Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

nymag.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 465 posts

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#161

Post by bee_rider »

moron4hire wrote: post #126
bee_rider wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For unvaccinated people it can be quite a bit worse than the flu. The degree of empathy afforded those folks seems to be a subject of active debate I guess...

When this all started, there was a blase attitude towards obese people being at higher risk for severe cases from a lot of people. There was a lot of argument about whether being obese was a "choice", worth ignoring the class of people as it being "their own fault". Now, whatever you think about the obesity issue, I think we can definitely agree that there is no way 40% of the US adult population have some kind of co…

I agree that there are an awful lot of really unsympathetic people who haven't gotten vaccinated, but that seems like an unfortunate side-issue. We can ignore them all and say: sure, but there are still people who have compromised immune systems, etc, so we should try to minimize the spread for them (of course, people who have really compromised immune systems are also used to avoiding situations where they can get sick I guess, so this is a team project). Even if the majority of people who aren't vaccinated are annoying, the existence of good people is a sufficient condition to be careful.

For me, this doesn't necessarily mean totally isolating, though -- just things like wearing a mask in stores, dining outside when I want to go to a restaurant, etc.

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#162

Post by timr »

munificent wrote: post #138
timr wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd imagine not too long after safe and effective vaccines are authorized for children under 12. Children are at exceptionally low risk from Covid. It's time to stop with fear, uncertainty and doubt, and deal with facts. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01897-w In the US, 340 children under 17 have died from Covid. Total. During the same period, 187 have died from the flu, and over 51,000 children have di…

From the Nature article you linked to: > The studies did not evaluate rates of less-severe illness or debilitating ‘long COVID’ symptoms that can linger months after the acute phase of the infection has past. “The low rate of severe acute disease is important news, but this does not have to mean that COVID does not matter to children,” says paediatrician Danilo Buonsenso at the Gemelli University Hospital in Rome. “P…

> Death is not the only bad outcome to be avoided.

And this is yet another illustration of the point I was making about fear, uncertainty and doubt: the Nature article didn't say that there is proof that children will have "long Covid"...it says that these particular studies didn't address the question.

By this standard, anyone can make up any speculation of something that might happen to children someday, and we'll use that speculation to demand fearful responses, indefinitely. There is no end to this logic.

Fortunately, the well-controlled evidence is increasingly pointing to the conclusion that "long Covid" is not a serious risk to children -- and that, more generally, Covid appears to be similar to other viral infections in terms of long-term symptoms:

https://twitter.com/apsmunro/status/1421415741706981376

Again, lots of hysterical speculation in this area, not much good data. But the better the data gets, the less legitimate the early, speculative claims appear.

> There are ~48 million kids under 12 in the US. Assuming they are evenly split between male and female, that would mean 1,824 cases of myocarditis and pericarditis if 100% of them were vaccinated.

The myocarditis issue disproportionately affects young boys. Your calculation is incorrect.

> Given that nowhere near 100% of children have been exposed to COVID and yet 340 have died, I don't see clear evidence here that the vaccine is more risky than not being vaccinated.

Be that as it may, the UK and about half of the EU countries disagree with your assessment, including a number of experts here in the US, as well:

https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/second-opinions/93340

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#163

Post by timr »

majormajor wrote: post #112
timr wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a perfect illustration of the point. In the face of ample documented evidence of the actual risk, your response is to speculate wildly about future events that are completely inconsistent with what we know.

The "give up and let it be endemic forever" defeatism attitude appears very statistically foolish. It's likely, yes, but why on earth would we want to just accept that? The flu, for instance, bounces around in severity and kills tens of thousands per year in the US. Few of those are kids, so what? If we're happy to let the virus continue to transmit in any populations, it'll change in various ways. One year a variant…

> The "give up and let it be endemic forever" defeatism attitude appears very statistically foolish.

Well first, that has nothing to do with what I wrote. I made a very specific argument about how fear -- hysteria, really -- is driving our reaction to what is right to do for children.

But second, it isn't "statistically foolish"...it's just a basic understanding of biology and our rather poor history of eradicating viral diseases. Statistics don't come into play here either way.

Reasonable people can disagree on whether or not Covid can be eradicated, but you have to be delusional to think that this will be accomplished on any sort of timeline that is relevant to our lifetimes.

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#164

Post by saddlerustle »

microtherion wrote: post #159
timr wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd imagine not too long after safe and effective vaccines are authorized for children under 12. Children are at exceptionally low risk from Covid. It's time to stop with fear, uncertainty and doubt, and deal with facts. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01897-w In the US, 340 children under 17 have died from Covid. Total. During the same period, 187 have died from the flu, and over 51,000 children have di…

> Children are at exceptionally low risk from Covid. Low risk of death, yes. But still a substantial risk of long lasting severe effects: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/... A complete loss of sense of taste, or chronic fatigue are both entirely possible outcomes with children, and at this time, it's not clear at all how long these effects last. Conversely, the effects of myocarditis, whil…

The highest quality study on this to date [1] found no difference in the prevalence of long term symptoms between kids that had covid and kids that didn't.

