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New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529

yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com

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Re: New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529

#411

Post by stjohnswarts »

sbierwagen wrote: post #385
stjohnswarts wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China is an authoritarian state that can almost anything it wants to do to limit the freedoms of its population. That same tactic won't work in (real) democratic countries, especially after 2 years of lockdowns.

New Zealand has a 14 day quarantine for international travelers: https://www.immigration.govt.nz/about-us/covid-19/border-clo... Is New Zealand an authoritarian state?

A 14 day quarantine isn't a lockdown, even NZ is getting sloppy with virus measures. If the people there get tired of it there is nothing the government can do to stop them. In China you will get quarantined forcefully by the police state, and if you don't like it you can go to prison or get disappeared if you raise to big of a commotion.

Re: New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529

#412

Post by NikolaNovak »

timr wrote: post #367
NikolaNovak wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>"Also, are you vaccinated? Yes? Then the answer is almost certainly no risk at all" That is not my lay person interpretation of the currently best available data. A vaccinated person can get infected, can get seriously ill, and can spread out to others more vulnerable. It helps, drastically, and I sure as heck got mine, but my understanding is that it does not confer individual invulnerability.

> A vaccinated person can get infected, can get seriously ill, and can spread out to others more vulnerable. I can get hit by a car when I walk down the street, but I've been doing it my entire life and I'm still here. I can die in a horrible plane crash when I fly, but I still do it. I can have a heart attack when I go to the gym, but it's still a net positive for my life. Do you have a grasp on the actual risks inv…

I think we agree on a base point of personal risk assessment. With that in mind, some people jaywalk, some take extra minute to get to a crossing. Some run across, some double check both sides. Some wear black pants and leather jacket at night, some have reflective strips. And it's all good. We share the old adage that "whoever drives faster than me is a maniac whoever drives slower is an idiot" - but most of us understand when pressed that different people have different risk acceptance in their life and that's ok.

The Thing that makes covid tricky is which actions am I making for myself vs others. Safety belt and helmet are largely for myself (but still enforced in many places due to agreed societal cost that goes beyond Individual). Mask, we don't have common universal agreement to yet. (this is not to say I don't have am opinion on it, but I understand looking around that while mainstream it's not universal).

So while I think we have agreement in framework, we may disagree on personal implementation. Mostly, I don't know that I agree with "at some point you have to let terror go". This ain't over yet, may never be over, so some mitigation steps may never be over, is the sobering world to raise offspring Into. Alberta took foot off the brake for just a little while and next thing they were begging other provinces for ICU spots. And there's a whole conplicated interlocked system of individual causes and effects rather than some simple binary rule that have rise to that reality.

Re: New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529

#413

Post by timr »

mrexroad wrote: post #407
timr wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A vaccinated person can get infected, can get seriously ill, and can spread out to others more vulnerable. I can get hit by a car when I walk down the street, but I've been doing it my entire life and I'm still here. I can die in a horrible plane crash when I fly, but I still do it. I can have a heart attack when I go to the gym, but it's still a net positive for my life. Do you have a grasp on the actual risks inv…

When you cross a busy street, do you use crosswalks and obey the cross/don’t cross signal?

Actually, no. I live in a big city. We're apparently all just free-wheeling, death-defying risk-takers here. YOLO.

But you make an excellent point: the average NYC citizen probably takes bigger risks crossing the street on a daily basis than she would by going un-masked.

Re: New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529

#414

Post by midasuni »

ricardobeat wrote: post #230
midasuni wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cases in Scotland with mask laws and Hugh adherence seem higher than in England which doesn’t have laws and has low adherence. Be interesting if anyone has done a proper comparison between say Glasgow and Manchester.

I think I’ve heard that before, but how is it higher? From the usual dashboards Scotland has 130 cases per million, while England is at 150/million. The number of cases right now is also stable while the UK overall is going up?

I last checked a couple of weeks ago when Scotland was on 370/100k and England on 350/100k, seemed to have flipped back the other way now

Re: New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529

#415

Post by markdown »

GekkePrutser wrote: post #313
markdown wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To date, I'm aware of no study that has quantified a difference in infection, hospitalization or death that is attributable to travel bans. Why would you need a study to tell you that if nobody with covid travels to a country, that country remains covid-free? Perhaps you are unaware, but there are countries on this planet that covid hasn't gotten to, and those countries have travel bans.

While true, it only provides protection during the duration of the travel ban. And at the same time gives the population zero exposure to the virus and no chance to build up antibodies. So when it does hit, it will be like day 1. So it's perpetually locking you into travel bans to be effective, which is in itself very harmful to a country in today's world. It only works if everyone did it and you succeed in killing t…

Well that's obvious. No country plans to remain isolated forever; only until a significant population has been vaccinated. Fiji are opening up to the world on December first now that 90% of the eligible population are vaccinated. New Zealand will remain closed until April because their vaccination was delayed by letting less developed nations get first dibs to the vaccine.

