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The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

theatlantic.com

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Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#921

Post by yerwhat01010 »

evnc wrote: post #514
josephcsible wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're saying society should keep wearing masks everywhere literally forever? That's so insane I can't tell whether you're even serious.

Is it insane that everyone should keep wearing clothes everywhere literally forever? If I found being nude to be significantly more comfortable/freeing than being clothed, I would still be expected to wear clothing in public spaces for both politeness and sanitary (e.g. sitting on subway seats) reasons.

Well by that logic, why stop at masks? Let's make everyone wear rubber gloves whenever they leave the house. Let's legally mandate that everyone carry antibacterial handgel on them at all times and wash their hands after touching any surface. Let's ban handshaking - hell, why don't we just permanently ban everybody from ever leaving their homes? That'll be sure to stop the spread of respiratory viruses and thus totally worth it, amirite?

And why stop at respiratory viruses? Sexual infections cause all kinds of harm too - the obvious response is to ban sex. When people want to reproduce they can just use IVF - thank God we live in the modern era.

And by the way, do you have any idea how many people are killed every year in road accidents? I propose we ban cars. Let's also ban walking in case anybody trips over. And let's ban eating so that no-one ever chokes on their food.

Am I doing this right?

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#922

Post by account42 »

bmeski wrote: post #881
CuriousCosmic wrote: post #745

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Honestly, they might be the most realistic about this whole thing. You can’t stop a tsunami.

You don't wait out on the beach if you know a tsunami is coming.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#923

Post by hypertele-Xii »

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.

You were back to normal. Why recommend vaccination?

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#924

Post by dTal »

ssl232 wrote: post #908
junon wrote: post #900

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're part of the problem then.

I'd wager the problem with ivermectin and other treatments is that Trump mentioned them. I can't stand the guy, but I also can't stand the Sith attitude that you either take a stand 100% against anything he says or 100% in favour. Unfortunately for those in the first camp, there are peer reviewed studies showing promise for some repurposed medicines. Ivermectin for example has been shown to be helpful both as a proph…

I haven't analysed ivermectin too closely, but a number of national health boards, including the USA, UK, and Brazil, have said that the evidence at this time is insufficient. I trust them more than I trust my ability to identify methodological flaws in medical studies, particularly when my judgement is clouded by wishful thinking. I must therefore politely disagree with you about the balance of probability.

However, you are correct that the second Trump touches anything, it seemingly becomes impossible to have a rational conversation about it. I can't see any reason for you to have been downvoted, for instance.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#925

Post by 2ion »

listless wrote: post #874
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.” 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…

What people with this mindset need to hear is "even if the vaccine has terrible side effects, we will take care of you as well as we can and as well as you could wish, even if the side effects are exctremely rare".

In my country at least, if you get any of those vaccines and get Capillary leak syndrome as in some cases, a thrombosis that leaves you mentally incapitated as in some cases, a retinal detachment issue that may leave you blind as in some cases, a myocarditis that may leave you dead in some cases --- then you've lost. You will be a pauper for the rest of your life, as you will have to use up all your assets to pay for care cost until social insurance kicks in. The privilege of getting appropriate financial relief for not being able to work in your profession anymore is reserved for civil servants for life. You're finished. In the UK at least they're planning care facilities for those who suffer from long covid -- here it's not even a formally acknowledged disease, you're treated as any other handicapped person or worse, as a patient with a mental problem rather than phyiscal illness.

If you leave people who are afraid of a virus and a vaccine both the choice and tell them taking or not taking the vaccine is their responsibility alone together with the consequences, it's easy to fall into decision fatigue and just do nothing, and ratinalising that behaviour.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#926

Post by brazzy »

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).

> Still no vax for me (philosophical reasons).

How to say you're a moron without saying you're a moron...

