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On Covid

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Re: On Covid

#61

Post by ryandrake »

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. COVID has made very clear humanity’s amazing ability to play make-believe, making failed attempt after failed attempt to get “back to normal”. We have this idea that “life as it was in November 2019” is the One True Normal, and we must keep trying to return to this Normal lifestyle, despite that pesky, stubborn reality.

Every time restrictions relax, and we rush back to capital-N Normal, cases rise, deaths rise, hospitals fill up, and it’s nothing but “Surprised Pikachu” faces from politicians! We keep not learning, over and over.

I don’t know what it’s going to take to snap us out of this trance and accept lifestyle changes. A “9/11 quantity of deaths” every 3 days is apparently not enough.

Re: On Covid

#62

Post by unyttigfjelltol »

eli wrote: post #19
tomp wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not really. The virus, lacking feelings, doesn't particularly care how sick you get. https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/dec/08/facebook-p...

In declaring the statement 'false', the Facebook fact checker confirmed there is a longstanding scientific theory it is true and provided confusing would-be counter-examples of variants of viruses exhibiting treatment resistance and cross-species leaps. Omicron demonstrated that treatment resistance is really incidental to severity, and COVID already is a problem for humans -- the question clearly was not asked by a pigeon or monkey for whom cross-species leaps of a human virus could be problematic. The would be fact check was not especially illuminating.

I personally credit the prediction attributed to Luc Montagnier back in 2020 that because COVID exhibited unnatural characteristics that exacerbated the severity of illness, he predicted that over time the characteristics would evolve out of the virus and result in a more benign illness. This is a reason why it would have been useful to have a scientific debate over the lab leak theory, because the origin of the virus informs our best guess of the path it may take in the future, which has so far confirmed to this prediction.

Re: On Covid

#63

Post by standardsam »

afavour wrote: post #26
standardsam wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

The broad logic is more infections = more variants. Which makes sense in a purely statistical way, since variants are happened upon by chance on infection.

It seems the messaging from the experts is different in the US and the UK. The message in the UK broadly is: expect to be infected with COVID multiple times throughout your life, vaccination and prior infection should protect you from serious illness.

Re: On Covid

#64

Post by mistercheph »

eli wrote: post #19
tomp wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not really. The virus, lacking feelings, doesn't particularly care how sick you get. https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/dec/08/facebook-p...

Woah, this politifact.com fact check sorted that out. I had gotten really confused into thinking the virus did have feelings.

Thank you politifact.com political fact check fact check for checking that.

Re: On Covid

#65

Post by eli »

unyttigfjelltol wrote: post #62
eli wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. The virus, lacking feelings, doesn't particularly care how sick you get. https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/dec/08/facebook-p...

In declaring the statement 'false', the Facebook fact checker confirmed there is a longstanding scientific theory it is true and provided confusing would-be counter-examples of variants of viruses exhibiting treatment resistance and cross-species leaps. Omicron demonstrated that treatment resistance is really incidental to severity, and COVID already is a problem for humans -- the question clearly was not asked by a…

If you have an article or paper explaining how viruses evolve to be less severe, I'd be interested in reading it.

Re: On Covid

#66

Post by eli »

mistercheph wrote: post #64
eli wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. The virus, lacking feelings, doesn't particularly care how sick you get. https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/dec/08/facebook-p...

Woah, this politifact.com fact check sorted that out. I had gotten really confused into thinking the virus did have feelings. Thank you politifact.com political fact check fact check for checking that.

Apologies, the snark is mine not theirs. My point was that the evolutionary pressure on viruses doesn't necessarily make them less serious and there are counterexamples to support that.

Re: On Covid

#67

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: On Covid

#68

Post by NicoJuicy »

eli wrote: post #33
NicoJuicy wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

First of all. Not thousands, but 571 as i checked on a population of 320.000.000 in the US and with a reasonable amount of people unvaccinated ( and they chose for this, other people aren't responsible for other people's decisions)

And as mentioned in my above comment.

Can you show me how many are dying because of Omicron specific and how many are related to previous Delta infection that were already admitted in the hospital?

I'm not saying people aren't dying. Lockdowns aren't in place for the flu and that has also 52 k. deaths per year ( = 145 per year) and is much less contagious as Omicron. Also, Delta is not gone yet.

You have to compare numbers with reality. Otherwise I can ask you at how many deaths per year you would reduce restrictions or at what death/severity rate.

0 is definitely impossible as some people will remain unvaccinated. You could have the same argument that 10 people are dying per year...

PS. Compare it with December 2020/January 2021 which would be comparable with visiting family/friends multiple times. We aren't anywhere near that peak with *7 infections.

Re: On Covid

#69

Post by mistercheph »

kevingadd wrote: post #24
the_snooze wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have the technology to make COVID just a nuisance to broad swaths of the population. Let them live their lives. Now is absolutely the time to quit the tut-tutting. I don't understand why people are so against taking an easy W like this.

Immunocompromised people are allowed to tut-tut until they can actually go outside without significant risk of death.

Personally, I would lock my children in a cellar for 15 years if that's what it took to protect those who have compromised immune systems. Talk about not being able to defend yourself!

Re: On Covid

#70

Post by rob_c »

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.

no, this can't be backed up, not even with models which post-hoc 'describe' other outbreaks of other diseases/virii outbreaks
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