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Belgian scientific base in Antarctica engulfed by Covid despite strict measures

brusselstimes.com

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Re: Belgian scientific base in Antarctica engulfed by Covid despite strict measures

#101

Post by leppr »

yosito wrote: post #85
freetinker wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not so sure; respectfully disagree. This only talks about process stricture, not efficacy or process compliance/lapse. Plausible hypothesis, but needs more data.

If I've learned something about people during the pandemic, it's that the average person is far less intelligent and far less compliant than I previously believed. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to find out this was caused by people not complying with protocols. Or at the very least, not having an understanding of the fact that COVID transmission is aerosol, and that breathing reshared air even for a few secon…

I would call that uneducated rather than unintelligent. Not everyone is an expert on Covid-19, most people here aren't. We look for and rely on trusted sources to get our information about it.

But many mainstream trusted sources have been carrying out misinformation/divertion campaigns by focusing prevention on hand hygiene and vaccination, instead of explaining the actual mechanism of transmission. So unless they're curious and proactive about searching for neutral information (which is orthogonal to intelligence), many people by default believe transmission happens by touching surfaces, or cannot happen when one has taken vaccines, for instance.

Re: Belgian scientific base in Antarctica engulfed by Covid despite strict measures

#102

Post by throwoutway »

lettergram wrote: post #83
petercooper wrote: post #25

Viruses are interesting things. I once enjoyed a case study about an outbreak of common cold on an Antarctic base that only happened after 17 weeks of isolation: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2130424/ (I'm no virologist but given that the common cold didn't seem to be impacted by the severe lockdowns in the UK at all, whereas flu was, I've gotten the - uneducated - feeling the cold is a bit like some S…

The CDC recently admitted as much. People can test positive for covid weeks after initially testing positive. Which implies they still are shedding the virus. https://twitter.com/abc/status/1476189028982702080?s=21

This happened to me. I tested positive a month after infection (was testing once or twice a week). I isolated anyways to be safe

Re: Belgian scientific base in Antarctica engulfed by Covid despite strict measures

#103

Post by wrycoder »

HatchedLake721 wrote: post #91
enchiridion wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about scale up the hospitals, or at least covid capacity in a meaningful way. How long does they public have to bear burden of insufficient health infra. EDIT: Sorry that might have come off a bit blunt. But the entire pandemic response has been frustratingly insufficient in my opinion. A variant like Omicron was long predicted and expected. How are we not prepared with a plan to end lockdowns? And blaming unvacc…

And who will staff them? https://www.personneltoday.com/hr/uk-lacks-nursing-staff-to-...

The ones you didn't force out because they didn't want to get vaccinated?

Re: Belgian scientific base in Antarctica engulfed by Covid despite strict measures

#105

Post by wrycoder »

anonygler wrote: post #37
makk wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hospitalizations tend to precede fatalities. While I hope you're right, it's too early (by a couple weeks in the US, at least) to start trumpeting a "minuscule fatality rate". https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/current-covid-patients-ho...

Unless you’re elderly or have health issues, Covid fatality rate was already very, very low. Therapeutics make that even better.

In New Hampshire, 93% of the deaths are over 60.

Re: Belgian scientific base in Antarctica engulfed by Covid despite strict measures

#106

Post by juskrey »

petercooper wrote: post #25

Viruses are interesting things. I once enjoyed a case study about an outbreak of common cold on an Antarctic base that only happened after 17 weeks of isolation: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2130424/ (I'm no virologist but given that the common cold didn't seem to be impacted by the severe lockdowns in the UK at all, whereas flu was, I've gotten the - uneducated - feeling the cold is a bit like some S…

After years of self-observations I have a petty theory that, in addition to outside infections, we always have a zoo of cold viruses inside, and different factors trigger them from time to time. I am quite surprised this is never discussed and mentioned by scientific community. BTW for some other viruses this is well documented and acknowledged, but with cold/flu/covid we seem to suffer worldwide scientific amnesia.

