of ICU cases are people that think like you in my
| county. Almost all new severe cases and deaths are people
| who believe they are above the risk.
|
| Tell me this, since you are a "healthy" individual do you
| also forego all cancer screening? Do you simply have such
| an attunement to your own body that you can feel any
| rogue cells as they form? Perhaps you rub yourself with
| quartz because you consider it to be a "good" crystal
| with healing properties.
| ineedasername wrote:
| I guess what it comes down to is this: Do you think that
| if most people got vaccinated, fewer people would get
| seriously sick & die?
|
| If so, then your position is hard to justify. If not,
| then I would be interested in your explanation for that
| belief.
|
| _had covid last week, it 's preferable to a common cold_
|
| Glad it worked out for you, but plenty of other healthy
| people are dying. Others are passing it on to people who
| then die.
|
| _when covid is so insignificant to people who are
| healthy._
|
| A truly selfish perspective
|
| _If you are so unhealthy that you need the vaccine
| (remedy) then you have bigger concerns._
|
| Sure, and plenty of people have underlying conditions
| through no fault of their own, and the unvaccinated are
| adding to their concerns significantly by gambling with
| their own health (which is alright, I guess) and by
| extension the health of everyone around them (which,
| again, is selfish)
|
| Also what do you mean by remedy? Definitions that I see
| do not match your use of the term. That word may not mean
| what you think it means.
| luckylion wrote:
| > I guess what it comes down to is this: Do you think
| that if most people got vaccinated, fewer people would
| get seriously sick & die?
|
| > If so, then your position is hard to justify.
|
| Sorry, no. For the record, I'm fully vaccinated, but that
| argument doesn't work. If we all stopped driving cars,
| fewer people would die in accidents. That's no belief
| etc, it's a fact. Yet we obviously don't, because cars
| are super convenient and relatively few people die. We're
| perfectly fine accepting some people dying for lots of
| convenience for everyone.
|
| The same will have to eventually be accepted for Covid.
| We can't live in a perpetual half-lockdown because the
| omega-variant will kill 0.1% of seniors otherwise.
| shkkmo wrote:
| > Yet we obviously don't, because cars are super
| convenient and relatively few people die. We're perfectly
| fine accepting some people dying for lots of convenience
| for everyone.
|
| Speak for yourself. There are a significant number of
| people on this site who are pretty vocally opposed to
| cars precisely due to the safety hazards. There was an
| article on here just the other day about how drivers of
| larger trucks and SUVs are twice as likely to kill a
| pedestrian as drivers of sedans.
|
| I would posit that reasons why these risks are so
| underappreciated (and why we don't wear helmets in cars)
| is due to long-term concerted efforts to control how cars
| are understood and protrayed by those who make money from
| them.
| luckylion wrote:
| > There are a significant number of people on this site
| who are pretty vocally opposed to cars precisely due to
| the safety hazards.
|
| No, they're not, otherwise they'd be on a farm and live
| of the land. Living in the city and being able to walk to
| the grocery store depends on other people with cars doing
| all the heavy lifting and delivering whatever they need
| by car to where they pick it up.
|
| > I would posit that reasons why these risks are so
| underappreciated (and why we don't wear helmets in cars)
| is due to long-term concerted efforts to control how cars
| are understood and protrayed by those who make money from
| them.
|
| I fundamentally disagree. Plenty of people die falling
| off of a ladder each year. Every time you use a ladder,
| there's a non-zero chance of dying. But ladders are
| great! They allow you to reach stuff you couldn't get to
| otherwise, so of course they're worth the risk. So do
| cars.
|
| You can go over that for pretty much any topic. Want to
| live in a house? Construction workers are dying. Want to
| eat? People die in the process. But they're few, compared
| to the population of country, and houses and food are
| great.
|
| If risk minimization is the goal, we'll all run around
| like the Michelin figure so we don't hurt ourselves. But
| we don't, because we want to get shit done, and for most
| things, there's a giant area where the risk is much
| smaller than the cost associated with avoiding it. The
| same is true for illnesses. Yes, it sucks, and of course
| nobody wants to die, but we can't go on like this forever
| because _it could save lives_.
| h3cate wrote:
| I get what you're saying but we're seeing the virus
| spread through the vaccinated. Because the vaccinated
| aren't getting sick and ending up in hospital, they're
| spreading it to more people and the virus is mutating the
| whole way so I struggle to follow your logic.
| ineedasername wrote:
| Where is the flaw of logic in these points:
|
| 1) The vaccinated are not getting it anywhere near the
| rates of the unvaccinated, so they are not spreading it
| at anywhere close to how much the unvaccinated spread it.
|
| 2) If they do spread it to another vaccinated person,
| that person is highly unlikely to get very sick at all.
|
| 3) If they spread it to an unvaccinated person, that
| person is much more likely to get sick and have a better
| opportunity to spread it to even more people.
|
| 4) People who get sick & end up in the hospital still
| have lots of time before they get to spread the virus
| before being hospitalized.
|
| 5) Vaccinated people who get COVID are infectious to
| others for significantly less time than unvaccinated
| people.
|
| 6) Current does not show vaccinated people causing new or
| more powerful strains. [0]
|
| 7) New strains are still significantly less infectious &
| dangerous for those who are vaccinated.
|
| So I fail to see how your points are relevant from an
| overall risk-reduction point of view. Available evidence
| points towards vaccination as a superior risk reduction
| mechanism than the alternative (which I guess is _do
| nothing_? If not, please clarify) that you are proposing.
|
| [0] https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-vaccine-
| variants/f...
| h3cate wrote:
| 1) We don't know this is true. We know that people that
| have been vaccinated show much less symptoms and are
| therefore less likely to get a test which can explain the
| lower positive test rate.
|
| 2) Again to point 1
|
| 3) They will most likely spread it back to said
| vaccinated people who are less likely to get sick
|
| 4) Back to point 3
|
| 5) Has this been proved anywhere?
|
| 6) For the time being. The delta variant only mutated 12
| months after the first infection
| shkkmo wrote:
| It's hard to follow logic when you make up your own facts
| to fit your argument.
| bialpio wrote:
| Last time I saw a number, vaccinations offer more than
| ~60% protection against infection with Delta altogether -
| did you run the numbers / see some study to arrive at
| "they're spreading it to more people", or is this a case
| of "it aligns with what I already thought / it justifies
| my current behavior so it must be true"?
| h3cate wrote:
| Take out the word more and I will stand by what I said.
| Also you might have less chance of getting infected but
| you also are less likely to develop symptoms and so will
| most likely not isolate when you are infected.
|
| You are trying to condense a very complex scenario into a
| very simple argument.
| ineedasername wrote:
| _it justifies my current behavior so it must be true_
|
| That would be my guess, since actual evidence shows that
| vaccinated people are infectious for a significantly
| shorter period of time:
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/variants/delta-
| var...
| AndrewBissell wrote:
| > _once the vaccine is available to all age groups, the
| only people that need to be scared of it are the
| unvaccinated_
|
| The age groups to whom the vaccine is not yet available
| have no reason to fear Covid in 2021 any more than they did
| influenza in 2019.
| mike00632 wrote:
| Vaccines are available for the flu and we take them...
| The whole anti-vaxx mindset is bewildering. Even if
| COVID-19 was just like the flu we would still want to get
| vaccinated for it
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| The ICU's of some areas are so full that they have to turn
| people away and let them die. How is that a good time to "not
| be as scared"?
| nikkinana wrote:
| You're full of shit.
| akira2501 wrote:
| > We know that dogs, cats, hamsters, guinea pigs, mink, white-
| tailed deer, a gorilla, and a tiger have been found to have
| been infected with covid-19.
|
| How do we know this? PCR test? At what threshold? Or, antigen
| test? Is there a guinea pig antigen test for COVID?
|
| I'm suspicious of this reasoning due to the apparently
| complicated and necessary natural pathway this virus used to
| become infectious to humans in the first place. This apparently
| doesn't apply anymore?
|
| > Of diseases that get as widespread as this, with animal
| reservoirs
|
| The contact with those reservoirs needed to be much more than
| casual in order for infections to pass. I'm not sure this logic
| applies to a SARS virus.
| [deleted]
| tehjoker wrote:
| I like how the mainstream media is on a "live with the virus"
| blitz while Delta counts soar.
| otabdeveloper4 wrote:
| "The coronavirus"?
|
| News to me. There isn't a "the".
| msoad wrote:
| maybe because you didn't read the article? This is not about
| COVID-19 specifically.
| [deleted]
| ttobbaybbob wrote:
| It will be interesting to understand the long-term impact of
| covid on immunity. Given that covid came from GoF research have
| we developed defenses (albeit at an ultimately very-high price)
| that will protect us from future novel coronaviruses ?
|
| other classes of virus? (ie how the plague resistance in those of
| european descent gives some level of protection against hiv [0])
|
| Is this something we have a way to measure or will it be
| impossible to tell once everyone in the world has some amount of
| covid immunity?
|
| 0:
| https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/03/050325234239.h...
| (first thing i could find)
| frakkingcylons wrote:
| While the lab escape theory is possible, there's definitely not
| enough evidence to just state it like it's fact (as you just
| did).
| gHosts wrote:
| > It will feel strange for a while and then it will not. It will
| be normal.
|
| Except for the people who, in addition to those who die year
| after year after year from flu, now die will die from Covid.
|
| For them it won't feel normal at all.
| creamynebula wrote:
| Specially given that after a year and a half we still don't seem
| to ponder that livestock, hunting, deforestation, and all sorts
| of animal experimenting mean another deadly disease could slip up
| anytime as it just did.
| erhk wrote:
| Deforestation is relevant here? What are you on about
| jpeloquin wrote:
| "anthropized environments can provide an acceptable habitat
| for a large range of bat species, generating thus a higher
| diversity of bats and in turn of bat-borne viruses next to
| human dwellings ... This increases the risk of transmission
| of viruses through direct contact, domestic animal infection,
| or contamination by urine or feces." [0]
|
| "Deforestation has also been associated with the increased
| emergence of viral pathogens, such as SARS, Ebola and other
| viruses of bats." [1]
|
| The conclusions of the first paper (from April 2018) seem
| prophetic in hindsight: "The risk of emergence of a novel
| bat-CoV disease can therefore be envisioned."
|
| [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5904276/
|
| [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2829318/
| xdennis wrote:
| I don't think it's clear that the origins of covid are natural.
| This has become less controversial recently.
| creamynebula wrote:
| I would put gain-of-function research on the umbrella of
| animal experimenting.
| habosa wrote:
| At this point we almost know too much about the spread of this
| disease. Never in history have we tested so much for one thing.
| Never in history have we really worried about asymptomatic cases
| of anything. This is probably the first time in history that the
| whole world has the same scary thing as their front-page news.
|
| It's going to be really, really hard for us to shake the mindset
| that thousands of covid cases === danger. I am sure there are
| many thousands of cases of many other diseases in my community
| right now that I will never know or care about.
|
| I'm not trying to detract at all from the seriousness of the
| pandemic, just saying that going forward we'll have to pay a lot
| less attention to covid-19 if we want to have mental space for
| anything else.
| burlesona wrote:
| I don't know if that's true. Case in point, the reason that
| Florida is drowning in COVID right now is that the majority of
| people there don't think it's a big deal. It's the same thing
| and many other parts of the country. There are still a lot of
| people who are freaked out, but most ordinary people are
| starting to tune out the news and lose interest because the
| media calls to be scared and panic just make them numb
| eventually.
| dang wrote:
| To read all the 600+ comments in this thread you need to click
| More at the bottom or on links like this:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28274819&p=2
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28274819&p=3
|
| (Comments like this will eventually go away. Sorry for the
| annoyance. The server is hurting today.)
| dpweb wrote:
| The only things pushed were masks and vaccines. Nothing about
| Vitamin D (or C for that matter) supplementation. No push for
| healthy lifestyles or reduction of obesity rate. Nothing about
| developing new mask or shield technologies. Nothing about the use
| of UV light safe to stand in that kills virus. Nothing about
| ventilation system technology. Or permanently moving some
| activities outdoors.
|
| We should have had a full-court press in all areas to fight this
| virus. Not just a $100 billion for big pharma for a vaccine that
| always works, except when it doesn't. It's no wonder 25% of the
| US have adopted the idiotic position that they wont accept a mask
| or vaccine. People are so done with the 'new normal' for this
| week that just needs to be accepted.
| nomel wrote:
| > No push for healthy lifestyles or reduction of obesity rate.
|
| Obese and unhealthy people won't become healthy if you ask the
| nicely. It's requires a lifestyle change.
|
| > Nothing about developing new mask or shield technologies.
|
| Not even a simple lifestyle change like putting some cloth over
| your face is being tolerated.
|
| > Nothing about ventilation system technology. Or permanently
| moving some activities outdoors.
|
| And many things that would help would be at an fairly
| incredible financial cost (~$2 billion to cover schools, at an
| incredibly unrealistic $15k/school), or impossible ( _most_
| local climates do not allow for comfortably staying outdoors
| all day).
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| > The server is hurting today
|
| I get the tech hipster ethos that it's cool to just run one big
| ass server and supposedly avoid a lot of complexity cost. But
| it's the year two-thousand and twenty-one. The fact that the most
| well-known tech forum in the world either can't or won't set up
| autoscaling is an indictment of the entire tech industry. We're
| living in the binary age, but we still need humans to push the
| bits around by hand, like 1960's operators juggling wires on a
| switchboard.
| skadamou wrote:
| Does anyone know of any resources that talk about how endemic
| COVID might look for immune-compromised folks? I recognize there
| probably just isn't the research yet to make too many claims
| about how this disease effects people on immune-supressing drugs
| but I have found vanishingly little on the web that even takes a
| stab at what life should look like for those folks in the long
| run.
|
| This is a rare Atlantic article that I think takes a level-headed
| and nuanced approach to a topic that requires some level of
| technical understanding. I tip my hat to Sarah Zhang.
| at_a_remove wrote:
| It will be interesting to see if this will mutate into less
| harmful variants, or, with vaccines go the way of Marek's
| disease, and become _more_ lethal. This is a fascinating global
| experiment that will determine our policy for decades either way.
|
| Personally, the first thing I did when I heard that a vaccine was
| coming was try to find out if it was "leaky" or not. I could not
| find this information. We ought to be hustling on a non-leaky
| version, and perhaps that will be the policy lesson learned.
| thisiscorrect wrote:
| Wasn't the lethality of Marek's disease for poultry driven by
| immune escape from vaccination?
| at_a_remove wrote:
| It was the leakiness that drove it, from what I read.
| dongping wrote:
| Nonpharmaceutical interventions do work. With Internet and
| E-commerce, full scale lockdown becomes tenable. Together with
| mass PCR testing, the virus can be eradicated.
|
| The virus can't teleport, and it is here to stay only because the
| decision-makers thought that it was the cheaper option to let it
| spread (it is not), then didn't want to admit being wrong.
|
| It is sad to see that with all the technologies available, the
| world is still in the middle of the pandemic.
| nomel wrote:
| I think it would be useful for you to go through the employment
| by occupation percentages [1] to get an idea of the percentage
| of jobs that would be eradicated with sustained full lockdown,
| for those that can't work from home.
|
| 1. https://www.bls.gov/emp/tables/emp-by-detailed-
| occupation.ht...
| dongping wrote:
| How long would a full lockdown take? (a real one, not a
| mockdown)
|
| The experience in Wuhan shows that 76 days would be enough to
| eradicate the virus from a massive outbreak. So the loss
| would be way less than 20% of the GDP (since essential
| economic activities would still be going on [1], and there
| would be people being able to work from home. Government
| could still use financial instrument/regulation to alleviate
| the damage).
|
| I don't think the the US would be able to do such a large
| project, but I had thought that the European bureaucratic
| system was organized enough. I was apparently wrong.
|
| [1] To give some perspectives on the GDP contributed by
| different sectors
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/247991/value-added-to-
| th...
| grillvogel wrote:
| permanent lockdown should be encouraged because we have the
| internet and can buy stuff online? sorry but no.
| dongping wrote:
| Either we do a full lockdown to reach zero COVID, like NZ and
| China did (while buying stuff online), or we would have to do
| prolonged mockdowns like in Europe.
|
| The Chinese have been living a mostly normal life (albeit
| with limited foreign travel possibilities, and sporadic
| lockdowns in isolated locations) for a year.
| grillvogel wrote:
| zero covid is unrealistic. how are things gonna pan out
| when the hypothetical zero covid nation opens up to outside
| travelers?
| dongping wrote:
| I would argue that opening up is unrealistic.
|
| How are things going to pan out, when we apply selection
| pressure to the virus, while letting the virus sieve
| through the whole human population, creating dangerous
| variants due to our leaky vaccines? [1]
|
| I would have had agreed with you if we had a sterilizing
| vaccine that would help us to reach herd immunity. But we
| don't.
|
| Those travels which cannot afford 14 days quarantines,
| are non-essential travels. We fortunately have internet
| and the possibility to do remote meetings.
|
| The only thing missing is tourism, though. That's sad,
| but better travel locally than killing people.
|
| [1]
| https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/leaky-
| vac...
| theknocker wrote:
| >everything the media has been telling you this entire time was a
| big lie to manage hospital capacity without tanking the economy
| corona-research wrote:
| Corona is dystopian fascism.
| tamaharbor wrote:
| Frankly, from the tone of these comments, it appears we don't
| know anything for sure.
| User23 wrote:
| What baffles me is the total failure to highlight one of the best
| ways to mitigate the risk of severe covid complications: don't be
| obese[1]. It's also a good life choice for those who also prefer
| not to die of non-covid conditions.
|
| Edit: And it increases your risk for long covid[2].
|
| [1] https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/latest-evidence-
| on...
|
| [2] https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20210608/obesity-
| increases-r...
| greedo wrote:
| Obesity is something that can take quite a while to address.
| What baffles me is the total failure of some people to see one
| of the best ways to mitigate the risk of severe covid
| complications; TAKE THE VACCINE
| at_a_remove wrote:
| The, uh, tone of your comment suggests that there is this
| epidemic of obese people who simply have neglected to press the
| STOP BEING OBESE button. "All you have to do is ..." "Can't you
| just ..." In technology, we hate hearing that from people who
| do not have a grasp of the situation -- why are you doing it
| here?
|
| That button doesn't exist. That's the source of your
| bafflement.
| hnuser847 wrote:
| Perhaps we should have nutrition passports. People wouldn't
| be allowed to visit fast food restaurants until they have
| sub-30 BMI.
| at_a_remove wrote:
| If I could short stock in this idea, well, it would be like
| getting in early on crypto.
| president wrote:
| You could same about "Can't you just take the jab?" and
| "Can't you just wear a mask?". If you want to be the one
| deciding who has to do something, then that's called
| authoritarianism and it's the reason why so many people are
| pissed off about the all of the covid restrictions.
| jmull wrote:
| Do you really think there are a lot of obese people around that
| can simply stop being obese but just haven't had a reason to
| yet?
|
| Where do people come up with this stuff?
| abstractbarista wrote:
| I think most people can stop.
|
| I also think most people lack the resolve to stop.
| swader999 wrote:
| I was 35 pounds overweight. Saw the writing on the wall and
| in three months I'm down 25-30 pounds. Stopped eating sugar
| and bread and only eat one meal 2-4 times a week.
| unbroken wrote:
| The trick is to keep that going in the longterm. I did
| manage to lose that amount of weight in the same amount of
| time as well, but ended up gaining it back in under 5
| years, which I hear is the fate of most people who lose
| weight.
| swader999 wrote:
| So true!
| misiti3780 wrote:
| Unfortunately, it would seem the data would suggest yes.
|
| Per the CDC:
|
| From 1999 -2000 through 2017 -2018, US obesity prevalence
| increased from 30.5% to 42.4%. During the same time, the
| prevalence of severe obesity increased from 4.7% to 9.2%.
