The Coronavirus Is Here Forever • Hacker News Board

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#561

Post by pacomerh » Mon, Aug 23, 2021, 7:04 PM UTC

autokad wrote: post #521

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 sea…

> 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.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#562

Post by wootangflan » Mon, Aug 23, 2021, 7:04 PM UTC

gowld wrote: post #531

autokad wrote: post #521

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 sea…

Blaming the US Southern border for coronavirus spread is a racist and Republican (anti-immigration excuse-making) trope.

The problem is mosaic and pretending one of the myriad factors is marker of a hatemongerer is itself hatemongering.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#563

Post by laurent92 » Mon, Aug 23, 2021, 7:06 PM UTC

xadhominemx wrote: post #511

SQueeeeeL wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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 État 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.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#564

Post by spookthesunset » Mon, Aug 23, 2021, 7:07 PM UTC

commandlinefan wrote: post #516

martin_bech wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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..

> 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.

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.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#565

Post by tialaramex » Mon, Aug 23, 2021, 7:07 PM UTC

autokad wrote: post #521

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 sea…

> 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.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#566

Post by unbroken » Mon, Aug 23, 2021, 7:08 PM UTC

swader999 wrote: post #537

jmull wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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.

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.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#567

Post by recursive » Mon, Aug 23, 2021, 7:10 PM UTC

masklinn wrote: post #540

beloch wrote: post #489

"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 earli…

> 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 histo…

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.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#568

Post by hcurtiss » Mon, Aug 23, 2021, 7:13 PM UTC

tialaramex wrote: post #565

autokad wrote: post #521

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 sea…

> 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 a…

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.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#569

Post by moonchrome » Mon, Aug 23, 2021, 7:13 PM UTC

tialaramex wrote: post #565

autokad wrote: post #521

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 sea…

> 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 a…

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 ?

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#570

Post by paul_f » Mon, Aug 23, 2021, 7:13 PM UTC

xadhominemx wrote: post #511

SQueeeeeL wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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-...