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The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

theatlantic.com

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Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#741

Post by edejong »

paulddraper wrote: post #657
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…

> Flu is endemic, but another 1918 could happen at any time. True, though usually viruses mutate into less virulent forms. There's good reason to suspect that long-term COVID will be on the order of influenza or the common cold -- common and mild for most patients. > Turning vaccines into a political wedge issue is one of the stupidest things I've seen in my life. Probably, but even the question of whether vaccines s…

> True, though usually viruses mutate into less virulent forms.

Citation needed. The delta variant is the prime counter-example with higher R0 and slightly higher mortality. SAGE admitted SARS-CoV-2 will very likely mutate to defeat all build-up immunity. Variants of SARS-CoV-2 (SARS and MERS) showed the potential to have very high infection fatality ratios.

There is no reason at all to suspect COVID will suddenly become mild.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#742

Post by aiilns »

phh wrote: post #689
laurent92 wrote: post #563

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 b…

Overall I agree, however: > But both research companies and ministers are exempt from legal responsibility on these vaccines, What does that even mean? You're in France, you'll be treated no matter whether someone is responsible or not. I don't think you can be liable of something going wrong if you did everything properly (which is the case). Everyone, governement and research companies, followed all the laws. Legal…

It means that no one wants to take responsibility for any side effects. And it obviously creates mistrust.

If the state is practically mandating you to be vaccinated for covid they (or the companies that make the vaccine) should be held responsible for anything that happens to you.

You can't have it both ways; either there are no distinctions between vaccinated and unvaccinated people (no measures that only affect unvaccinated people) or someone can be held responsible for any resulting disability or death.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#743

Post by dongping »

GuB-42 wrote: post #729
laurent92 wrote: post #563

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 b…

None of these are contradictions, they are reactions to a disease we don't know much about. - The population is panicking for only a few cases, people are even avoiding Chinese restaurants even when the owners have never been in China. The government wants people to stop panicking, the risks are still extremely low. - Cases rise exponentially, faster than expected (possibly due to a new variant), hospitals are fillin…

The budget is as large as the (perceived) danger. And there was no excuse for being ill informed, after China locked down the whole province.

And there's no better way to help the virus than lying to people about the masks. Even the Chinese government didn't lie about masks, while all the western governments did. If masks became a strategic product, then there are enough laws to regulate them (and France did so).

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#744

Post by Covzire »

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…

It's not just that the CDC/Fauci and the Government have been a major contributor to the disinformation out there, it's that there is a political force running at full power pushing vaccines as the one and only possible solution to COVID-19. Before Trump left the White House, the Democratic party leadership came out against the vaccine. NOw that they're in power again, every signal and message they send is Pro Vaccine and Anti Everything else, and it seems all of SV is ready to help by any means necessary, including a lot of people on HN calling anyone and everyone who even questions the safety or necessity of these vaccines as Anti-Vaxxers. We're rocketing towards a new civil war if you ask me.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#745

Post by CuriousCosmic »

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 has gotten pretty close in Japan. The LDP has been capitalising on this to justify their incredibly poor COVID response and their "nothing could be done and nothing can be done" mentality.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#746

Post by dmdmmdmdmd »

btilly wrote: post #697
partiallypro wrote: post #685

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You must be joking? As bad as (some) Republicans are let's not forget Biden, Harris, Schumer, etc saying they wouldn't take the "Trump Vaccine." Not only did that put distrust into the hearts of people on the left, it also gave ammunition for the people on the right. It should have never been a political issue. Unfortunately this is a bipartisan problem (though right now it's more prevalent on the right, I suspect if…

No, definitely not joking. As https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/lockdown-effectiveness... notes, there is essentially zero correlation between any European government's policy at one time or another. They all adjusted to what was happening with COVID, no matter what other political alignments those in power had. (Yes, even Sweden.) By contrast in the USA, and ONLY in the USA, COVID became a partisan issue so stat…

lol another user gave an example of how this is a partisan issue in France

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#747

Post by onetimeusename »

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 making a comment like yours is exactly how things become politicized or at the very least contributes to it being so. It creates a climate of mutual distrust which in turn can feed paranoia on both sides and create a hostile environment where propagandizing and skepticism fuel a downward spiral in discourse.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#748

Post by BobJackienine »

SQueeeeeL wrote: post #504
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…

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.

"educated populis in human history"

populous

I was going to say "That's not what I see as I get older" but your post speaks volumes.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#749

Post by spfzero »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #588
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…

> Turning vaccines into a political wedge issue is one of the stupidest things I've seen in my life. Something tells me that this is just history repeating. The difference here is the same as your metaphor; the world is a village and now its much easier to see that one conspiracy nut every village has that gets outcasted. The problem of course is that now those nuts can band together in the thousands thanks to worldw…

It is a political wedge issue because it generates fear. Anything that causes people to be fearful is going to be exploited, and amplified, by political parties in whatever way they feel would benefit them.

It's a handle they can pull, so they pull it. It can be xenophobia, it can be "look at what they're doing in country X, what if they did that here?" It can be fear of loosing jobs, fear of wildfires, sea-level change, and it can be fear of getting sick.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#750

Post by edejong »

rayiner wrote: post #372
adrr wrote: 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…

The author of the article doesn't understand science:

"Distancing, hybrid models, classroom barriers, HEPA filters, and, most notably, requiring student masking were each found to not have a statistically significant benefit. In other words, these measures could not be said to be effective."

No! If you cannot find a statistically significant benefit, perhaps your experiment design is flawed. Perhaps your sample size is too small. Perhaps you have too many confounders. But you cannot conclude the measures are not effective!

It gets better! Read the article. It says:

"COVID-19 incidence was 37% lower in schools that required teachers and staff members to use masks and 39% lower in schools that improved ventilation. Ventilation strategies associated with lower school incidence included dilution methods alone (35% lower incidence) or in combination with filtration methods (48% lower incidence)."

In other words, the study actually found many significant interventions in schools, among which masks. Unbelievably bad reporting from Intelligencer.

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