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html
| javagram wrote:
| Obesity has also increased among wild animals
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28261232
|
| While dieting can control obesity, we have decades of
| evidence to show it isn't easy. Bariatric surgery does seem
| to work but is invasive and dangerous.
| 74d-fe6-2c6 wrote:
| who even cares? many bad things are here forever ... why is this
| such a shock to many people - I don't get it.
| tpaulin wrote:
| The Plague is one good example:
| https://www.cdc.gov/plague/maps/index.html
| resource0x wrote:
| I have an idea: can someone write a script to compare current
| covid cases among countries as a function of vaccination rates.
| Same for deaths/1 miliion population. I don't have skills for
| that, but this is HN after all, so there should be someone...
| (One of the parameters should be a timeline of vaccinations -
| vaccines tend to wane over time, we have a chance to figure out
| to what extent).
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > can someone write a script to compare current covid cases
| among countries as a function of vaccination rates
|
| This isn't really a good idea, because cases as a function of
| vaccination rates won't tell you anything meaningful.
| Vaccinations aren't distributed at random - they are heavily
| skewed towards people at risk of serious health effects from
| the virus, and skewed _away_ from people with low risk.
|
| So if you were to tabulate that data, you'd be hopelessly
| confounded by the differing population structures among
| different countries.
| resource0x wrote:
| So, there's no way to figure out the effectiveness of
| vaccines from the data? Then how?
| AkshatM wrote:
| Vaccine trials run large randomized control experiments to
| estimate vaccine effectiveness. i.e. they compare a control
| group to an experiment group, both equally likely to
| contract the virus, and observe if a smaller percent of the
| experiment group contracted the virus compared to the
| control group over a certain time period.
|
| Continued vaccine efficacy data is measured longitudinally,
| by tracking the cumulative infection rate across
| populations with similar risk profiles but different
| preventative measures in place.
|
| The data for vaccine effectiveness is already publicly
| available and compiled through reports and infographs on
| the CDC website, the FDA website and the WHO website. xkcd
| even had a comic about a graph of vaccine efficacy pulled
| directly from the FDA's preliminary brief about the Moderna
| vaccine trial results last year. There are papers that have
| been published regarding longitudinal results for countries
| - for instance, you might have heard about studies from
| Israel claiming that vaccine efficacy has dropped by some
| 60%, while other studies continue to cap the drop at
| anywhere from 0 to 10%.
| mmcdermott wrote:
| It would have to be a multivariate analysis. That's sort of
| the problem with x over y analysis - the question
| presupposes a very narrow range of answers.
|
| There are good reasons to believe the vaccines help, but
| you don't want to beg the question when you start the
| analysis.
| resource0x wrote:
| > you might have heard about studies from Israel claiming
| that vaccine efficacy has dropped by some 60%
|
| Yes, I heard it. 60% is not a constant, the effectiveness
| keeps dropping over time. So what gives? In country A,
| everybody has to take a vaccine every 5-6 months with
| lockdowns in between, while another country doesn't
| bother vaccinating, and life returns to normal? Is this
| what you expect from the vaccine?
| goda90 wrote:
| I really hope we take this as a call to put more research into
| effective and affordable antiviral treatment. Vaccines are great,
| but there is always a limitation. Better antivirals could save a
| lot of lives, especially early in a pandemic.
| cm2187 wrote:
| That's why I don't really understand why there are still covid
| restrictions in countries that are close to full vaccination,
| like the UK. There isn't really a next step after having
| vaccinated the population, it is "steady state". So do they want
| us to have these restrictions (countries you can't travel to,
| endless testing, mask requirements) forever?
| celticninja wrote:
| What restrictions do you mean? I am in the UK and facing no
| restrictions in daily life.
| cm2187 wrote:
| No restriction? You will have a nasty surprise if you return
| from a red list country. Plus mandatory covid tests before
| and after returning to the UK. Plus mandatory face masks in
| public transports. Plus mandatory self-quarantine if you are
| pinged by the NHS app. Many companies have not returned to
| the office. We are not back to normal.
| luffapi wrote:
| > _Many companies have not returned to the office. We are
| not back to normal._
|
| This is the new normal (thankfully). Government regulations
| or not, management will not be able to force people back in
| the office. Office culture was a quirk of the 20th century.
| A halfway house between the assembly line and the internet.
| Covid just forced its inevitable collapse.
| bserge wrote:
| Nice bubble you live in.
| luffapi wrote:
| I hesitate to feed the trolls, but this is a well
| documented worldwide phenomenon. Hardly just my personal
| experience.
| bserge wrote:
| Yeah, well, on the other side of the coin, people are
| being forced back in the office, some have never even
| been able to work from home and many actually like the
| work/home separation.
|
| Not to mention the millions of jobs that can't be done
| remotely no matter how hard you try, but that's on a
| whole 'nother planet.
| tyfon wrote:
| Yeah my team will meet in the office for an hour once a
| week otherwise WFH.
|
| I suspect once the bean counters discover that the office
| is only used for an hour once a week also after corona
| there will be pressure to remove a lot of the seats.
|
| The only one really resisting at my company is the
| "office manager" for some reason ;)
| rpadovani wrote:
| > Plus mandatory face masks in public transports.
|
| I really hope this will stay forever, or at least until
| people don't learn to stay home when they get a cold
| odessacubbage wrote:
| last time i tried to stay home [from a public facing food
| service position] due to the flu i was fired over
| Christmas. until you change the culture around working
| through illness and the punitive nature of sick days,
| especially for those with children, people are not gonna
| stay home if they think they can tough it out.
| [deleted]
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "or at least until people don't learn to stay home when
| they get a cold "
|
| Not everyone can afford that, with a fear of losing their
| jobs.
| nextaccountic wrote:
| Then we need better labor laws.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| Possible, but it is hard to implement in a failsave way.
|
| How can the new employee proof he was fired, because he
| was sick too often?
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > Plus mandatory self-quarantine if you are pinged by the
| NHS app.
|
| I think you're poorly informed - it has never been
| mandatory to self-quarantine if pinged by the _app_.
|
| And government mandated face masks on public transport went
| away on the 19th of July - but people are still encouraged
| and I think required by some _individual institutions_ not
| by Her Majesty 's Government.
|
| And I don't think jet-setting around is 'daily life' so
| that's disingenuous.
| bodge5000 wrote:
| self quarantine through the app couldn't be mandatory
| seeing as the app isn't mandatory
|
| The only thing OP has a point on is travel abroad, which
| yeh as you say isn't really daily life for the majority
| of people and probably isn't too big a pill to swallow
| temporarily, and continued working from home, which to my
| knowledge is the choice of companies, not the government
| (though either way, I'm not complaining)
| Uberphallus wrote:
| We're better than normal. My employer already decided to
| allow up to 60% time remote, no questions asked, forever.
| You can still come 100% of the time to the office if you
| want. Some restrictions are still in place, but the future
| seems brighter for the workplace.
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| Enforcement is a total joke though.
| whoooooo123 wrote:
| Well in the UK we've had three separate scandals where
| major government officials (including the fucking HEALTH
| SECRETARY) were caught flagrantly violating their own
| rules with minimal consequence, so you can hardly blame
| the public for taking things no more seriously than our
| leadership does.
| celticninja wrote:
| No mandatory face masks on public transport, and only
| advisory quarantine if you are pinged by the app. I don't
| want to go back to the office.
|
| Sure it may differ If I travel but that's one restriction
| not a multitude as you suggest.
| andyjohnson0 wrote:
| > Plus mandatory face masks in public transports.
|
| Not true. There is no national requirement to wear a mask
| on public transport. London Underground and the Manchester
| Metro have used mayoral powers to require mask wearing -
| with variable compliance. Elsewhere its down to individual
| choice.
|
| > Plus mandatory self-quarantine if you are pinged by the
| NHS app.
|
| Not true. The app gives a recommendation. Only the NHS test
| and trace service can legally require you to self isolate.
| And for that you need to test positive (pcr) and not be
| fully vaccinated.
| whoooooo123 wrote:
| > with variable compliance
|
| Anecdotally, it seems to me that around 70-80% of people
| on the London Underground are still wearing masks. Which
| is to say that the "mandate" is a joke (like so many of
| our restrictions have been) and clearly isn't being
| enforced.
|
| The percentage of people wearing masks on the tube, where
| masks are "compulsory", doesn't seem much higher than the
| percentage of people who are voluntarily wearing masks in
| other public places which have no mandate, so the fact
| that most people are still wearing masks on the Tube is
| probably less because of the mandate and more because of
| people's general sense of precaution/paranoia. I suspect
| if the mask mandate were lifted then most people would
| continue to wear masks voluntarily anyway, just as
| they're still doing at the supermarket.
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| Same for Denmark. We are at 85% first dose and 78% second
| dose for the 5.1m people a vaccine was offered, so we are at
| 75% of the population with at least one dose [1]. Everything
| is open, there is a suggestion to wear masks in metro, no
| idea about buses or trains.
|
| [1] https://www.sst.dk/en/english/corona-eng/status-of-the-
| epide...
| sleepysysadmin wrote:
| >That's why I don't really understand why there are still covid
| restrictions in countries that are close to full vaccination,
| like the UK. There isn't really a next step after having
| vaccinated the population, it is "steady state". So do they
| want us to have these restrictions (countries you can't travel
| to, endless testing, mask requirements) forever?
|
| Our government loves to pat themselves on the back having 80%
| vaccination. Which is more than double the usual flu shot
| rates. Yet here we are with a 4th wave, talk about complete
| lockdown.
|
| At what point do you say that our approach is no different than
| the usual flu season? In my opinion that was long ago.
|
| So why? Technically don't know the answer. You can look at it
| from liberties point of view. That the reason these
| restrictions haven't lifted has nothing to do with covid.
|
| Another theory which seems legit. Vaccine doesnt work. If you
| follow texas gov abbot. TONS of articles slamming him for
| getting covid. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/17/texas-gov-
| abbott-who-banned-...
|
| Texas Gov. Abbott, who banned mask and vaccine mandates, tests
| positive for Covid
|
| But wait... Abbott is fully vaccinated. That's a huge issue.
| You can't slam him banning masks and all that. Vaccination is
| vaccination.
|
| Article title should be "Texas Gov. Abbott, who is fully
| vaccinated, tests positive for Covid"
|
| But that's where the politics of the situation come in. It's
| very evident covid-19 is completely influenced by politics.
| Which brings you right back to liberties point of view.
| chitowneats wrote:
| Greg Abbot even received a booster shot prior to infection.
|
| https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/texas-gov-
| gre...
| lamontcg wrote:
| > Vaccine doesnt work.
|
| 80% vaccine efficacy. We were hoping for 50% so that's
| actually pretty good.
|
| This is on par with "we had a snowstorm so climate change
| isn't real" levels of logic.
|
| Abbott has a mild case and isn't sucking on ventilator.
| sleepysysadmin wrote:
| >80% vaccine efficacy. We were hoping for 50% so that's
| actually pretty good.
|
| CDC says 94% efficacy.
| https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7018e1.htm
|
| Immunocompromise is 6%. https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/vaccine
| s/blog/immunocompromised-... - Estimates are that about 6.2
| percent of adults ages 18-64 in the U.S. are living with
| weakened immune function,
|
| The vaccine is 100% effective for healthy fully vax people.
| That 6% is concerning and will differ amount countries im
| sure.
|
| >This is on par with "we had a snowstorm so climate change
| isn't real" levels of logic.
|
| I find your analogy to be very telling. You have moved to
| another political issue that is quite divided along the
| same political lines.
|
| >Abbott has a mild case and isn't sucking on ventilator.
|
| Does abbott have a compromised immune system? Shrug?
|
| Should we even discuss the possibility that covid testing
| has high false positive testing? That Abbott never had
| covid and his more recent tests only days later he tested
| negative.
| lamontcg wrote:
| > CDC says 94% efficacy.
|
| Published in May, using data from Jan-Mar.
|
| Delta didn't exist.
|
| > I find your analogy to be very telling. You have moved
| to another political issue that is quite divided along
| the same political lines.
|
| I mean, yes. Science has become politicized and one side
| of the debate keeps making poor arguments.
|
| > Abbott never had covid and his more recent tests only
| days later he tested negative.
|
| He's vaccinated. Ct loads of viral mRNA drop more sharply
| if you've been vaccinated. Having it clear fast is
| expected.
|
| https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.28.212612
| 95v...
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > But wait... Abbott is fully vaccinated. That's a huge
| issue.
|
| No, its not. While the rates are somewhat higher with Delta,
| breakthrough infections were always expected. The accines
| reduce the probability of getting COVID with similar
| exposure, they don't 100% prevent it.
|
| > You can't slam him banning masks and all that.
|
| Yes, you can. Even if schools _weren 't_ full of unvaccinated
| people, which they are, the existence of breakthrough
| infections would _underline_ why banning mask mandates is a
| culpablr error.
| jdhn wrote:
| > breakthrough infections were always expected
|
| That isn't the way it was portrayed. The way that it was
| initially portrayed by the media is that these would be 99%
| effective and that after getting the vaccine you could go
| back to normal.
| geofft wrote:
| I mean, that's definitely not the impression I had after
| getting the vaccine (first shot March 24, well before
| anyone came up with the "Delta" name for B.1.617.2). I
| stayed home and wore masks just as much as I did before
| the vaccine. I knew the vaccine would make things safer
| when I did need to interact with other people, but also
| that it was hardly a reason to "go back to normal."
|
| Maybe your problem is you listen too much to the
| mainstream media instead of doing research for yourself?
| The corporate interests are trying to get you to consume
| more and so they wanted to entice you with the prospect
| of "going back to normal" and consuming things you don't
| need.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| You could and lots of people have. The visibility of
| masks (literally in your face!) tends to distract people
| from this, but the vast, vast majority of Covid
| restrictions were revoked after vaccinations became
| widely available, including anything in the vein of "stay
| home" or "social distancing". In all of the US and I
| think a substantial chunk of Europe, it's considered safe
| as a matter of policy for vaccinated people to go
| wherever they'd like and do whatever they want.
| sleepysysadmin wrote:
| >No, its not. While the rates are somewhat higher with
| Delta, breakthrough infections were always expected. The
| accines reduce the probability of getting COVID with
| similar exposure, they don't 100% prevent it.
|
| That's not my understanding, I'm in IT and not a biologist
| or whatever. So perhaps you can explain to me.
|
| A vaccine is something that boosts/helps the immune system
| develop protection against the disease.
|
| Measles vaccine means nobody got measles until antivaxers
| started spreading measles.
|
| Yes there can be a portion of society which does not have
| an immune system for the vaccine to help or boost and
| therefore the vaccines aren't useful and doesn't work.
| Percentages will change per country/society. However,
| someone fully vaccinated in my mind is someone who is never
| going to be infectious. Therefore prevents it.
|
| >Yes, you can. Even if schools weren't full of unvaccinated
| people, which they are, the existence of breakthrough
| infections would underline why banning mask mandates is a
| culpablr error.
|
| The problem with covid is that it clearly divides directly
| down political lines. Perhaps Texas guy is politically
| motivated and making bad decisions. The problem is the
| opposite as well. CNBC is clearly attacking when it's
| clearly unreasonable to do so.
|
| I have no pity at all for anti-vaxxers who get covid. I'm
| not in the USA, nor do I care about Texas.
| raesene9 wrote:
| Also not a biologist, but on the point of vaccines and
| whether they prevent the disease full-stop or just reduce
| the risk of serious illness, that's covered in the
| article.
|
| My synopsis of that was that it was not expected (by the
| developers of the vaccines) that it would prevent people
| getting the illness, but that it would considerably
| reduce the risk of serious infection.
|
| Some early trial results raised hopes that it would
| prevent people getting it, but with Delta that's not been
| borne out.
|
| That said, in addition to reducing the risk of serious
| cases, it does also help reduce transmission as
| vaccinated people who get it, generally have less serious
| cases, which mean they are infectious for a smaller
| amount of time.
| superkuh wrote:
| Spread of sars-cov-2 in human populations can be stopped. It
| first requires intramuscular vaccination to provide IgG
| antibodies in the body proper to prevent serious disease _and
| then_ just as importantly, an intranasal vaccination to provide
| resident B and T cells in the surface mucosa tissues of the
| upper respiratory tract where the B cells will make local IgA
| antibodies and provide sterilizing immunity and prevent spread
| from person to person.
|
| Intranasal boosters are the one obvious thing we could do top-
| down to end the pandemic and only have to deal with epidemics.
|
| ref: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/373/6553/397
|
| ref: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/long-term-
| evoluti... page 5, #8. "Whilst we feel that current vaccines
| are excellent for reducing the risk of hospital admission and
| disease, we propose that research be focused on vaccines that
| also induce high and durable levels of mucosal immunity in
| order to reduce infection of and transmission from vaccinated
| individuals. This could also reduce the possibility of variant
| selection in vaccinated individuals."
|
| ref: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41577-021-00550-x
| AndrewDucker wrote:
| To slow the spread so that hospitals are not overwhelmed. You
| can be up for letting it spread through everyone, but not think
| that letting everyone catch it at once is sensible.
| slickrick216 wrote:
| Don't know about the UK but in other EU countries with near
| full vaccination rates it does seem like they want a perpetual
| semi lockdown yes. Directive 10-289.
| howaboutnope wrote:
| Well, it's been profitable so far, so of course it's going to
| get milked for as long as possible.
|
| https://inequality.org/great-divide/updates-billionaire-pand...
| andyjohnson0 wrote:
| > That's why I don't really understand why there are still
| covid restrictions in countries that are close to full
| vaccination, like the UK.
|
| There are almost no UK legal restrictions relating to covid.
| There are some rules about people returning from certain high
| risk countries. And unvaccinated people who test positive still
| have to self isolate. And that's about it.
|
| Many people (like myself) still wear masks in busy indoor
| locations. And many are choosing to forego foreign holidays
| this summer.
|
| Life here in the UK doesn't feel entirely normal, but it's much
| much nearer to pre-pandemic conditions than this time last
| year.
| whoooooo123 wrote:
| > many are choosing to forego foreign holidays this summer
|
| "Choosing" is a strange way to put it when COVID testing and
| quarantine requirements have added hundreds (and in some
| cases thousands) of pounds to the cost of most foreign
| holidays and the rules are changing so frequently and
| suddenly that it's a big financial risk to book anything more
| than a few days in advance.
| Expirat wrote:
| > That's why I don't really understand why there are still
| covid restrictions in countries that are close to full
| vaccination, like the UK
|
| Because it s not about the pandemic. It s about asserting
| control over population and making them obey whatever govts,
| ongs, big pharma or big corps come up with. A kind of a mass
| scale social engineering project.
|
| Edit: this btw doesn t need to be some sort of a secret group
| project. It can rise naturally and decentralized among many
| connected decision groups(govts, academia, big corps, etc)
| which already happened.
| evnc wrote:
| Why is this different from other instances of governments
| instituting laws or regulations for the sake of public
| safety, of which there are already many?
|
| Are seatbelt laws a mass experiment in social control?
|
| Are laws mandating wearing underwear in public "about
| asserting control over population and making them obey"?
| elastic_is_slow wrote:
| > Are seatbelt laws a mass experiment in social control?
