311–320 of 821 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder if bed bug infestations also declined with less travel.
The seedy airbnbs by the drinking areas have been making money hand over fist this pandemic among the "refuse to subscribe to reality" crowd, which has been empowered over the last few years.
I was just commenting to a co-worker my entire family hasn't been sick since the pandemic started. That is very unusual for a family with young children. No flu, no stomach viruses, absolutely nothing for more than a year now. Thankfully no covid-19 either.
Stomach viruses. Where in the world are you? No, seriously - where? Because here in the United States people don't wash their hands before eating. It's fucking gross. I always sanitize my hands with alcohol pads before eating out - ALWAYS. But the others grab subway poles, handles, those nasty menus, and THEN they grab that sandwich with the same hands . If anything should come out of this pandemic, it should be Amer…
I was just commenting to a co-worker my entire family hasn't been sick since the pandemic started. That is very unusual for a family with young children. No flu, no stomach viruses, absolutely nothing for more than a year now. Thankfully no covid-19 either.
Stomach viruses. Where in the world are you? No, seriously - where? Because here in the United States people don't wash their hands before eating. It's fucking gross. I always sanitize my hands with alcohol pads before eating out - ALWAYS. But the others grab subway poles, handles, those nasty menus, and THEN they grab that sandwich with the same hands . If anything should come out of this pandemic, it should be Amer…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> This should not come as a surprise, and it was largely predictable from the outset....the flu has a base reproduction number (R0) less than 2....Covid has an R0 in the vicinity of 2.5....In the meantime, public health measures like masking and distancing will work against both viruses....there's really no need for conspiracy theorizing. Assuming that this is due to "masking and distancing" and the small difference…
2 was published in Feb 2020, so not sure how helpful that is... 1 is not normalized data. It does not account for testing frequency. These percentages are of tests using BioFire. My hospital, for example, does not use BioFire to test for SARS-CoV-2 and so we end up running BioFire much, much less frequently than during a normal year. Anecdotally non-COVID respiratory infections in hospitalized patients have decreased…
When [2] speaks about SARS-CoV, it's referring to the earlier SARS-1, not SARS-2-aka-covid-19.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> This should not come as a surprise, and it was largely predictable from the outset....the flu has a base reproduction number (R0) less than 2....Covid has an R0 in the vicinity of 2.5....In the meantime, public health measures like masking and distancing will work against both viruses....there's really no need for conspiracy theorizing. Assuming that this is due to "masking and distancing" and the small difference…
> and the small difference in R0 is crude thinking. Given the reproduction number appears as the base of an exponent, I would not consider the difference "small." If influenza has a typical R0 of about 2, reducing contacts by 50% would make its growth non-exponential. If covid has a typical R0 of about 2.5, doing the same would require a further 20% reduction of contacts, to 40% of baseline rather than 50%. Since pop…
The difference in measurement is small, relative to the error in measurement.
Look at the error bars on the R0 estimates in that paper. Influenza runs from 1.06 to 3.4. You are trying to make micrometer inferences from a parameter where our best estimates are measured in libraries of congress.
If I remember correctly, Prof. Drosten speculated about a heavy cold and flu season coming winter because we basically skipped one season. Remains to be seen I guess, but this prognosis resonated with me.
What factors would cause skipping a season to result in more flu the following season?
I was just commenting to a co-worker my entire family hasn't been sick since the pandemic started. That is very unusual for a family with young children. No flu, no stomach viruses, absolutely nothing for more than a year now. Thankfully no covid-19 either.
Stomach viruses. Where in the world are you? No, seriously - where? Because here in the United States people don't wash their hands before eating. It's fucking gross. I always sanitize my hands with alcohol pads before eating out - ALWAYS. But the others grab subway poles, handles, those nasty menus, and THEN they grab that sandwich with the same hands . If anything should come out of this pandemic, it should be Amer…
My SO has a very strong emetophobia and she is very, very clear to not touch any food without having washed her hands very good. Even at home. I learned a lot from her and have not been sick for ages. I also don't eat out in flu season. I just don't. I worked in gastronomy during my time at university. I know why I (at least in flu season) just don't eat out. as long as people need to earn money and don't get sick pay, people go to work when sick. At least I did during financially desparate times. So I don't blame the people doing it at all - I just don't buy food from them.
I was just commenting to a co-worker my entire family hasn't been sick since the pandemic started. That is very unusual for a family with young children. No flu, no stomach viruses, absolutely nothing for more than a year now. Thankfully no covid-19 either.
This year was a great experiment in person hygiene. It was the healthiest I have ever been for a full year, no colds, stomach bugs, anything. I'm not sure which practices I'll continue, but its definitely shown me that I have wayyyy more control over my health than I previously thought. Curious what others think are the most effective continued practices. Seems like social distancing isn't super reasonable, but maybe…
1) Almost never eat out. Home cooked meals that I've prepped / washed. This was single handedly the biggest factor that completely removed "getting sick" from my life.
2) Hand wash before touching face, or food.
3) Avoid sick people. If I hear someone coughing or sneezing, I move away from them. Call me a germ freak, I don't care, I've had 0 sick days in 6+ years since I started taking these simple precautions.
You don't even need to social distance... just avoid people if they're sick. SOME of this is impossible (on an air plane for example). Turns out, I very rarely travel so have likely just gotten lucky avoiding the dip shits that fly while sick.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Find a more credible source. https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-stanford-masks/fac... The author lied about his affiliation with Stanford, and the paper was retracted. > Jonathan Davis, a spokesperson for Elsevier, told Reuters via email that Medical Hypotheses has since retracted the article after concluding it was misleading due to “a broader review of existing scientific evidence” showing that masks “are an…
I didn't know the article was retracted. Are there credible papers confirming that masks do help? Edit: also, quoting Reuters is fine. However, quoting Forbes is not. Forbes is a trash publication, getting published there costs a few hundred bucks.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15325026/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18434036/
Studies demonstrating mask efficacy are just as easily Googleable.
You might not want to be throwing around "trash publication" slams here, given your cite.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If a more infectious variant surfaced, it might spread. But a lower absolute prevalence of flu (because of masks, social distancing, and lockdowns) means that low probability events - like a more virulent strain emerging - are less likely, and might not occur at all. Contrariwise this (beside basic humanity) is why the current out of control situation in India or Brazil is everyone's problem. High absolute prevalence…
Diseases have no trouble spreading through ordinary intimate social interactions with friends and family. In fact, you're far more likely to get sick from someone you are close to and spend hours with than someone you just pass by in a retail store. Lockdowns and mask policy are not neatly correlated with lower infection rates or death counts. Simple counterfactual example is Florida vs. California. Same results, vas…