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The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

theatlantic.com

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Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#801

Post by BeFlatXIII »

wwweston wrote: post #778
tdfx wrote: post #764

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "We go hard and we go early" works. "We go hard and we go early" works *in a small, remote island nation that is willing to hermetically seal itself off from the rest of the world.

"small", "remote", and "island" aren't significant direct contributions here. "seal" does -- whether any group is collectively capable of taking chain-of-exposure and its management seriously. Make your island arbitrarily small and remote but have even a single person who's boating/flying or any kind of unmanaged travel outside the bubble regularly and you'll see infection overrun the island. Pick an arbitrarily larg…

It's far easier to have a successful seal on a remote island than the Czech Republic or Alabama. Land borders are both more secure and more porous than you'd think.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#802

Post by dharma1 »

nojs wrote: post #784
tdfx wrote: post #764

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "We go hard and we go early" works. "We go hard and we go early" works *in a small, remote island nation that is willing to hermetically seal itself off from the rest of the world.

It’s also worked pretty well in China.

Incredibly well. But wonder how long they can keep doing it https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-23/china-cru...

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#803

Post by Aeolun »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #405
Aeolun wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they’re spending the whole day in a classroom together the effect of masks is going to be minimal.

Masks is too broad of a term as being used. There are OSHA environments where proper N95-type masks can protect you from aerosol risks for 8 hours a day. The likelihood that a cloth mask can do that in a classroom however… Best mitigator would be good HEPA room air purifiers, ideally multiple per classroom.

Yeah, you are correct of course. I’m using the general public definition of what constitutes a mask.

Specifically, anything that covers your mouth.

If we had enough N95 masks to give to everyone (and they’d actually wear them) we could stop the virus within a few weeks :P

Hell, just switching to surgical masks would make a ton of difference.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#804

Post by jimmyjazz14 »

kirillzubovsky wrote: post #470

Finally a thoughtful truthful article on the topic. It’s a year too late, but better now than never. It’s time to accept the reality and move past the hysteria.

Weirdly back before everyone went full panic mode the Atlantic published a somewhat similar article https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/02/covid-vac...

It was actually the first thing I ever really read about covid and shaped a lot of my views early on in the pandemic, largely inoculating me from going full panic mode.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#805

Post by vondur »

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…

And it seem a as soon as they start to open up, they get new infections. How many hard lockdowns will they have to have?

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#806

Post by collaborative »

peteretep wrote: post #775
collaborative wrote: post #703

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> it very likely escaped Do you have a source for “very likely”? I’m at “plausibly escaped from” so far and would be interested in evidence that changes that in either direction.

There has been some evidence of how the handlers of that laboratory's research went out of their way to shame anyone who'd suggest it emerged from there in the beginning, followed by mainstream articles noting that we simply can't rule this option out, and that the likeliest scenario is that some workers got accidentally infected and became patient 0

My "very likely", however, doesn't come from there. It's more of a statistical statement. What is the likelihood that a quickly mutating virus will appear next to a laboratory that specializes in quickly mutating viruses and not have originated from there? The world is big. The chances of that happening are very low. Therefore it's very likely that it comes from the lab

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#807

Post by ummwhat »

makomk wrote: post #646
criticaltinker wrote: post #619

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GP's statement contradicts the scientific literature - vaccination does reduce viral load of subsequent infection, and consequently reduces transmission [1]. However folks should be aware that immunity acquired through natural infection is robust and durable, and also has the same effect of reducing viral load and transmission [2]. It has been documented that people with asymptomatic infection will clear the virus qu…

Covid-19 vaccination used to reduce viral load of subsequent infections. Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to work with the current Delta variant - both the CDC in the US and PHE in the UK have released studies finding that the viral load of vaccinated and unvaccinated people is basically the same. They're also not so effective at stopping people from catching the Delta variant, and when you combine that with its high…

They are effective. The vaccine stops delta between 70 and 90% of the time (depending on which vaccine and which study you look at). The "impossible to get herd immunity" scenario is within the error bars, but I wouldn't state that as a fact. On the contrary, it looks like NYC just reached it's Delta peak 2 or 3 days ago. This strongly implies herd immunity is still possible, but we need to wait and see if the trend holds.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#808

Post by [deleted] »

nojs wrote: post #784
tdfx wrote: post #764

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "We go hard and we go early" works. "We go hard and we go early" works *in a small, remote island nation that is willing to hermetically seal itself off from the rest of the world.

It’s also worked pretty well in China.

[deleted]

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#809

Post by inreverse »

vondur wrote: post #805
tialaramex wrote: post #565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

And it seem a as soon as they start to open up, they get new infections. How many hard lockdowns will they have to have?

Our last level four lockdown was in April of 2020 - where are you getting your information?

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#810

Post by ummwhat »

fatfox wrote: post #109
wongarsu wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vaccination rate in the UK is 67%. A year ago the estimate was that we need about a 75% vaccination rate to reach herd immunity, and I doubt that the new mutations have pushed that number down.

Yes, with the Delta variant herd immunity seems out of reach according to experts, as vaccines can't completely stop transmission: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/10/delta-variant-... https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/02/herd-immu...

That's not strictly settled science. The truth is herd immunity / lack thereof is well within the error bars of the vaccine efficacy / R0 estimates. We don't actually know, but it looks like the delta curve is peaking in some areas so my bet is in favor of herd immunity.
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