|
| For this, or other instances you might come up with, you
| had a large consensus between the rulers and the ruled. No
| one questioned the motif behind seatbelt wearing or other
| public safety measures.
|
| Do you have such a consensus for vaccine mandates,
| lockdowns, mask wearing or covid passports? It seems not.
| The only consensus you have is at the top between those who
| hold the power, resources and influence.
|
| When you have skeptic voices and vaccine hesitant people
| among medical personnel we can t really talk about a
| consensus. If you can't even persuade some doctor or nurse
| to agree with your medical decisions without using coercion
| what should the average joe do? What does that tell us
| about the motifs of those that hold the decision power?
| bodge5000 wrote:
| A pandemic seems like an awfully long and expensive way of
| doing that, especially considering they already did so before
| the pandemic through so many means (many of which actually
| make them money rather than cost them, I assume you pay
| taxes?)
|
| The only group who can be said to have really profited off
| this is pharma. Maybe they have orchestrated the whole thing,
| but I'd like to see some evidence first.
| whoooooo123 wrote:
| The pandemic doesn't need to have been deliberately
| engineered; it only needed to provide an opportunity for
| nefarious actors to exploit.
|
| Unless you think we're living through the only crisis in
| history which powerful people haven't exploited to further
| their existing agendas.
| elastic_is_slow wrote:
| > A pandemic seems like an awfully long and expensive way
| of doing that...
|
| Actually a pandemic is a great way of establishing control
| and surveillance. Read Michel Foucault's analysis of the
| way the plague has shaped the society and power play
| between decision makers and average citizens.
|
| https://foucault.info/documents/foucault.disciplineAndPunis
| h...
|
| > The only group who can be said to have really profited
| off this is pharma.
|
| Really? The rich getting richer off the lockdown doesn't
| count? The governments getting excuses to strengthen the
| hold on their citizens?
|
| Two groups off the top of my head.
|
| Also don t try to find some ulterior motif for all of
| this(conspiracy ppl do this a lot), it can very well be
| done just for the sake of it.
| alphager wrote:
| > close to full vaccination, like the UK.
|
| Why do people not consider kids younger than 12yo as part of
| the population? MILLIONS of kids can't be vaccinated yet (but
| will hopefully come december). Any talk of lifting restrictions
| before march is basically a re-formulated "fuck the kids".
| colordrops wrote:
| No it's not. There's still no evidence that there is any real
| risk to children. Please prove otherwise. Anecdotes and one
| in a million cases don't count.
| brown9-2 wrote:
| If you want to talk about "real risk" then I think it's
| only fair to ask you to define what that acceptable risk
| level is.
| colordrops wrote:
| It's the job of those imposing restrictions to define the
| risk.
| Thiez wrote:
| Almost 4000 children die each year from drowning in the
| USA, with double that having a non-fatal drowning [0].
| Note that non-fatal drownings can cause long-term health
| problems. They haven't banned pools yet, so it follows
| that, as a country, the USA considers 4000 dead children
| an acceptable risk of having open water, such as rivers,
| ponds, and pools. And bath tubs, I suppose.
|
| Now with that number in mind, how many children are
| expected to die if all of them were to be infected with
| covid-19? I found it hard to find some numbers about
| this, in my country all corona-deaths of people aged 49
| or less are grouped together these days because there are
| so few that they could be traced to individuals
| otherwise.
|
| [0]: https://www.cdc.gov/drowning/facts/index.html
| ksaun wrote:
| The information on that CDC page is misleading. While the
| page is about children, the text that mentions the 3960
| annual drowning deaths does not specify "children," and
| the number seems to be across all age groups.
|
| This source states ~800 children deaths/year to be
| children (in 2014). [0]
|
| (I am not commenting on your overall point, just that
| statistic.)
|
| For reference, the CDC notes annual total US children
| deaths (if defining "children" as <= 14) as a little over
| 9000 (in 2019, I think). [1]
|
| [0] https://www.safekids.org/press-
| release/almost-800-kids-drown...
|
| [1] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/child-health.htm
| Thiez wrote:
| Thanks for the correction! I guess I sound a bit callous
| in my previous post, but I'm quite happy to learn that
| 3000 fewer children drown each year than I anticipated
| (it did feel like a high number). The 800 deaths per year
| figure can still function as a comparison for the
| expected child deaths from covid-19.
| ericbarrett wrote:
| "North Texas runs out of pediatric ICU beds amid Covid
| surge" (August 13): https://news.yahoo.com/north-texas-
| runs-pediatric-icu-175912...
| colordrops wrote:
| Anecdote.
| CodeWriter23 wrote:
| Only 73 Pediatric ICU Beds in North Texas (from the
| Yahoo! Article)? This article puts a little different
| perspective on that reality - 'No Staffed Pediatric ICU
| Beds Available' In North Texas Area, DFW Hospital Council
| Says https://dfw.cbslocal.com/2021/08/12/no-staffed-
| pediatric-icu...
| king_magic wrote:
| This is absolutely not true.
|
| https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/child-
| covid-19-hospital...
| firecall wrote:
| This is not true of Delta strain.
|
| Younger people, under 30, and children are getting it and
| ending up in hospital.
|
| It's widely reported here in Australia.
|
| Children are at risk.
| shakna wrote:
| > Younger people, under 30, and children are getting it
| and ending up in hospital.
|
| To emphasise this point, in Victoria, Australia, most of
| the cases are in the 20-29 age group. Most of the active
| cases are in the 0-9 age group.[0] NSW data doesn't have
| the pretty graphs, but the raw data [1] bears out similar
| groupings.
|
| [0] https://www.coronavirus.vic.gov.au/victorian-
| coronavirus-cov...
|
| [1] https://data.nsw.gov.au/data/dataset/nsw-
| covid-19-cases-by-a...
| MontyCarloHall wrote:
| Your first link reports that out of the thousands of
| total cases, only 20 are in the hospital, 9 of which are
| in the ICU. This does not support the claim that young
| people are "widely" ending up in the hospital from COVID.
|
| A COVID case != serious illness, especially in vaccinated
| individuals. We need to stop pretending that they are
| equivalent.
| shakna wrote:
| > Your first link reports that out of the thousands of
| total cases, only 20 are in the hospital, 9 of which are
| in the ICU.
|
| My first link reports 492 total active cases, not
| thousands.
|
| If you want to use the total cases, then you should be
| noting that 820 people have died, and 20,212 have
| recovered. The mortality calculated from that is a simple
| 3.8%.
|
| 20 hospitalised cases out of 492 total active cases, is
| about 4%, and the 9 in ICU are about 2% of total active
| cases.
| MontyCarloHall wrote:
| >My first link reports 492 total active cases, not
| thousands.
|
| You are correct, I was looking at total cases, not active
| cases. My apologies!
|
| However, this still does not support the claim that young
| people are "widely" going to the hospital. Even assuming
| that age ranges are going to the hospital at equal rates
| (which is a preposterous assumption), given 20 total
| hospitalizations spread across 492 active cases (of which
| 290 are ages 0-29), we would only expect ~11/290 active
| COVID cases under 30 to be hospitalized. But again, this
| an extremely unrealistic upper bound, based on the
| ludicrous assumption that all ages get hospitalized at
| equal rates.
|
| On top of that, these data are from Australia, where the
| population is still not widely vaccinated. I assume the
| vast majority of hospitalized COVID patients in Victoria
| are not fully vaccinated.
|
| >The mortality calculated from that is a simple 3.8%.
|
| This (and all previous calculations) depend on accurately
| estimating the denominator, i.e. the total number of
| cases. Given the amount of asymptomatic/low symptomatic
| cases, how is this accurately done? Has the composition
| of who gets tested shifted over the course of the
| pandemic? Has it ever actually accurately sampled the
| true number of cases?
| colordrops wrote:
| Data please.
| jtbayly wrote:
| It's widely reported in the US, too. But the data doesn't
| bear it out.
| shakna wrote:
| The vast majority [0] of cases in Victoria are for the
| 20-29 age group. There are as many cases for the 10-19
| age group as the 40-49 age group.
|
| The vast majority of currently active cases right now are
| for the 0-9 age group.
|
| Whilst there isn't a current breakdown of mortality by
| age rate, the overall mortality rate for Victoria is 4%,
| meaning that there is a high risk to children.
|
| The data does bear out the risk.
|
| [0] https://www.coronavirus.vic.gov.au/victorian-
| coronavirus-cov...
| nradov wrote:
| A mortality rate of 4% in Victoria is obviously wrong.
| The only way to get a number that high is to ignore all
| the asymptomatic or paucisymptomatic cases. US CDC data
| shows a mortality rate of only 0.6%, and that's mostly
| from earlier in the pandemic before vaccines were
| available.
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-
| updates/burd...
| jtbayly wrote:
| > The vast majority of currently active cases right now
| are for the 0-9 age group.
|
| Either I can't read graphs, or you can't.
|
| And you absolutely cannot take the overall mortality rate
| and apply it to the one age group we know practically
| none have died from in the past.
|
| So, as I said, the data doesn't bear this out so far as
| I've seen.
| shakna wrote:
| > Either I can't read graphs, or you can't.
|
| That would be _you_. Here's the numbers from said active
| case graph.
|
| + 0-9 - 112
|
| + 10-19 - 100
|
| + 20-29 - 78
|
| + 30-39 - 105
|
| + 40-49 - 54
|
| + 50-59 - 25
|
| + 60-69 - 14
|
| + 70-79 - 3
|
| + 80-89 - 1
| 22c wrote:
| The Victorian government data you linked is very unclear.
|
| It treats cases in aged care vs. not in aged care as
| separate sets, but is not clear on whether or not
| hospitalisation cases come from both sets.
|
| At the top of the page it says "cases in hospital by age"
| but I can't seem to find any reference to the age of
| those people in hospital.
|
| What's clear to me, though, is in the age group of 0-29
| there's been a total of 1 death in Victoria. It's not a
| whole lot to go on, but it seems unlikely to me that many
| in the 0-29 group require hospital treatment.
| jtbayly wrote:
| Just to be clear, you said:
|
| > The vast majority of currently active cases right now
| are for the 0-9 age group.
|
| And then you shared data that shows 0-9 age group with
| less than 30%. Since we apparently agree on how to read
| the chart, I can only assume the words "vast majority"
| were not what you meant.
| anyonecancode wrote:
| I suspect the reason children are the hold up here is less
| around current data than around where we are in this
| pandemic and patterns of thought/risk assessment. Here's an
| analogy that maybe will work with the HN crowd. Say we've
| got a service that, for 75% of the API endpoints, often
| gets a severe error. 25% of the endpoints only very rarely
| get the same error. My team discovers that by applying one
| simple change to the 75% of the affected endpoints, their
| error rate drops dramatically. We can't, for whatever
| reason, apply the same fix to those 25% yet, but we're
| confident that within a relatively short amount of time
| we'll be able to.
|
| Do we declare that the service is now working well and move
| on to other items? Maybe -- in a real setting it'll of
| course depend on what other priorities the team's juggling
| at the moment. Maybe this is "good enough" to move on.
| Still, I think we can all relate to the emotional pull to
| say "hold on, we still don't actually know why those 25% of
| our endpoints weren't affected as often. Something could
| easily change there so that we start seeing similar error
| rates. We have a fix on the way for this -- can we wait
| just a bit longer so we can roll this out?"
|
| I think that's where a lot of people are. Again, one could
| certainly argue that we're close enough, but OTOH I think
| the reluctance to declare this "over" yet makes a lot of
| sense too.
| colordrops wrote:
| Too many holes in this analogy. For instance, there are
| other unrelated errors that happen more frequently.
| luffapi wrote:
| There are risks to _all_ of us when we let millions of
| children act as a breeding and mutation substrate for the
| virus. I would think that would be blinding obvious to
| anyone with even a basic grasp of biology.
|
| It's also completely unknown what the long term effects of
| the virus are.
|
| Edit: Disappointed but not surprised by the amount of anti-
| science on this site. I feel like a lot of people have let
| politics destroy their ability to think critically to the
| point of near suicidal ignorance. Sad.
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| >It's also completely unknown what the long term effects
| of the virus are.
|
| Long term beyond a year and a half? I think it's safe to
| assume there is very little.
| hcurtiss wrote:
| Given global vaccination rates, it will have abundant and
| plentiful opportunities for breeding and mutation
| forever. There is no vaccinating the entire globe for
| coronavirus. Certainly not in our lifetimes. And not
| given the declining effectiveness of the vaccines.
| luffapi wrote:
| I agree that the whole globe will not be vaccinated and
| that will continue to be a problem. That doesn't negate
| what I said though, unvaccinated children are a huge part
| of that problem.
|
| > _And not given the low effectiveness of the vaccines._
|
| I have no idea what this means. It sounds like you're
| under false impressions. The vaccines are quite
| effective.
| hcurtiss wrote:
| I meant "declining." Revised simultaneous with your
| comment. If the vaccine immunity does not persist and
| requires boosters, we will never reach global here
| immunity. The parent article is on point.
| x1ph0z wrote:
| > And not given the declining effectiveness of the
| vaccines.
|
| Times like these I wish HN had a downvote button, since
| that's total misinformation.
| hcurtiss wrote:
| It does once you have sufficient karma. Also, you're
| wrong. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-vaccine-
| booster-shot-cdc-...
| playguardin wrote:
| Wrong.
| rajin444 wrote:
| It's really concerning you're wrong and also wish for the
| ability to silence others instead of engaging with them.
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/s0818-covid-19-bo
| ost...
| Thiez wrote:
| The other user was suggesting lifting restrictions would
| be equal to "fuck the kids". Clearly _that_ is not the
| case.
|
| As for the risk of new mutations: if we were truly
| worried about that then perhaps the priority should be
| vaccinating the populations of poorer countries instead?
| luffapi wrote:
| I don't think that's clear at all.
|
| > _As for the risk of new mutations: if we were truly
| worried about that then perhaps the priority should be
| vaccinating the populations of poorer countries instead?_
|
| Vaccinate everyone, there's no shortage of vaccine.
| Remember when Bill Gates fought to stop the manufacture
| of vaccine in other countries? People like him are the
| enemy to a fully vaccinated population.
| HarryHirsch wrote:
| Early this year it looked as if the virus was on the way
| out in Israel until they started opening up schools again.
| The risk to children is small, but it's a communicable
| disease - school is how it spreads between households.
|
| When doing risk assessments I wish people started looking
| beyond their own immediate circle. Then again, Pharao let
| the Children of Israel go only after his own firstborn son
| died.
| CountDrewku wrote:
| Asymptomatic spread of the virus is negligible from
| everything I've read. Children that don't show symptoms
| aren't a threat. Additionally, there's really no evidence
| that schools are spreading the virus more.
|
| https://www.npr.org/2020/10/21/925794511/were-the-risks-
| of-r...
| laputan_machine wrote:
| It's not about children getting it and being ill, it's
| about children getting it and spreading it. This is the
| concept behind 'herd immunity'. If we can cut the chain, we
| mitigate older and people with weakened immune systems from
| getting it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_immunity
| Expirat wrote:
| > It's not about children getting it and being ill, it's
| about children getting it and spreading it.
|
| Vaccinated people can still get ill and spread it so why
| do you keep pushing vaccines to children who have no risk
| whatsoever if the vulnerable groups have been vaccinated
| and are safe??
| cm2187 wrote:
| But if vaccinated people are also spreading it, I don't
| get the point of waiting for kids to be vaccinated.
|
| The population at risk being vaccinated was the big deal,
| but that's done now (apart from those who refuse to be
| vaccinated, but then it is their problem).
| brown9-2 wrote:
| > But if vaccinated people are also spreading it
|
| It is not a binary 0 or 1 as far as if vaccinated people
| will spread the infection if they are infected. The
| vaccine lowers the chances, so the more people we can get
| vaccinated, the lower the chances can get.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > Bit if vaccinated people are also spreading it
|
| They are less likely to be infected, and it looks like
| they have a shorter infectious period.
|
| Herd immunity may be achievable with this in mind, but no
| one really knows right now. New variants may change the
| calculus too.
| nradov wrote:
| The Delta variant is contagious enough that we'll never
| achieve a level of herd immunity sufficient to protect
| unvaccinated people. All of us will be infected
| eventually, it's basically inevitable. Fortunately the
| vaccines are very effective at preventing deaths.
|
| https://www.businessinsider.com/delta-variant-made-herd-
| immu...
| ceejayoz wrote:
| This presumes we can't tweak boosters to better target
| Delta, which seems like a silly assumption.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| Yes, but parent poster wrote: "Any talk of lifting
| restrictions before march is basically a re-formulated
| "fuck the kids"."
|
| which is not honest in my opinion. The kids so far have
| suffered the most from corona - no school, no friends -
| no activities - yet had the least, to fear from it.
|
| So vaccinating the kids is not really about saving the
| kids - it is about the older population.
| colordrops wrote:
| Did you already forget the comment that started this
| thread? This is assuming the rest of the population is
| vaccinated.
| rajamaka wrote:
| Older people can get vaccinated
| jcrben wrote:
| Nearly 300 hospitalized per day, nearly 500 dead so far.
| https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/07/health/children-
| covid-19-prot...
|
| Unknown how many will long-term health effects.
|
| Even seemingly innocuous viruses like Epstein-Barr are tied
| to various health problems later in life. Why should we
| knowingly expose an entire generation to a little
| understood virus?
| colordrops wrote:
| So less than one in a million children hospitalized per
| day. And 500 dead after almost two years is nothing,
| sorry to be so blunt.
|
| You can say epstein-barr, I can say other corona viruses
| like the cold virus. You can't just choose an arbitrary
| virus to compare to. We need strong evidence of serious
| risk to impose such restrictions, and not ungrounded fear
| which is not backed by data.
| MatteoFrigo wrote:
| CNN is fake news. Stop spreading misinformation.
|
| Raw mortality data at https://euromomo.eu/graphs-and-
| maps/ show no discernible increase in mortality for
| children 0-14 in England (or anywhere else for that
| matter).
| nkohari wrote:
| Influenza kills thousands of people under 18 every year:
| https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html
|
| We are actually _incredibly_ fortunate that Covid spares
| children to the degree that it does.
| throwaway169169 wrote:
| > Influenza kills thousands of people under 18 every
| year:
|
| No, it does not. You didn't actually look at the numbers.
| One of the worst years overall shows 115 for 0-4 and 528
| for 5-17:
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/2017-2018.htm
|
| There are some years where the total is a little over a
| thousand, but most are well below.
|
| Don't spread this bull.
| qweqwweqwe-90i wrote:
| So looks like more kids were hospitalized and more died
| from the flu? What bull are you referring to? Were you
| outraged about them in any of the last 20 years?
| throwaway169169 wrote:
| > What bull are you referring to?
|
| The bull that was clearly quoted? "Influenza kills
| thousands of people under 18 every year". The linked data
| does not say that at all.
|
| You're being difficult just to be difficult here.
| hcurtiss wrote:
| Except that in kids COVID is about as lethal as the ordinary
| flu. It's more transmissible, but the number of kids we've
| seen suffer serious consequences across the US has been very,
| very low. We don't make kids wear helmets everywhere they go,
| though it would be decidedly more efficacious from a safety
| perspective. It seems to me some relativity is in order.
| firecall wrote:
| This is outdated information.
|
| Delta strain is worse - more dangerous for kids and those
| under 30.
| hcurtiss wrote:
| More dangerous than what? Even if it were 200% more
| lethal, 2x a very small number is still a very small
| number.
| shakna wrote:
| Whilst I don't have the figures to specifically source,
| yesterday's daily pressing briefing for my area had the
| health minister saying that delta was 100x more lethal
| than the flu in children, or 1000%.
|
| That is not a very small number.
| 2trill2spill wrote:
| Your health Minister seems to be spreading
| misinformation.
| shakna wrote:
| The mortality rate for my state is 4% of all cases. [0]
| The mortality rate for the entire country is about 5.6%
| [1].
|
| There has not been a single certified influenza death in
| Australia since 2020. [1]
|
| It certainly appears that my health minister was
| downplaying the difference, not playing it up.
|
| [0] https://www.health.gov.au/news/health-alerts/novel-
| coronavir...
|
| [1] https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/health/causes-
| death/provis...
| wk_end wrote:
| Unless Australians are an order of magnitude more
| vulnerable to COVID than elsewhere in the world, those
| numbers are more the result of low test rates missing
| infections than anything else.
|
| In the US, the CDC estimates an actual mortality rate of
| 0.6%, compared to the ratio of cases/deaths of ~1.6%.
