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On Covid

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Re: On Covid

#31

Post by warning26 »

basisword wrote: post #20

Maybe he’s right. Hopefully he’s right. But personally, I feel like this is just more shortsightedness. I’ve lost track of the number of times my employer thought it was time to get back to the office - only for restrictions to be increased a month later as cases rise. This cycle repeats and people seem to not learn. They get overly optimistic and then kicked in the teeth. Yes, things are better than they’ve been but…

Exactly -- remember this past summer when the pandemic was over? Or how about after fall, when the pandemic was also over?

If there's one thing predicable about the the pandemic, it's that it is unpredictable. I, too, hope that omicron is the much-hyped final wave, just like delta was supposed to have been. But to declare that it definitely, totally, is the final wave right now seems a bit premature.

Re: On Covid

#32

Post by the_gastropod »

> It is time to stop obsessing about Covid. It is time to stop politicizing Covid. It is time to stop tweeting about Covid. It is time to stop reading about Covid. It is time to start healing and it is time to start moving on.

2,000+ (and increasing) Americans are dying every day from this disease—as bad as the bad old days of Spring 2020. Why is this attitude so pervasive? It doesn't seem to be backed by anything aside from boredom of dealing with living in a pandemic.

> We have vaccines if you want them. We will have anti-virals if you need them.

> And you can wear masks if you are uncomfortable on the plane or the subway.

This is the individualistic thinking that's caused us so much friction. It's no different than "if you want to be a safe driver, don't drink and drive!". The drunk-driver and the unvacced/unmasked put all of us at risk. It's selfish behavior, and should be treated as such, instead of described as "personal freedom".

> We’ve normalized mask-wearing in the US now and that is a good thing.

Have we, though? Across the country, people will harass and threaten you, for no reason other than they've seen you wearing a face mask. I've been mocked in NYC—the bastion of progressivism in the US. What do you think it's like wearing a mask in Kansas?

Re: On Covid

#33

Post by eli »

NicoJuicy wrote: post #23
eli wrote: post #9

Thousands of Americans are losing their lives every day to Covid. New cases are MUCH higher than they were at any point in 2020 or 2021 (though it looks like we may finally have crossed the peak of this wave). I'm sorry, but it isn't over yet. I wish it was. However wishing it or asserting it doesn't make it true. This was a sensible argument to make in July 2021 when vaccines were more effective and cases were liter…

There's a difference between effectiveness against "new cases" vs. heavy illness. Deaths/severity is not rising even though there are a lot of new cases. Deaths ( = going down): https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/worldwide-graphs/#... Severe cases ( small increase): https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/worldwide-graphs/#... While new cases > x 7 https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/worldwide-graphs/#…

Thousands of Americans dying a day isn't bad enough? How much worse does it need to get before it's something we should still be very concerned about?

And deaths are in fact rising. According to your chart they were around 6000/day (7 day average) on Jan 1 and are 7600/day in the most recent data two weeks later.

Re: On Covid

#34

Post by feurio »

standardsam wrote: post #15
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.

>this "covid is over" mentality is what will help produce the next, possibly really nasty, variant. Can you back this up? It's my understanding that our actions now have almost no bearing on what happens with future variants.

I would imagine that it's a fairly simple matter of probability:

The more cases the greater the chance of mutations. The more mutations the greate the chance of nasty variant.

Re: On Covid

#35

Post by tablespoon »

tomp wrote: post #11
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.

I thought the general theory of "virus evolution" was towards less severe variants. Of course, more severe variants can always develop. Holds same for flu, HIV, ... not just COVID.

> I thought the general theory of "virus evolution" was towards less severe variants.

That's probably only in the case where the disease is so severe it kills the host before it can spread very easily, not some general rule.

Let's say you have a virus that's super contagious for two weeks with no symptoms and nearly everyone who gets it dies within a month. What evolutionary pressure would it be under to change as long as it has fresh hosts to infect?

