Coronavirus

[Mr._Clark]

For what it's worth, as far as I can tell, the CDC's website has consistently stated for quite some time that "If you have a fever, cough or other symptoms, you might have COVID-19. Most people have mild illness and are able to recover at home." (emphasis added).

Here's a snip from today:

COVID-19 and Your Health

Symptoms, testing, what to do if sick, daily activities, and more.

www.cdc.gov

Here's a snip from the Wayback Machine from 7/1/20:

Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a virus (more specifically, a coronavirus) identified as the cause of an outbreak of respiratory illness first detected in Wuhan, China.

web.archive.org

I picked July 1, 2020 in an effort to find a somewhat random day relatively early in the pandemic (it was the first and only day I checked on the Wayback Machine).

With regards to the CDC, I don't see a lot of "wear masks or you'll die" type stuff. It seems to me that some of the alleged fear-mongering I see is a bit of a straw man.

Personally, I view COVID as being somewhat like dog sh*t. Just because you're not afraid of it doesn't mean you want to eat it.

 

[Mr._Clark]

Unfortunately, we don't have Menards in the NorthEast. I had a stockpile of N95s I had from Home Depot for sanding work that I gave to the family.

I think you can order them from their website.

 

[Swerd]

Covid has made it into my home with my kid coming down with it even though vaccinated.

I hope your kid recovers easily and you & your family stays well.

My opinion is that we need to move on from 'emergency pandemic' to 'yearly endemic'. Covid is going to mutate and vaccines will need to adapt with it.

The novel coronavirus has been there all along. It's taken most of us a while to adjust our thinking from 'emergency pandemic' to 'yearly endemic'. As usual, there are some who cannot or will not adjust their thinking.

 

[Mr._Clark]

Covid has made it into my home with my kid coming down with it even though vaccinated.

My opinion is that we need to move on from 'emergency pandemic' to 'yearly endemic'. Covid is going to mutate and vaccines will need to adapt with it.

I've no other answer than human kind will simply just have to deal with it. That's the point I'm at now. Something will eventually kill me. On a long enough time line mortality is 100%.

Hopefully your kid recovers quickly.

Vaccines appear to be very effective in adolescents (I'm not sure if your kid is an adolescent, but I was curious what studies have shown so far)

>>>The vaccine effectiveness was 94% for the prevention of Covid-19 hospitalization and 98% for the prevention of both ICU admission and need for life support. These extremely encouraging data indicate that nearly all hospitalizations and deaths in this population could have been prevented by vaccination.<<<

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe2118471


More countries (e.g. Australia) seem to transitioning to more of a "let covid rip" approach. There are of course plenty of opinions about whether or not this is a good idea.

It seems to me the decision should at least consider the effect on a country's health care system.

>>>“This is like a crisis we’ve never seen before,” said Beth Mohle of the Queensland Nurses and Midwives Union. A view echoed by the Australian Medical Association’s Dr Maria Boulton: “We are in a crisis at the moment; the entire health care system is mobilising.”<<<

Too late now, but ‘let it rip’ might prove tricky for Scott Morrison come election time | Hugh Riminton

In hindsight, opening up like we did seems nuts. As experts point out, you can’t run a healthy economy without healthy people

www.theguardian.com

I'm not saying Australia made the "wrong" decision, just that there are potential upsides and downsides of some sort with regards to almost any policy concerning COVID.

 

[GO-NAD!]

Covid has made it into my home with my kid coming down with it even though vaccinated.

My opinion is that we need to move on from 'emergency pandemic' to 'yearly endemic'. Covid is going to mutate and vaccines will need to adapt with it.

I've no other answer than human kind will simply just have to deal with it. That's the point I'm at now. Something will eventually kill me. On a long enough time line mortality is 100%.

The novel coronavirus has been there all along. It's taken most of us a while to adjust our thinking from 'emergency pandemic' to 'yearly endemic'. As usual, there are some who cannot or will not adjust their thinking.

While I somewhat agree, as long as our health care systems are being taxed at the present degree, we simply cannot go back to business as usual. A gradual transition maybe, but we can't just let 'er rip.

