The Coronavirus Is Here Forever • Hacker News Board

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#471

Post by titzer » Mon, Aug 23, 2021, 6:00 PM UTC

adrr wrote: post #310

h3cate wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unpopular opinion but as countries get majority vaccinated they have to learn to not be as scared of it.

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…

> It boggles my mind why there is pushback on mandating kids to wear masks in schools.

It doesn't really boggle my mind, it's just that the conclusions it suggests about fellow Americans are really hard to swallow. There is a lot of political polarization in the US and cranking through the implications and reasons for ostensibly pro-COVID policies and attitudes is really disheartening. It's a schism that isn't healed easily.

If anything, an impersonal virus, an implacable, impossible-to-anthropomorphize, zero-upside health hazard could have easily been something for the entire world to unite against. Instead, we got more and deeper division and louder and more extreme and more destructive arguments. And we lost a lot of people and maimed even more. And the reason that couldn't happen: Money. The economy. Me. Freedumbs!

COVID exposed people's real priorities and objectives and showed how craven and myopic our political leaders really are.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#472

Post by wonderwonder » Mon, Aug 23, 2021, 6:00 PM UTC

ethbr0 wrote: post #275

colmvp wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not scared of Covid-19, I'm mostly concerned that as the numbers continue to rise and the hospitals/ICUs around me get more Covid-19 cases, it'll force the government to have to issue harsher measures to prevent the system from bursting at the seams because hospitals don't have limitless resources. People who don't want strict measures can't hand-wave that potential reality away.

At some point prior to saturation, hospitals and the public deserve to have unvaccinated COVID-19 patients (without a medical reason) turned away. We can do one of two things as communities: (1) Mandate vaccination for everyone, and provide everyone care (2) Allow everyone the freedom to remain unvaccinated, and limit care There's no other "normal" world where a highly communicable disease that causes a sufficient nu…

No. Everyone deserves medical care, even if you and I consider the decisions that led to that care to be illogical. You are proposing a slippery slope. Currently you could say that we should turn the unvaccinated away but why not the obese? If someone is obese, generally it is a personal choice much like the unvaccinated. What about homosexuals that contract AIDS. I am all for vaccines and I even support businesses requiring their employees be vaccinated. But I am very much not for beginning to play the game where your lifestyle choices determine if we provide treatment. Everyone deserves to be treated to the best of the hospitals ability.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#473

Post by techbio » Mon, Aug 23, 2021, 6:01 PM UTC

eli wrote: post #443

rayiner wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It boggles my mind why there is pushback on mandating kids to wear masks in schools. It really shouldn’t if you’re an educated person who is following what scientific authorities are saying. The science here is still uncertain, but leaning towards masks for kids in schools not being worth it. See: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/08/the-science-of-maski... > At the end of May, the Centers for Disease Control an…

Yes, scientific uncertainty is a thing. It would be great if we instantly had tons of studies and replications showing exactly how effective different measures are, but that is just not how it works. I can cite many models that show masking works, if you're curious. This same line of argument was used to question climate change for decades and to support the argument that we should not take any aggressive measures to…

Serious illness, bad as it is, is a lot more predictable than fear/security driven social engineering, and when cover-your-smile is rolled into cover your cough, I'd expect unintended consequences, socially, developmentally. You must realize there are other problems than COVID, and some are much more important. Your Pascal's Wager about masks is a bit revealing vis-a-vis any certainty about the evidence.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#474

Post by crateless » Mon, Aug 23, 2021, 6:02 PM UTC

eli wrote: post #443

rayiner wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It boggles my mind why there is pushback on mandating kids to wear masks in schools. It really shouldn’t if you’re an educated person who is following what scientific authorities are saying. The science here is still uncertain, but leaning towards masks for kids in schools not being worth it. See: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/08/the-science-of-maski... > At the end of May, the Centers for Disease Control an…

Yes, scientific uncertainty is a thing. It would be great if we instantly had tons of studies and replications showing exactly how effective different measures are, but that is just not how it works. I can cite many models that show masking works, if you're curious. This same line of argument was used to question climate change for decades and to support the argument that we should not take any aggressive measures to…

I am reminded of Slavoj Zizek's story about Niels Bohr having a horseshoe above his door:[0]

"surprised at seeing a horseshoe above the door of Bohr's country house, the fellow scientist visiting him exclaimed that he did not share the superstitious belief regarding horseshoes keeping evil spirits out of the house, to which Bohr snapped back: "I don't believe in it either. I have it there because I was told that it works even when one doesn't believe in it at all." This is indeed how ideology functions today: nobody takes democracy or justice seriously, we are all aware of their corrupted nature, but we participate in them, we display our belief in them."[1]

[0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8859145

[1] - http://brooklynbooktalk.blogspot.com/2010/02/its-ideology-st...