Re: Belgian scientific base in Antarctica engulfed by Covid despite strict measures

#107

Post by Spooky23 »

trentnix wrote: post #86
zzzeek wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's 100% about hospital capacity and mass death. When hospitals around the country are no longer turning away cancer patients needing treatments and have plenty of ICUs for heart attacks and such, when they no longer have to rent fleets of refrigerator trucks every outbreak to store the bodies, the restrictions will end. It has always been about that and nothing more.

They could start by not terminating perfectly capable doctors and nurses who have decided, for whatever their reasons may be, to refuse vaccination. I’m vaccinated (and boosted) but I cannot understand why it was okay for these people to be on the frontlines of the fight for over a year but suddenly they are no longer acceptable. And I find no convincing argument as to why actually recovering from infection counts fo…

It’s pretty simple. They are more likely to get sick and more likely to infect those whose care they are entrusted with.

There’s a long history of this type of sanction. If you are a provider or nurse in a hospital who fails to get a measles, hepatitis, or rabies (after exposure) shot, you’ll be terminated for cause in many places.

The reason why recovery doesn’t “count” the same as vaccination is that immunity doesn’t last very long - 60-90 days typically. Some countries, such as Israel will recognize a single Pfizer dose and recovery as immune, if you have a negative PCR test.

Re: Belgian scientific base in Antarctica engulfed by Covid despite strict measures

#108

Post by Spooky23 »

enchiridion wrote: post #88
zzzeek wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's 100% about hospital capacity and mass death. When hospitals around the country are no longer turning away cancer patients needing treatments and have plenty of ICUs for heart attacks and such, when they no longer have to rent fleets of refrigerator trucks every outbreak to store the bodies, the restrictions will end. It has always been about that and nothing more.

How about scale up the hospitals, or at least covid capacity in a meaningful way. How long does they public have to bear burden of insufficient health infra. EDIT: Sorry that might have come off a bit blunt. But the entire pandemic response has been frustratingly insufficient in my opinion. A variant like Omicron was long predicted and expected. How are we not prepared with a plan to end lockdowns? And blaming unvacc…

The US is a public health failure. We didn’t want “socialized” medicine.

So we got what we wanted, the best nurses are making $300/hr in COVID hotspots and leaving new grads and understaffed facilities in their wake.

Re: Belgian scientific base in Antarctica engulfed by Covid despite strict measures

#109

Post by anm89 »

zzzeek wrote: post #75
anm89 wrote: post #54

Its almost like canceling all of humanity although it accomplishes extremely little but a CYA for the politicians is not the best way to handle this. Im sure when are fighting the 200th variant whose symptoms are a day of fatigue we will almost be ready to end the restrictions. And just for the record, im 2x vaccinated, not an antivaxxer or denier or something.

It's 100% about hospital capacity and mass death. When hospitals around the country are no longer turning away cancer patients needing treatments and have plenty of ICUs for heart attacks and such, when they no longer have to rent fleets of refrigerator trucks every outbreak to store the bodies, the restrictions will end. It has always been about that and nothing more.

As many others below have pointed out, there are a variety of reasons why this narrative is extremely flimsy. All ends do not justify all means, especially when the proven correlation between the ends and the means is often lacking or doesn't support the use of the means at all.

Re: Belgian scientific base in Antarctica engulfed by Covid despite strict measures

#110

Post by ddingus »

nradov wrote: post #97
lettergram wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The CDC recently admitted as much. People can test positive for covid weeks after initially testing positive. Which implies they still are shedding the virus. https://twitter.com/abc/status/1476189028982702080?s=21

A positive test indicates they are probably shedding pieces of viral genetic material. It doesn't necessarily mean they are shedding active virions. Sometimes there are just leftover fragments. In other rare cases immunocompromised individuals can experience prolonged active infections lasting for months.

Word of the day:

virons = a complete virus particle that consists of an RNA or DNA core with a protein coat sometimes with external envelopes and that is the extracellular infectious form of a virus.

For me, the intrigue centers on my personal realization that I pretty much never think about individual pieces. And that is what this word is all about.

It's everything needed for Covid to happen, no less, no more.

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