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-
| updates/burd...
| shakna wrote:
| Australia has had an order of magnitude fewer infections
| than elsewhere in the world. We have come close to
| eliminating its spread altogether several times, so it
| should come as no surprise that the proportion of deaths
| is higher than somewhere else that has failed to contain
| the illness.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| Australians now have to post a sign on their door saying
| they are in quarantine. People are not allowed to travel
| within the country. They locked down a state of 1.3
| million people with 5 hours notice because of one case
| they said was from a pizza box.
|
| They are also building giant quarantine facilities,
| indicating they are gonna do this for the long haul.
|
| Australia is hardly a model country for how to handle an
| infectious respiratory virus.
|
| https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-21/sa-tougher-border-
| res...
|
| https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8980913/South-
| Austr...
| wk_end wrote:
| How does that follow? How deadly a virus is for any given
| individual should be independent of how many other people
| got it (outside of situations where the health care
| system is overwhelmed and can't provide adequate care -
| but that'd make the numbers worse for the US, not
| better).
| shakna wrote:
| If the virus is under better containment, those more
| likely to be infected, are more likely to be comorbid
| with other conditions. Thus death rates when looking at
| the entire length of the pandemic are likely to be
| higher.
|
| Delta is the first time Australia has seen widespread
| infection in healthy people.
| wk_end wrote:
| > those more likely to be infected, are more likely to be
| comorbid with other conditions
|
| I'm not totally sure that's the case - it's at least
| something you can't just aver as self-evident. I'd guess
| that those most likely to be infected early on are going
| to be people who travel or those who come most into
| contact with them (service & tourism workers).
|
| But I also think it's a moot point. In the context of
| this thread - which is about how to move forward once
| we've accepted that containment is off the table, and
| especially about the risk that poses to the healthiest
| members of society (kids) - it doesn't make sense to cite
| numbers that you yourself acknowledge overstate the risk
| of COVID by being biased towards the _most_ unhealthy
| members of society.
| hcurtiss wrote:
| Excess mortality rates aren't relevant at all to the
| lethality of the delta variant in children relative to
| prior strains. Overall mortality isn't even asking the
| right question, and it's a very poor proxy even for the
| lethality rate of SARS-COV-2 (contingent on pervasive
| testing). And that we've eliminated influenza deaths is
| no argument that influenza is no longer lethal.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Source?
| only_as_i_fall wrote:
| Isn't the concern that children act as a massive spread
| vector such that breakthrough cases in adults may still
| overwhelm hospital systems?
|
| A couple months ago I would have maybe agreed, but the
| delta variant seems to really through a wrench into this
| line of thinking.
| freewilly1040 wrote:
| Serious breakthrough cases remain rare, delta has not
| changed this
| lamontcg wrote:
| If they fall down in the playground they don't carry that
| injury home and kill one of their parents with it.
| cfn wrote:
| But their parents are (or can be) vaccinated, thus imune
| to the disease.
| nradov wrote:
| The CDC estimates that the survival rate for the 18-49
| age bracket (which accounts for most parents of young
| children) is 99.94%. And that's since the start of the
| pandemic without vaccination. For vaccinated parents now
| the survival rate is virtually 100%.
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-
| updates/burd...
| lamontcg wrote:
| Some 18-49 year old parents have cancer diagnosis that
| they're living with and are taking immune suppressants,
| or they're taking care of older family members.
|
| You can't erect a solid barrier around that population
| demographic like they never come into contact with
| vulnerable sections of the population.
|
| And enough people are being stupid about vaccinations
| that they're out there getting sick, and unfortunately if
| you just let them roll the dice while letting the virus
| rip through kids, it will find all the vulnerable people
| out there and overload the hospital system and affects
| everyone. Kids don't exist in a vacuum and the virus will
| happily hop through them to find every vulnerable adult
| it can.
|
| Once again we find ourselves in a "flattening the curve"
| problem.
|
| And you need to stop focusing on death rates. In terms of
| hospital resources, a patient who spends 2 weeks in the
| ICU and recovers is just as bad as one that spends 2
| weeks in the ICU and dies. And per patient they're more
| resource intensive than other respiratory viruses.
| hajile wrote:
| > Some 18-49 year old parents have cancer diagnosis that
| they're living with and are taking immune suppressants,
| or they're taking care of older family members.
|
| If your immune system is already compromised, there's
| TONS of other stuff just as scary as COVID. The risk of
| the flu to these people in past years was just as high,
| but this argument wasn't used because the entire world
| can't put life on hold forever.
| freewilly1040 wrote:
| Do any downvoters care to actually explain their
| reasoning? Wikipedia puts flu deaths during the last pre-
| pandemic season at 60K in the US.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_influenza_sta
| tis...
| spookthesunset wrote:
| I mean there is no reasoning. We never did this crap for
| other illness. It's as if people woke up on March 2020
| and discovered "holy crap people die of illness!!"
| lilactown wrote:
| Immune suppressed individuals and the people who interact
| with them I would assume are, as a population, used to
| taking care of themselves in the face of the common flu
| and other things which present danger to them.
|
| The ease at which COVID, especially delta, spreads
| basically guarantees immune suppressed individuals will
| come into contact with it w/o everyone taking
| precautions.
|
| You don't have to put your life on hold forever. Wear a
| mask, be vaccinated, and encourage others in your life to
| do the same. Live your life within the bounds that helps
| others survive this. We're in this together.
| only_as_i_fall wrote:
| According to those same cdc numbers the hospitalization
| rate in that same population is ~40x higher than just the
| mortality.
|
| It doesn't matter how low the death rate is if the
| hospital system collapses.
| ansible wrote:
| So, yeah, I guess the grandparents and older aunts /
| uncles they may be living with are fucked. But who cares
| about them?
| nkohari wrote:
| I really just don't understand the hyperventilation about
| this stuff. At this point, the vast majority of elderly
| people are fully vaccinated, and breakthrough cases --
| especially those resulting in severe illness or death --
| are extremely rare. The risk is nonzero, but living with
| zero risk is simply not a realistic goal. It never has
| been and never will be.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| You educate people on the risks of covid, tell them how
| it spreads and let the individuals and families decide
| what level of precautions they feel are appropriate.
|
| Grandma only has a few years left... they wanna see their
| grandkids. My daughters grandparents would rather die of
| covid than not be able to hug and interact with their
| grandchildren. Who the hell is the state or some blowhard
| health "expert" to deny them that?
| [deleted]
| hcurtiss wrote:
| The odds are overwhelmingly high they won't with COVID
| either. Let's not forget that the survival rate in all
| populations is well north of 90%. Parent age populations
| closer to 99%. Even higher if the parents are vaccinated.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| Adults sacrifice for children. If children aren't at
| risk, we have a moral obligation to let them be kids and
| live their short, once ever childhood.
|
| Making kids protect adults by sacrificing their one and
| only childhood is morally bankrupt.
|
| Also, adults have a vaccine... so they aren't at risk
| either.
| CountDrewku wrote:
| Because COVID poses very little risk to children. The flu
| poses more risk to that age group. No one is running around
| saying we need to mask children for the flu and vaccinated
| all of them.
| unclenoriega wrote:
| The CDC definitely says we should vaccinate almost all
| children against influenza.
| https://www.cdc.gov/flu/prevent/vaccinations.htm
| CountDrewku wrote:
| Cool now show me the school lockdowns, masking, and
| forced influenza vaccine passports for children.
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/flu/fluvaxview/coverage-1920estimates
| .ht...
|
| No more than 64% for school aged individuals. So, since
| you're supposedly using this as a reason why we should be
| keeping everyone locked down then I'm going to assume you
| feel the same for influenza? Which means you're saying we
| should have shut schools down and mandated all sorts of
| measures to protect them since the inception of the
| influenza vaccinations?
|
| Full vaccination COVID is not an achievable goal.
| jfengel wrote:
| It's not so much "fuck the kids" as "fuck the teachers".
|
| Even if you believe that "kids don't get sick from COVID",
| you can't ignore that teachers do. And many of them are in
| high-risk groups -- older, with comorbidities. Most are
| vaccinated, but they're still taking a risk.
|
| Teachers are already smarting over the fact that (in the US)
| they're literally trained to take a bullet for their kids. So
| when you tell them to open the schools "for the kids",
| they're hearing that they're disposable human beings, and
| they don't like it.
|
| Open the schools incautiously, and there won't be any schools
| to open. Because a school without teachers is just a
| warehouse.
| rajin444 wrote:
| > Most are vaccinated, but they're still taking a risk
|
| Pre pandemic they took a risk every day as well, so it's a
| matter of acceptable risk, which I believe is what the
| article was focused on. What level of risk is that?
| jfengel wrote:
| That existing risk was already at the limit of
| acceptability. New risk being added on pushes many past
| that limit.
|
| It's made worse by the fact that this additional risk is
| being left out of the discussion so often. People talk
| about what's good for the children and their parents and
| the economy, but not about what the teachers need.
| They're being treated as disposable, which exacerbates
| the perception of risk further.
|
| Discussions about school openings that ignore a critical
| factor are not going to result in what people hope for.
| rajin444 wrote:
| So 0 covid is the only answer? I don't think 0 covid is
| possible. We would need vaccines that provide sterilizing
| immunity for that.
| chki wrote:
| > That existing risk was already at the limit of
| acceptability.
|
| Do you actually thinks so? I've never heard that aspiring
| teachers are thinking about their increased risk to
| illnesses, especially since many have children of their
| own and are exposed to an increased risk by children
| anyway.
| tomp wrote:
| > That existing risk was already at the limit of
| acceptability.
|
| Nobody forced them to become teachers.
| jfengel wrote:
| And nobody is forcing them to remain teachers.
|
| With the rise in gun violence at schools, teachers have
| had to undertake additional training for scenarios that
| they had not priced in their initial decisions. They did
| not like that, and they like even less being ignored in
| the discussion of whether or not to open schools.
|
| So a great number will not remain teachers if they do not
| feel like they're part of the decision. They're used to
| being told to "do it for the children", but there are
| limits, and this will push many past them.
| nradov wrote:
| Gun violence in schools is extremely rare. Students and
| teachers are far more likely to die in vehicle accidents
| traveling to and from school.
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/10/11/lockdo
| wn-...
| cortesoft wrote:
| Also, kids are absolutely getting sick from Delta.
| cfn wrote:
| Isn't it easier and safer to vaccinate the teachers? There
| are less of them and they are of the age where the current
| vaccines are considered safe.
| hajile wrote:
| In NYC, teacher's unions refused to go back to work until
| a vaccine was available. Despite that, the vaccination
| rates were only 40-60% before the mandate that public
| sector workers be vaccinated.
| cfn wrote:
| I suppose that the teachers that chose not to be
| vaccinated would not want to impose that on their pupils.
| cpr wrote:
| Because it's all about control, not about a virus with a 99.8%
| survival rate.
| Expirat wrote:
| Apparently this is something so complex that the big brains
| here cannot wrap their heads around no matter how smart and
| informed they think they are.
| KineticLensman wrote:
| > That's why I don't really understand why there are still
| covid restrictions in countries that are close to full
| vaccination, like the UK
|
| I cracked some ribs three weeks ago and coughing / sneezing are
| really painful. I am keeping my mask on because I really don't
| want even a mild cough, for whatever reason.
|
| More generally, the vaccines are not 100% effective, the virus
| can still be transmitted and spread. For lots of people,
| getting COVID is still life threatening, even if the average
| case is not as bad as it used to be.
| 2trill2spill wrote:
| So you want country wide restrictions solely for your own
| comfort? Sounds incredibly selfish.
| s5300 wrote:
| You really don't see the irony in this statement, do you.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| That is exactly what people are asking for and it is super
| selfish. Asking everybody to hunker down to assuage people
| who continue to be afraid.
|
| Sorry. Life is short. I've sacrificed 1.6 years of it for
| something I've never been afraid of. I've played by all the
| rules, but enough is enough. It is super selfish to insist
| we continue to live this way. We aren't living, we are
| being kept alive... life was meant to be lived.
| op00to wrote:
| Wow you're so tough and edgy. You must have very thick
| chest hair or whatever you're trying to compensate for
| with this rediculous machismo.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| Machismo? Dude. 1.6 years is a non trivial amount of my
| life. I've already put my career on hold because of this,
| sacrificed my daughters well being, and a bunch of stuff.
| I got the shot. I'm fully vaccinated. How much more do
| you expect from me in order to protect people who don't
| want to get vaccinated?
|
| The only person who truly looks after my well-being is
| me. I can be selfish. I deserve to have my actual normal
| life back. My 2019 life didnt revolve around worrying
| about stopping the spread of exactly one very specific
| disease.
|
| If y'all want to hide under the bed at home until some
| undefined end date... go for it. But forcing society to
| do the same with you is incredibly selfish.
| swader999 wrote:
| I don't care about myself but the social isolation of
| kids was pretty bad. I hope we can get back to where they
| can fully interact with each other again.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| We could do it today if we wanted to. The only thing
| stoping it is tribalism and irrational fear.
| Alex3917 wrote:
| > That's why I don't really understand why there are still
| covid restrictions in countries that are close to full
| vaccination, like the UK
|
| If you get it after being vaccinated, you still have a ~20%
| chance of becoming disabled.
| josephcsible wrote:
| That's a really extraordinary claim with no evidence
| whatsoever.
| Alex3917 wrote:
| How does this not count as evidence?:
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/16/well/live/vaccine-long-
| co...
|
| It literally says: "While most of the breakthrough cases
| were mild or asymptomatic, seven out of 36 workers tracked
| at six weeks (19 percent) still had persistent symptoms.
| These long Covid symptoms included a mix of prolonged loss
| of smell, persistent cough, fatigue, weakness, labored
| breathing or muscle pain."
|
| It's certainly not great data, but it's still the best
| information we have as of right now.
| josephcsible wrote:
| I don't think very many reasonable people would count a
| "persistent cough" as "becoming disabled".
| Alex3917 wrote:
| When you have a persistent cough due to lung damage then
| your chances of death the next time you catch a minor
| illness go through the roof. It's why so many of the
| people who survived SARS initially are no longer alive.
| lp0_on_fire wrote:
| calling that "disabled" is incredibly misleading to the
| point of being disingenuous.
| Alex3917 wrote:
| I mean if you're basically paralyzed, how does that not
| count as being disabled? What do you think muscle
| weakness and fatigue actually means in this context?
| lp0_on_fire wrote:
| Muscle weakness and fatigue is in no way shape or form
| like paralysis.
|
| I'm starting to think you've never encountered someone
| with a disability in your life.
| Alex3917 wrote:
| > Muscle weakness and fatigue is in no way shape or form
| like paralysis.
|
| Having muscle weakness in your arms mean that you can't
| do things like raising your hands to chest level and
| squeezing someone's hand. In practice it means you can't
| do everyday things like opening doors, or else can only
| do them with great difficulty.
|
| Having muscle weakness in the legs means that if you're
| lying on your back, you don't have the ability to raise
| your legs off the ground. In practice, it means that you
| can't do everyday things like walking, or else can only
| do them with great difficulty and probably some form of
| assistance.
|
| It's obviously not exactly the same as being paralyzed,
| but it's not that far off either. On the spectrum from
| "I'm not setting new deadlift PRs lately" to "I'm likely
| going to hospice soon", it's a lot closer to the latter
| than the former. There's a good chance that it means
| using a wheelchair, possibly indefinitely. I think you're
| doing people an extreme disservice by underplaying how
| serious this is.
|
| With paralysis, the cause is usually traumatic spinal
| cord injury. Whereas with muscle weakness, the cause is
| usually something more like an autoimmune disease
| attacking the tissue around your spinal cord. But in both
| cases the end result is nerve signals not getting
| properly transmitted, and the impact on everyday life is
| pretty similar.
| josephcsible wrote:
| COVID doesn't cause what you just described as "muscle
| weakness" in anywhere near 20% of people. The thing it
| causes that other people describe as "muscle weakness" is
| much closer to "I'm not setting new deadlift PRs lately".
| Alex3917 wrote:
| Muscle weakness is a standardized medical diagnosis. When
| you see the term being used in a medical paper, it always
| means the same thing. C.f.:
| https://www.aafp.org/afp/2005/0401/p1327.html
| lp0_on_fire wrote:
| This is basically the same argument that gets trotted out
| whenever someone points out Telsa's deceptive advertising
| wrt "autopilot".
|
| "Real pilots know that autopilot means you still have to
| pay attention - nevermind that 99.9% of society thinks
| that idiom means they can sleep behind the wheel while
| it's turned on"
| josephcsible wrote:
| This is worse than that. With that, the argument sticks
| with that one definition throughout. Here, one meaning of
| "muscle weakness" is being used to make it sound scary,
| and another meaning is used to say COVID causes it. It's
| the equivocation fallacy.
| josephcsible wrote:
| Nobody reasonable would say "muscle weakness and fatigue"
| means "you're basically paralyzed".
| SamBam wrote:
| Since no one under 16 has been vaccinated yet, about 70% of the
| population is vaccinated (44M out of 67M). That might be barely
| enough for herd immunity for some diseases, but the case
| numbers in the UK are still very high and trending back upward,
| showing that this isn't enough for herd immunity for Covid.
|
| Hospitalization rates are also back up to significantly higher
| than they were this time last year.
|
| And that's with the restrictions you're referring to. So, no, I
| don't think that it would make sense for the UK to just go
| right back to normal just yet, at least until the vaccinations
| rates are high enough that you see the case rate go back down
| and stay down.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| Herd immunity cannot be measured by an arbitrary percentage.
| Maybe it is 70% or 80%, but only if that's a random sample of
| the population. Social networks determine the relevance. If
| you have a single homogenous group of individuals that
| interact with each other that is unvaccinated then there's
| still plenty of threats. And that generally includes children
| as a big intermingling block.
