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The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

theatlantic.com

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Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#891

Post by anonymouswacker »

tdfx wrote: post #764
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…

> "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.

Wait until they actually open up. They are just delaying the inevitable. Then again there’s no reason to go indoors in crowds in NZ—not like they have an arts scene, or anything, really, besides the outdoors.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#892

Post by odessacubbage »

LAC-Tech wrote: post #863
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.

Being a remote island nation really doesn't make much difference in the era of Air travel. It has (had) very high immigration rates and a lot of tourists.

every single person traveling through an international airport is concentrated and processed in a way that people driving from alabama to florida are not. that makes an extraordinary difference.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#893

Post by tunesmith »

vmception wrote: post #864
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…

ICU capacity should be the only metric for any mitigation measure. Building greater capacity and staffing should be the focus. The lack of capacity has been the justification for lockdowns since after summer 2020, and likely will be in some areas in the future. Its about periodic and seasonal things that occur while COVID is also taking up some bandwidth, not about whether it stops the spread at all. The messaging ha…

If you're going to pick one metric, if the exponential growth of the disease has any chance of overwhelming hospitals, then regional Rt > 1 should be the only metric for any mitigation measure.

If you're okay with Rt > 1 until hospitals are close to overwhelmed, then it means you were okay with allowing a doubling rate for a dangerous disease. It makes no sense. If you're destined to put mitigation measures in place eventually, why not just do them sooner and save a lot of suffering?

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#894

Post by vmception »

tunesmith wrote: post #893
vmception wrote: post #864

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ICU capacity should be the only metric for any mitigation measure. Building greater capacity and staffing should be the focus. The lack of capacity has been the justification for lockdowns since after summer 2020, and likely will be in some areas in the future. Its about periodic and seasonal things that occur while COVID is also taking up some bandwidth, not about whether it stops the spread at all. The messaging ha…

If you're going to pick one metric, if the exponential growth of the disease has any chance of overwhelming hospitals, then regional Rt > 1 should be the only metric for any mitigation measure. If you're okay with Rt > 1 until hospitals are close to overwhelmed, then it means you were okay with allowing a doubling rate for a dangerous disease. It makes no sense. If you're destined to put mitigation measures in place…

> If you're okay with Rt > 1 until hospitals are close to overwhelmed, then it means you were okay with allowing a doubling rate for a dangerous disease.... If you're destined to put mitigation measures in place eventually, why not just do them sooner and save a lot of suffering?

correct, it makes sense because now people have a choice about whether the prevalence of the disease will land them in the hospital. the mere prevalence is not the issue.

the subset of people that don't have a choice had the same issue before COVID existed, aka: the same distribution of immunocompromised people always existed.

this makes the calculus simply that it is back to business as usual, until ICU capacity is nearing full, that is. Since ICU capacity isn't only due to COVID cases, but due to all emergencies and injuries, then society as a whole needs to slow down to reduce the likelihood of emergency incidents, while also expanding ICU capacity to avoid future disruptions. The core of my supposition is that developed nations are not developed if emergency services are unavailable, and that governing system can prioritize reacting to that.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#895

Post by xunn0026 »

sgc wrote: post #281
tomp wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish this was true. Most Europe is still under various lockdown restrictions, even though in a lot of countries, there's been enough vaccine for everyone (who wanted) to get vaccinated by now.

Children under 12 are a major group that drop vaccination percentages down significantly everywhere. The hope is that once this age group can also be vaccinated, we can find the new normal and let people individually hedge their own bets.

The "new normal" is here. The boot on the masked human face has arrived.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#896

Post by ButtSpark69 »

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…

I look at New Zealand and see close to the opposite. A near-complete failure. They've isolated themselves from the world for nearly 2 years, and have approximately zero things to show for it. They're not significantly vaccinated (25%, what happened??) and have no plan to be able to re-open up anytime soon.

It sounds harsh, but I don't see that they've done a lot other than waste 2 years of their life sitting on their hands.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#897

Post by bodge5000 »

whoooooo123 wrote: post #341
bodge5000 wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A pandemic seems like an awfully long and expensive way of doing that, especially considering they already did so before the pandemic through so many means (many of which actually make them money rather than cost them, I assume you pay taxes?) The only group who can be said to have really profited off this is pharma. Maybe they have orchestrated the whole thing, but I'd like to see some evidence first.

The pandemic doesn't need to have been deliberately engineered; it only needed to provide an opportunity for nefarious actors to exploit. Unless you think we're living through the only crisis in history which powerful people haven't exploited to further their existing agendas.

Well again that's not particularly new, even outside a crisis, that's part of every day life. Your hardly a nefarious actor if you're not exploiting anything.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#898

Post by gls2ro »

PartiallyTyped wrote: post #450
rossdavidh wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As to "how does covid transmit to wild animals...", I think it is an excellent question, but I don't think we have a definitive answer. Clearly there is something about the transmission we don't understand (which suggests why current measures to halt the spread such as lockdowns, masks, etc. don't seem to work well). As for the "stepped on many nerves", I think your comment was interpreted as meaning "we should stay…

The replies I received are mostly insufficient or very handwavey. Interactions with humans transmitting the Delta variant, in very extreme (NB shortest) cases need upwards of 50-60 seconds, where common transmissions need longer. Which suggests that people need quite long 1-1 interactions with multiple animals to spread it, which to me appears very unlikely. This belief is based on research that supported that covid…

> Furthermore, given the symptoms observed in humans, if we are to assume similar symptoms in the wild animals

I am not a biologist, nor a doctor, but I think this assumption is a little bit too much. We know that coronavirus does not create the same symptoms as the ones observed in humans for some animals (see bats for example) as their immune system is not like ours. So the conclusion: "symptoms in wild animals are similar with humans" is probably false.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#899

Post by starky »

staticassertion wrote: post #131
cm2187 wrote: post #16

That's why I don't really understand why there are still covid restrictions in countries that are close to full vaccination, like the UK. There isn't really a next step after having vaccinated the population, it is "steady state". So do they want us to have these restrictions (countries you can't travel to, endless testing, mask requirements) forever?

The UK seems to have a 62% full vaccination rate with 71% having at least one dose[0]. That sounds really low to me. "Close to full vaccination" to me would imply close to 100% or, reading "full" as "reaching herd immunity" I'd think 70-80% fully vaccinated - still a very long way to go. I hear you that we will eventually reach a point where we've hit the new normal. It's just going to be whether that point is reache…

Due to the vaccine not being approved for children yet, the numbers will be low. Here in Canada it appears to lag by about 10% of the eligible population, so until that happens, 80% is probably the maximum limit I would expect.

However, with the high R0 of Delta taking its toll, it looks like places are starting to take the approach of making people's lives more limited if they aren't fully vaccinated without quite going to the level of mandating vaccination.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#900

Post by junon »

anonymouswacker wrote: post #890
listless wrote: post #874

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Turning vaccines into a political wedge issue is one of the stupidest things I've seen in my life.” It’s truly maddening. My wife (very on the right) refused to get it and instead talked endlessly about hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, vitamin D. All of which she got from conservative media. Right now she is lying in bed wracked with COVID. Ate up with fever and a cough that sends jolts of panic through me when i hea…

Did she take Ivermectin & HCQ? Did she test for Vit D? Or is she unhealthy, and simply contrarian? At least she will be immune once she gets over it. I doubled my Vit D and my doc prescribed Ivermectin lest I risk getting sick. Still no vax for me (philosophical reasons).

You're part of the problem then.
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