 

[jinjuku]

While I somewhat agree, as long as our health care systems are being taxed at the present degree, we simply cannot go back to business as usual. A gradual transition maybe, but we can't just let 'er rip.

Do you think society, globally, is going to allow the restrictions that seem to get stood up and torn down on the whims of a virus, continue like this indefinitely?

I think with 7 billion plus people and the strain 7 billion plus people, the incursions into nature or mankind tinkering with a virus's genome for gain of function, we are increasingly looking at business as normal.

This is all climate change from one degree to another. Whatever we collectively make of our environment is always going to be our new normalcy. I think we should get used to it.

 

[highfigh]

Unfortunately, we don't have Menards in the NorthEast. I had a stockpile of N95s I had from Home Depot for sanding work that I gave to the family.

I just got mine at Menard's because I needed to go there anyway. Could have been Lowe's, HD, Ace, etc.

 

[Swerd]

While I somewhat agree, as long as our health care systems are being taxed at the present degree, we simply cannot go back to business as usual. A gradual transition maybe, but we can't just let 'er rip.

My earlier comment was not meant to endorse the idea of going back to business as usual. We cannot afford to ignore the threat and just let 'er rip.

The novel coronavirus has been there all along. It's taken most of us a while to adjust our thinking from 'emergency pandemic' to 'yearly endemic'. As usual, there are some who cannot or will not adjust their thinking.

What I did mean is that early on in 2020, when the pandemic first broke out, many of us mistakenly thought that emergency efforts such as social isolation and wearing masks might actually limit the viruses ability to spread. The novel coronavirus has surprised most of us in it's ability to rapidly spread and mutate. Other than epidemiologists who knew better, few were ready for the idea that the novel coronavirus was here to stay. Those early efforts may have helped, but we'll never really know for certain. It was all we could do until vaccines appeared a year later.

The last time that happened was in the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918-20 that, in four successive waves, infected an estimated ½ billion people, nearly a third of the world's population. Estimates of deaths range from 17-50 million, possibly as high as 100 million. No one alive today has any memory of what that must have been like. Coming late during WW1, it seems like many in the USA were happy to forget that both the war and pandemic happened.

 

[jinjuku]

My working theory:

If you tell all the guys that unless you mask, socially distance, vaccinate, your penis could fall off. You'd get everyone except those transitioning.

 

[Swerd]

My working theory:

If you tell all the guys that unless you mask, socially distance, vaccinate, your penis could fall off. You'd get everyone except those transitioning.

I have a neighbor from Texas who claims that making Texans wear masks or get vaccinated is as bad as forcing them to paint their black SUVs pink.

 

[GO-NAD!]

Do you think society, globally, is going to allow the restrictions that seem to get stood up and torn down on the whims of a virus, continue like this indefinitely?

I think with 7 billion plus people and the strain 7 billion plus people, the incursions into nature or mankind tinkering with a virus's genome for gain of function, we are increasingly looking at business as normal.

This is all climate change from one degree to another. Whatever we collectively make of our environment is always going to be our new normalcy. I think we should get used to it.

Oh, I don't expect that it will be an indefinite period of time. However, if we want functional health care systems, we have to do what it takes to keep them from imploding.

I'm thinking about the health care workers who have witnessed and suffered this pandemic to an extent that you or I can't possibly fathom. I'm also thinking about people whose surgeries are being put off because there is no hospital bed available, as they're all occupied by COVID patients.

I'm not suggesting we go back to Spring, 2020. But, we can't go back to Fall, 2019 either.

 

[jinjuku]

Oh, I don't expect that it will be an indefinite period of time. However, if we want functional health care systems, we have to do what it takes to keep them from imploding.

I'm thinking about the health care workers who have witnessed and suffered this pandemic to an extent that you or I can't possibly fathom. I'm also thinking about people whose surgeries are being put off because there is no hospital bed available, as they're all occupied by COVID patients.

I'm not suggesting we go back to Spring, 2020. But, we can't go back to Fall, 2019 either.

