The Virus Changed. Now We Must ‘Get to Zero’ or Face Catastrophe • Hacker News Board

Re: The Virus Changed. Now We Must ‘Get to Zero’ or Face Catastrophe

#41

Post by __blockcipher__ » Sun, Jan 31, 2021, 9:11 AM UTC

croes wrote: post #37

__blockcipher__ wrote: post #11

SARS-CoV-2 is a zoonotic, (fairly) highly infectious endemic respiratory virus. Eradication is literally impossible, and even if we could wave a magic wand and simultaneously eradicate it from all humans on earth, you still need to worry about it jumping back over from any of the many animal species infected with it. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eradication_of_infectious_dise... : > The selection of infectious…

"who have essentially zero risk of COVID-19 mortality." With current virus, that could change with each mutation.

Viruses generally change to be less deadly and more transmissible. The “new variant” is just more transmissible.

It doesn’t make sense to argue “oh what if this virus magically evolves to hurt children”. You need to propose a theoretical mechanism of action. Otherwise spend your time worrying about flu and tuberculosis which kill far more children than COVID-19.

Re: The Virus Changed. Now We Must ‘Get to Zero’ or Face Catastrophe

#42

Post by x86_64Ubuntu » Sun, Jan 31, 2021, 9:11 AM UTC

MattGaiser wrote: post #10

jansan wrote: post #6

As Klaus Schwab clearly said: "The pandemic represents a rare but narrow window of opportunity to reflect, reimagine, and reset our world" Wouldn't it be a shame if the window closed before the goals are reached? Also, I do not trust activist writers.

Anecdotally, the packing of other policy goals into the pandemic response has caused several people I know to believe that it is all a fraud. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/great-reset-trudeau-poiliev...

So that's whats causing people to believe it's a fraud? How does policy packing counter all the people that have died and/or gotten sick from COVID-19?

Re: The Virus Changed. Now We Must ‘Get to Zero’ or Face Catastrophe

#43

Post by jeofken » Sun, Jan 31, 2021, 9:11 AM UTC

bigmattystyles wrote: post #35

__blockcipher__ wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I think the mink culling was an absurd over-reaction and highly unethical. Those poor minks. (Disclosure: I also think the same for the human lockdowns too though)

I mean, the minks were going to be killed for fur anyways right? The culling isn’t really the problematic part.

Denmark’s fur industry is old, but now also dead.

Morally, raising mink for fur is equal to eating meat or consuming dairy products.

Re: The Virus Changed. Now We Must ‘Get to Zero’ or Face Catastrophe

#44

Post by baxtr » Sun, Jan 31, 2021, 9:12 AM UTC

threeseed wrote: post #34

baxtr wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This and all other countries mentioned are Islands (Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan)

UK is an island and is the worst country in the world per-capita. Australia, New Zealand etc chose to implement mandatory 2-week quarantining of all arrivals. UK did not. There is no evidence that being an island or not makes a difference. But plenty of evidence that an aggressive, science-driven policy response does.

Yes, agreed. It’s embarrassing for the UK... my point was that there is no example of a western, liberal country not being an island that was able to reach zero Covid. It’s just way easier as an island state.

Re: The Virus Changed. Now We Must ‘Get to Zero’ or Face Catastrophe

#45

Post by faeyanpiraat » Sun, Jan 31, 2021, 9:12 AM UTC

bigmattystyles wrote: post #35

__blockcipher__ wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I think the mink culling was an absurd over-reaction and highly unethical. Those poor minks. (Disclosure: I also think the same for the human lockdowns too though)

I mean, the minks were going to be killed for fur anyways right? The culling isn’t really the problematic part.

If you go one step further along that thought, they would have died of old age anyway, so who cares..

Then you extend that to humans, so now nothing matters.

This is not very helpful.

