671–680 of 703 posts
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There's no reason to believe that we'll achieve herd immunity to anything beyond Omicron. There's a reason Flu vaccines are a thing you get every year, even if you've had the flu.
I don't get the flu vaccine every year.
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The testing positivity rate is relatively useless at this point. For example, in my State, there is no way to report a positive test from a rapid result. Only PCR tests administered by a medical professional are considered valid for statistical purposes, even though the government is giving out free rapid tests.
This is for good reason. Rapid tests are substantially less sensitive and often give false negatives, especially for asymptomatic cases. There are also a lot of rapid "at home" tests out there that have high false positive rates, so even if non-PCR tests were added to the data the only reasonable approach would be to still require them to be administered by a medical professional to make sure the test is correctly ad…
Rapid tests are perfectly fine and should be counted by health departments.
Case in point. My family of 4 all tested positive on rapid tests. 3/4 of us had symptoms. None of us received PCR tests because the next available appointments (other than a 6 hour wait at a state run testing center) were a week away.
Thats 4 people not counted. And we were part of an outbreak that included 3 other families that all tested positive via rapid tests.
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The vaccines were never purported to be 100% effective, and all the data and information was clear that they had lower effectiveness against Delta, and even lower against Omicron. If people told you that the vaccines would lower your chances of contracting every known major variant and lower your chances of a serious illness, they were right. If they told you that the vaccines were guaranteed to completely prevent ev…
I guess that's why they changed the definition of "vaccine", huh?
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Yeah absolutely, I count ourselves reasonably lucky that we only caught the disease after vaccinations. I have absolutely non-zero desire to go through this every year, unlike my parent commenter though. Would I be of a similar opinion as parent if I had a similarly asymptomatic-to-mild case? I don't know for sure, but I would hope not, because I wouldn't want to draw conclusions or base policy from just my anecdotal…
> I have absolutely non-zero desire to go through this every year, unlike my parent commenter though. Many people get sick every year or every other year. Their illness is like you described: 2-3 days of being "knocked out" and about a week to fully recover. It's not that I "desire" to go through that every year or two, it's just life. I expect that's why people responded incredulously to your post: for them, getting…
Each is likely an endemic version of something that was far more serious and deadly historically. Now it’s a minor or major annoyanace that is part of normal life. i bet eradicating covid would fall into the same bucket S eradicating any of the others. Something to aspire towards, but until then something to simply accept as normal and move on with our lives.
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I'm not suggesting China has been hiding bodies, but with a demographic where diabetes and obesity is almost non-existant, the mortality of covid-19 is very low. You shouldn't see any excess mortality, which means you can hide the true number of cases by lying about cause of death instead. > An effective containment strategy _is_ possible Not at any cost I'm comfortable with.
I'm sure the 800k dead Americans would disagree.
Suicides among kids and teenagers are up 20%, I'm sure those kids would disagree with you.
Deaths of despair, i.e. alcohol and drug-related deaths are up considerably. Do their deaths count?
Deaths among dementia patients and similar are up, because of the isolation. It's very important grandma doesn't die of covid, but apparently no-one cares if grandma dies of loneliness.
Cancer screenings, heart screenings, stroke care, all of that is on the backburner, which will cost hundreds of thousands of lives in the future.
School disruptions affect all kids, but lower-income kids are overwhelmingly affected by it, and them lagging behind translates directly into shorter lifespans for that group.
We understand that every policy needs a cost-benefit analysis, but somehow, for corona, we completely abandoned that line of thought and went on some hysterical bandwagon where absolutely no strategy is deemed to costly.
Every single comprehensive QALY analysis of lockdown policies show that their cost is horrendous compared to the benefits. We're happily, gleefully, sacrificing our young for the benefit of our elders, and yet if you point this out, you're somehow the callous, unfeeling, murderer. It's insane.
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I'm sure the 800k dead Americans would disagree.
Your argument is incredibly dishonest and myopic, because you're suggesting that every single one of those deaths were avoidable, and that any containment strategy wouldn't cause any deaths or carry any costs either. Suicides among kids and teenagers are up 20%, I'm sure those kids would disagree with you. Deaths of despair, i.e. alcohol and drug-related deaths are up considerably. Do their deaths count? Deaths among…
China has obviously succeeded in defeating COVID, and done so with none of these secondary deaths you're describing (look at excess mortality). All of these "secondary" deaths did not occur in countries that implemented effective containment strategies, why do you think that is?
The western strategy has resulted in these "secondary" deaths you're describing, as a result of people like yourself being unwilling to accept the effective containment is possible and worth the cost.
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I don't trust a single number or report coming out of China. The official numbers show a couple of thousand dead. No way. Dictatorships usually make examples of individuals/groups/regions to make everyone else fall in line. The virus however doesn't give a shit about the wishes of authoritarian regimes, which is why making an example of a region or a city and forcing millions of people to stay indoors, doesn't stop t…
There have been independent studies showing their numbers are, while not perfectly accurate, within the margin of error for extrapolated excess mortality[0]. As I've said in other threads on this issue, it is very difficult to hide deaths on even a small scale. Bodies do not simply disappear, and even small numbers of deaths are easily discoverable by measuring economic output (and even air quality!) of the region. C…
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Just a thought after reading the good news - ok this is great for the US and the west where there is decent vaccination. What the hell is going to happen with the omicron spread in countries with hardly any vaccination? I mean if it really is like measles, this could be terrible.
Countries like South Africa? Steep increase in cases and now a steep fall in cases. Some increased deaths, but nothing like delta or alpha. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/south-afri...
Not an expert but comparing countries is hard, especially now that there are other factors such as how many people are vaccinated, boosted etc. I don’t think it’s obvious from one country how another will fare.
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Your argument is incredibly dishonest and myopic, because you're suggesting that every single one of those deaths were avoidable, and that any containment strategy wouldn't cause any deaths or carry any costs either. Suicides among kids and teenagers are up 20%, I'm sure those kids would disagree with you. Deaths of despair, i.e. alcohol and drug-related deaths are up considerably. Do their deaths count? Deaths among…
These are all points in favor of my position. China has obviously succeeded in defeating COVID, and done so with none of these secondary deaths you're describing (look at excess mortality). All of these "secondary" deaths did not occur in countries that implemented effective containment strategies, why do you think that is? The western strategy has resulted in these "secondary" deaths you're describing, as a result o…
No.
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its the natural outcome to your argument. there simply is no way to increase the supply of highly trained specialists within even a year timeframe. 'incentives' won't help. there simply isn't enough supply in aggregate. and they are not leaving because of a lack of pay they're leaving due to the stress of dealing with assholes on the daily. cash isn't going to fix that problem. the only option left in such a scenario…
Never underestimate the ability to change peoples minds with money :)
plenty of people in the 100-200k range take cuts in the 30-40k / year range to move to better work environments. so the idea you'll get doctors who generally make 200k+ would be willing to work in shitty conditions for a prolonged period is pretty bogus.
nurses you might be able to entice them to come back for 20-30k bumps, but its also unlikely.
even if your idea worked, it doesn't increase the supply. it just brings us back to predecline levels.
edit: in fact a clear example of your idea not working: paying people to get the vaccine. did jack shit to actual increase uptake.