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The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

theatlantic.com

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Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#481

Post by dom96 »

zarzavat wrote: post #358
ajross wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternatively: the unvaccinated are simply mistaken, and represent people's cousins and friends and children and grandparents, and their suffering and death would represent real loss and tragedy even to people who did everything right and got their shots. The desire to see this pandemic solely in terms of an individual moral play (on all sides of the debate!) is really strong on this website, and I think it's very un…

Your compassion is noble but the reality is that few share it. Very few vaccinated people are willing to accept restrictions on their liberty to help protect people who are unvaccinated by choice. Besides, the virus is not standing still. It is responding to selective pressure by becoming ever more transmissible. The more we try to control the virus by social distancing, the more the virus responds by becoming easier…

> Your compassion is noble but the reality is that few share it. Very few vaccinated people are willing to accept restrictions on their liberty to help protect people who are unvaccinated by choice.

It's not about protecting those that are unvaccinated by choice. It's also about protecting those that cannot get vaccines for whatever reason and also to stop breakthrough infections.

Also the majority of UK residents at least are still wearing masks[1] so I think at least that's some evidence that people do share this compassion.

1 - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/20/uk-still-weari...

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#482

Post by resource0x »

I have an idea: can someone write a script to compare current covid cases among countries as a function of vaccination rates. Same for deaths/1 miliion population. I don't have skills for that, but this is HN after all, so there should be someone... (One of the parameters should be a timeline of vaccinations - vaccines tend to wane over time, we have a chance to figure out to what extent).

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#483

Post by thephyber »

heywherelogingo wrote: post #417
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.

Is there any point spending the day in the classroom with reduced oxygen to the brain?

Do you have any evidence to support your assertion that a cloth or N95 style mask reduces oxygen to the brain by any measurable amount?

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#484

Post by op00to »

JeremyNT wrote: post #415
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…

Notable is that the article is referring to a pre-delta study of elementary aged school children (elementary school normally caps out at around age 11 in the US). Young kids have long been known to be less prone to infection, less prone to suffering ill effects from infection, and less prone to spread the disease. Delta doesn't really change much of that, they are not the primary victims nor spreaders. It's the older…

Delta actually changes that.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article...

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#485

Post by traek »

hackersword wrote: post #469
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…

Have you looked at the actual report and not the anti-vax site summation of the report? >. The 21% lower incidence in schools that required mask use among students was not statistically significant compared with schools where mask use was optional. I'm not sure how 21% lower is considered "not statistically significant", in trying to suppress the spread, ANYTHING > 0% is helpful. Full stop. Other stand out qualifiers…

> I'm not sure how 21% lower is considered "not statistically significant", in trying to suppress the spread, ANYTHING > 0% is helpful. Full stop.

Statistical significance has a specific meaning in the context of hypothesis testing. It is a measure of likelihood that the observed result occurred due to a real difference between groups (rather than random chance).

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#486

Post by op00to »

simonw wrote: post #458
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…

How is "the science here is still uncertain" an argument against masks in schools? If it turns out they are useful, wearing them will have been a good idea. If it turns out that they weren't useful, what harm has been caused? (I'm aware that there are people out there who think wearing masks for a year or two will scar children for life, but for the most part I don't think those people are arguing in good faith. The…

Muh freedoms is why there are still people fighting masks.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#487

Post by AndrewDucker »

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?

To slow the spread so that hospitals are not overwhelmed. You can be up for letting it spread through everyone, but not think that letting everyone catch it at once is sensible.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#488

Post by op00to »

spookthesunset wrote: post #462
2trill2spill wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you want country wide restrictions solely for your own comfort? Sounds incredibly selfish.

That is exactly what people are asking for and it is super selfish. Asking everybody to hunker down to assuage people who continue to be afraid. Sorry. Life is short. I’ve sacrificed 1.6 years of it for something I’ve never been afraid of. I’ve played by all the rules, but enough is enough. It is super selfish to insist we continue to live this way. We aren’t living, we are being kept alive… life was meant to be live…

Wow you’re so tough and edgy. You must have very thick chest hair or whatever you’re trying to compensate for with this rediculous machismo.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#489

Post by beloch »

"The transition to endemic COVID-19 is also a psychological one. When everyone has some immunity, a COVID-19 diagnosis becomes as routine as diagnosis of strep or flu—not good news, but not a reason for particular fear or worry or embarrassment either. That means unlearning a year of messaging that said COVID-19 was not just a flu. If the confusion around the CDC dropping mask recommendations for the vaccinated earlier this summer is any indication, this transition to endemicity might be psychologically rocky."

Diseases that are endemic today, such as chicken pox, once caused epidemics with massive body counts, notably in North America. No vaccines, no advanced medical care, and no natural immunity meant that some villages just ceased to exist.

Today, thanks to air travel, the world is a village. Wuhan is exposed one week, and the world the next. We, the natives of that village, have vaccines and advanced medical care in finite quantities, plus a better understanding of how to reduce transmission rates. That's gone a long way to soften the blow. The transition from pandemic to endemic usually kills a lot more people in a given area, and the area effected right now is everywhere.

The thing is, COVID-19 is not endemic yet and, even once it is, will likely retain the capability of mutating into a strain that causes a new deadly pandemic. Flu is endemic, but another 1918 could happen at any time. Until we've built up immunity to several different strains of COVID-19, every new strain has the potential to overwhelm our medical systems, and a unusually contagious and deadly mutant will always be a possibility.

It's not as simple as flipping a switch from "life threatening pandemic" to "quotidian endemic". There are shades of grey in between that cause varying strain on hospital ICU's, and the transition isn't one-way.

Our village will be hit far less hard if we behave intelligently about disease prevention. Turning vaccines into a political wedge issue is one of the stupidest things I've seen in my life.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#490

Post by hncurious »

001spartan wrote: post #145
qwerty456127 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm almost sure 100% vaccination rate with the vaccines currently available won't change much. I hope I'm wrong. But there already are cases apparently confirming this. IMHO we should just return to normal, consider this a new kind of flu and deal with the fact it's more deadly. I always knew there is a chance a flu can kill me one day. I'm Ok with the fact the chance is higher now. My personal (apparently risky, I d…

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 does sound like they are on the verge of collapse...

"Tallia says his hospital is 'managing, but just barely,' at keeping up with the increased number of sick patients in the last three weeks. The hospital’s urgent-care centers have also been inundated, and its outpatient clinics have no appointments available.”

"Dr. Bernard Camins, associate professor of infectious diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, says that UAB Hospital cancelled elective surgeries scheduled for Thursday and Friday of last week to make more beds available"

“We had to treat patients in places where we normally wouldn’t, like in recovery rooms,” says Camins. “The emergency room was very crowded, both with sick patients who needed to be admitted”

"In CA… several hospitals have set up large 'surge tents' outside their emergency departments to accommodate and treat … patients. Even then, the LA Times reported this week, emergency departments had standing-room only, and some patients had to be treated in hallways.”

“Hospitals across the state are sending away ambulances, flying in nurses from out of state and not letting children visit their loved ones for fear they’ll spread… Others are canceling surgeries and erecting tents in their parking lots to triage the hordes of… patients.”

“We’ve never had so many patients,” said Adrian Cotton, chief of medical operations at Loma Linda University Health in San Bernardino County.”

...but then again, maybe not. These are all quotes from 2018, flu season.

https://twitter.com/justin_hart/status/1422243808536715265

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