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On Covid

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Re: On Covid

#131

Post by cameldrv »

csours wrote: post #101
immibis wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your point 1 is missing a big disclaimer. 1. Sars-Cov-2 will be around forever because the population votes for it to be that way .

The virus spreads to other animals - no disease agent with an animal reservoir has ever been eradicated. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_reservoir I wish it were otherwise, and maybe in the future it will be so.

Measles is also not eradicated. In 2019 in the U.S. there were 1282 cases, about 4 per day. Most people get Measles shots for their kids and basically never think about it again.

There are currently about 700,000 cases of COVID per day in the U.S. There is an enormous difference between these two viruses that are not eradicated.

Re: On Covid

#132

Post by rob_c »

rob_c wrote: post #6
elliottkember wrote: post #4

> First, we have less severe variants now. Please don't assume that future variants will be less and less severe. It's what we all want to hear, but this "covid is over" mentality is what will help produce the next, possibly really nasty, variant.

please stop being alarmist

loving the downvotes, again for being respectful on this.

Lets retry:

Please stop with the anti-intellectualism and fear-baiting based on personal feelings!

Re: On Covid

#133

Post by rob_c »

cameldrv wrote: post #130

"The current death rate of COVID in the US is about what a bad flu season would be." Currently 2000 people a day are dying in the U.S. from COVID. That's an annualized rate of 730,000 deaths per year. The CDC estimates that the worst flu season in the last 10 years was 2017-2018 and that Flu caused 52,000 deaths. That puts the current death rate of COVID at 14x where a bad flu season would be. Perhaps it is his judgm…

and the definition of a covid death is rather liberal compared to a flu death with no underlying conditions... the whole mess is political

Re: On Covid

#134

Post by cameldrv »

rob_c wrote: post #133
cameldrv wrote: post #130

"The current death rate of COVID in the US is about what a bad flu season would be." Currently 2000 people a day are dying in the U.S. from COVID. That's an annualized rate of 730,000 deaths per year. The CDC estimates that the worst flu season in the last 10 years was 2017-2018 and that Flu caused 52,000 deaths. That puts the current death rate of COVID at 14x where a bad flu season would be. Perhaps it is his judgm…

and the definition of a covid death is rather liberal compared to a flu death with no underlying conditions... the whole mess is political

I can't say precisely how these deaths are defined. I can say that I know several people personally who have died of COVID just in the past month. I can't ever remember anyone I know dying of the Flu.

Re: On Covid

#135

Post by benpiper »

People have come to realize a few important things:

- Omicron is comparable to a really bad cold for most people

- The vaccines reduce the risk of death for only a very short time, then the effect wears off, and they have unknown long-term sequelae

- Living like it's 2020 is not sustainable

Re: On Covid

#136

Post by rob_c »

cameldrv wrote: post #134
rob_c wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and the definition of a covid death is rather liberal compared to a flu death with no underlying conditions... the whole mess is political

I can't say precisely how these deaths are defined. I can say that I know several people personally who have died of COVID just in the past month. I can't ever remember anyone I know dying of the Flu.

I'm not questioning this. But unfortunately it is by definition anecdotal. I know 3 over 90s who are still going, and a mix of expose risk and health status. I'm sorry for your loss.

Re: On Covid

#137

Post by refurb »

bairrd wrote: post #81
refurb wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feel free to hide under a rock avoiding covid while ignoring all the other risks you take everyday. Hospitals hit capacity during flu seasons - did you wear a mask everyone, keep your kids home, work from home and cancel all travel plans? I’ll bet you didn’t even know they were at capacity. I’m vaccined, I’m moving on with life.

Risk mitigation whilst hospitals are at capacity? Nah, gotta live my life! Otherwise they might perceive me as weak-willed, and more important than my continued existence is to ensure I am not perceived as a weakling! Anything else is others being hysterical! Fuck doctors, am I right!

Hospitals hit capacity during flu season all the time.

Did you stay at home, keep your kids from school and cancel all travel plans last flu season when hospitals got overwhelmed?

You probably didn’t even know they were overwhelmed, did you?

Re: On Covid

#138

Post by refurb »

immibis wrote: post #104
refurb wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m baffled my point went over your head. We have tens of thousands of thousands of deaths every year . In the past decade 300,000 died of the flu and nobody notices .

And in the next decade, based on current death rates, 4,000,000 Americans will die of COVID-19. Are you saying there's no difference between 3x10^5 and 4x10^6? Well, the difference is not that large, but apparently it does cross our arbitrary threshold for "this is actually quite bad and we should probably stop it from happening"

Huh? You’re extrapolating two year of a pandemic, most before a vaccine out 10 years?

That’s ridiculous right?

Re: On Covid

#139

Post by esalman »

refurb wrote: post #137
bairrd wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Risk mitigation whilst hospitals are at capacity? Nah, gotta live my life! Otherwise they might perceive me as weak-willed, and more important than my continued existence is to ensure I am not perceived as a weakling! Anything else is others being hysterical! Fuck doctors, am I right!

Hospitals hit capacity during flu season all the time. Did you stay at home, keep your kids from school and cancel all travel plans last flu season when hospitals got overwhelmed? You probably didn’t even know they were overwhelmed, did you?

Last flu season a bunch of my family friends did not die from flu, nor did any relative suffer long term consequences from flu.

My coworker from 5 years back died yesterday. He is 2 years younger than me. I am not even 40.

Re: On Covid

#140

Post by eli »

theli0nheart wrote: post #121
eli wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe a higher percentage of ICU beds are occupied nationally than at any point in the pandemic: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/hospitalization-7-day-trend If ICU overflows are when we pull out all of the stops, can we pull out just some of the stops before it gets that dire? It's already not great. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/overwhelmed-by-omicron-surg...

> I believe a higher percentage of ICU beds are occupied nationally than at any point in the pandemic According to the data you linked: COVID ICU Beds Occupied: January 17-23, 2022 : 26,236 January 4-10, 2021 : 29,175 So there were 2,939 (or ~11%) more beds occupied due to COVID about a year ago.

Sure but that's not what I said. A higher percentage of all ICU beds are occupied today than at any point on the graph. If you need an ICU bed and one isn't available, you probably don't really care if that's because too many covid patients or reduced ICU capacity or a shortage of nurses.

In any event, would you agree that hospitals cancelling elective surgeries is indicative of an overworked system?

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