Re: New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529

#416

Post by titzer »

timr wrote: post #91
titzer wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but they do reduce the viral load by 30-50% I think the effect is much larger than that, but yes, absolutely. This is an important point that is constantly lost in the public discourse. We realize there's a big difference in dosage with poisons and radiation, but it's the same with viral infections; viruses do take time to replicate, so having a low initial exposure can give the immune system to ramp up sooner, bef…

All current evidence is that masks have a minor effect, measured in tiny fractions of a percent. https://vinayprasadmdmph.substack.com/p/do-masks-reduce-risk ... To date, I'm aware of no study that has quantified a difference in infection, hospitalization or death that is attributable to travel bans.

> To date, I'm aware of no study that has quantified a difference in infection, hospitalization or death that is attributable to travel bans.

You have got to be joking, because NZ, Taiwan, and Australia all achieved COVID zero by effectively quarantining their countries, i.e. travel bans. It's basic logic that viruses cross borders and oceans via infected people, not by wafting magically through the air.

That said, travel bans are only effective in the very early phase, when infections are near zero. The US, Europe, and most of Asia are highly connected and by the time COVID infections were spreading, it was pretty much too late. Also, the US's travel bans were not particularly ineffective. Like the US's entire response, haphazard, half-hearted, and actively opposed by lots of weaponized ignorance.

Re: New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529

#417

Post by titzer »

Robotbeat wrote: post #251
markdown wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To date, I'm aware of no study that has quantified a difference in infection, hospitalization or death that is attributable to travel bans. Why would you need a study to tell you that if nobody with covid travels to a country, that country remains covid-free? Perhaps you are unaware, but there are countries on this planet that covid hasn't gotten to, and those countries have travel bans.

Yup, this is such a huge pet peeve of mine. Throwing away science in the name of empiricism. What I mean by that is that science is about understanding the world by being able to make certain empirically verified models (mathematical usually), and then using the validated models (such as the germ theory of disease) to predict what the results would be even if we haven’t already measured that exact thing. Like, becaus…

The same applies to "lockdowns don't work." That is obviously complete BS considering there are plenty of examples of lockdowns that did work (e.g. the Aug 2020 lockdown of Victoria, NZ lockdowns, Taiwan, South Korea). But lockdowns can fail easily with noncompliance and inability to effectively quarantine the infected.

It's like saying boats don't work after trying to build one out of grocery bags or untreated plywood. Yeah, crappy boats are going to have leaks. Lockdowns are hard; it's not something we really practice (and worse, there are malicious defectors who want lockdowns to fail). A lot of people, we have learned, are selfish and unwilling or unable to make any sacrifice, even in the face of severe collective consequences, and worse, will sabotage efforts either for political gain or just the sheer pleasure of watching everyone else fail (and die!). I really don't know how we can expect global society to continue given how craven some people are.

Re: New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529

#418

Post by lern_too_spel »

angelzen wrote: post #318
cthalupa wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't a political issue to not do studies that require doing things that actively and intentionally put people at things we know are highly likely to put them at risk of physical harm. The world decided this was unethical long before the current political climate.

In masks + covid context it feels like "unethical" is used as a thought terminating cliche. * The pandemic is affecting 8,000,000,000 people all around the world. A large size RCT enrolls X0,000 participants. For example, the Pfizer covid mRNA vaccine clinical trial had 21,728 placebo participants. For every RCT participant, the RCT results are going to inform the course of action for hundreds of thousands of people.…

The hypothesis for why masks work is due to the laboratory-measured reduction in transmission from the host. The only way to test this is to have a large population where most do not wear masks or most do wear masks. You will not find enough volunteer to make such a test possible. Individual mask wearing does not test this hypothesis.

Re: New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529

#419

Post by Gigachad »

ipaddr wrote: post #129
Gigachad wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lockdowns don’t make any progress. They put everything on pause. But as soon as you unpause, all of those saved lives are at the same risk they were at before. And you can’t pause forever. Each lockdown becomes less and less effective as people stop caring.

Until you enforce those rules with the military.

And then you end up with riots so the military end up killing people with guns to save them from covid.

Re: New Concerning Variant: B.1.1.529

#420

Post by dbbk »

gouda-gouda wrote: post #319
blindmute wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't end until you make it end. When I close my laptop, I am unaware there is even anything going on; I don't wear a mask, I am unvaccinated, and I am fortunate enough to live in a place where people largely behave in this same way. My life is 100% the same as it was 3 years ago. If you're restricting your own behavior, stop. If you're being restricted by third parties, seriously consider moving or outright dis…

I believe this has been more eloquently described as: “ignorance is bliss.”

It really is though. Early in the pandemic I was consuming the daily COVID stats, worrying myself over and over about it. Then one day I just decided to quit the news cold turkey. I immediately started feeling a lot better.
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