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| I'm almost sure 100% vaccination rate with the vaccines
| currently available won't change much. I hope I'm wrong. But
| there already are cases apparently confirming this.
|
| IMHO we should just return to normal, consider this a new
| kind of flu and deal with the fact it's more deadly. I always
| knew there is a chance a flu can kill me one day. I'm Ok with
| the fact the chance is higher now.
|
| My personal (apparently risky, I don't recommend it to
| others) strategy is living an active social life to be in
| regular contact with the virus (while testing every now and
| then to make sure I don't spread it) so my immune system
| keeps on producing the natural antibodies (I also test for
| every couple of months).
| 001spartan wrote:
| Returning to normal is a terrible idea when COVID patients
| are overwhelming hospitals across the world. How can things
| be normal if our healthcare systems are nearing collapse?
|
| You might be willing to accept the risk of getting sick on
| your behalf, but by advocating a return to 'normal' before
| we have the capabilities to deal with this virus, you are
| advocating for putting even more stress on healthcare
| systems across the globe already on the verge of failure.
| There are patients in heavily-impacted areas who cannot
| access healthcare for other life-or-death concerns because
| hospitals are crumbling under the workload of COVID cases.
|
| The article even states this; COVID is likely to reach
| endemic status eventually, but we are still nowhere near
| that. Ignoring it will have enormous costs on vulnerable
| populations -- even more than it already has.
| hncurious wrote:
| It does sound like they are on the verge of collapse...
|
| "Tallia says his hospital is 'managing, but just barely,'
| at keeping up with the increased number of sick patients
| in the last three weeks. The hospital's urgent-care
| centers have also been inundated, and its outpatient
| clinics have no appointments available."
|
| "Dr. Bernard Camins, associate professor of infectious
| diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, says
| that UAB Hospital cancelled elective surgeries scheduled
| for Thursday and Friday of last week to make more beds
| available"
|
| "We had to treat patients in places where we normally
| wouldn't, like in recovery rooms," says Camins. "The
| emergency room was very crowded, both with sick patients
| who needed to be admitted"
|
| "In CA... several hospitals have set up large 'surge
| tents' outside their emergency departments to accommodate
| and treat ... patients. Even then, the LA Times reported
| this week, emergency departments had standing-room only,
| and some patients had to be treated in hallways."
|
| "Hospitals across the state are sending away ambulances,
| flying in nurses from out of state and not letting
| children visit their loved ones for fear they'll
| spread... Others are canceling surgeries and erecting
| tents in their parking lots to triage the hordes of...
| patients."
|
| "We've never had so many patients," said Adrian Cotton,
| chief of medical operations at Loma Linda University
| Health in San Bernardino County."
|
| ...but then again, maybe not. These are all quotes from
| 2018, flu season.
|
| https://twitter.com/justin_hart/status/142224380853671526
| 5
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| Vaccinated Covid patients are NOT overwhelming hospitals.
| LA county isn't that extraordinarily highly vaccinated.
| It's a county much denser and with a greater population
| than a lot of countries in Europe. There's been <4000
| fully vaccinated people in 8 months admitted to the
| hospital. Only 36 have died. Not a lot more have needed
| ventilators.
|
| This is a blip in the ocean of hospitalizations in LA
| county.
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| Politicians say this all the time. I doubt anything we
| can do can change this. Just build more hospitals. We
| have resolved the masks shortage, we will resolve the
| shortage of ventilators and hospitals also. We can even
| soften the shortage of medical personnel by directing the
| unemployed to paid full-time medical boot camps.
|
| I understand this is much easier said than done but we
| hardly have a choice if we actually want to do something
| useful.
| jrockway wrote:
| If medical boot camps are as effective as Javascript boot
| camps... you may want to wait a while before exposing
| yourself to other people's germs.
| spiderice wrote:
| This is an incredibly bad faith argument. There is a
| whole lot of room between a 6 week bootcamp and a 12 year
| medical program. I'm pretty confident someone would learn
| to treat Covid patients in 2 years.
|
| edit: your comment did make me laugh though. So perhaps
| you were just going for humor, in which case you
| succeeded and I apologize for being a wet blanket.
| zzt123 wrote:
| So, the initial job will get done, but please don't look
| under the covers, and please do not attack it with
| anything infectious?
|
| Might be better than having nothing, in the case of ICUs
| being overwhelmed and overcapacitied.
| tharne wrote:
| > If medical boot camps are as effective as Javascript
| boot camps... you may want to wait a while before
| exposing yourself to other people's germs.
|
| This line made me both laugh and cry a little.
| 001spartan wrote:
| Building more hospitals is a long-term process. Training
| medical personnel is a long-term process. Emergency
| measures intended to bridge the gap are untenable
| politically, and people are dying because of it.
| Thousands of them per day.
|
| The answer to this is not to say 'we can't fix the
| underlying issues right now, so we're not going to do
| anything'. The answer is to take measures that we _can_
| implement until those longer-term solutions can come into
| play.
| N1H1L wrote:
| > Building more hospitals is a long-term process.
| Training medical personnel is a long-term process.
| Emergency measures intended to bridge the gap are
| untenable politically, and people are dying because of
| it. Thousands of them per day.
|
| It's like the whole chip shortage thing. Most people ask
| why aren't we building more chip-building plants? The
| answer is we are doing that, but it takes billions of
| dollars and a lot of trained manpower to set up such a
| factory, and all of that takes a lot of time.
|
| These are what are called in economics as highly
| inelastic supplies, which it seems is unknown to many
| commentators, who BTW have a habit of quoting Econ 101 in
| every discussion.
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| What measures we can implement doesn't matter if these
| measures don't work.
| 001spartan wrote:
| Vaccines work. Vaccinated people are far less likely to
| contract COVID, and when they do they are far less likely
| to require healthcare resources beyond the standard
| treatments for someone who has the flu (stay home, rest,
| treat symptoms as needed).
|
| Social distancing and masking work. They reduce the
| possibilities for spread between people -- not perfectly,
| but enough to reduce it to a manageable level for our
| current healthcare resources.
|
| Saying that our current measures to combat the virus
| don't work is disingenuous at best, and a blatant
| disregard for everything we've learned from the past year
| and a half at worst.
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| > Vaccines work.
|
| I have always been a vaccine enthusiast but now I see
| infection surging even in the most vaccinated areas.
|
| > masking work
|
| I have always been saying this, even when officials
| denied. Yes, mandatory masks in public transport and
| grocery stores are the only of all the deployed measures
| I recognize as actually working.
|
| > blatant disregard for everything we've learned from the
| past year and a half at worst.
|
| I actually don't think we have learnt much.
| drunner wrote:
| > I have always been a vaccine enthusiast but now I see
| infection surging even in the most vaccinated areas.
|
| https://www.kff.org/policy-watch/covid-19-vaccine-
| breakthrou... The reported share of
| COVID-19 cases among those not fully vaccinated ranged
| from 94.1% in Arizona to 99.85% Connecticut.
| The share of hospitalizations among those with COVID-19
| who are not fully vaccinated ranged from in 95.02% in
| Alaska to 99.93% in New Jersey. (Note: Hospitalization
| may or may not have been due to COVID-19.)
| The share of deaths among people with COVID-19 who are
| not fully vaccinated ranged from to 96.91% in Montana to
| 99.91% in New Jersey. (Note: Deaths may or may not have
| been due to COVID-19.)
| boredumb wrote:
| *may or may not have been due to COVID-19
|
| How is this data useful what so ever? I don't
| particularly care if someone in a car accident was or was
| not vaccinated unless Pfizer has came up with an MRNA
| based seat belt recently. If anything this data just
| muddies up the waters further.
| nanis wrote:
| > _(Note: Hospitalization may or may not have been due to
| COVID-19.)_
| gunshai wrote:
| My company had out local health official come to our town
| hall meeting at talk. About covid.
|
| Over 94% of patients are unvaccinated... It's pretty
| clear in my mind what's happening here.
| 001spartan wrote:
| The vaccines are not failing. They are incredibly
| effective at preventing infections _and_ reducing
| severity of breakthrough infections. The Delta variant is
| more easily transmitted and more likely to cause
| breakthrough infections, but that does not account for
| the majority of the surge [0]. It's largely a surge
| amongst unvaccinated populations, buoyed by a smaller
| proportion of breakthrough infections. The ease with
| which Delta spreads, combined with relaxed restrictions
| on gatherings and masking, accounts for the surge in
| infections.
|
| Despite the decline in vaccine effectiveness (I've seen
| conflicting studies of how much this has changed),
| they're still incredibly effective compared to any other
| protection we have at the moment.
|
| None of this changes the fact that people are going to
| continue to die until a higher proportion of the
| population receives a COVID vaccine -- and that we _can_
| mitigate this through other measures. None of these
| things lead me to the conclusion that we should return to
| normal and accept an increased healthcare system burden
| and death rate.
|
| [0] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7034e1.htm?s
| _cid=mm...
| vanattab wrote:
| Lol homeless people with scalpels what could go wrong?
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| Besides hardcore homeless drunkards there is a sufficient
| population of totally reasonable people who have just
| lost their jobs because of the crisis and can totally do
| nurse/paramedic job if taught for free and supported
| financially. I would steadily go for this if I had lost
| my job.
| [deleted]
| nradov wrote:
| There was never a real ventilator shortage. Doctors
| figured out quickly that mechanical ventilation does more
| harm than good for the vast majority of COVID-19
| patients. It's only used on a few percent of hospitalized
| patients now.
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/covid19/nhcs/intubation-
| ventilator-...
| umvi wrote:
| > How can things be normal if our healthcare systems are
| nearing collapse?
|
| Why are healthcare systems unable to scale (horizontally
| or vertically) to meet demand unlike every other industry
| in the world? That should be a red flag that you don't
| have a robust system when it is unable to scale. We've
| had nearly 2 years since the start of covid to make
| healthcare systems more robust. Why haven't we? Maybe we
| should focus on that instead of telling people to mask up
| from cradle to grave.
|
| Imagine if the computer industry were the same and we
| asked people to limit their internet time for 2+ years
| because the servers and routers that make up the internet
| were always on the brink of collapse? Like... wouldn't we
| just build more servers and routers until demand could be
| met?
| hcurtiss wrote:
| It seems one option is to increase hospital capacity.
| There should be ways to do this without needing more RNs
| and MDs.
| TomVDB wrote:
| Spend a bit of time on the /r/nursing subreddit and weep.
|
| ICU nurses have been worked to the bone for 18 months
| now, and often already at higher patient/nurse ratios
| that customary.
|
| The coming problem won't be one one of insufficient beds
| but insufficient people to care for them.
| rabboRubble wrote:
| duuuuuuuuude do you have any idea how labor intensive
| care for ICU patients is? ICU patients can't move.
| Requires staff to turn them so they don't get bed sores
| and to prone them stomach down for lung function.
|
| If the ICU patient can't breathe on a vent and are able
| to secure ECMO, the ECMO specialist ratio is ideally 1:1.
| Under a crush of patients maybe 1:2 patients. A 1:3 ratio
| is risking all the patients under that specialist's care
| because the patients are all too tenuous. Let me
| reiterate and restate: 3 ECMO patients are too much for a
| single ES to support.
|
| The ECMO specialist isn't the only person caring for the
| patient. There is the ICU nursing staff, the pulmonary
| therapist, plus the actual pulmonary doctors, the renal
| doctors, plus plus plus. You are talking decades if not a
| hundred+ years of study just to take care of a single ICU
| patient.
|
| Labor and not beds is the bottleneck.
| greedo wrote:
| Hmm, who provides care at a hospital? Wow, RNs and MDs.
| Do you expect a janitor to intubate you? Increasing
| hospital capacity is hard, expensive and takes time.
| nradov wrote:
| Intubation procedures are often performed by respiratory
| therapists.
| HarryHirsch wrote:
| You go first! We'll give you 6 weeks training, and then
| you can go work in intensive care around infectious
| patients.
| nradov wrote:
| You seem to be ignorant about health care. Respiratory
| therapists have at least 2 years of training.
| ekianjo wrote:
| There's never been a better reason to start building
| capacity.
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| I don't need a person with a doctorate degree to treat
| me. I just need a person who has a reasonable
| understanding of how does a human body work and a
| reasonable skill of doing particular medical procedures.
| greedo wrote:
| Doctors generally don't have doctorate degrees. That's a
| Ph.D which is a doctor of philosophy degree. A physician
| becomes a doctor by earning degrees as an M.D., doctor of
| medicine, or D.O., doctor of osteopathic medicine.
|
| What you're describing is either an MD, a NP, or a
| traditional nurse/specialist.
| treesknees wrote:
| This is a pretty ignorant suggestion. It's like saying
| that my company should dramatically increase its software
| output without hiring software engineers. These are
| people, not robots. You must hire more skilled labor if
| you wish to expand the capacity which requires that
| labor.
|
| If you're saying we should fill that labor requirement
| with low-skill medical technicians, you're
| misunderstanding the needs of the hospital. If you are
| ending up in the ER or ICU with covid, or any other
| cause, you are beyond the help of an at-home med tech,
| which is why you're at the hospital in the first place.
| bko wrote:
| We get more efficiency out of nearly every sector of the
| economy. We grow more food despite an ever decreasing
| number of farmers.
|
| The problem is that the incentives aren't aligned with
| health care primarily due to third party payer system and
| onerous regulations.
|
| You ever wonder why there is a line of people outside of
| urgent care every day to get tested for covid?
| Presumably, there are cheap tests that be administered at
| home without having to see a nurse or doctor. Or if you
| really can't do that you can train someone how to
| administer tests in a few hours and have that as a
| service. But in the US at least, it's nearly impossible
| to do these things. It took until April 2021 for the FDA
| to approve at home covid tests, and they're still not
| popular or available (at least I haven't seen them)
|
| https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-
| updates/2021/0...
| tomp wrote:
| Medicine is a field notorious for its gatekeeping.
|
| But a lot can be done. In Italy during the height of the
| pandemic, they "emergency graduated" 5th (or maybe 6th
| ... near the end) year medical students. I really wonder
| if there's any data whether they provided worse care
| after some on-the-job training than "fully educated"
| practitioners.
| 001spartan wrote:
| I agree! But the issue is that where these processes
| exist they are not designed for the scale of the current
| pandemic, are too inconsistent when implemented, and rely
| on spare personnel that do not currently exist.
| mywittyname wrote:
| That's not an option. Hospitals in many were already
| understaffed before the pandemic. And the pandemic has
| caused such a severe worker shortage that traveling RNs
| are getting paid upwards of $200/hr in remote parts of
| the USA.
|
| The only way to deal with this pandemic is to vaccinate
| as many people as possible. It's the best way that we
| know of to reduce spread of, and the effects of catching
| covid-19.
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| > Hospitals in many were already understaffed before the
| pandemic. And the pandemic has caused such a severe
| worker shortage that traveling RNs are getting paid
| upwards of $200/hr in remote parts of the USA.
|
| This has always been a systemic problem of how hard
| medical education and license are to get. I'm pretty sure
| medical personnel can be trained to reasonable (mediocre
| but better than nothing) skill level much faster and for
| much cheaper than it normally is.
| xyzzyz wrote:
| Yeah, if the problem is lack of staff in COVID wards,
| just start COVID-specific training programs and hire
| COVID-specific personnel, who are only allowed to work
| with COVID patients. That should reduce training time a
| lot.
|
| This approach might sound like some completely out of the
| box, untested and extreme approach, yet it's completely
| standard in industries that are not as heavily regulated
| as medicine is. Alas, healthcare has its Rules and
| Procedures and Best Practices, and as a result, everyone
| else must adjust and implement novel approaches, so that
| the healthcare industrial and regulatory complex doesn't
| have to.
| TheCapn wrote:
| The vast majority of COVID patients aren't just "COVID
| patients". They're people with comorbidities that put
| them in a more serious position than a regular (otherwise
| healthy) individual with a respiratory illness. To
| "specialize" in COVID you likely need to have training on
| diabetes, neuro, renal, cardiac and other systems. To a
| certain point, you just need a fully trained nurse
| because you can't specialize too deeply on "COVID"
| without needing training on the comorbidties that come
| along with an ICU patient.
|
| I guess I'm bias because my spouse is an ICU RN, but the
| ignorance of HN comments boggles my mind. Do all the
| hackers try to solve domain problems they have absolutely
| 0 experience in? I don't pretend to have solutions for
| the healthcare system because I don't work in the
| healthcare domain. I can assure you, the red tape that
| exists is there for very good reasons, because we've
| tried "unregulated" systems and they were a disaster.
| We've learned from our mistakes, and that means rigor
| that can't be replaced by some keyboard jockey writing
| webdev or embedded systems for unrelated fields.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| And knowing they are going to get laid off when COVID
| dies down, do you expect people to be stampeding to be
| hired to a job with no transferable skills? Have you seen
| the Medicaid nursing home labor pool?
| kolanos wrote:
| > That's not an option. Hospitals in many were already
| understaffed before the pandemic. And the pandemic has
| caused such a severe worker shortage that traveling RNs
| are getting paid upwards of $200/hr in remote parts of
| the USA.
|
| How did this understaffing happen?
|
| > More than 260 hospitals and health systems furloughed
| workers in the last year, and many others implemented
| layoffs.
|
| [0]: https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/20-hos
| pitals-l...
| mywittyname wrote:
| As someone whose partner is a med-surg nurse, and whose
| extended friend circle contains a lot of current and
| (mostly)former nurses, that post is not really the case.
| That's like saying that the shortage of software
| engineers is down to InfoSys having a bunch of IT
| layoffs.
|
| The big issues are: the job sucks, the patients suck, the
| insurance companies suck, the hospital administration
| sucks. It's a hard, thankless job, where you get shit on
| all day by everyone, figuratively and literally, and for
| not much pay. Pre-COVID, pay was maybe $30-35/hr for most
| floor jobs. Or you could get an hospital office job,
| making more than that working a basic 9-5, no shit, no
| working holidays, no lawsuits (due to bone-headed
| coworkers fucking up), no feeling like a waiter, or being
| groped by patients.
|
| Nursing is a terrible career anymore.
| anthomtb wrote:
| Do you believe that expensive cures are preferable to
| cheap preventions?
| switch007 wrote:
| > COVID patients are overwhelming hospitals across the
| world
|
| Extraordinary claims...
| bingohbangoh wrote:
| Are they really overwhelming hospitals?
|
| This keeps being repeated but most hospitals operate at
| about 80% capacity as-is. Places in Tennessee and Florida
| are currently, with COVID-19, operating at about 80%. [0]
|
| If we look at Israel, which has a very high vaccination
| rate, we see that they're supposedly running out of
| hospital space. [1] But the article linked doesn't say
| _anything about their actual numbers atm_ and points to a
| fiscal problem rather than a manpower problem.
|
| There was a recent Science Magazine article that states
| that 13% of the hospitalized-and-vaccinated group are
| under 60. That amounts to 39 people in a country of 9
| million. [2]
|
| I've asked this before both here and elsewhere: If these
| vaccines aren't "good enough," what is? At what point
| does this become "zero COVID" in that "nobody can ever
| die from this disease again?"
|
| [0]: this may have changed -- things are changing quickly
| -- so I'd be curious if you have any recent (<1 week old)
| information on this.
|
| [1]: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/israel-s-public-
| hospital...
|
| [2]: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/08/grim-
| warning-israel-... -- and I took this from Louis
| Rossmann's video
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYtfT7HsJq0
| Calavar wrote:
| Total bed usage is a very poor metric for this.
|
| The bottlenecks here aren't total capacity, they are (in
| order of importance) 1. the number of vents, 2. the
| number of nurses with ICU level training, and 3. the
| number of ICU beds. The total number of hospital beds
| doesn't even factor in.
|
| Source: I am a physician.
| starik36 wrote:
| > At what point does this become "zero COVID"
|
| In New Zealand, it already has. Every time there is a
| single case or two, the entire locale (Auckland in this
| case) fully locks down. This is the 5th time it locked
| down.
| https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/17/world/australia/new-
| zeala...
|
| It's ironic that Covid has been arguably more disruptive
| in NZ than in US, which has a ton of cases.
| xadhominemx wrote:
| Definitely not more disruptive in New Zealand over the
| entire course of the pandemic and also we have suffered
| 600,000 fatalities as a result of the virus.
