81–90 of 381 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The only thing we can learn from Manaus is that waiting for herd immunity is a very bad idea.
Yeah, we better destroy the economy with lockdowns while waiting for vaccines that don’t work against these new strains, and then pay the price for herd immunity as well.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Remember this is SARS-CoV-2. Where's the mutations and endless new strains of SARS-CoV-1? There aren't any, it was eliminated in humans. I think this is only because it was contained in China before it reached the world. They had an excellent pandemic response and quashed it before it reached other countries. This time around it had spread around the world before we even heard about it. It was completely predictable…
> I think this is only because it was contained in China before it reached the world Is this true? According to the CDC, there were SARS cases reported in Europe and the Americas prior to containment in China. Why was it different this time around?
I really want to see positive news, and the vaccination rollout (despite how uneven it is) is definitely positive. But the focus on herd immunity, if conflated with immunity after infection, is misleading: Look at what's happening in Manaus: https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n394 The news there are definitely sobering :( Unfortunately, the multiplication of strains of covid19 was inevitable, due to the decision of…
AFAICS this isn’t talked about enough! If lockdowns were taken seriously from the start, it would had prevented going wild and risking new strains. But here we are
A strategy that involves convincing every country, and every little province, to destroy their local economies, all at the same time. I can’t believe it didn’t work! Maybe if we just keep trying.
The author, Marty Makary, is a surgon. He does not have any expertise regarding viruses or epidemiology. He's completely ignoring all other reasons why infection might go down, the most important one being effective countermeasures, like wearing masks and social distancing. He's also ignoring that the case rates are stagnating due to the British variant. Germany is in that phase now. Cases of the British variant are…
Not in Britain.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The only thing we can learn from Manaus is that waiting for herd immunity is a very bad idea.
Yeah, we better destroy the economy with lockdowns while waiting for vaccines that don’t work against these new strains, and then pay the price for herd immunity as well.
What won’t work is attacking medical precautions or dissembling about vaccine effectiveness — and on that latter point, if you are really worried about variants the best way to stop them is carefully following medical advice to prevent community spread because each person who gets infected is something on the order of 10e9 chances for a new mutation which is more competitive. If people had worn masks and locked down a year ago this wouldn’t be anywhere near as bad a situation.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What I love about the news right now is that they've perfected the alchemy of turning every holiday into its own news cycle. Gatherings feared... Experts fear another spike . No proof at all that holiday -> virulence, of course. You should try turning off the news for a bit.
What we do have is proof that increased gatherings lead to increased transmission. We have, I think, a pretty reasonable assumption that holidays lead to increased gatherings. So, a cautious assumption until data shows it's not accurate that "holidays lead to increased transmission" seems to me to be warranted. Have you seen data that shows holidays don't lead to increased transmission?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
AFAICS this isn’t talked about enough! If lockdowns were taken seriously from the start, it would had prevented going wild and risking new strains. But here we are
Lockdowns were never going to work, and any strategy that relied on them was doomed to fail. A strategy that involves convincing every country, and every little province, to destroy their local economies, all at the same time. I can’t believe it didn’t work! Maybe if we just keep trying.