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Covid 5 years later: Learning from a pandemic many are forgetting

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Re: Covid 5 years later: Learning from a pandemic many are forgetting

#11

Post by Traubenfuchs »

At large, covid was never dangerous to children and (healthy) (non-senior) adults.

The fear of whole working populations becoming crippled and unable to work due to „long covid“ (mostly just good old PVFS/SEID/CFS) was quickly disproven.

Policies never reflected that, disproportionately harming the young mentally, physically and economically.

The damaged trust in governments and public health organisations was immense and on an irreparable level. Rightfully so, as for example in Austria, the stationary clerk store had to check my vaccination certificate before selling me a pen.

Re: Covid 5 years later: Learning from a pandemic many are forgetting

#12

Post by consumerx »

blindriver wrote: post #7

The biggest takeaway is don’t lie to the public, no matter how moral you think you are being. Credibility of and trust in the scientific establishment has been ruined for an entire generation. Telling people under 18 to get the vaccine or not attend school, or that vaccine immunity was somehow magically better than natural immunity were the two things that really turned me against it. And this is after I myself got t…

[dead]

Re: Covid 5 years later: Learning from a pandemic many are forgetting

#13

Post by jader201 »

Vampiero wrote: post #3

> I feel this massive gravitational pull to go back to what we were doing before,” Van Kerkhove said. “There’s no way we should be going back.” > “One of the big reasons we wanted to hold this conference is because we couldn’t meet in person during the pandemic,” said virologist Kei Sato of the University of Tokyo, an organizer Maybe the "massive gravitational pull to what we were doing before" is just a natural equi…

> The fact that only 1000 people died from it in 2024 in the US is proof enough that this specific pandemic is over.

I’m not sure if you got that number from the article, but if you did, that’s per week (but in the whole world, with 75% in the US):

> Figures from October 2024 showed at least 1000 people died from COVID-19 each week, 75% of them in the United States, and that’s relying only on data from the 34 countries that still report deaths to the World Health Organization (WHO)

Not debating whether or not it’s “over”, but if you’re going by that number, your number is about 40x off.

Re: Covid 5 years later: Learning from a pandemic many are forgetting

#14

Post by dailykoder »

I still desperately want to know the current (scientific) state of wearing a mask. On the one side we have people that say 'our bodies need to learn again to fight against viruses' and the other side which wants you to put on a mask even if you have the smallest sign of a common cold. - Though, I do understand the fear of people who have/had long covid, MCFS or do know people who have, but I don't know what conclusion to draw for myelf out of this. Gladly nothing happened to myself. I don't even know if I ever had covid. At least I never had a positive test and I did quite a bit of them. Maybe I just have a lucky immune system (or a good one because I dont fear getting sick and run into all sorts of viruses?)

I myself tend to lean towards the first group, but also recognize that masks during covid might have been a good thing. At least in the beginning when we didn't know what we can expect.

So does anyone have any literature on how good masks are, if we should be wearing them and if so, when we should?

Re: Covid 5 years later: Learning from a pandemic many are forgetting

#15

Post by dailykoder »

Traubenfuchs wrote: post #11

At large, covid was never dangerous to children and (healthy) (non-senior) adults. The fear of whole working populations becoming crippled and unable to work due to „long covid“ (mostly just good old PVFS/SEID/CFS) was quickly disproven. Policies never reflected that, disproportionately harming the young mentally, physically and economically. The damaged trust in governments and public health organisations was immens…

>At large, covid was never dangerous to children and (healthy) (non-senior) adults.

We didn't know that in the first place though. We expected it, but I shared the sentiment of better be safe then sorry. At least for 2020. I think after that it got handled extremly badly. I can only speak of germany from personal experience though. While I still can understand _some_ of the decissions made by politics, I think they were communicated very very bad and not discussed openly

Re: Covid 5 years later: Learning from a pandemic many are forgetting

#16

Post by Salgat »

Traubenfuchs wrote: post #11

At large, covid was never dangerous to children and (healthy) (non-senior) adults. The fear of whole working populations becoming crippled and unable to work due to „long covid“ (mostly just good old PVFS/SEID/CFS) was quickly disproven. Policies never reflected that, disproportionately harming the young mentally, physically and economically. The damaged trust in governments and public health organisations was immens…

In spite of the rediculous level of precautions society had taken, over a million Americans still died to COVID. Keep in mind at the time the proper procedure to treat COVID was unknown, there was no vaccine which dramatically reduced the risk, and more aggressive and successful treatments such as using antibodies didn't exist either. COVID was without doubt dangerous in the early days of the pandemic.

Re: Covid 5 years later: Learning from a pandemic many are forgetting

#17

Post by dmckeon »

Vampiero wrote: post #3

> I feel this massive gravitational pull to go back to what we were doing before,” Van Kerkhove said. “There’s no way we should be going back.” > “One of the big reasons we wanted to hold this conference is because we couldn’t meet in person during the pandemic,” said virologist Kei Sato of the University of Tokyo, an organizer Maybe the "massive gravitational pull to what we were doing before" is just a natural equi…

> at least 1000 people died from COVID-19 each week, 75% of them in the United States

Unless that percentage is an artifact of more accurate reporting in the US, I am now even more disappointed in the state of US health care and public health.

Re: Covid 5 years later: Learning from a pandemic many are forgetting

#18

Post by friend_Fernando »

forgetfreeman wrote: post #4

The deep stupidity with which this subject has been met by political organizations and the broader populace has caused me to reexamine most of my expectations of "adult" behavior from both groups. In 50 years on this planet I've never been closer to losing the battle with nihilism.

I agree about the response. From a Bayesian perspective, our priors were that society would respond better, and that the pandemic wouldn't be politicized (much.)

Something I find of interest is the set of all conjectures whose Bayesian probability estimates would be significantly revised in light of this discrepancy.

Re: Covid 5 years later: Learning from a pandemic many are forgetting

#19

Post by defrost »

paulddraper wrote: post #9
forgetfreeman wrote: post #4

The deep stupidity with which this subject has been met by political organizations and the broader populace has caused me to reexamine most of my expectations of "adult" behavior from both groups. In 50 years on this planet I've never been closer to losing the battle with nihilism.

The response was truly insane.

It seemed entirely appropriate and exactly on point from my PoV:

  On 24 March, Western Australia closed its borders to the rest of Australia, and on 1 April, the state implemented borders between regions in the state.

  By mid-April 2020, the state had eliminated community transmission of COVID-19, becoming one of the few places in the world to do so.
Elsewhere (the UK and US in particular) looked like a total clusterf*ck.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_Western_A...

and: https://www.wa.gov.au/organisation/department-of-the-premier...

Re: Covid 5 years later: Learning from a pandemic many are forgetting

#20

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

Vampiero wrote: post #3

> I feel this massive gravitational pull to go back to what we were doing before,” Van Kerkhove said. “There’s no way we should be going back.” > “One of the big reasons we wanted to hold this conference is because we couldn’t meet in person during the pandemic,” said virologist Kei Sato of the University of Tokyo, an organizer Maybe the "massive gravitational pull to what we were doing before" is just a natural equi…

In the long run I don't think it's the death count that matters.

Every time one of these goes endemic, the immune systems of all future humans get a slightly heavier burden to bear. The effect of all those passengers adds up. We'll eventually have a make or break moment and fail because we're in a viral haze and not thinking clearly. It's worth learning from the past so we can forestall that moment as long as possible.

I don't think that means more isolation. I think it means more thinking about the ecology of zoonotic diseases. Less contact with risky organisms, maybe we change our diet or where we decide to build, etc.

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