The Coronavirus Is Here Forever • Hacker News Board

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#201

Post by josephcsible » Mon, Aug 23, 2021, 2:37 PM UTC

geofft wrote: post #182

josephcsible wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're saying society should keep wearing masks everywhere literally forever? That's so insane I can't tell whether you're even serious.

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 the…

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).

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#202

Post by 74d-fe6-2c6 » Mon, Aug 23, 2021, 2:38 PM UTC

who even cares? many bad things are here forever ... why is this such a shock to many people - I don't get it.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#203

Post by toast0 » Mon, Aug 23, 2021, 2:39 PM UTC

leoedin wrote: post #97

HarryHirsch wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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?

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.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#204

Post by shakna » Mon, Aug 23, 2021, 2:40 PM UTC

jtbayly wrote: post #164

firecall wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's widely reported in the US, too. But the data doesn't bear it out.

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...

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#205

Post by flycaliguy » Mon, Aug 23, 2021, 2:43 PM UTC

tharne wrote: post #176

SamBam wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 w…

> 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".

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.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#206

Post by jdhn » Mon, Aug 23, 2021, 2:44 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #153

sleepysysadmin wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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% vac…

> 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 o…

> 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.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#207

Post by colordrops » Mon, Aug 23, 2021, 2:46 PM UTC

anyonecancode wrote: post #154

colordrops wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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…

Too many holes in this analogy. For instance, there are other unrelated errors that happen more frequently.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#208

Post by jasonlaramburu » Mon, Aug 23, 2021, 2:46 PM UTC

qwerty456127 wrote: post #95

SamBam wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 w…

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 d…

> 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.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#209

Post by shakna » Mon, Aug 23, 2021, 2:47 PM UTC

firecall wrote: post #99

colordrops wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

> 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...

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#210

Post by MichaelZuo » Mon, Aug 23, 2021, 2:47 PM UTC

mr_overalls wrote: post #193

PartiallyTyped wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 f…

> 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.

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...