[1] https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.16.21257255v...

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#165

Post by 908B64B197 »

0xTJ wrote: post #20

This gives me hope for Canada, where I am, won't face too many issues even as we slowly start to tick up from the bottom since major reopening happened, allowing indoor dining etc. In the last week, we've passed the UK in number of fully vaccinated people, but that's going to be slowing down as we start running of people who got their first dose during the big surge in shots here. Unfortunately, at 64% of the total p…

> It doesn't help that Alberta, our country's Texas, has decided to fully open everything and get rid of their requirements. Starting 2 weeks from now, you won't even have to self-isolate if you test positive for COVID-19.

Just close down the border with them.

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#166

Post by dude187 »

munificent wrote: post #138
timr wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd imagine not too long after safe and effective vaccines are authorized for children under 12. Children are at exceptionally low risk from Covid. It's time to stop with fear, uncertainty and doubt, and deal with facts. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01897-w In the US, 340 children under 17 have died from Covid. Total. During the same period, 187 have died from the flu, and over 51,000 children have di…

From the Nature article you linked to: > The studies did not evaluate rates of less-severe illness or debilitating ‘long COVID’ symptoms that can linger months after the acute phase of the infection has past. “The low rate of severe acute disease is important news, but this does not have to mean that COVID does not matter to children,” says paediatrician Danilo Buonsenso at the Gemelli University Hospital in Rome. “P…

The problem is that none of the risk analysis takes into account freedom and happiness. Not every injury is worth avoiding at all costs.

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#167

Post by fortuna86 »

gpt5 wrote: post #111
felipellrocha wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Left out in the discussion seem to be the unvaccinated but already infected. As far as I know, prior infection confers at least some degree of immunity. We don't know how much, though. There are cases in which vaccine performs better than a natural infection, there are cases in which the vaccine performs worse than natural infection. Without time for a study, it's impossible to know where we lie with Covid.

It's not impossible to estimate for COVID. Re-infections in COVID are exceedingly rare.

There's no way of knowing this, considering the amount of asymptomatic cases that are never tested or recorded.

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#168

Post by dude187 »

timr wrote: post #81
anyonecancode wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Children are at exceptionally low risk from Covid. Let's hope the die keep rolling up to that result with each succeeding variant!

This is a perfect illustration of the point. In the face of ample documented evidence of the actual risk, your response is to speculate wildly about future events that are completely inconsistent with what we know.

The response to controlling people and taking away their freedom in the name of COVID has been ran deliberately and openly run through fear mongering. It's no wonder people keep defaulting to that, but we must actively reject and counter fear mongering.

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#169

Post by brnt »

neither_color wrote: post #64
0xTJ wrote: post #20

This gives me hope for Canada, where I am, won't face too many issues even as we slowly start to tick up from the bottom since major reopening happened, allowing indoor dining etc. In the last week, we've passed the UK in number of fully vaccinated people, but that's going to be slowing down as we start running of people who got their first dose during the big surge in shots here. Unfortunately, at 64% of the total p…

Since when is Texas a pejorative? By itself it would be a world top-15 economy, and its pandemic performance was not an outlier or exceptional. If anything it, along with Florida, demonstrated that extremely strict lockdowns don't correlate to better outcomes. Nothing like Alberta.

Mildly amusing that your sole defense is the size of the economy.

Re: The UK’s delta surge is collapsing

#170

Post by anthonyu »

infamouscow wrote: post #154
billiam wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what the point of such conjecture is. Of course we don't know how much immunity comes from infection, and it is quite clear from the spread of delta that we are nowhere near herd immunity in the developed world, even in places like Israel. I had a coronavirus called a cold last year; does that mean I'm immune this year? Unlikely in the long term with COVID. The entire concept of herd immunity may be a mi…

You're missing the point because the media (and their pharmaceutical advertisers) have framed everything in terms of vaccination, as if the human immune system is incapable of surviving COVID and it's variants. All viruses get less lethal as time goes on, not stronger, despite all the fear porn that has been indoctrinated into the public over the last year and a half.

Certain viruses maintained their lethality as time went on. Smallpox was very lethal throughout time. Influenza lethality ebbs throughout history. I don't think we can or should depend on less-lethal, common-cold-like symptoms from Covid-19 at any point.
Post reply on HN