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#927

Post by dongping »

jimmyjazz14 wrote: post #816
dongping wrote: post #644

Nonpharmaceutical interventions do work. With Internet and E-commerce, full scale lockdown becomes tenable. Together with mass PCR testing, the virus can be eradicated. The virus can't teleport, and it is here to stay only because the decision-makers thought that it was the cheaper option to let it spread (it is not), then didn't want to admit being wrong. It is sad to see that with all the technologies available, th…

Speaking for the US at least pursuing a covid zero approach now that we have vaccines that are very effective against hospitalization and death just doesn't make sense. You act like doing a "real" lockdown would be trivial but we have already seen that even light lockdowns have had serious side-effects. Its not March 2020 anymore, we have an answer and it is vaccines. Every public policy decision we make going forwar…

Unfortunately, our current vaccines are simply not good enough. Just take a look at the data from Israel and Iceland. From the article, it was clear already from last year.

How many other variants do we need, as we let the apply yet another selection pressure with the leaky vaccines? (AY.12 variant is now the dominant variant in Israel).

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#928

Post by dongping »

WhompingWindows wrote: post #845
dongping wrote: post #644

Nonpharmaceutical interventions do work. With Internet and E-commerce, full scale lockdown becomes tenable. Together with mass PCR testing, the virus can be eradicated. The virus can't teleport, and it is here to stay only because the decision-makers thought that it was the cheaper option to let it spread (it is not), then didn't want to admit being wrong. It is sad to see that with all the technologies available, th…

The virus is in animal hosts already, so it probably won't be eradicated. Even if it wasn't in animals, there are countries with principles of freedom where some 10-30% won't listen to a lockdown. It's unlikely those countries will all change their foundational cultural principles. I don't think technology is the only factor, think of looseness and tightness of cultural behavior, think of self-regard vs regard for ot…

Somehow New Zealand is a special country with principles of freedom. I failed see that how it is culturally fundamentally different from other western nations.

IMO, the acceptance is mostly linked to the effectiveness of the initial implementations of the lockdowns. And the effectiveness is seemingly only determined by the initial strategies. Countries which went for elimination/eradication had better outcome, and thus higher lockdown acceptance. In countries which went on flattening the curve, people had the same (if not more/longer) disturbance, but less success (more deaths).

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#929

Post by navjack27 »

AzzieElbab wrote: post #510
peakaboo wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have immunity, it's called the immune system.

but your immune system response is what is causing lethal symptoms

And not having an immune response can turn you into a little mutation factory.

https://www.biospace.com/article/south-african-hiv-patient-w...

https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/27/10/21-1461_article

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#930

Post by ericmay »

2ion wrote: post #925
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…

What people with this mindset need to hear is "even if the vaccine has terrible side effects, we will take care of you as well as we can and as well as you could wish, even if the side effects are exctremely rare". In my country at least, if you get any of those vaccines and get Capillary leak syndrome as in some cases, a thrombosis that leaves you mentally incapitated as in some cases, a retinal detachment issue tha…

> "even if the vaccine has terrible side effects, we will take care of you as well as we can and as well as you could wish, even if the side effects are exctremely rare"

I don’t think this will work, because if it did then people would be taking the vaccine right now.

The issue is multi-faceted of course, but the discussion of “extremely rare events” is a red herring and a wink wink to vaccine skepticism.

It’s like why would we even talk about these extremely rare events and taking care of someone if those events happen, when instead they’re millions of times more likely to suffer from Covid-19? I mean why aren’t you saying “if you drive to the clinic to get a vaccine and get in a car wreck we’ll take care of you” when that is far more likely to occur? Let alone any number of other things like walking outside and getting struck by lightning.

The probabilistic case for the vaccine is well beyond settled and even if there was some long-term unknown boogeyman vaccine issue that for some reason causes this vaccine (even the “natural” JnJ one) to behave unlike any other vaccine you would still get the vaccine because of the known probabilities of contracting and suffering/dying from Covid-19 versus an unknown and unknowable probability of some unknown thing occurring at an unknown future date.

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