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The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

theatlantic.com

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Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#331

Post by rabboRubble »

hcurtiss wrote: post #156
001spartan wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Returning to normal is a terrible idea when COVID patients are overwhelming hospitals across the world. How can things be normal if our healthcare systems are nearing collapse? You might be willing to accept the risk of getting sick on your behalf, but by advocating a return to 'normal' before we have the capabilities to deal with this virus, you are advocating for putting even more stress on healthcare systems acros…

It seems one option is to increase hospital capacity. There should be ways to do this without needing more RNs and MDs.

duuuuuuuuude do you have any idea how labor intensive care for ICU patients is? ICU patients can't move. Requires staff to turn them so they don't get bed sores and to prone them stomach down for lung function.

If the ICU patient can't breathe on a vent and are able to secure ECMO, the ECMO specialist ratio is ideally 1:1. Under a crush of patients maybe 1:2 patients. A 1:3 ratio is risking all the patients under that specialist's care because the patients are all too tenuous. Let me reiterate and restate: 3 ECMO patients are too much for a single ES to support.

The ECMO specialist isn't the only person caring for the patient. There is the ICU nursing staff, the pulmonary therapist, plus the actual pulmonary doctors, the renal doctors, plus plus plus. You are talking decades if not a hundred+ years of study just to take care of a single ICU patient.

Labor and not beds is the bottleneck.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#332

Post by erhk »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #231
dahfizz wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How does covid transmit to wild animals like deer that have almost no interactions with humans ? I've been within a few feet of wild deer plenty of times in my life. Humans have a lot more interaction with wild animals than you would think once you move outside of urban areas.

There's literally a market in Brian Head Utah where a bull moose hangs out on the front porch most of the day. I'm sure there are plenty of "wild" animals with petting-zoo-like relationships with random people. This can't be the only one.

That sounds like an exciting video once it gets realized

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#333

Post by staticassertion »

ekianjo wrote: post #232
staticassertion wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK seems to have a 62% full vaccination rate with 71% having at least one dose[0]. That sounds really low to me. "Close to full vaccination" to me would imply close to 100% or, reading "full" as "reaching herd immunity" I'd think 70-80% fully vaccinated - still a very long way to go. I hear you that we will eventually reach a point where we've hit the new normal. It's just going to be whether that point is reache…

> That sounds really low to me. Low compared to what? Do you know the vaccinations rates for all other diseases for which we have vaccines for?

Low compared to my third fucking sentence jesus christ.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#334

Post by tootie »

PartiallyTyped wrote: post #167
rossdavidh wrote: post #36

Good article, but doesn't mention the other reason that covid-19 is never going completely away: animal reservoirs. We know that dogs, cats, hamsters, guinea pigs, mink, white-tailed deer, a gorilla, and a tiger have been found to have been infected with covid-19. It is implausible that it will ever cease to have an animal reservoir, especially given the finding in Canada of 30% of white-tailed deer having it. Of dis…

How does covid transmit to wild animals like deer that have almost no interactions with humans ? The transmission chain must be very long. I'd appreciate any links or resources to read more. Perhaps we can learn to be more mindful of our interactions with other animals, wear masks in public spaces or public transport, and hopefully WFH becomes a permanent option. It seems that I stepped on many nerves, please, feel f…

Per CDC, "three out of every four new infectious diseases come from animals"

https://gothamist.com/news/germs-spill-from-animals-to-human...

Think about it like online ads. Even though you've never clicked on one and don't know anyone who clicks on them, the market is worth hundreds of billions. There are so many novel pathogens floating around the world that if humans are exposed to 0.01% of them we'll still see regular epidemics and occasional pandemics.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#335

Post by guscost »

erhk wrote: post #317
guscost wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, you're gonna leave us alone from now on. Also I'll decide for myself what to fear, thanks.

Great so did you decide to fear a vaccine or are you happily doing your civic duty for the sake of your countrymen.

The latter. I'm probably not at risk from either the virus or the shot.

Unfortunately you can't isolate a world-altering issue like this from its psychological and political context, so for me any respiratory-disease-related risk is secondary to the much bigger threat. "Live free or die" is not an empty slogan. I will be standing with the unvaxxed to the bitter end, although it probably won't go that far.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#336

Post by ceejayoz »

h3cate wrote: post #328
adrr wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People aren’t scared up. Concern is around ICU usage and that elective surgery in hot areas are put on hold which include critical cancer removal surgeries. Also we have a large group of unvaccinated group which are under kids under 12. With life going back to normal, the standard diseases are back like RSV, paraflu and others. Get two at the same time and it’s a emergency room visit. Get 3 at the same time and it’s…

Are there any studies into the effects of being infected by multiple of these viruses at the same time? Or is this just what your doctor has told you? Also what do kids under 12 have to do with any of this?

