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Vaccines and Omicron mean Covid now less deadly than flu in England

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Re: Vaccines and Omicron mean Covid now less deadly than flu in England

#61

Post by _dain_ »

somewhereoutth wrote: post #56
tastyfreeze wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that middle ground is stopping all required COVID mitigations and let people live their lives as they did before. COVID is here to stay. Time to start treating it like every other endemic disease. ps Pretty sure the comment you responded to was sarcasm.

Except it is not like every other endemic disease. It is very contagious, systemic (i.e. more than just a respiratory infection), has a propensity to cause serious long term effects, and immunity against it seems to wane. People lead their lives under all sorts of necessary restrictions (e.g. seatbelts, motorbike helmets). Unfortunately these extra restrictions highlighted that uncomfortable and inevitable fact. Some…

I stopped caring about any of this over a year ago, and more people are joining me every day. Nobody is going in the opposite direction.

Normal people will win through sheer attrition.

Re: Vaccines and Omicron mean Covid now less deadly than flu in England

#62

Post by awb »

tptacek wrote: post #51
awb wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s true. It’s a cost/benefit, risk/reward calculation that everyone needs to make.

The subtext on all these discussions is generally mandates, so we're talking about a risk/reward calculation made on our behalf, not by us individually.

Yeah societies have to continually make decisions for the benefit of the group that affect the individual.

Taxes, military, traffic laws, etc.

Re: Vaccines and Omicron mean Covid now less deadly than flu in England

#63

Post by somewhereoutth »

naoqj wrote: post #21
mzvkxlcvd wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

better hide inside forever just to be sure

And enact laws so everybody else also is forced to stay home forever!

and ever and ever and ever! But if Covid had a CFR of 10%, disproportionately affecting children, then yes we'd be doing whatever it took to eliminate it.

Re: Vaccines and Omicron mean Covid now less deadly than flu in England

#64

Post by JaimeThompson »

notch656a wrote: post #34
JaimeThompson wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love to see research that shows that to be a correct statement and why so many in Asian countries do not seem to have compromised immune systems would be interesting as well.

'Asia' is a big place and it's a pretty bigoted statement to allude 'asia' hygiene/exposure standards exceed those of the reader.

How is that a bigoted statement?

This is but one source to support that people in Asia wear masks at a high rate. [1] [2]

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC3536629/ [2] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/culture-shocked/2020...

Re: Vaccines and Omicron mean Covid now less deadly than flu in England

#65

Post by somewhereoutth »

tptacek wrote: post #48
somewhereoutth wrote: post #4

It may well be less deadly, but it is far more contagious. Reinfection also seems to be not uncommon. We do not fully understand the long term effects of even a mild case, or indeed how repeated reinfection might compound any such effects, given that we might expect to catch it once or twice a year as opposed to once or twice in our lives for flu.

We don't fully understand the long-term effects of COVID, but there's not much we can realistically do about it (short of continuing the push to get everyone vaccinated). There is little evidence that NPIs are meaningfully effective at scale, at least when practiced in a way compatible with the normal functioning of society. I'm much more sympathetic to the death rate concerns (admittedly: Omicron makes it easy to ha…

A full lockdown like we had at the beginning would halt even Omicron - it is not that much more contagious than the original. Unfortunately the narrative settled on it being 'mild' and 'super contagious', therefore there was not much we could do about it and it didn't matter anyway. There are practical and ideological reasons why a section of society would wish us to fail against Covid, but that is outside the scope of this discussion I feel.

Measures such as customary mask wearing in public places, better ventilation, less tolerance of the 'walking sick' would certainly have an effect on the infection rate. If we are looking at a situation where health issues become more severe with each (re)infection, then this may be a reasonable approach to take.

Re: Vaccines and Omicron mean Covid now less deadly than flu in England

#66

Post by xienze »

tptacek wrote: post #52
quantum_magpie wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>So were you going through life wearing a mask to mitigate the risk of a deadly flu in 2018 and before? I think probably not, but if your priority is risk mitigation, shouldn't you have been? During flu season? Of course. As well as soon any cold symptoms were felt. My institution would also issue stay-at-home recommendations during flu outbreaks.

You might have worn a mask during previous flu seasons, but it'd be helpful to acknowledge that almost nobody else did. Prior to COVID, masks were a curiosity, not a norm.

I would also say I’ve never worked anywhere in the US that issued a stay at home order during a flu outbreak either. The poster is definitely exaggerating the state of things prior to Covid IMO.

Re: Vaccines and Omicron mean Covid now less deadly than flu in England

#67

Post by notch656a »

JaimeThompson wrote: post #64
notch656a wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'Asia' is a big place and it's a pretty bigoted statement to allude 'asia' hygiene/exposure standards exceed those of the reader.

How is that a bigoted statement? This is but one source to support that people in Asia wear masks at a high rate. [1] [2] [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC3536629/ [2] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/culture-shocked/2020...

I could have misinterpreted the up-thread comment, but I read it as they were saying that the immune system can degrade its available response to certain pathogens when the immune system goes without adequate exposure to those pathogens.

The wearing of the mask is just one piece in this puzzle. Hygiene and sanitary practices vary widely across Asia. It could be that wearing a mask degrades maintenance of the immune system, but other sanitary practices in Asia result in the opportunity for the immune system to maintain vigilance. That is, it could be the immune system maintains itself in spite of the masks, rather than the mask having no effect or positive effect on immune system.

Re: Vaccines and Omicron mean Covid now less deadly than flu in England

#69

Post by somewhereoutth »

_dain_ wrote: post #61
somewhereoutth wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except it is not like every other endemic disease. It is very contagious, systemic (i.e. more than just a respiratory infection), has a propensity to cause serious long term effects, and immunity against it seems to wane. People lead their lives under all sorts of necessary restrictions (e.g. seatbelts, motorbike helmets). Unfortunately these extra restrictions highlighted that uncomfortable and inevitable fact. Some…

I stopped caring about any of this over a year ago, and more people are joining me every day. Nobody is going in the opposite direction. Normal people will win through sheer attrition.

Win what? More sickness? You will care very much if debilitating long Covid happens to you. It is easy to be carefree when things are going well.

Re: Vaccines and Omicron mean Covid now less deadly than flu in England

#70

Post by _dain_ »

somewhereoutth wrote: post #65
tptacek wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't fully understand the long-term effects of COVID, but there's not much we can realistically do about it (short of continuing the push to get everyone vaccinated). There is little evidence that NPIs are meaningfully effective at scale, at least when practiced in a way compatible with the normal functioning of society. I'm much more sympathetic to the death rate concerns (admittedly: Omicron makes it easy to ha…

A full lockdown like we had at the beginning would halt even Omicron - it is not that much more contagious than the original. Unfortunately the narrative settled on it being 'mild' and 'super contagious', therefore there was not much we could do about it and it didn't matter anyway. There are practical and ideological reasons why a section of society would wish us to fail against Covid, but that is outside the scope…

>the narrative settled on it being 'mild'

that's a funny way of saying "it turned out to be mild". deaths and hospitalizations undershot all the dire predictions.

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