Re: On Covid

#36

Post by afavour »

refurb wrote: post #29
eli wrote: post #9

Thousands of Americans are losing their lives every day to Covid. New cases are MUCH higher than they were at any point in 2020 or 2021 (though it looks like we may finally have crossed the peak of this wave). I'm sorry, but it isn't over yet. I wish it was. However wishing it or asserting it doesn't make it true. This was a sensible argument to make in July 2021 when vaccines were more effective and cases were liter…

Thousands of people die everyday during bad flu epidemics like 2018 when 80,000 Americans died over a ~6 month flu season. We didn’t keep kids from school, we didn’t panic when hospitals were overwhelmed, we didn’t shut down businesses.

> when 80,000 Americans died over a ~6 month flu season

Where are you getting that number? CDC estimates 27k:

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/2018-2019.html

which puts it below current COVID numbers by a big chunk.

> We didn’t keep kids from school

At this point schools are largely closed because there are too many teachers out sick to teach effectively. There isn't a particularly simple answer here.

Re: On Covid

#37

Post by gz5 »

>Covid was terrible, we are scarred from it, but we cannot let it divide us and we cannot let it drive us crazy. There are more important things facing us and let’s go deal with them now.

C-19 is still very fresh in our minds. Let's use that to drive action to learn from it and try to ensure the next one is less catastrophic. If we turn our attention away too quickly, this won't happen.

Even as we speak, we have school districts in the US closed indefinitely* and many nations around the world without testing, vaccines, antivirals or proper healthcare. The future may be here (let's hope that this is the beginning of the end while being healthfully paranoid that it may not be), but it is definitely not evenly distributed.

* https://detroit.cbslocal.com/2022/01/21/flint-public-schools...

Re: On Covid

#38

Post by bairrd »

refurb wrote: post #29
eli wrote: post #9

Thousands of Americans are losing their lives every day to Covid. New cases are MUCH higher than they were at any point in 2020 or 2021 (though it looks like we may finally have crossed the peak of this wave). I'm sorry, but it isn't over yet. I wish it was. However wishing it or asserting it doesn't make it true. This was a sensible argument to make in July 2021 when vaccines were more effective and cases were liter…

Thousands of people die everyday during bad flu epidemics like 2018 when 80,000 Americans died over a ~6 month flu season. We didn’t keep kids from school, we didn’t panic when hospitals were overwhelmed, we didn’t shut down businesses.

Flu season doesn't lead to insanely high excess death rates, and overwhelm hospital capacity, making things like biking now a much higher risk activity as any visit to a hospital due to a broken bone or something is far more likely to result in a lack of proper treatment. That we are in 2022 and still discussing this leads me to, very grimly, believe that we are in some period of hyper-darwinism, where this train of thought will only go away once the virus has incapacitated/killed those who seem to not understand what the word "excess deaths" means.

Re: On Covid

#39

Post by dchuk »

refurb wrote: post #29
eli wrote: post #9

Thousands of Americans are losing their lives every day to Covid. New cases are MUCH higher than they were at any point in 2020 or 2021 (though it looks like we may finally have crossed the peak of this wave). I'm sorry, but it isn't over yet. I wish it was. However wishing it or asserting it doesn't make it true. This was a sensible argument to make in July 2021 when vaccines were more effective and cases were liter…

Thousands of people die everyday during bad flu epidemics like 2018 when 80,000 Americans died over a ~6 month flu season. We didn’t keep kids from school, we didn’t panic when hospitals were overwhelmed, we didn’t shut down businesses.

That many people are dying a month right now. It’s nearly an order of magnitude different situation.

Re: On Covid

#40

Post by giraffe_lady »

refurb wrote: post #29
eli wrote: post #9

Thousands of Americans are losing their lives every day to Covid. New cases are MUCH higher than they were at any point in 2020 or 2021 (though it looks like we may finally have crossed the peak of this wave). I'm sorry, but it isn't over yet. I wish it was. However wishing it or asserting it doesn't make it true. This was a sensible argument to make in July 2021 when vaccines were more effective and cases were liter…

Thousands of people die everyday during bad flu epidemics like 2018 when 80,000 Americans died over a ~6 month flu season. We didn’t keep kids from school, we didn’t panic when hospitals were overwhelmed, we didn’t shut down businesses.

maybe we should have
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