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The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

theatlantic.com

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Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#571

Post by rayiner »

simonw wrote: post #458
rayiner wrote: post #372

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…

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…

You’re absolutely wrong about the last point. The people raising risks to childhood development from masking are serious people making serious arguments: https://healthpolicy.usc.edu/article/mandatory-masking-of-sc...

This is as an article by medical professors at USC and Stanford:

> At the same time, the long-term harm to kids from masking is potentially enormous. Masking is a psychological stressor for children and disrupts learning. Covering the lower half of the face of both teacher and pupil reduces the ability to communicate. In particular, children lose the experience of mimicking expressions, an essential tool of nonverbal communication. Positive emotions such as laughing and smiling become less recognizable, and negative emotions get amplified. Bonding between teachers and students takes a hit. Overall, it is likely that masking exacerbates the chances that a child will experience anxiety and depression, which are already at pandemic levels themselves.

I don’t know if you have young children, but facial expressions are a huge part of communication. My kids are constantly looking at my face to for “is this okay” signals. Kids learn to look at facial expressions of peers to understand what they’re thinking and feeling. There’s just tons and tons of research on this.

Masks for kids isn’t like masks for adults, where you can say “well even if they don’t work there’s no harm.” What we don’t have is research showing that wearing masks has persistent negative effects on kids, but based on what we do know that’s a real possible harm that has to be weighed against the possible benefits of masking.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#572

Post by jandrese »

PartiallyTyped wrote: post #167
rossdavidh wrote: post #36

Good article, but doesn't mention the other reason that covid-19 is never going completely away: animal reservoirs. We know that dogs, cats, hamsters, guinea pigs, mink, white-tailed deer, a gorilla, and a tiger have been found to have been infected with covid-19. It is implausible that it will ever cease to have an animal reservoir, especially given the finding in Canada of 30% of white-tailed deer having it. Of dis…

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…

It would only take a handful of transmissions to a community to have something like COVID spread like wildfire through the deer population. They may not interact with humans much, but only one carrier could infect several others and then that cascades to the entire population. Deer don't get vaccinated and don't wear masks.

The good news is that even if COVID is running rampant through the deer populations they shouldn't pass them on to humans very often, so if humans are good at identifying and stopping isolated outbreaks then we can live with the risk.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#573

Post by senderista »

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 _seems_ like a mild disease, until it develops into shingles, decades later. I sure wished I had gotten the chickenpox vaccine after I nearly lost my eye from shingles.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#574

Post by itsoktocry »

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…

>Not 26 per 100k population

I know people like to think that doing the per-capita calculation puts every country on an even footing for comparison. But it's kind of silly to straight compare countries with vastly different geographies and economies, regardless of population normalization.

>I think there's a fair chance they'll beat it again

If they are locked down, again, 16 months into this thing, they never beat anything.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#575

Post by gremloni »

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…

This comment is every right wing talking point about the epidemic with a marked attempt to come across casually.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#576

Post by yourapostasy »

thingification wrote: post #389
h3cate wrote: 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.

Long COVID exists. Personally, it's always worried me more than the risk of death from COVID. I think people who haven't had a chronic condition (including doctors) tend to underestimate the impact they can have on your life. Long COVID symptoms may not be "severe" or "serious" in a medical coding dictionary, but those terms in a medical dictionary are quite distinct from their everyday meanings. The best evidence we…

As someone in a cognitive-dominant industry on an industry board, I'm baffled why more people aren't discussing long COVID-caused brain fog here. The chances of getting long COVID once infected are better than 1 in 3,000, the odds of a US residential structure fire, an insurable event. If you live in the US, then unless you have established gold-plated short- and long-term disability insurance, then long COVID-caused brain fog for an average HN participant is likely a career-altering diagnosis.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#577

Post by SuoDuanDao »

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?

Public acceptance of perpetual lockdowns, or at least at-will lockdowns, probably is the goal. People get more tolerant of authoritarian governments when there's a high prevalence of infectious disease. Governments seeking re-election pushing a narrative that the danger from infectious diseases is high while also being seen to be 'doing something' is likely a self-reinforcing dynamic.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#578

Post by xdennis »

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.

> racist and Republican

Are both of those insults?

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#579

Post by masklinn »

recursive wrote: post #567
masklinn wrote: post #540

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> If introduced in a new population

Ah true, I had not considered that unlike eurasians american populations would obviously not have had it as children.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#580

Post by luckylion »

spideymans wrote: post #491
luckylion wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

“I’m young, so I have nothing to worry about”, is a sentiment I’ve seen expressed all to commonly.

I'm not young, I'm overweight, my risk is elevated. I'm also vaccinated, but chose to get it way later than I could have based on priority, because I calculated my personal risk to be minimal, and others' to be significantly higher despite lower priority.

And "I'm so wise and noble and everyone who doesn't share my opinion is a selfish ass" is still a dumb way to frame it.

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