Re: The Virus Changed. Now We Must ‘Get to Zero’ or Face Catastrophe

#46

Post by jasdine817 » Sun, Jan 31, 2021, 9:12 AM UTC

throwaway3699 wrote: post #4

plantain wrote: post #2

It won't happen, because there's no political incentive to do so. The citizens of these beleaguered countries seem quite happy with the government management thus far[1]. I honestly don't know how anyone can look at the UK response thus far and think - more of that please! [1] https://twitter.com/BritainElects/status/1355606835873669126

The UK is faced with a lack of choice here. My read is that people strongly dislike the current government policies but believe that the cons are "least worst". There's been very little in the way of real opposition, sadly. For instance, when the Tories do make actual fuckups Labour usually resort to off-topic complaints about idpol so the Tories just do whatever they want with no push back.

The main issue is a voting system that only allows two parties to compete and makes parties between fractious groups of people with very different views. The Tories for whatever reason are just far better at aligning most of their party to the goal of winning.

Re: The Virus Changed. Now We Must ‘Get to Zero’ or Face Catastrophe

#47

Post by threeseed » Sun, Jan 31, 2021, 9:13 AM UTC

tristanperry wrote: post #18

plantain wrote: post #2

It won't happen, because there's no political incentive to do so. The citizens of these beleaguered countries seem quite happy with the government management thus far[1]. I honestly don't know how anyone can look at the UK response thus far and think - more of that please! [1] https://twitter.com/BritainElects/status/1355606835873669126

I agree, but it also doesn't help when the Labour opposition have had a string of weak opposition leaders. Even Keir Starmer seems content to sit back and only critise the Government's response the day or days after a grim milestone/but of news. Why isn't he constantly saying that the UK should totally shut their borders, for example? He should be saying this and nothing else, and directing the rest of Labour to do t…

I don't understand why Labour doesn't bring up Australia.

UK is 2.5x the population of Australia and has 136x the number of deaths.

Re: The Virus Changed. Now We Must ‘Get to Zero’ or Face Catastrophe

#48

Post by Gatsky » Sun, Jan 31, 2021, 9:13 AM UTC

__blockcipher__ wrote: post #11

SARS-CoV-2 is a zoonotic, (fairly) highly infectious endemic respiratory virus. Eradication is literally impossible, and even if we could wave a magic wand and simultaneously eradicate it from all humans on earth, you still need to worry about it jumping back over from any of the many animal species infected with it. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eradication_of_infectious_dise... : > The selection of infectious…

This is a new disease, we don’t know what is going to happen in the future. There could be chronic consequences we don’t know about yet, for example. The virus could evolve to have much higher mortality next year. By allowing it to become endemic, we are also bequeathing it to all future humans. There is surely a more risk aware scenario between endemicity and total eradication.

Re: The Virus Changed. Now We Must ‘Get to Zero’ or Face Catastrophe

#49

Post by prox » Sun, Jan 31, 2021, 9:14 AM UTC

threeseed wrote: post #28

__blockcipher__ wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I think the mink culling was an absurd over-reaction and highly unethical. Those poor minks. (Disclosure: I also think the same for the human lockdowns too though)

Lockdowns work. End of story. Melbourne, Australia had a 4-month lockdown which turned an exponentially-rising 500+ cases a day scenario into elimination. Saving thousands of lives. No other place has managed to do something similar and it shows hotel quarantine of foreign arrivals, aggressive contact-tracing, mandatory mask-wearing, social distancing and lockdowns work. The Swedish laissez-faire approach does not.

Is there a good place I could read about how Australia did it?

Re: The Virus Changed. Now We Must ‘Get to Zero’ or Face Catastrophe

#50

Post by MattGaiser » Sun, Jan 31, 2021, 9:14 AM UTC

x86_64Ubuntu wrote: post #42

MattGaiser wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotally, the packing of other policy goals into the pandemic response has caused several people I know to believe that it is all a fraud. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/great-reset-trudeau-poiliev...

So that's whats causing people to believe it's a fraud? How does policy packing counter all the people that have died and/or gotten sick from COVID-19?

I don't actually know any such people, nor do most of the people I have asked this question. I have yet to know anyone for whom the pandemic is personal in any way.

So I think the death toll is just an abstraction to many. Others believe that there is no change in deaths and the government is just re-labelling them.