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The Virus Changed. Now We Must ‘Get to Zero’ or Face Catastrophe

thetyee.ca

31–40 of 248 posts

Re: The Virus Changed. Now We Must ‘Get to Zero’ or Face Catastrophe

#31
post #12

China and Vietnam get the virus under control by using centralised quarantines. I wonder how many people supporting the sentiments of this article would be ok with someone arriving at their doorstep, taking you to a prison basically whether you agree or not, and quaranteening you there for at least 10 days with other covid people. Perhaps they also take your family too, in case they are also infected. Are you willing…

Absolutely.

Re: The Virus Changed. Now We Must ‘Get to Zero’ or Face Catastrophe

#32
post #16
post #12

China and Vietnam get the virus under control by using centralised quarantines. I wonder how many people supporting the sentiments of this article would be ok with someone arriving at their doorstep, taking you to a prison basically whether you agree or not, and quaranteening you there for at least 10 days with other covid people. Perhaps they also take your family too, in case they are also infected. Are you willing…

Yes. If it means I can actually go to the gym and workout, meet my friends, etc. I am tired of wearing the god damn masks, having to worry about my elderly parents, Are you tired of the god damn pandemic? I know I am. Because we already have no freedom.

Ethics of mandates aside, there’s no strong evidence that universal cloth masking in a community setting reduces transmissions, and many theoretical mechanisms by which they could worsen transmission (increased aerosol generation, deeper breaths to maintain o2 homeostasis leading to more absolute aerosols, improper handling->contamination, altered social behavior, having to speak louder or closer).

So, I would argue that you don’t have to wear a mask now because of the pandemic, you choose to wear one despite a lack of scientific evidence (or are mandated to wear one of course).

SARS-2 is a zoonotic, endemic respiratory virus. If you’re tired of it, you need to accept that it’s here to stay and realize that we can’t put life on hold indefinitely and trigger a global food shortage that will end up eclipsing COVID-19 deaths anyway (oops).

Anyway, it is your right to decide that you would like totalitarian measures enacted upon you and your family. But you shouldn’t be able to make that decision for me, and unfortunately your “side” has already won and enacted [a half-assed version of] those very failed policies that you continue to venerate across most of the globe.

If people put risk in perspective the average person would be less (or equally) afraid of COVID-19 personally than the flu, and your average elderly person would be 5-10x as afraid as the flu but not the current level of fear (feels like 100x IMO). Oh, and schools would be open worldwide with no masks nor social distancing because children are rarely harmed by COVID-19 and are frequently harmed by lockdown measures.

[/ramble]

Re: The Virus Changed. Now We Must ‘Get to Zero’ or Face Catastrophe

#33
post #14
post #12

China and Vietnam get the virus under control by using centralised quarantines. I wonder how many people supporting the sentiments of this article would be ok with someone arriving at their doorstep, taking you to a prison basically whether you agree or not, and quaranteening you there for at least 10 days with other covid people. Perhaps they also take your family too, in case they are also infected. Are you willing…

This and all other countries mentioned are Islands (Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan)

Just because she's not an island, Canada can still close her borders. I'm sure it'll be inconvenient, but short and sharp beats long and drawn out.

Re: The Virus Changed. Now We Must ‘Get to Zero’ or Face Catastrophe

#34
post #14
post #12

China and Vietnam get the virus under control by using centralised quarantines. I wonder how many people supporting the sentiments of this article would be ok with someone arriving at their doorstep, taking you to a prison basically whether you agree or not, and quaranteening you there for at least 10 days with other covid people. Perhaps they also take your family too, in case they are also infected. Are you willing…

This and all other countries mentioned are Islands (Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan)

UK is an island and is the worst country in the world per-capita.

Australia, New Zealand etc chose to implement mandatory 2-week quarantining of all arrivals. UK did not. There is no evidence that being an island or not makes a difference. But plenty of evidence that an aggressive, science-driven policy response does.

Re: The Virus Changed. Now We Must ‘Get to Zero’ or Face Catastrophe

#35

Definitely a report we did not want to hear. Just the the record though, the author is factually wrong about Denmark being one of the jurisdictions that "chose not to stamp out this virus and blithely tolerated high infection rates" and is probably referring to Sweden - see https://www.economist.com/the-world-ahead/2020/11/17/the-nor... . We actually wiped out an entire industry of mink farming in the name of stoppin…

Yeah I think the mink culling was an absurd over-reaction and highly unethical. Those poor minks. (Disclosure: I also think the same for the human lockdowns too though)

I mean, the minks were going to be killed for fur anyways right? The culling isn’t really the problematic part.

Re: The Virus Changed. Now We Must ‘Get to Zero’ or Face Catastrophe

#36

None of the variants so far are any more lethal than the original. Isn't that right? I have heard nothing to the contrary, although this guy seems to think it's already happened.

Transmissibility is a key component to the death rate. People who don't get infected don't die from it, but as more and more people catch it, more roll the dice.

Re: The Virus Changed. Now We Must ‘Get to Zero’ or Face Catastrophe

#37

SARS-CoV-2 is a zoonotic, (fairly) highly infectious endemic respiratory virus. Eradication is literally impossible, and even if we could wave a magic wand and simultaneously eradicate it from all humans on earth, you still need to worry about it jumping back over from any of the many animal species infected with it. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eradication_of_infectious_dise... : > The selection of infectious…

"who have essentially zero risk of COVID-19 mortality." With current virus, that could change with each mutation.

Re: The Virus Changed. Now We Must ‘Get to Zero’ or Face Catastrophe

#38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I think the mink culling was an absurd over-reaction and highly unethical. Those poor minks. (Disclosure: I also think the same for the human lockdowns too though)

Lockdowns work. End of story. Melbourne, Australia had a 4-month lockdown which turned an exponentially-rising 500+ cases a day scenario into elimination. Saving thousands of lives. No other place has managed to do something similar and it shows hotel quarantine of foreign arrivals, aggressive contact-tracing, mandatory mask-wearing, social distancing and lockdowns work. The Swedish laissez-faire approach does not.

New Zealand did the same.

Re: The Virus Changed. Now We Must ‘Get to Zero’ or Face Catastrophe

#39
post #33
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This and all other countries mentioned are Islands (Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan)

Just because she's not an island, Canada can still close her borders. I'm sure it'll be inconvenient, but short and sharp beats long and drawn out.

Yes I agree. Canada has a long border but just with one country. So think it’s in a good position. It’s way more difficult for a European country for example.

Re: The Virus Changed. Now We Must ‘Get to Zero’ or Face Catastrophe

#40
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You miss the point - a virus with a 1% death rate of those infected, that mutates into a virus 50% more transmissible, with a 1% death rate of those infected, is obviously likely to kill more people.

If I look a the infection numbers of South Africa and UK, I completely fail to see how there variants are more infectious. Also, in Brazil, where life seems to go on as usual, there is no exponential growth of cases. Do you have any numbers that prove that the new strains are actually spreading faster in society?

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/25/fauci-uk-coronaviru...

The UK variant which will be the dominant strain in the USA in a couple months is more deadly, and I believe the same is true for the South Africa version. Both more infectious, and both more lethal.

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