| DanielR31D wrote:
| This is untrue. In New Zealand we locked down a
| reasonable amount for the information we have on the
| case. With the current lockdown, there was a single case
| with no known link to the border which had traveled
| around the country while infectious. Knowing just this
| and that every case in managed isolation (iirc) was is
| the Delta variant, we went into lockdown. Also, '5
| lockdown' is misrepresentive. We can see on this page
| https://covid19.govt.nz/alert-levels-and-updates/history-
| of-... that while some lockdowns were very restrictive,
| country wide, and long (2.5 months), most were short and
| regional (with other regions maybe going to lvl 2 alert)
| starik36 wrote:
| How is that untrue. There were three Alert Level 3 and
| two Alert Level 4 instances.
|
| > short and regional
|
| Downplay it all you want. Auckland is a pretty big place.
| Alert Level 4 means that 1/3 of New Zealand population is
| locked down.
| JamesSwift wrote:
| Anecdotal, but an acquaintance here in Florida had to
| wait over 14 hours to get an emergency appendectomy (and
| over 12 hours to get from check-in to a bed in the ER)
| recently, due to both COVID protocols as well as COVID
| workload.
| cogman10 wrote:
| So, the anecdotal evidence would be to visit /r/medicine
| and /r/nursing on reddit.
|
| It may not be universal, but it certainly appears to be
| the case that many hospitals are being pushed over the
| limit due to covid patients.
|
| Part of the issue, though, appears to be the fact that
| hospital admins are unwilling to raise salaries on
| essential employees like nurses.
| bingohbangoh wrote:
| I know many nurses and doctors who work at hospitals in
| and around the NYC tristate area -- they all say capacity
| is well under the normal rates for them.
|
| Note: last April (2020), they said it had exploded due to
| COVID-19.
| cogman10 wrote:
| Yeah, the main difference appears to be states that have
| high vaccine participation and states that don't.
| sreque wrote:
| This is just your bias showing, nothing more. COVID has
| been shown to be seasonal and to hit different parts of
| the world at different times of the year. Southern states
| appear to get hardest hit in the summer, while the colder
| Northern states are harder-hit in the winter.
|
| Florida has the second-oldest population in the U.S., but
| it's death rate per 100,000 is average among the states.
| NYC and NJ are two states with the highest death rate per
| 100,000.
| bingohbangoh wrote:
| So what is there to say about Israel or Gibraltar?
|
| Both have very high hospitalization rates. Both also have
| very high vaccination rates.
| cogman10 wrote:
| IDK, hard to say what's going on there.
|
| In the worst case, it may just been that the vaccine
| effectiveness wanes over time.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| What is a covid patient? One that tested positive and is
| in the hospital for something else? Or one that is
| actually sick from covid? Because absolutely none of
| these articles I read clarify that tidbit and it is very
| important.
|
| Positive covid tests require a hell of a lot more
| hospital overhead to deal with, even if they don't have
| symptoms and are in for something else. It could very
| well be the case that this is a self made problem. We
| very well could be artificially overloading hospitals
| because we dictate that every positive test, regardless
| of symptoms, invokes massive overhead.
|
| And again, every article I read never clarifies this. In
| fact many conflate "people with covid but there for
| something else" and "people sick with covid".
|
| I am fully inclined to believe that this hospital
| shortage is a self inflicted problem. If this was
| literally a hospital full of people choking on their own
| ooze, the media would be all over it like moths to a
| flame.
| cogman10 wrote:
| > What is a covid patient? One that tested positive and
| is in the hospital for something else? Or one that is
| actually sick from covid? Because absolutely none of
| these articles I read clarify that tidbit and it is very
| important.
|
| The stories on the reddits I suggested are all pretty
| much the same. Patient comes in struggling to breath,
| tests positive for covid, ends up with blood clots or
| pneumonia which pushes them into the ICU.
|
| Here's just one of many stories of burnout [1]
|
| [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/nursing/comments/p9ps06/the_
| burn_ou...
| spookthesunset wrote:
| Those are anecdotes not data.
| cogman10 wrote:
| Clearly.
|
| > So, the anecdotal evidence would be...
|
| I'm not trying to represent it as anything other than
| that.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| India: yes.
|
| The UK: in local areas, patients had to be diverted
| sometimes hundreds of miles to a hospital with space.
| _all_ non emergency hospital care was stopped, and some
| emergency routine care was delayed.
|
| Belgium was overwhelmed.
|
| The issue is this, we can't just not admit the over 60s.
| even if we did, that would only free up 50% capacity (ie
| you could go one more cycle of exponential growth,
| doubling every n weeks/days)[source https://coronavirus.d
| ata.gov.uk/details/healthcare?areaType=...]
|
| filling hospitals means that the resources used to treat
| both sudden hospitalizations and long term are diverted.
| so car accident/drinking/heavy sports/DIY injuries have
| worse outcomes, and cancer outcomes drop off a cliff.
|
| if the UK manages to keep the total number of patients in
| hospital with covid to less than 7-10k that would be a
| brilliant outcome for winter. we are currently at ~6k,
| and its still summer.
|
| The issue is there are not enough trained doctors and
| nurses. They take at least 8 years to train. that's the
| main constraint. Suitable beds can be made up in a number
| of weeks (see china and the "nightinggale hospitals") but
| if there is no staff, they are pointless
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| > you could go one more cycle of exponential growth,
| doubling every n weeks/days
|
| I'm not sure a big percent- of people is prone to hard
| covid. I tend to believe the majority of people has
| already went through it asymptomatically/easily and so
| will the majority of those who still hasn't.
|
| Exponential growth in positive tests doesn't imply
| infinite (limited only by the size of the population
| itself) exponential growth of severe cases or deaths.
| zeku wrote:
| Here is the Tennessee reporting. NO ICU beds.
|
| https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/health/2021/08/19/t
| enn...
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Are they really overwhelming hospitals?
|
| Yes.
|
| > This keeps being repeated but most hospitals operate at
| about 80% capacity as-is.
|
| They aren't overwhelming total hospital capacity, they
| are overwhelming specialized resource capacity,
| particularly ICU capacity.
|
| > Places in Tennessee and Florida are currently, with
| COVID-19, operating at about 80%
|
| In Florida and numerous other states ( _not Tennessee_ ),
| there are significant areas over 95% ICU capacity. [0]
|
| [0]
| https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/08/17/us/covid-
| delt...
| sumnuyungi wrote:
| Do you have a non-paywall link to that article or a link
| to the actual data? The article should list sources.
| xadhominemx wrote:
| Have you tried Google?
| ekianjo wrote:
| > there are significant areas over 95% ICU capacity
|
| It's not like there is any large ICU capacity anywhere
| anyway.
| erhk wrote:
| Those patients simply go somewhere else and cause more
| strain. We on hacker knews should known the pain of
| cascade failures more than other platforms.
| zeku wrote:
| There are NO ICU beds in Tennessee.
|
| https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/health/2021/08/19/t
| enn...
| dham wrote:
| Is every hospital getting overwhelmed though? I keep
| seeing reports of staff getting fired or quitting because
| of vaccine requirement. Maybe I'm getting fake news?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Is every hospital getting overwhelmed though?
|
| In the country? No. In large areas? Yes.
|
| > I keep seeing reports of staff getting fired or
| quitting because of vaccine requirement. Maybe I'm
| getting fake news?
|
| There are vaccine requirements being adopted some places,
| and there are departures related to it. But if you are
| seeing news suggesting that that is the major source of
| capacity strain (or even the major source of COVID-
| related causes of people departing healthcare jobs), it
| is, at least, _distorted_ news.
| bingohbangoh wrote:
| I'll throw in a anecdote: my family in nearby hospitals
| are *not* being mandated to get vaccinated.
|
| This is precisely because there is high demand for
| registered nurses and other medical staff at the moment.
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| > This is precisely because there is high demand
|
| Ok. At least somebody can exercise reason when necessary.
|
| By the way (I believe that's is nonsensical but I also
| believe I am probably wrong - I am far from an expert),
| what's the point of force-vaccinating people who have
| obviously contacted the infection on many occasions and
| still are Okay? To me this indicates their immune systems
| are doing a great job and we should rather avoid teaching
| them (their perfectly competent immune systems) how they
| should do it. And I don't know about any evidence of
| vaccinated people being less contagious than those
| naturally immune.
| bingohbangoh wrote:
| > what's the point of force-vaccinating people who have
| obviously contacted the infection on many occasions and
| still are Okay?
|
| I don't know but, fwiw, Europe is considering prior
| infection proven by an antibody test as equivalent to
| being vaccinated.
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| Not all Europe. Some countries governments are stubbornly
| against this and only accept a positive PCR test taken
| during the actual sickness.
| kxyvr wrote:
| Yes. Unquestionably.
|
| Here are a few different articles from around the gulf
| coast states that speak to this:
|
| https://www.khou.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/hous
| ton...
|
| https://www.npr.org/2021/08/19/1029260134/alabama-
| hospitals-...
|
| Something that may be a little confusing as well is what
| does "full" mean. Both morally and legally, it is very
| difficult for a hospital to turn someone away. Rather
| than turn someone away, the hospital will have new people
| wait, attempt to make more room, and provide less care to
| more people. This leads to the question: Is a hospital
| full if they're stashing patients in hallways and
| providing hallway care? Within an ICU, typical care is
| either one nurse to two patients or one to one depending
| on the reason for the ICU stay. At the moment, the ratios
| are 3-4 to 1, which is not the standard of care, but the
| best they can do. Does this count as a hospital being
| full?
|
| On a more personal note, my wife is an ICU physician. At
| the moment, I'm writing this from a hotel room because I
| started traveling with her to help alleviate the stress
| from her work. On this trip, she will do seven days of
| twelve hour shifts in a row. The hospital has asked us to
| stay for longer, but we're exhausted and have work
| elsewhere. This sort of thing does not happen during flu
| season, so I will assert strongly that we are still not
| close to the realm of normal.
|
| In a direct answer to your manpower question, this
| hospital does not have enough staff. They don't have
| enough physicians and they don't have enough nurses.
| Recently, this particular hospital acquired multiple new
| ECMO units, which do absolutely help with care. They
| can't use them. They don't have the nurses.
|
| As one more anecdote, a friend of my wife who is also an
| ICU physician called the other day with a story from her
| unit. She just admitted a patient who spent six days
| waiting in the ER with COVID. They had no available,
| staffed beds until then.
|
| Now, to be sure, I am just another voice on the internet.
| You can choose to believe me or not and that's fine. I
| will say that getting news from what actually occurs in
| the hospital is difficult. Reporters are people too and
| they're not necessarily trained to understand the nuance
| of hospital reality. That doesn't mean what they report
| isn't useful, but it may be frustratingly incomplete.
|
| Some questions that may help with any personal
| investigation:
|
| 1. What are the number of staffed bed available in the
| hospital? Beds are different than staffed beds, but they
| are sometimes used synonymously. Right now, with the lack
| of staff, it may not be.
|
| 2. Are the ICUs in the Level 1, 2, or 3 trauma centers
| full? Trauma center designation gives information about
| the number and type of staff that a hospital is required
| to keep available 24-hours a day. Generally speaking, the
| large trauma centers have better staff and better
| equipment. Even if there is an ICU bed available in a
| regional medical center, it doesn't mean it can provide
| the care required. Simply, they may not have the
| equipment or specialists required for care. As long as
| the large hospitals in the cities are full then transfer
| is not possible and overall medical care in that region
| is reduced.
| aero142 wrote:
| From what you are hearing, are staffing levels the same
| as pre-covid, and how much is reduced staff vs increased
| COVID patients contributing?
| kxyvr wrote:
| That, I don't know. Since we've been together, prior to
| COVID, I never recall her mentioning they had trouble
| getting nurses. If there was a particularly busy night,
| the nurse manager had a number of nurses on-call who
| would then come in to staff beds. Now, that's impossible.
| They're not there. On top of that, the nursing staff
| calls out sick far more often now than before.
|
| Are these difficulties because there are fewer nurses on
| the market, the existing staff are burned out, there are
| better opportunities to work locums, or some other
| factor? Not sure. Mostly, it's to say that there was
| never a conversation between us on the lack of nurses
| prior to COVID.
|
| As far as physicians, also not sure. I will say that
| demand was consistent prior to COVID, but now demand for
| both temporary and permanent positions is extremely high.
| They won't stop calling. Something to understand here is
| that the supply of new critical care physicians takes a
| very long time to ramp up, four years of medical school,
| four years of residency, and two years of fellowship.
| They're not easy to replace.
|
| As a final side note, whether they do or not, they would
| all _like_ to quit. They 're burned out. This has gone on
| too long. The families dealing with end of life care are
| often abusive. Virtually all of their patients are
| unvaccinated, which means that this is preventable.
| They're frustrated that their professional opinion has
| very little impact on the public discussion of COVID,
| especially when they deal with the issue so intimately
| and they spent a good portion of their life dedicated to
| understanding and treating the issues behind illness.
| kolanos wrote:
| > More than 260 hospitals and health systems furloughed
| workers in the last year, and many others implemented
| layoffs.
|
| [0]: https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/20-hos
| pitals-l...
| spookthesunset wrote:
| Those articles never define what "covid hospitalization"
| means. Is it people in the hospital because of covid or
| is it people that test positive for covid and are there
| for something else? There is a big difference between the
| two. Covid positive test results probably invoke a lot of
| extra overhead even if the patient has no symptoms and
| this could be a self made problem.
| kxyvr wrote:
| If someone is COVID positive, then they are likely
| contagious even if they have no symptoms. This means that
| they must be isolated from the other patients that do not
| have COVID or else there is a high risk of infection
| spreading to other patients. In places like the ICU,
| where all of the patients are critically ill, any
| additional infection will likely kill them.
|
| Isolation from other patients means that they need other
| rooms and other nurses. It is not safe to have a nurse go
| from a clean room to a COVID room repeatedly if they
| don't have enough PPE to fully gown between rooms.
| Otherwise, there is cross contamination. Currently, there
| is not enough PPE. If a hospital has the staff, they will
| also isolate the physicians to either COVID or non-COVID
| wards to prevent cross contamination. Often, they do not
| have the physicians, so there is a time cost to
| constantly changing PPE. Time spent changing PPE means
| time not taking care of patients.
|
| When a patient dies in a COVID room, the room must be
| cleaned. This takes time and staff. Failure to do so can
| also lead to increased infections.
|
| To be clear, infections that spread in the hospital are
| very well studied. It's the reason why hospitals have
| very strict rules about things like hand hygiene. It's
| one of those inspections that can cost a hospital a lot
| of money.
|
| That's a long way to say, it's not a self made problem. A
| patient that comes in for something like a heart stent
| who is also COVID positive is far more work than one who
| does not have COVID. I do not know if these news articles
| are referring to these cases as COVID hospitalizations.
| In some sense, it doesn't impact the broader issue: In a
| good number of states, hospitals are effectively full.
| The reason behind this issue is unvaccinated people
| catching COVID.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| It is a self made problem. Imagine if we tested people
| for every infectious disease and put them into crazy
| protocol-land even if they don't have symptoms. Nothing
| would ever get done!
|
| We need to accept that vaccines exist and work. It
| shouldn't matter if the dude in the hospital has a
| positive covid test because everybody in that room can be
| vaccinated if they want to.
|
| This mass testing created a bunch more problems than it
| solved.
| kxyvr wrote:
| No. It is not.
|
| The difference between COVID and something like cancer is
| that cancer is not highly contagious. COVID is. Further,
| it's contagious and deadly. That's why it requires
| special care. COVID is also not the only disease where
| these kind of precautions are taken. Another one is TB.
| Now, there are other diseases that are contagious, but
| not right now. For example, syphilis is both contagious
| and deadly. However, you're not going to catch syphilis
| when you're sitting next to someone who is positive. With
| COVID, you potentially will. That's why they have to test
| for it in the hospital.
|
| Now, I will agree that vaccines exist and work. In the
| sense that there are people who choose to refuse
| vaccination, I will also agree it is a self made problem.
| However, this affects everyone to a high degree and not
| just the vaccinated.
|
| Case in point, my wife and I are vaccinated. If she gets
| COVID, she most assuredly won't die, but she can't work
| in the ICU. She would risk getting her patients infected
| even though she is vaccinated. That means the hospital
| loses a physician in short supply. They're going to test
| you in the hospital because they can't afford you getting
| their staff sick.
|
| This also affects you. You're vaccinated. However, say
| you're appendix bursts, you may or may not be able to get
| into the ER before you become septic. Yes, the ER will
| triage based on need. However, if there's no beds there's
| no beds and you will not be seen.
|
| However, to reiterate, the hospital will always test you
| for diseases that they believe will affect their staff.
| You come in with respiratory symptoms. You're getting a
| COVID test. Having surgery? They'll test you for HIV.
| It's a protection issue. COVID is a pain because airborne
| infections are hard to contain.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| Stop counting cases. We already know covid is endemic and
| isn't going away. Why continue to test every patient for
| it? What purpose does it serve? Anybody that wants to be
| protected can be with a simple vaccine.
| mbesto wrote:
| Here ya go in Texas:
|
| https://www.texastribune.org/2021/08/10/coronavirus-
| texas-ho...
|
| As the pandemic started, ~70% of ICU bed use was normal,
| since then its been around 80~90% and now approaching
| 100%.
|
| https://covid-texas.csullender.com/
|
| So yes it is overwhelming hospitals. Even if you're
| vaccinated, this should scare you.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| The information up to now was a mess, but one of the early
| "educated opinions" was that one is more contagious in the
| days just before the explosion of the symptoms. So, if that
| holds, and if you lived an active social life and tested
| from time to time, you risked being a spreader.
|
| Second, about "getting antibodies the natural way": what
| about a 7 points IQ drop as a risk? What about a first-
| level-paretian-20-per-cent risk of long consequences, "the
| fifth wins four fifths of the jackpot"? A few made that
| reasoning and could tell you it was not a good idea, some
| still feel damaged. I invite you: do not focus on death as
| a risk.
| elcomet wrote:
| > I'm almost sure 100% vaccination rate with the vaccines
| currently available won't change much.
|
| How can you be almost sure ? Are you an immunologist or a
| contagious disease expert ? Do you have data to back this
| up ?
| jasonlaramburu wrote:
| > My personal (apparently risky, I don't recommend it to
| others) strategy
|
| This seems to be the fundamental disagreement between the
| 'anti' side (anti-mask, anti-vaxx etc) and the 'pro' side.
| The reality is that different people can have vastly
| different risk tolerances. Some people are ok knowing they
| could die from a circulating respiratory illness and some
| simply are not. Some people believe vaccines are risky,
| others do not.
|
| The challenge is it's very hard (maybe impossible) to
| change someone's personal risk tolerance. Imagine trying to
| convince someone with a fear of heights to go skydiving.
| You can state the facts, cite safety figures for parachutes
| etc but you are still unlikely to get them on a plane.
| jader201 wrote:
| A lot of people are ok with risks, until they're bitten
| by them.
|
| There are many articles (I've seen two just in passing)
| where nurses talk about COVID patients going on a
| ventilator, and begging for the vaccine, only to be told
| it's too late.
|
| I feel that most people that are taking risks with COVID
| (e.g. healthy people not getting vaccinated) either don't
| have enough foresight to realize they actually don't want
| to be hospitalized/die from this, or they don't believe
| the risks are real.
|
| Risk assessment is something many aren't great at -- that
| is striking a reasonable balance between no fear and too
| much fear. This is made worse by conflicting opinions and
| studies, and not being able to discern truth from
| fiction/sensationalism.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| > _going on a ventilator, and begging_
|
| You read about it, I have heard from the witnesses. Some
| beg, some show fatalist. In fact,
|
| > _until they're bitten_
|
| some do not quite realize that it is death involving slow
| asphyxia we are talking about... Days of drowning, not
| minutes.
|
| > _Risk assessment [...] is made worse by conflicting
| opinions and studies, and not being able to discern truth
| from fiction /sensationalism_
|
| Which is one of the biggest mess behind e.g. vaccine
| hesitancy, not to mention not convincing narratives about
| correct behaviour to prevent spreading.
|
| Anyway, the communicational mess is a disaster, while
| this reference "fiction" is more problematic. It is not,
| at this level, something you discriminate easily. When
| Derek Lowe writes some find him credible, when Robert
| Malone speaks some find him credible - keys for
| discrimination are not easily at hand.
| ummwhat wrote:
| Based on the error bars I've seen, you should be closer to
| 40% sure. Or less.
|
| Maybe on the next mutation I'll have cause to agree with
| you. For now, herd immunity is still an endgame worth
| pursuing.
| [deleted]
| xx511134bz wrote:
| We can test your model of reality. When X amount of
| youngsters get vaccinated, will we go back to normal? Ye or
| ne? My mental model says ne.
| dham wrote:
| The vaccine isn't a vaccine, it's a treatment. Cases are a
| poor indicator. It's time to go back to normal.
| carnitine wrote:
| What restrictions are there in the UK? As far as I know in
| England and Wales where the vast majority live there are none
| except for those around international travel or imposed by
| private enterprise.
| jjgreen wrote:
| They're pretty much gone, there are still some mask
| requirements on, e.g., London underground, but 50%
| compliance? There is some talk of introducing a vaccine
| passport for nightclubs, football grounds in a month or
| two.
|
| For me, the mood in London is "we've had enough, it's
| endemic, let's live with it".
| dehrmann wrote:
| > That might be barely enough for herd immunity for some
| diseases
|
| Also remember that herd immunity works best when those who
| are antibodies are evenly distributed. Schools will become
| major places where it's spread because of how many people
| without immunity are in one place.
| cm2187 wrote:
| These herd immunity thresholds assumed that vaccinated people
| do not transmit the virus, but it appears that they do.
| Vaccines seem to be very efficient at preventing
| complications, which is great and good enough to neutralise
| this virus. But they don't seem to have made a dent into this
| summer's cases numbers. It doesn't look like vaccines will
| prevent the virus from circulating.
|
| Hospitalisation rates have been pretty much flat vs previous
| waves (there was no wave last summer).
