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The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

theatlantic.com

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Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#671

Post by mike00632 »

AndrewBissell wrote: post #398
outside1234 wrote: post #229

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.

> once the vaccine is available to all age groups, the only people that need to be scared of it are the unvaccinated The age groups to whom the vaccine is not yet available have no reason to fear Covid in 2021 any more than they did influenza in 2019.

Vaccines are available for the flu and we take them... The whole anti-vaxx mindset is bewildering. Even if COVID-19 was just like the flu we would still want to get vaccinated for it

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#672

Post by Tobani »

grillvogel wrote: post #664
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.

"The largest decrease in hesitancy between January and May by education group was in those with a high school education or less. Hesitancy held constant in the most educated group (those with a PhD); by May PhD’s were the most hesitant group. " https://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/news/news-stories/2021/july/cov...

That is pretty hard to interpret still. It could be that people with "some college" respond with oh 100% I'm getting it or 0% I"m not getting it. Where as somebody with a PHD is like yeah. I have concerns so I'm 20% worried, but I'm still planning on getting it. Also I would expect the more educated to 1) be more skeptical, 2) not change their mind when the information hasn't changed much.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#673

Post by tomcooks »

xadhominemx wrote: post #589
paul_f wrote: post #570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-...

Black people have their own idiosyncratic reasons for vaccine skepticism, unrelated to partisan politics. But anyway, Trump support is still a stronger correlation: https://mobile.twitter.com/gelliottmorris/status/14207453318...

Please can you explain a non-american what are those idiosyncratic reasons?

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#674

Post by sokoloff »

nkozyra wrote: post #620
recursive wrote: post #567

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 you get you case in childhood, as most do, then you have immunity through adulthood. Sort of. I got shingles (early 40s) this year. Completely knocked on my ass for a week and maybe 2-3 months to be mostly back to normal. I recommend the shingles vaccine to anyone who will listen.

I just got the shingles vaccine this year (two shots about 3 months apart). That vaccine knocked me down from hour 6 to about hour 54 both times. Worse than any other vaccine experience, including Pfizer C19. Still recommend it, but schedule it wisely.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#675

Post by boc »

criticaltinker wrote: post #632
baxtr wrote: post #607

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like your comment, but not this part: > The thing is, COVID-19 is not endemic yet and, even once it is, will likely retain the capability of mutating into a strain that causes a new deadly pandemic. I don't think that's possible, since I am not aware of a precedent. Meaning: the other 4 endemic coronaviruses which also started as pandemic and now are harmless cold viruses never caused a new deathly pandemic in a mu…

Documents from scientists in the UK government articulate in great detail that it is a "realistic" possibility that the virus mutates to be deadlier and/or more transmissive [1]. One key difference between this coronavirus and the other endemic 4 is that mass vaccination strategies were never used. Analogous to antibiotic resistance, vaccine resistance is a realistic consequence if vaccines are used indiscriminately…

Then why did the "worst" variant so far come from a place (India) with extremely low vaccination rates at the time?

It's a numbers game. With chickens there are billions of chickens created and destroyed annually, and almost all of them are vaccinated in utero, so it makes sense that we'd see the disease get selectively deadlier. With Covid if you knock down the disease rate to something that's basically a few cases per month via vaccinations, you won't have enough chances for mutations to occur.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#676

Post by thorin »

dongping wrote: post #638
monkeynotes wrote: post #591

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My household has had zero cases per capita. Population count and relative isolation make a huge difference. You can't directly compare NZ with places like Germany or the US.

When we talk about population count, maybe China is a country worth mentioning here? The success in New Zealand seems like the elephant in the room, that the Atlantic article failed to refer to. Not to mention China.

Does anyone really believe the reported stats for China?

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#677

Post by spookthesunset »

Clubber wrote: post #642
craftinator wrote: post #617

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It just boggles my mind that with modern understanding of how these things work (and we have a MUCH more complete understanding than they had during the early 1900's), we repeat this ignorant mistake.

"Masks aren't effective" "Masks are effective" "Vaccinated don't have to wear masks" "Vaccinated should wear masks" "COVID is not airborne" "COVID is airborne" "COVID came from a wet market" "COVID came from a lab" "If you caught it, you have immunity" "If you caught it, you might not have immunity" It's not difficult to understand why there is so much confusion. Our government was and has been quite inept at its mes…

Honestly at this point in the game I have no clue what is factual and isn't. I don't know who the hell to trust anymore.

> The sad thing is many people still hold up the government / bureaucrats / politicians as omnipotent

And so-called "experts"... by which I mean only the ones that say this is the worst thing ever. Any expert in the field with any objections or criticisms to what we've done immediately gets the online equivalent of being letter bombed.

The public health messaging for this whole thing has been absolutely horrific and has only been getting worse. They've managed to cast so much fear, uncertainty and doubt on what are in fact remarkable vaccines... I don't know how they will ever repair their trust or credibility.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#678

Post by nomel »

jandrese wrote: post #572
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…

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 shoul…

> but only one carrier could infect several others and then that cascades to the entire population

Which is exactly how we got here.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#679

Post by ragingrobot »

Clubber wrote: post #642
craftinator wrote: post #617

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It just boggles my mind that with modern understanding of how these things work (and we have a MUCH more complete understanding than they had during the early 1900's), we repeat this ignorant mistake.

"Masks aren't effective" "Masks are effective" "Vaccinated don't have to wear masks" "Vaccinated should wear masks" "COVID is not airborne" "COVID is airborne" "COVID came from a wet market" "COVID came from a lab" "If you caught it, you have immunity" "If you caught it, you might not have immunity" It's not difficult to understand why there is so much confusion. Our government was and has been quite inept at its mes…

> They think we'll freak out set everything on fire or something at the first hint of bad news.

Could it be that they've used this tactic so often just to get this effect when they so desire it, that now they fear that it will be our only reaction?

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#680

Post by sokoloff »

nerdponx wrote: post #606
hcurtiss wrote: post #568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

You can't really look at the US and say "it doesn't work", because even the slightest restrictions were leveraged into a major political issue.

Agree. I don’t think anywhere in the US did anything that could reasonably be called a lockdown.

“Try to gather in groups of no more than six (at a time).” “When you need food, go to the grocery store (as often as you see fit).”

Is anyone surprised that a highly contagious virus was able to escape these “lockdown” measures?

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