South Africa’s omicron coronavirus outbreak subsides as fast as it grew • Hacker News Board

Re: South Africa’s omicron coronavirus outbreak subsides as fast as it grew

#271

Post by spookthesunset » Wed, Dec 22, 2021, 9:44 PM UTC

eropple wrote: post #249

spookthesunset wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you have virtually unlimited resources you can do almost anything you want. You just have to think outside of the box. If this truly was an emergency, we'd have found a way to staff covid ICU's. Dunno how because it ain't my expertise at all, but there would be a way. We managed to build giant ships in like 3 or 6 months in WWII. I'm pretty sure we could figure out how to staff 400 or so ICU's with people capabl…

"I readily admit that I don't know what I'm talking about but at the same time I'm going to insist that my hypothetical situation is definitely correct and the knowledgeable people working on medical staffing and capacity management for their entire careers simply do not know as much as me, a computer toucher." Somehow I remain unconvinced that "thinking outside the box" conjures doctors and nurses into existence or…

> makes those who refuse to work ICUs suddenly interested in the job

Then fucking draft them into working in an ICU like you would draft somebody into a war. Build a second story on their house. I don't care. This shit is an existential emergency where we asked hundreds of millions of people to put 2 years of their life on hold to build healthcare up. Figure it out. If healthcare capacity was the reason we did all this, then we should have poured the entire nation's worth of resources into building healthcare capacity. Period.

It is absolutely inexcusable to continue playing the "healthcare might collapse" card 2 years into this. If people used this many excuses back in WWII we'd have lost the damn war. "Oh, it takes 4 years to design a build a ship... sorry. we can't just pull ships out of our butt. Guess we will just have to let them win". Bullshit. We made it happen. We could make it happen for this too.

This is supposed to be an emergency, remember? Every second you have people in lockdown is a second of each of those peoples very short lives you've now wasted. Figure it out!

Re: South Africa’s omicron coronavirus outbreak subsides as fast as it grew

#272

Post by oneoff786 » Wed, Dec 22, 2021, 9:46 PM UTC

estaseuropano wrote: post #244

oneoff786 wrote: post #54

I’ve been tanking some downvotes for the past few days for saying this. Disease spread is only exponential for a brief initial period. It is not a good mental or even general model for how disease spreads. We have two years of observational covid data that shows this to be true. Spread slows down rapidly long before reaching 100%. People hear “5x as infectious” and reason that due to the nature of exponential models,…

There is a lot to unpack but I doubt you are as right as you think you are. For instance in new variant outbreaks there ate usually harsher responses than for known variant outbreaks, so it is very difficult to identity the real infectivity. But more importantly it's well established that diseases that those diseases spread most widely that don't kill rapidly (or that more generally don't have severe symptoms) and th…

I can’t tell what your point is but nothing here seems to contradict anything I said. It’s just some facts about diseases.

I didn’t say every one was going to survive omicron. I said the spread was unlikely to be materially higher than its predecessor and likely have a lower negative impact.

A disease that spreads twice as fast is unlikely to infect twice as many people (over the long term). A disease that causes fewer adverse effects, let’s say half as often, needs to, by definition, infect twice as many people over the long run in order to cause the same amount of harm.

As a dumb mental model, if omicron is 30% less dangerous, then omicron needs to infect 42% more people to be as harmful to society. That is very difficult to achieve, especially given our collective immunity achieved so far. I would say there is little chance of this occurring.

Re: South Africa’s omicron coronavirus outbreak subsides as fast as it grew

#273

Post by cwkoss » Wed, Dec 22, 2021, 9:46 PM UTC

aantix wrote: post #104

cwkoss wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even leaving aside covid concerns, I'd love for sanitizer stations and mask wearing in grocery stores to become the new normal. I don't want the general public sneezing on my food - especially during flu season.

If I have to choose a time to stop masking, between now and my death, I'm not going to choose my death. I will stop wearing one much sooner. I hate the muffled voices. I can't see anyone smile. It's dehumanizing.

> I hate the muffled voices. I can't see anyone smile.

Grocery stores are not for socializing. I don't want randos to try to start a conversation with me beyond asking quick questions.

Re: South Africa’s omicron coronavirus outbreak subsides as fast as it grew

#274

Post by dpark » Wed, Dec 22, 2021, 9:47 PM UTC

vmception wrote: post #248

dpark wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You literally said any. But I’m still stuck on why. What is the point in getting yourself involved in something that doesn’t affect you personally? Why is it worth getting yourself involved with someone else’s self governance?

Its almost as if I live in and am registered to vote one of the few major counties and states that are prone to reintroduce restrictions, and am not currently physically there right now. The goal being that there would eventually be one less county and state that would consider restrictions.

From what you’ve said, you don’t live there any more.

But this doesn’t seem constructive so we can let this go.

Re: South Africa’s omicron coronavirus outbreak subsides as fast as it grew

#275

Post by cwkoss » Wed, Dec 22, 2021, 9:47 PM UTC

anthonypasq wrote: post #114

cwkoss wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even leaving aside covid concerns, I'd love for sanitizer stations and mask wearing in grocery stores to become the new normal. I don't want the general public sneezing on my food - especially during flu season.

do you not wash your food before consuming it or something?