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "It doesn't look like vaccines will prevent the virus from
| circulating."
|
| Do you have some numbers?
|
| As far as I know, it indeed supresses the virus from
| circulating, it just doesn't stop it completely.
|
| Here in my area, which started early with broad
| vaccinations - the numbers are way down.
| simonsarris wrote:
| Israel also started early with broad vaccinations. Now
| compare latest waves in USA/GB/Israel:
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-
| explor...
|
| For fun, add India, which has comparatively low
| vaccinations, where Delta began:
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-
| explor...
| hutzlibu wrote:
| Do you know about the quality of the data? I would
| suspect they match the big picture by now.
|
| But while I was looking into that, last at the beginning
| of the year - the quality was horrible. Even here in
| developed germany, it was hard to get meaningful numbers
| from different districts. I mean, there were lots and
| lots of data flying around, but most of it not solid or
| directly comparable in my understanding.
|
| And here india looks interesting, if true. That would
| speak for a sort of herd immunity?
| simonsarris wrote:
| I really don't know what to think about India. I add it
| only because its so weird how quickly Delta seemed to
| fizzle out there, and then everyone stopped talking about
| it. Lots of very strange cases like that in the data.
|
| I think most data is not really comparable across
| countries, only across time (and even then: discard data
| early on), because of different levels of data
| collection. So best only to compare the same country vs
| its own prev spikes. But this is esp true with India vs
| smaller countries, you may be able to compare Euro
| nations to each other more accurately, but would caution
| against interpreting small differences as meaningful.
| [deleted]
| ekianjo wrote:
| > As far as I know, it indeed supresses the virus from
| circulating, it just doesn't stop it completely.
|
| Nope, it does not. Check your facts again with the Delta
| variant.
| cm2187 wrote:
| The size of the peak cases in countries that have high
| vaccination rate, vs previous peaks before vaccination.
|
| UK for instance:
| https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/cases
| thom wrote:
| Has the UK peaked?
| eloff wrote:
| You are comparing different variants as if they are
| equal. That makes no sense. If you look at the data so
| far available it does seem to reduce incidence of
| infection.
| riffraff wrote:
| we know the new variants are more contagious than what we
| had last year, if the vaccines didn't limit growth we
| should see a steeper curve, I believe.
| rajin444 wrote:
| How do you account for prior immunity as well as the
| "pool" of people that would show up as a case going down
| as well?
|
| Both those factors would result in a softer curve without
| any vaccination.
| tharne wrote:
| > Since no one under 16 has been vaccinated yet, about 70% of
| the population is vaccinated (44M out of 67M).
|
| This fact really bothers me. I feel like once adults got
| vaccinated we all spiked the football and said "F--k the
| kids, I got mine".
| jtbayly wrote:
| The kids aren't in danger.
| Filligree wrote:
| Say that to my cousin's niece.
|
| Wait. You can't anymore.
| jtbayly wrote:
| Sorry for your cousin's and fam's loss.
|
| Sorry, also, but that's an anecdote.
|
| All the data I've seen doesn't bear out all the
| hyperventilating of increased risk for kids.
| tharne wrote:
| The kids weren't in danger, that appears to be changing
| very quickly with the new variant. Let's not be like
| George W. Bush standing on the aircraft carrier saying
| "mission accomplished", when we're still in the middle of
| this thing.
| nkohari wrote:
| There is no data to this effect. There are some anecdotes
| from hospital staff saying they're seeing more kids now,
| but you might expect that given that adults are
| vaccinated.
|
| Until there is data that shows conclusively that Delta
| affects kids more than previous variants, you should not
| parrot lines like "that appears to be changing quickly".
| Substantiate your claim with data or at least say it's
| anecdotal. Alternatively, if you have data, please share
| it.
| jtbayly wrote:
| Show me data.
| tharne wrote:
| This "show me data" line works well in debates, but not
| in the real world. You often don't have the time or
| ability to wait for data to roll in, do a study, have it
| peer reviewed, and then make a decision. In real life you
| constantly have to make decisions under uncertain
| conditions with limited information of unknown quality.
| And that's the situation we're in right now.
|
| We can send the kids back to school with no vaccines, no
| masks, no precautions, and say "We don't have any data
| that this thing is dangerous for children". The obvious
| problem there is that we don't have a ton of data in
| general with this variant. So, if we're wrong about the
| danger, we risk harming a lot of children while we
| dutifully wait for the data to roll in.
|
| This is the same reason that most women (and many men for
| that matter) will cross the street late at night if they
| are on an empty street and see a large man approaching
| them. They have zero evidence suggesting that the person
| is a threat, but the cost of being wrong in such cases is
| very high. So, having limited data, they tend to take a
| very cautious and conservative approach and cross the
| street. In our case, just change, "Cross the street" to
| "Wear a mask".
|
| This comparison is far from perfect, but you get the
| idea.
| telotortium wrote:
| We _are_ in a debate though - seems like a good time to
| show data.
|
| No arguing on Hacker News is going to change the policy
| response anyway.
| ekianjo wrote:
| > The kids weren't in danger, that appears to be changing
| very quickly with the new variant
|
| Death rate for kids with new variant please?
| stonogo wrote:
| "Dangerous" and "fatal" are not the same word. The Delta
| variant is more contagious, meaning more children are
| being hospitalized. Even if the Delta variant isn't "more
| dangerous" per case the same level of danger is _more
| prevalent_ because of the contagion.
|
| https://www.aap.org/en/pages/2019-novel-coronavirus-
| covid-19...
| bluGill wrote:
| There is more than death. We still don't know enough
| about Long Covid - depending on who you believe it is
| anything from normal things blamed on Covid to additional
| life long complications. Until science figures this out
| (I expect it to take years) I don't know if it is safe to
| risk my kids or not.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| And we still don't know the long term effects of kids
| breathing god knows what substances these cheap Chinese
| masks contain. We also have no clue what it will do to
| their language and social development. Yet people cheer
| on forcing them to wear one for an entire school day 5
| days a week.
| bluGill wrote:
| Like what? This is the first I've heard such a thing. It
| isn't hard to do a chemical analysis, so if there was any
| grounding in it I'd expect to have seen a better source
| then a random comment.
|
| That said, my kids are wearing made in the USA masks.
| grillvogel wrote:
| also keep in mind that any "children" statistic refers to
| people anywhere in the range of 0-18
| zeku wrote:
| Right now kids are in danger because they are getting
| covid and RSV at the same time. RSV is surging in many
| areas of the USA.
| flycaliguy wrote:
| I can see 2035's viral video already. Targeting people who
| were too young to get jabbed, some of which still living
| with the effects of long COVID. Others blaming long COVID
| for other issues. The narrator turning them against us,
| endless b-roll of both anti-maskers and politicians
| reopening cities. How selfish of us, reopening before they
| were protected.
| jdminhbg wrote:
| Actually the old have been fucking over the young to
| protect themselves since March 2020.
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| Speak for yourself, I have been parasitizing the young
| ever since before I was born.
| tzs wrote:
| What's delta like for under 16?
|
| In the US through May 2021, so it might not be a good
| representation for delta, here were the infections,
| hospitalizations, and deaths per 100k for various age groups:
| Age Inf Hosp Deaths 0-17 37k 287 0.5 18-49
| 44k 1100 25 50-64 32k 2600 85 65+ 22k 5200
| 1140
|
| Unless the numbers for delta are way higher, that suggests
| that for under 17 getting your immunity by actually getting
| COVID is fine. The main reason then you want to prevent kids
| from getting COVID is not so much for its danger to them but
| rather for the danger to the adults that the kids will spread
| it to. Kid gives it to a grandparent, and that grandparent is
| 20x as likely to be hospitalized and 2000x as likely to die
| as the kid. If the kid gives it to their parents, the parents
| are 4x as likely to be hospitalized and 50x as likely to die.
|
| If the numbers for delta are at all similar for kids, then
| there is a good chance that there is not much difference
| between a population where everybody gets vaccinated and
| population where all the adults get vaccinated but the kids
| do not, suggesting vaccinating adults should be the priority.
|
| The long term endgame is probably a population where it is
| endemic, everyone gets it as a child when they are young
| enough that it doesn't cause serious illness, and then keeps
| getting it every year or so for the rest of their lives.
| Those subsequent cases don't cause serious illness because
| they still have protection from the last time.
|
| That's what happened with the four other coronaviruses that
| are in wide circulations in humans. They are thought to have
| caused terrible pandemics when they first got to humans which
| were deadly in adults but not bad in children. Nowadays they
| are still around, everyone gets them frequently, and we don't
| even bother to have a separate name for the illness they
| cause. We just lump it in with the illnesses from a bunch of
| other viruses and call it the common cold. Around 20% of
| common colds are from those coronaviruses.
| defgeneric wrote:
| > That's what happened with the four other coronaviruses
| that are in wide circulations in humans. They are thought
| to have caused terrible pandemics when they first got to
| humans which were deadly in adults but not bad in children.
|
| Yes, this is now thought to be the case for the 1889-1890
| pandemic.
| jypepin wrote:
| How do you get half a death?!
| estebank wrote:
| .5 deaths per 100K is 1 death per 200K.
| clairity wrote:
| for comparison, all cause mortality[0] in infants (<1yr)
| is ~500/100K, and for 1-19 year olds, ~100/100K. for
| kids, covid is not even a blip on the mortality chart,
| being 2-3 orders of magnitude smaller.
|
| [0]: https://www.childtrends.org/indicators/infant-child-
| and-teen...
| marwatk wrote:
| Even with your numbers it puts a kid's chances of ending up
| hospitalized with covid at 1 in 128. Granted we're probably
| way under counting infections in that age group, but I'll
| still feel much better when my kid is vaccinated.
| freewilly1040 wrote:
| The positive case count is not the denominator. The
| chances of your kid ending up hospitalized with Covid are
| 287 / 100K, or .29%.
| marwatk wrote:
| Can you help me understand why the case count isn't the
| denominator?
|
| The posted numbers seem to imply that if 37k out of 100k
| kids had covid, 287 of them end up in the hospital. Does
| it not follow that if 100k out of 100k had covid that 775
| kids would have been hospitalized?
| freewilly1040 wrote:
| It's in your parent comment:
|
| > Granted we're probably way under counting infections in
| that age group
|
| People get tested when they feel sick enough to be
| worried, there are many very minor and/or asymptomatic
| cases for which we won't have data. By using the positive
| case counts as the denominator you are using the most
| serious slice of cases to argue that coronavirus
| infections are serious.
| marwatk wrote:
| I'm not sure that follows. That would imply that every
| kid has already had/been exposed to COVID and that's
| resulted in those per 100k numbers.
|
| It's definitely not exact to use the infection as the
| denominator, but I'd argue it's much closer than using
| the 100k as the denominator. I think I stand by my
| original post.
| maccam94 wrote:
| There's about 50 million kids under 12 in the US, so
| while that percentage looks small that's still ~150,000
| kids going to the hospital. I believe the real percentage
| is probably a bit lower due to underreported infections,
| but it's worth remembering that even small percentages
| can have huge effects in a country with hundreds of
| millions of people.
| freewilly1040 wrote:
| Yes, given a large denominator rare events will happen.
| So what?
|
| The relevant argument with kids and Delta is not about
| whether it happens to some people, it's whether the risk
| rates high enough to mobilize large scale, disruptive
| countermeasures.
|
| I can only find data on deaths, not hospitalizations [1],
| but assuming the numbers are roughly proportional here
| are things that are more dangerous to kids than Delta:
| - Drug ODs - Car accidents - Cancer -
| Heart disease - Drowning - Suffocation
|
| Caveat of course is that the data might be out of date,
| at least with respect to pockets with high rates of
| infection
|
| [1] https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmsr1804754
| dota_fanatic wrote:
| Aren't the vaccines still not available for those under 12? And
| they're emergency use only in many of those countries? Not sure
| how you can say any country, even Israel, is "close to full
| vaccination". 28% of their population is 14 and under _.
|
| _
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Israel#Age_str...
| lokedhs wrote:
| There are studies ongoing and Singapore is planning to
| vaccinate kids below 12 as early as next year.
| https://www.asiaone.com/singapore/3rd-shot-
| covid-19-vaccine-...
| peteradio wrote:
| 1 year ago the hive mind was buzzing about protecting the
| "elderly/infirm" with the warp drive wunder drugs. So it
| shouldn't be surprising that "full vaccination" might be
| calculated with "elderly/infirm" pop in the denominator.
| modzu wrote:
| once you have power its hard to give it up
| geofft wrote:
| Long-term mask-wearing seem like an entirely reasonable social
| change.
|
| It's like any other clothing: you're protecting a vulnerable
| part of your body and also displaying respect for others. And
| it's mostly enforced by social norms: though in many places it
| is in fact illegal to go without clothing, people wear clothes
| regardless of the law. (I was in San Francisco at the time the
| public nudity ban, or shall we call it the "clothing
| requirement," was passed, and I can assure you that people were
| generally clothed in San Francisco even before then.)
|
| As another comment pointed out the other day
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28255121), it's not just
| going to be SARS-nCoV-2. There's going to be a lot more easily
| communicable diseases in the future in dense locations. And
| there was the first SARS, of course, and countries hit hard by
| the first SARS already adopted a norm of mask-wearing in
| crowded locations like public transit, which helps them with
| other diseases that are "here forever" like the seasonal flu.
|
| I think mask-wearing in public is going to become a sign of
| basic respect and decency and hygiene. We're already
| comfortable with "No shoes, no shirt, no service."
| swader999 wrote:
| Hard no to that.
| q-rews wrote:
| People love downvoting 'round here, but the comment is
| sensible.
|
| Don't shoot the messenger, even if we all hate the news they
| bring.
| blacktriangle wrote:
| Yes, yes they do. And they're even starting to be honest about
| it, look at the press coming out of NZ and Scotland. Many of us
| called this the second the lockdowns started and we were right.
| Coronavirus is real, but it's nothing more than another SARS,
| H1N1, Hong Kong flu, etc. The only difference between now and
| then is now governments were prepped for a full on power grab.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| > Coronavirus is real, but it's nothing more than another
| SARS, H1N1, Hong Kong flu, etc.
|
| SARS in 2002-2004 killed 811 people. H1N1 killed 18,500 in
| 2009. Neither of those had the sort of mass lock-downs
| mitigating their spread that we are experiencing now. I don't
| know about you, but I can see a big difference.
| wongarsu wrote:
| The vaccination rate in the UK is 67%. A year ago the estimate
| was that we need about a 75% vaccination rate to reach herd
| immunity, and I doubt that the new mutations have pushed that
| number down.
| fatfox wrote:
| Yes, with the Delta variant herd immunity seems out of reach
| according to experts, as vaccines can't completely stop
| transmission:
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/10/delta-
| variant-...
|
| https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/02/herd-
| immu...
| pm215 wrote:
| The article's answer to this question is "the eventuality of
| endemic COVID-19 does not mean we should drop all precautions.
| The more we can flatten the curve now, the less hospitals will
| become overwhelmed". There are currently ~6000 COVID patients
| in hospital, which is a little less than 1/6 of the Jan 2021
| peak and over 1/4 of the April 2020 peak. Which is to say,
| manageable right now but probably not something you want to let
| burn much hotter than that.
| basisword wrote:
| The UK dropped all restrictions with the exception of some
| travel related restrictions (to prevent the import of variants
| that could breakthrough the vaccine).
|
| Any restrictions you see in the UK are implemented by
| businesses/local government (e.g. masks on the tube, or in some
| shops).
| switch007 wrote:
| That is fake news, sorry
|
| The law to imprison yourself (isolate) still is very much a
| law.
| HarryHirsch wrote:
| Israel has close to full vaccination, yet cases are going up
| because immunity is falling again and there are new variants.
| It's understandable why the restrictions are back again.
| pcurve wrote:
| Yeah it's sad to see death rate spiking back up as well.
| https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/israel/
|
| It's better than before, but it's too dangerous.
|
| Maybe the only out of this is wait for more mutations with
| lower fatality.
|
| :(
| superkuh wrote:
| It is not because of the new variants and antibody escape.
| Prior variants before delta, gamma specifically, actually
| escape antibody neutralization far more than delta does.
|
| No, what the world is seeing is that intramuscular
| vaccination for respiratory diseases does not provide long
| lasting IgG antibodies to the upper respiratory mucosa
| tissues. They seep into the lower lungs and provide
| protection there though. This has been known since the 1960s
| when the first intranasal flu vaccinations were introduced to
| combat the problem.
|
| It wouldn't matter what variant is going around, it just
| happens to be delta now. The problem is the lack of
| persistent IgG antibodies in the surface mucosal tissues. To
| get long term protection from infection of these you need
| intranasal vaccination to recruit resident B and T cells to
| the mucosa to make IgA antibodies. Intramuscular does not
| prevent spread, it only prevents hospitalization and death.
| This is also true for intramuscular flu vaccination.
| leoedin wrote:
| But what's the end goal? Do we keep lockdown restrictions
| forever? The case fatality rate for a vaccinated population
| is really low. There must be an acceptable level - after all
| we don't lock down for other endemic viruses which also have
| non-zero CFRs. What is it? Have we reached it?
