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The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

theatlantic.com

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Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#701

Post by at_a_remove »

hnuser847 wrote: post #616
at_a_remove wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The, uh, tone of your comment suggests that there is this epidemic of obese people who simply have neglected to press the STOP BEING OBESE button. "All you have to do is ..." "Can't you just ..." In technology, we hate hearing that from people who do not have a grasp of the situation -- why are you doing it here? That button doesn't exist. That's the source of your bafflement.

Perhaps we should have nutrition passports. People wouldn’t be allowed to visit fast food restaurants until they have sub-30 BMI.

If I could short stock in this idea, well, it would be like getting in early on crypto.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#702

Post by orhmeh09 »

rossdavidh wrote: post #416
thingification wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yes, but, the reality is that everyone is going to get exposed to this virus eventually. Probably not that long from now, if you haven't yet. Pretending that evading it forever is possible, is not helping people to make wise decisions; I think many of the unvaccinated currently believe they can evade both the virus and the vaccine (they are incorrect). Eventually, long covid or not, we are all getting exposed. We sho…

Speak for yourself or get on respirator crew.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#703

Post by collaborative »

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…

The one thing that still bothers me is that we don't yet know how quickly this coronavirus evolves, and from what we know it very likely escaped from a gain-of-function laboratory that specializes in quickly mutating viruses. I didn't see Delta coming. I want to believe that this is the worst of it. But this coronavirus has so far kept us on our toes so it may well have a few more surprises in store

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#704

Post by endgame »

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…

The smug confidence when the outlets assert these things is one of the most galling parts:

> Babies and young children study faces, so you may worry that having masked caregivers would harm children’s language development. There are no studies to support this concern.

https://twitter.com/AmerAcadPeds/status/1425857041457942542

There are "no studies" because you can't do studies like that on humans! I guess absence of evidence = evidence of absence now. What about on monkeys?

> The face-deprived monkeys and control monkeys were scanned by fMRI when they were six months old to measure their neural responses to faces and other visual stimuli.

> Control monkeys had face patches by the time they were six months old; the face-deprived monkeys did not. Patches for other visual categories that both sets of monkeys saw equally, such as hands and bodies, were roughly equivalent between the two groups.

https://massivesci.com/articles/facial-recognition-patches-b...

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#705

Post by filoleg »

Tobani wrote: post #688
Clubber wrote: post #642

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

Almost all of the statements were true. They just needed more context with them. > "Masks aren't effective" The point of the (non n-95) masks is not to protect the wearer. They didn't want everybody to cause a run on the n-95 masks for healthcare workers. The cloth masks may not very effective at protecting the wearer. > "Masks are effective" Masks are very effective when the infected wear them. Everybody should wear…

> Almost all of the statements were true. They just needed more context with them.

You nailed the issue in the first 2 sentences. All of those things listed are technically true, as long as the context is provided and understood. But when you have the whole situation turn into a bipartisan shitshow, context goes immediately out of the window (both intentionally and unintentionally, just like nuance being lost in twitter discussions). It is you vs. them for everyone emotionally invested into this.

"CDC said COVID is airborne, and if you disagree, you are a science denier and probably a nazi too. No, I am not gonna listen to your 'context'".

"CDC said there is no evidence that COVID came from the wet markets, which means that you claiming that it is possible is a conspiracy theory".

"CDC said that people don't have to wear masks, but now they say people have to wear masks, they don't know what they are doing and are just trying to pacify the population. I don't need context, I am just reciting what CDC said."

Actually looking into the context of the official statements on COVID, there isn't really a contradiction, and their recommendations make sense. But then if you actually absorb the context, then there is no team sports fight to be had, there is no side to cheer and root for, and there are no opponents to defeat who are dumb and wrong (unlike you and your team). The intensity and excitement of the "battle" is positively correlated with willingness to omit context and refusal to consider it.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#706

Post by mewpmewp2 »

vlunkr wrote: post #653
gfodor wrote: post #649

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, calling people nuts is a sure fire way to solve this problem. The “nuts” were also saying covid was coming and was dangerous and were called crazy xenophobes. I’m vehemently pro-vax but there are as many idiots on both sides of this issue as there are non-idiots. Note that I need to disclose that, since the scarlet letter being handed out now has the power to prevent you from being on YouTube and in some places…

I don't disagree about name-calling, but the responsible thing to do is to adapt your opinions as new knowledge is revealed, not everyone is doing that.

You can never convince someone by calling them stupid, selfish, irresponsible or in general blaming them. All you will do is create hatred toward yourself as well as your viewpoint and further the disagreement.

Best way to convince someone is to make them think it was their idea all along.

At this point, I figure much of the anti vax crowd may be actively hoping something would go wrong here, due to the hate they are receiving.

Why does anti vax crowd look at things like Ivermectin etc which hasn't been tested at all compared to vaccines and could potentially have more unknown risks? Because it wasn't shoved down their throat and they were able to find it by themselves.

Even those who are in the middle, vaccine hesitant for example may be feeling the hate that is coming towards them, making them avoid vaccines altogether out of anger towards the other vaccinated side.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#707

Post by TulliusCicero »

h3cate wrote: post #221
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…

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

The ICU's of some areas are so full that they have to turn people away and let them die. How is that a good time to "not be as scared"?

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#708

Post by mrkramer »

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…

>Today, thanks to air travel, the world is a village. Wuhan is exposed one week, and the world the next.

Why didn't China impose strict lockdown in the early days of epidemic in Wuhan area instead they let millions of Chinese people travel around the world and spread COVID?

But then we wouldn't know "the true power of mRNA therapies and medications".

Honestly death rate of 0.1% is not something to go crazy about. The thing to worry about is the intensity of the attack on COVID which is akin to abuse of antibiotics which led to occurrence of "superbacteria" which no antibiotic at the time can kill. The same can happen with viruses.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#709

Post by malkuth23 »

mike00632 wrote: post #656
nerdponx wrote: post #609

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they burned huge amounts of their social trust capital in doing so, because they didn't just say "there are shortages, please stop hoarding masks", they outright lied about the efficacy of masks and perpetuated the lie for months. If people have no idea what to believe, it's because the government led a catastrophically inept response.

No. The CDC said AT THE TIME that they didn't recommend everyone wearing masks because hospitals were facing shortages. They have always been open about their reasoning and data. Quit repeating this terrible lie.

That is not quite true. The CDC listed several reasons not to wear masks. They definitely mention a shortage of masks and retaining supply for medical personnel, but at the same time they also said they were unnecessary and unhelpful for anyone not working directly around symptomatic sick people. Also, most people do not differentiate the CDC from the Surgeon General. This is a quote from the LA Times quoting Jerome Adams:

“Seriously people — STOP BUYING MASKS!” he wrote in a tweet that was later deleted. “They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus, but if healthcare providers can’t get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk!”

This is a good article about the changing position on masks: https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2021-07-27/timeline-cd...

Here are a few other sources I found with a quick google search:

https://www.aaha.org/publications/newstat/articles/2020-03/c...

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/surgeon-general-wants-you-...

marketwatch.com/story/the-cdc-says-americans-dont-have-to-wear-facemasks-because-of-coronavirus-2020-01-30

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#710

Post by lobocinza »

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.

Vaccine refusal is a major partisan political issue on Brazil. Current president didn't want to take proper action and pushed for "herd immunity". And created, shared and supported the craziest conspiracy stories with his alienated supporters. Like Trump but worse.
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