Studies will take time. That said:

https://www.npr.org/2021/08/14/1027663917/rsv-covid-children

> At Texas Children's Hospital in Houston on Thursday, 25 of 45 hospitalized pediatric patients were diagnosed with RSV as well as COVID-19. "A hospitalization rate much higher than for either virus alone," according to officials.

> At the moment there is little data available on the impact of contracting both viruses and whether the two together can make a person sicker. But health officials worry it could put young patients — who are not eligible for the vaccine — at greater risk.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#337

Post by smt88 »

guscost wrote: post #297
outside1234 wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's unpopular. More precisely, once the vaccine is available to all age groups, the only people that need to be scared of it are the unvaccinated. And they will have had every opportunity to get vaccinated, so we shouldn't optimize for them.

Yep, you're gonna leave us alone from now on. Also I'll decide for myself what to fear, thanks.

If you get Covid and are hospitalized, do you feel that your treatment should be paid for by others (meaning through your insurance or govt assistance)?

If so, doesn't that mean your decision affects others?

I hope that you would do the responsible thing and offer to pay your full medical bill in that scenario, in which case, disregard my question.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#338

Post by whoooooo123 »

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #100
cm2187 wrote: post #16

That's why I don't really understand why there are still covid restrictions in countries that are close to full vaccination, like the UK. There isn't really a next step after having vaccinated the population, it is "steady state". So do they want us to have these restrictions (countries you can't travel to, endless testing, mask requirements) forever?

> That's why I don't really understand why there are still covid restrictions in countries that are close to full vaccination, like the UK. There are almost no UK legal restrictions relating to covid. There are some rules about people returning from certain high risk countries. And unvaccinated people who test positive still have to self isolate. And that's about it. Many people (like myself) still wear masks in busy…

> many are choosing to forego foreign holidays this summer

"Choosing" is a strange way to put it when COVID testing and quarantine requirements have added hundreds (and in some cases thousands) of pounds to the cost of most foreign holidays and the rules are changing so frequently and suddenly that it's a big financial risk to book anything more than a few days in advance.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#339

Post by lamontcg »

nradov wrote: post #214
lamontcg wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they fall down in the playground they don't carry that injury home and kill one of their parents with it.

The CDC estimates that the survival rate for the 18-49 age bracket (which accounts for most parents of young children) is 99.94%. And that's since the start of the pandemic without vaccination. For vaccinated parents now the survival rate is virtually 100%. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burd...

Some 18-49 year old parents have cancer diagnosis that they're living with and are taking immune suppressants, or they're taking care of older family members.

You can't erect a solid barrier around that population demographic like they never come into contact with vulnerable sections of the population.

And enough people are being stupid about vaccinations that they're out there getting sick, and unfortunately if you just let them roll the dice while letting the virus rip through kids, it will find all the vulnerable people out there and overload the hospital system and affects everyone. Kids don't exist in a vacuum and the virus will happily hop through them to find every vulnerable adult it can.

Once again we find ourselves in a "flattening the curve" problem.

And you need to stop focusing on death rates. In terms of hospital resources, a patient who spends 2 weeks in the ICU and recovers is just as bad as one that spends 2 weeks in the ICU and dies. And per patient they're more resource intensive than other respiratory viruses.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#340

Post by dham »

SamBam wrote: post #45
cm2187 wrote: post #16

That's why I don't really understand why there are still covid restrictions in countries that are close to full vaccination, like the UK. There isn't really a next step after having vaccinated the population, it is "steady state". So do they want us to have these restrictions (countries you can't travel to, endless testing, mask requirements) forever?

Since no one under 16 has been vaccinated yet, about 70% of the population is vaccinated (44M out of 67M). That might be barely enough for herd immunity for some diseases, but the case numbers in the UK are still very high and trending back upward, showing that this isn't enough for herd immunity for Covid. Hospitalization rates are also back up to significantly higher than they were this time last year. And that's w…

The vaccine isn't a vaccine, it's a treatment. Cases are a poor indicator. It's time to go back to normal.
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