| lamontcg wrote:
| The acceptable level is pretty much defined by when the
| hospitals aren't falling over again.
|
| If everyone would just get vaccinated, we'd be there.
|
| Instead people are for whatever reason ignoring the risks
| of the virus, and if the rate of hospitalization in their
| age category is only 1 in 50, enough of them making that
| choice mean that 2% of them guessing wrong is knocking the
| hospital system over again.
| rainbowzootsuit wrote:
| Maybe without a vaccination card or other pass that
| you're ineligible for the vaccine you get triaged right
| back out the door. That would help the hospital capacity,
| encourage vaccination, etc but it will probably need to
| get a bit more morgue capacity ramped up. Easier to train
| for.
| lamontcg wrote:
| The hippocratic oath prevents that fantasy.
| rainbowzootsuit wrote:
| That's why I called it triage. You can give steroids and
| O2 for home consumption? I guess it depends on the
| seriousness, on average, of the other people who are
| unable to use the hospital's services because it's
| overloaded and what their mortality rate is vs the
| unvaccinated who show up and are given some reasonable
| treatment to try, but not a bed. Not an easy decision or
| calculation to come up with.
| HarryHirsch wrote:
| We'll have to have some restrictions in place for the
| highest-risk activities. I really wouldn't want to give
| introductory lectures in a room that seats 250 people and
| has been in use all day and then find out, like the
| Reverend Jackson, that the vaccine protection has worn off.
| CountDrewku wrote:
| >I really wouldn't want to give introductory lectures in
| a room that seats 250 people and has been in use all day
| and then find out, like the Reverend Jackson, that the
| vaccine protection has worn off.
|
| Ok then don't? No one is forcing you to go out.
|
| Let everyone else make their own decisions. I'm kinda
| tired of the hypochondriacs forcing everyone else to do
| what they want. Everyone has access to the vaccine, they
| can stay in and mask all they want, they do not have to
| go near people. There's absolutely no reason to be
| locking down the rest of society. The only argument to
| keep these restrictions in place is if the hospitals get
| over capacity and that's not happening.
| bmitc wrote:
| > if the hospitals get over capacity and that's not
| happening
|
| It's happening in quite a few places.
| fidesomnes wrote:
| no it isn't getting full yes, and sending patience
| farther away yes, but overflowing and collapse of order
| like in Contagion, no.
| CountDrewku wrote:
| Show me the data for the US please.
|
| https://protect-public.hhs.gov/pages/hospital-utilization
| c0nducktr wrote:
| Some of these people appear to live in a completely
| different reality.
| CountDrewku wrote:
| Data for hospitals that are over capacity in the US
| please. Should be easy to find since I'm apparently
| living in alternate reality.
|
| https://protect-public.hhs.gov/pages/hospital-utilization
|
| Additionally you need to provide a strategy that would
| stop this. Since apparently mass vaccination and locking
| down for nearly 2 years didn't help. Or you can keep
| supporting the same thing and hoping for different
| results.
| celticninja wrote:
| Everyone can make their own decisions, but can everyone
| give an introductory lecture? Perhaps the 250 attendees
| can decide if they want to be there in person or
| remotely, why would you remove that choice from the
| person giving the lecture?
|
| And we are not talking about locking down the rest of
| society. That was the extreme end of the spectrum when we
| were trying to get it under control. The only place still
| with national lockdowns are NZ and Australia because they
| were able to contain and control the virus earlier on.
|
| Sounds like you are equating your experience with
| everyone. Not everyone has access to the vaccine, not
| everyone is able to work remotely, some people have to
| interact with the public as part of their job. Perhaps
| try looking at things from the perspective of people who
| are less fortunate than yourself.
|
| There is an underlying current of selfishness behind
| everything you say.
| CountDrewku wrote:
| >Everyone can make their own decisions, but can everyone
| give an introductory lecture? Perhaps the 250 attendees
| can decide if they want to be there in person or
| remotely, why would you remove that choice from the
| person giving the lecture?
|
| How am I removing that choice? Did I say anywhere they
| were not allowed to host it virtually if they chose to do
| so? The only one removing choices is the individual that
| decides they don't want anyone in person.
|
| >Sounds like you are equating your experience with
| everyone. Not everyone has access to the vaccine, not
| everyone is able to work remotely, some people have to
| interact with the public as part of their job. Perhaps
| try looking at things from the perspective of people who
| are less fortunate than yourself.
|
| Every reason you listed here only supports NOT locking
| down. Everyone in the US does have access to the vaccine.
| I am looking at it correctly, you're the one that wants
| people not to work by locking down everything. What's
| your solution? Wait until everyone gets it, which will
| never happen?
|
| The irony in calling me the selfish one. I'm not making
| anyone do anything here. Exactly how is telling everyone
| they must do something not selfish? Anyone supporting
| more lockdowns/masking at this point is only doing it for
| themselves and no one else.
| celticninja wrote:
| I have not proposed a lockdown in any of my comments. I
| think you are looking for an argument with someone who
| wants another lockdown. I have not seen anyone proposing
| a new lockdown and think that the majority of people in
| the UK would neither support another lockdown or even
| think it is necessary.
|
| Literally the only country that should be considering a
| lockdown at this stage is New Zealand due to them being a
| great way to prevent spread if there are very few cases
| in the general population and the majority of people are
| unvaccinated. For everyone else the only realistic
| solution.is vaccination for as much of the population as
| possible.
| josephcsible wrote:
| > Perhaps the 250 attendees can decide if they want to be
| there in person or remotely, why would you remove that
| choice from the person giving the lecture?
|
| If the lecturer is remote, then the 250 attendees don't
| have the choice to be there in person.
| celticninja wrote:
| Big screen in a lecture hall is one option.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| The only people who are being selfish are the people who
| insist the entire human population change their behavior
| in an extremely negative way for more than 1.6 years for
| a virus that we now have remarkably effective vaccines
| for that anybody at risk can take for free.
|
| Sorry. It is selfish to ask people to continue to cower
| away in order to assuage peoples fear.
| depaya wrote:
| I'm tired of prudes telling me I can't drink and drive.
| Let everyone make their own decisions. Everyone else can
| stay home or drive sober if they want, but we shouldn't
| prevent the rest of society from having fun!
| josephcsible wrote:
| A better analogy than driving drunk would be driving at
| all.
| boredumb wrote:
| I think the analogy is that there is a small percentage
| of our population that cannot drive a vehicle without
| dying and so everyone has to stay home and not drive in
| order to get rid of the .06% of of the population that
| will die driving on the road.
| CountDrewku wrote:
| I wasn't aware that you could pass drunkenness through
| the air with no symptoms. That's new to me.
|
| Are you suggesting we should all be responsible for
| stopping other people from drunk driving and also
| stopping anyone from getting into a car with a drunk
| driver? Are you also attempting to suggest that everyone
| else get should have their drivers' license revoked for
| the few that are caught drunk driving? That's essentially
| what masking, forced vaccination, mandated passports is.
|
| Might wanna find a new metaphor. I'm sure you think that
| was an intelligent comparison but it absolutely sucks.
| You're comparing something that would take a deliberate
| act to something that might or might not be happening
| passively to you.
| depaya wrote:
| I agree it's not a great metaphor, but my point is that
| "let everyone make their own decisions" isn't some end-
| all argument. All rules and laws in society are about
| _not_ letting people do whatever they want for the
| benefit of society at large.
|
| Also you're trying to appeal to emotion by framing mask
| wearing as some sort of punishment ("revoking" people's
| drivers licenses) vs a precaution (like wearing a
| seatbelt... or not driving drunk). Furthermore, people
| caught drunk driving DO get their licenses taken away.
| josephcsible wrote:
| For how long? Certainly you can't mean forever.
| HarryHirsch wrote:
| Yes, forever, like gay men won't have orgies without
| condom any more.
| SuoDuanDao wrote:
| Public acceptance of perpetual lockdowns, or at least at-
| will lockdowns, probably is the goal. People get more
| tolerant of authoritarian governments when there's a high
| prevalence of infectious disease. Governments seeking re-
| election pushing a narrative that the danger from
| infectious diseases is high while also being seen to be
| 'doing something' is likely a self-reinforcing dynamic.
| HarryHirsch wrote:
| To be honest, until two weeks ago the official narrative
| has been that we'll all go back to normal once everyone
| has taken the vaccine. Unfortunately, the virus has
| thrown a spanner into the works. This wasn't planned.
| Mattasher wrote:
| Maybe you remember way back at the very beginning that it
| was "two weeks to slow the spread"?
|
| The narrative has _always_ been we'll be back to normal
| in X weeks if we are all good little boys and girls and
| do what we're told. Unless of course some other really
| good reason to lockdown arises, like that single case in
| NZ.
| toast0 wrote:
| The acheivable goal of lockdowns outside of effictively
| island countries is to keep hospitals open with sufficient
| capacity. When hospitals don't have enough capacity, any
| reason to go to the hospital has a worse outcome. Physical
| beds are one thing, but staffing is a bigger issue.
|
| The problem is it's a tricky system to manage. We can
| measure hospital utilization, but that lags infections. We
| can mandate lockdowns, but compliance varies and too many
| changes risks more non-compliance.
|
| Also, there are existing reasons leading to too many people
| in hospitals that reduces capacity. And systemic issues
| that make staffing a challenge.
| MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
| If COVID is here to stay and previous lockdowns still did not
| stop the spread, even with vaccine rates at almost everyone,
| how is another lockdown going to stop it? This isn't just
| ignorant "muh freedoms" talking here but irrational
| governments playing god too much as if they could even
| possibly do that that without complete fascistic control.
| lokedhs wrote:
| Israel is at 68%. I wouldn't call that close to full.
| Portugal is at 82%, and I wouldn't even call that full.
| crubier wrote:
| Portugal is at 66%
| mdp2021 wrote:
| Portugal: 66.5% double jab, 75.8% at-least-single-jab.
| (22 Aug 2021)
|
| (I was right in front of ourworldindata.org)
| staticassertion wrote:
| The UK seems to have a 62% full vaccination rate with 71%
| having at least one dose[0]. That sounds really low to me.
| "Close to full vaccination" to me would imply close to 100% or,
| reading "full" as "reaching herd immunity" I'd think 70-80%
| fully vaccinated - still a very long way to go.
|
| I hear you that we will eventually reach a point where we've
| hit the new normal. It's just going to be whether that point is
| reached because we've given up (due to people refusing to
| vaccinate) or because we've managed to vaccinate enough. I
| think many people aren't ready to give up. Personally, the
| restrictions are quite meaningless to me in the US, but I can
| imagine that that's just because I get to work from home and
| all that.
|
| [0] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/world/united-
| kingdo...
| NonContro wrote:
| 92% of Brits have COVID antibodies, either through exposure
| or immunity:
|
| https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-around-nine-
| in-10-adults...
| phreeza wrote:
| 92% of the Brits eligible for vaccination.
| staticassertion wrote:
| That feels a little selective.
|
| > Latest estimates from the Office for National Statistics
| (ONS) show 89.8% of adults in England are likely to have
| the antibodies, with the highest percentage of adults
| testing positive for them estimated to be the age groups 60
| to 64, 70 to 74 and 75 to 79 (all 96.8%).
|
| > The lowest percentage was for 16 to 24-year-olds at
| around 59.7%.
|
| The 92% (91.8% cited) is presumably from this sentence?
|
| > In Wales, 91.8% of adults are estimated to have
| antibodies in their system
| evgen wrote:
| The UK has only just started vaccinating under-18s, who make
| up a significant chunk of the population, and they are not
| vaccinating anyone under 16 yet. This is going to skew the
| numbers a bit. Among older age groups the numbers get up into
| the 80s and 90s.
|
| We are also lagging among BAME groups and in certain
| economically deprived areas. If you are a white 75 year-old
| in Wimbledon the odds that you are vaccinated are around 95%,
| while if you are a 30 year-old Pakistani immigrant in
| Bradford then I would put the odds closer to 50%. Still a
| long way to go, but constantly improving.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| >a 30 year-old Pakistani immigrant in Bradford
|
| Are there reasons for hesitancy expressed among the
| population?
| ekianjo wrote:
| > That sounds really low to me.
|
| Low compared to what? Do you know the vaccinations rates for
| all other diseases for which we have vaccines for?
| staticassertion wrote:
| Low compared to my third fucking sentence jesus christ.
| Synaesthesia wrote:
| The UK already went ahead and reponed prematurely with a huge
| influx of new cases following
| rgrieselhuber wrote:
| Yes
| jrockway wrote:
| Maybe "mask requirements" are a sign of society advancing?
| There was a time in human history when we didn't bathe
| regularly, or brush our teeth, or have sewage removal systems
| in cities, etc. Maybe the next step is "you know, breathing in
| particles that came from the other 600 people in this railcar
| is not so great".
|
| I certainly don't see a reason to go maskless on public
| transportation in the future. And, as supply chain problems
| work themselves out, someone will probably make masks that
| actually filter out virus-size particles and fit more people's
| faces. (I feel like every mask I've bought so far during the
| pandemic has either been completely ineffective, or has been
| designed to fit someone that is 1/3 my size.)
| josephcsible wrote:
| You're saying society should keep wearing masks everywhere
| literally forever? That's so insane I can't tell whether
| you're even serious.
| jrockway wrote:
| Yeah. I basically agree with the article:
|
| > The experience may also prompt people to take all
| respiratory viruses more seriously, leading to lasting
| changes in mask wearing and ventilation.
|
| I don't think that mask mandates will continue, but I do
| think that many more people will choose to wear masks in
| situations that warrant them. In Asia, it was already
| pretty common before COVID-19 and even before SARS. Walk
| around Tokyo on any given day and you'll see people wearing
| masks (mostly to protect others). I think the West now has
| some idea why that might be a good thing.
|
| The world has irreversibly changed. There is no getting
| around that.
| s5300 wrote:
| Ahh, I too remember when escalators instead of stairs were
| seen as so insane that the public couldn't tell whether the
| mall owners were serious...
| sintaxi wrote:
| Interesting. Were you required to strap an escalator to
| your face?
| evnc wrote:
| Is it insane that everyone should keep wearing clothes
| everywhere literally forever?
|
| If I found being nude to be significantly more
| comfortable/freeing than being clothed, I would still be
| expected to wear clothing in public spaces for both
| politeness and sanitary (e.g. sitting on subway seats)
| reasons.
| geofft wrote:
| Is there a particular reason you think that people
| shouldn't keep wearing masks everywhere literally forever,
| or is it just that it hurts your feelings?
|
| Barely a century ago, it wasn't common for doctors to wash
| their hands, because it hurt doctors' feelings. Dr. Charles
| Meigs, an obstetrician, said, "Doctors are gentlemen and a
| gentleman's hands are clean."
|
| But, of course, _factually_ they weren 't clean, factually
| they were full of germs, and factually Dr. Meigs was
| killing several of the people he operated on through his
| unclean hands. There was factual data that infant mortality
| dropped significantly in clinics where doctors were washing
| their hands.
|
| But the response to hand-washing was much like yours.
| "You're saying society should keep washing hands everywhere
| literally forever? That's so insane I can't tell whether
| you're even serious." And in fact they sent the doctor who
| suggested hand-washing to an insane asylum, where he died.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contemporary_reaction_to_Igna
| z...
| dudul wrote:
| It is very important for young children to be able to see
| one's entire face. Facial expressions such as smiles help
| them understand context when communicating.
| robhunter wrote:
| Who in the world is downvoting a statement like this?
| jrockway wrote:
| I think you should pretty much ignore voting in
| contentious political threads. People have it in their
| heads that the "side" with the most upvotes "wins", so
| people are reading comments to determine sides and then
| to vote appropriately.
|
| All I can say is that people are going to be super upset
| when they go to cash in their HN karma and find that it
| isn't honored as legal tender ;)
| dudul wrote:
| I'm just happy HN is such a fringe community not
| representative of the general population. It's pretty sad
| when you reach a point where you make medical decisions
| to "own" the "other team".
| josephcsible wrote:
| Doctors washing their hands saves way more lives than
| masks do, and hand washing doesn't have negative side
| effects like masks do (e.g., constantly fogging up
| glasses, and keeping people who are hard of hearing from
| reading lips).
| joshuamarksmith wrote:
| Your example is incorrect, actually.
|
| This scenario [1] is a specific instance of using
| chlorinated lime to clean your hands after dealing with
| cadavers, which is a totally different scenario. In fact,
| he apparently references this as an alternative to
| "normal hand washing". The mid-19th century is not the
| middle ages, we knew about washing hands.
|
| > Semmelweis's key claim was that physicians contaminated
| their hands with "cadaveric particles" in the morgue
| while conducting autopsies. He pointed out that ordinary
| washings with soap did not remove these particles,
| because the hands could retain a stench for several days
| in spite of such washings.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contemporary_reaction_t
| o_Ignaz...
| dont__panic wrote:
| Curious what kind of design workarounds we'll see for really
| hot and/or humid regions -- where I live, it's pretty
| comfortable to wear a mask 90% of the time. But where my
| parents live, it's a very different story: hot, humidity 90%+
| a lot of the time, often rainy, few places have A/C. Wearing
| a mask is a lot less pleasant there and I suspect that's part
| of why mask mandates have seen resistance there.
| rossdavidh wrote:
| In the case of the U.K., it's the population (not the
| government) that is holding things back. My impression is that
| Boris Johnson is opening things up as fast as he thinks he can
| get away with, without an enormous backlash that gets him
| removed from office. Unlike, say, France where the positions of
| government and popular backlash are reversed.
| nly wrote:
| Boris isn't in danger. He got what he always wanted - to be a
| wartime PM
| somewhatbetter wrote:
| Thanks to god for covid i don't have to return to the office. It
| is a small price the humanity have to pay for that, so it is ok.
| erhk wrote:
| Ill happily find you a remote job pre covid to undo all this
| sdze wrote:
| I feel you.
| asadkn wrote:
| Wouldn't it be better, then, at this point, to focus on
| hospitalization numbers rather than infections or deaths alone.
| As vaccines have been, reportedly, very good at preventing
| hospitalizations.
|
| It doesn't matter if there's 1 death, if hundreds are being
| hospitalized per day, overflowing the health care system.
|
| The problem isn't just mortality rate of covid-19 itself, it's
| also how hospitals are other treatments are affected. You better
| hope you don't get sick when the health care system is overloaded
| or at capacity.
| websites2023 wrote:
| That this article is even necessary proves that our leadership in
| the west has utterly failed to convey the goal of Coronavirus
| suppression tactics. Either that, or the sensible message is
| being morphed, funhouse mirror style, even through the most banal
| of media outlets.
|
| COVID-19 in some form was always going to be around forever. The
| goal was never complete eradication. Perhaps the miracle of the
| mRNA vaccine led us to fantasize, a little too openly, about
| going back to the pre-pandemic status quo. But that was never
| going to be the case.
|
| Personally, I've already moved on. I'll wear a mask as the
| situation dictates. I'll get the boosters. I'll keep mailing in
| my nasal tests twice a week and check the results. I'll keep an
| eye on the hospital numbers and modify my risky behavior as
| needed. I won't argue with people about the mask, about vaccines,
| about the origins. I'll work from home as long as they'll let me
| and go into the office when they say I've got to -- or I'll find
| another job.
|
| I've already made peace with this thing. I've moved on. If I get
| it, I get it -- but there's no real use in obsessing over it any
| longer. I've adapted, and I'm ok with that.
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