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The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

theatlantic.com

451–460 of 1001 posts

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If they fall down in the playground they don't carry that injury home and kill one of their parents with it.

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.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#452
post #320
post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 nu…

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?

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.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#453
post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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 an…

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.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#454
post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they’re spending the whole day in a classroom together the effect of masks is going to be minimal.

Is there any point spending the day in the classroom with reduced oxygen to the brain?

Are you under the impression surgeons in hospitals are chronically hypoxic?

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The CDC definitely says we should vaccinate almost all children against influenza. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/prevent/vaccinations.htm

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.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#456
post #356
post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unpopular opinion but as countries get majority vaccinated they have to learn to not be as scared of it.

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.

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.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#457
post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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 an…

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...

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#458
post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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 an…

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.)

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 an…

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…

My understanding is that Delta is being spread more easily by children of school age

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#460
post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 un…

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.
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