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#475

Post by sintaxi » Mon, Aug 23, 2021, 6:03 PM UTC

s5300 wrote: post #296

josephcsible wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're saying society should keep wearing masks everywhere literally forever? That's so insane I can't tell whether you're even serious.

Ahh, I too remember when escalators instead of stairs were seen as so insane that the public couldn't tell whether the mall owners were serious...

Interesting. Were you required to strap an escalator to your face?

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#476

Post by dang » Mon, Aug 23, 2021, 6:03 PM UTC

To read all the 15000+ comments in this thread you need to click More at the bottom or on links like this:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28274819&p=2

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28274819&p=3

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28274819&p=4

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28274819&p=5

(Comments like this will eventually go away. Sorry for the annoyance. The server is hurting today.)

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#477

Post by adambard » Mon, Aug 23, 2021, 6:04 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #372

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…

> It boggles my mind why there is pushback on mandating kids to wear masks in schools. It really shouldn’t if you’re an educated person who is following what scientific authorities are saying. The science here is still uncertain, but leaning towards masks for kids in schools not being worth it. See: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/08/the-science-of-maski... > At the end of May, the Centers for Disease Control an…

There's an intuitive model that makes some sense of this finding: Masks, air filters, and distancing are effective at preventing transmission by reducing -- not eliminating -- viral load. What suffices to prevent infection from a 15-second encounter with a stranger in line at the supermarket, may not be enough when kids are in the same room breathing the same air 6 hours of every day.

We now know what it takes to protect a person from COVID in an environment where they are likely to be exposed to significant virus concentrations; unfortunately, getting kids to scrub up like COVID ward nurses is probably not realistic.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#478

Post by alex_c » Mon, Aug 23, 2021, 6:05 PM UTC

MichaelZuo wrote: post #210

mr_overalls wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how does covid transmit It seems likely that they were drinking sewage-contaminated water. Ingestion of contaminated water is the source of a staggering variety of illnesses for both humans and animals. Souce: I work in environmental monitoring.

Which towns in Canada are dumping untreated sewage into the water? As far as I'm aware every province has an environmental ministry that doesn't grant exemptions from sewage treatment. So if it's still ongoing...

Most towns do, occasionally - overflows happen. Article is from 2018 but I assume nothing has radically changed since then.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ont-enviro-report-1.4...

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#479

Post by stetrain » Mon, Aug 23, 2021, 6:06 PM UTC

GeekyBear wrote: post #407

Aeolun wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they’re spending the whole day in a classroom together the effect of masks is going to be minimal.

Here's one of the scientists on President Biden's Covid advisory council being interviewed on PBS. TLDR: To get the sort of protection people imagine that cloth masks provide, you would need to be wearing an n95 mask, tightly fitted to your face so no air leaks in through the sides. https://www.pbs.org/wnet/amanpour-and-company/video/do-masks...

But what's the actual effectiveness of most people wearing their normal cloth masks?

It doesn't have to personally protect you at high effectiveness from getting infected to reduce spread at a population level.

Even a 50% reduction in spread is huge in a population. Maybe we aren't getting that with masks, but it's not a binary "you are protected"/"you are not protected" problem.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#480

Post by majkinetor » Mon, Aug 23, 2021, 6:06 PM UTC

da_chicken wrote: post #303

anonymouse008 wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the only people that need to be scared of it are the unvaccinated We often overlook those who were previously infected. I believe this is a common mistake that makes for inaccurate groupings, which negatively affect the common good.

Previous infection provides relatively short-lived natural immunity to COVID-19. I tested positive the last week of December 2020 (exactly three weeks before I was scheduled to get the vaccine, which I did also eventually get). When I spoke to the county health department, they said they had already seen repeat infections. They said immune protection from direct exposure only seems to last 3-6 months, which is backed…

> Vaccine protection is much more robust.

This is insane. No vaccine works better then natural protection from real stuff - simply because its less stressful to the body and more stress equals better immunity.

I have nothing against vaccines in general but this is nothing but pharma propaganda.