I wash produce, but not the lids of cans, rims of bottles, or packaging that could transfer germs to my hands right before I'm about to eat.

Do you wash your hands between when touch a bottle of salad dressing, and before you eat?

Re: South Africa’s omicron coronavirus outbreak subsides as fast as it grew

#276

Post by dpark » Wed, Dec 22, 2021, 9:48 PM UTC

zerocount wrote: post #251

dpark wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’ll move back to one of them just to vote the governor and health director out. Am I correctly understanding that you intend to move to a different region for the sole purpose of voting against restrictions that otherwise would not apply to you? You’re literally trying to be a problematic immigrant. I remember when I was in college a bunch of people did exactly this. They registered for residency in the state sole…

I'm pretty sure it was hyperbole.

Pretty sure it’s not if you read the rest of the comment thread.

Re: South Africa’s omicron coronavirus outbreak subsides as fast as it grew

#277

Post by spookthesunset » Wed, Dec 22, 2021, 9:48 PM UTC

mistermann wrote: post #233

spookthesunset wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If hospital capacity is such a concern, why has there been just about zero effort in spinning up some kind of capacity to deal with Covid? Wasn't that the entire rationale of these lockdowns in the first place? To build capacity for covid? Like, it's been 2 years. We shouldn't be doing any of these restrictions at all. We should be angry at our governments wasting 2 years of our non-refundable time on this earth whil…

I believe that covid has given us incredible insight into the human psyche, including how well we are able to respond to problems that have political/tribal attributes to them. Considering how relatively minor covid was, and how simple the situation is, that so many people continue to disagree on basics suggests to me that we have learned very little from this (indicating our capacity to learn certain things is not g…

> if we ever get a serious pandemic (or serious anything), we might be f*cked.

If we had a serious pandemic where dudes were dropping like flys on the street and they had horse drawn carrages stacked with bodies, I don't think many people would have an issue dealing with it. The problem with covid is our response to it was way out of line with the actual illness. People kinda have a problem being asked to make huge sacrifies for something they don't perceive to be a major problem.

Re: South Africa’s omicron coronavirus outbreak subsides as fast as it grew

#278

Post by pg314 » Wed, Dec 22, 2021, 9:48 PM UTC

estaseuropano wrote: post #244

oneoff786 wrote: post #54

I’ve been tanking some downvotes for the past few days for saying this. Disease spread is only exponential for a brief initial period. It is not a good mental or even general model for how disease spreads. We have two years of observational covid data that shows this to be true. Spread slows down rapidly long before reaching 100%. People hear “5x as infectious” and reason that due to the nature of exponential models,…

There is a lot to unpack but I doubt you are as right as you think you are. For instance in new variant outbreaks there ate usually harsher responses than for known variant outbreaks, so it is very difficult to identity the real infectivity. But more importantly it's well established that diseases that those diseases spread most widely that don't kill rapidly (or that more generally don't have severe symptoms) and th…

Covid-19 doesn't kill rapidly, so there is no pressure for it to mutate to become milder.

Re: South Africa’s omicron coronavirus outbreak subsides as fast as it grew

#279

Post by dragonwriter » Wed, Dec 22, 2021, 9:48 PM UTC

tdfx wrote: post #253

spookthesunset wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If hospital capacity is such a concern, why has there been just about zero effort in spinning up some kind of capacity to deal with Covid? Wasn't that the entire rationale of these lockdowns in the first place? To build capacity for covid? Like, it's been 2 years. We shouldn't be doing any of these restrictions at all. We should be angry at our governments wasting 2 years of our non-refundable time on this earth whil…

People will say "well you can't just make more nurses and doctors in 6 months!" However, had we built or repurposed buildings as COVID-specific treatment centers there would be a fairly standard treatment protocol that could be applied by people without 4-8 years of medical training, allowing the highly trained nurses and doctors to supervise the process and multiply their effectiveness. Combat soldiers learn basic e…

> there would be a fairly standard treatment protocol that could be applied by people without 4-8 years of medical training

No, there wouldn't, because, among other things, comorbidities that must be managed, especially in the population most COVID hospitalizations come from.

> Combat soldiers learn basic emergency medical techniques, even to the point of running IVs

Which allows them to serve as, basically, better-than-nothing EMTs in the absence of anyone else, which is useful on the battlefield to keep people alive to get to proper medical care; they don't replace doctors and nurses, though.

Re: South Africa’s omicron coronavirus outbreak subsides as fast as it grew

#280

Post by dnautics » Wed, Dec 22, 2021, 9:49 PM UTC

stefan_ wrote: post #116

oneoff786 wrote: post #54

I’ve been tanking some downvotes for the past few days for saying this. Disease spread is only exponential for a brief initial period. It is not a good mental or even general model for how disease spreads. We have two years of observational covid data that shows this to be true. Spread slows down rapidly long before reaching 100%. People hear “5x as infectious” and reason that due to the nature of exponential models,…

It's a bit silly to go "it's less severe" based on death statistics when after two years of Corona waves, there are plain less individuals around for it to kill.

no viral infection happens in a vaccuum. Each year's seasonal and nonseasonal flu comes on the backs of years of "less people" for it to kill, and people who have gained immune responses to any of its closest relatives, and people who have been immunized, and even humans who have been culled by similar viruses milennia ago during migratory bottlenecks.