I agree. But I'm making the point of what is the global society going to consider the new normal. Maybe your scenario...

 

[GO-NAD!]

I agree. But I'm making the point of what is the global society going to consider the new normal. Maybe your scenario...

I don't think our new normal is going to look like the old normal for a quite a while. We can get close over the next few months, I expect.

I'm also looking at this from the perspective of living in a region that - until recently - did not experience COVID to the same extent as other parts of North America. During the third wave, last spring, the daily average of cases peaked at about 170 Nova Scotia (Pop: 1,000,000). During the lulls, we were getting single and low-double digit numbers.

During this Omicron wave, we peaked a week ago at a daily average of about 940 cases. It has been a massive shock to our collective mindset. The only saving grace, is that the number of hospital/ICU cases has not yet exceeded last spring's peak. That said, there is certainly a strain on our health care system that cannot be sustained indefinitely.

While we still have a number of restrictions, they aren't as onerous as they were at the beginning of the pandemic.

 

[Mr._Clark]

I agree. But I'm making the point of what is the global society going to consider the new normal. Maybe your scenario...

I don't know if this is a "new normal" approach, but there have been numerous news articles to the effect that various countries are considering changing from a crisis mode to a control mode (those the the AP's words, not the actual statements from the countries in question).

>>>The idea is to move from crisis mode to control mode, approaching the virus in much the same way countries deal with flu or measles. That means accepting that infections will occur and providing extra care for at-risk people and patients with complications.<<<

Europe considers new COVID-19 strategy: Accepting the virus

MADRID (AP) — When the coronavirus pandemic was first declared, Spaniards were ordered to stay home for more than three months.

apnews.com

I was struck by the number of new cases in Australia recently compared to their past numbers:

The deaths are also up but the numbers are still relatively low compared to quite a few other countries

The last chart is just a grab bag of countries I picked for comparison purposes. The ourworldindata.org website allows you to pick whatever countries you want.

COVID-19 Data Explorer

Explore global data on COVID-19.

ourworldindata.org

 

[Swerd]

>>>The idea is to move from crisis mode to control mode, approaching the virus in much the same way countries deal with flu or measles. That means accepting that infections will occur and providing extra care for at-risk people and patients with complications.<<<

I've also encountered that idea. The trouble with it is that viruses, such as measles or the flu, have been around for centuries or longer for most human populations. Both the viruses and human host populations have evolved enough to render the viruses into 'normal endemic diseases' that we can better tolerate. SARS-CoV-2 is new and is still rapidly evolving. It will eventually settle down into some steady-state form that we can live with. But we cannot be sure when the virus is ready to settle down. We mustn't fool ourselves into believing that omicron is the last go round.

The only record of this happening in history is from the 16th and 17th centuries when Spanish, English, and French conquerors spread, influenza, measles, small pox, and other viruses to the native American virus-naive populations. Those diseases spread in multiple waves of infection and reinfection, wiping out many, before things settled down to some kind of steady-state.

 

[panteragstk]

I have a neighbor from Texas who claims that making Texans wear masks or get vaccinated is as bad as forcing them to paint their black SUVs pink.

We don't all agree with your neighbor

 

[rnatalli]

Another issue this pandemic exposed is just how forced work has become in the US. CNN printed an article about how many workers continue working despite being sick with Omicron. Easy to chastise these folks, but I understand their dilemma and recall a time in my life where living paycheck to paycheck was the only option and definitely showed up to work sick on many occasions and wasn't the only one. It wasn't right then and certainly not now. The entire work, work, work culture in this country truly disgusts me and it only exacerbates an already bad situation.

 

[davidscott]

My sister and her husband have both been vaxed twice wear masks in public yet still have caught covid from their grandkids twice. Mild symptoms thankfully. I'm starting to think this will be the new flu with a vaccine every year. But if you want to get very sick then just don't get vaccinated. Me I have 2 Moderna shots with a booster.

 

[rnatalli]

Moderna is working on a combo shot for deployment in 2023. I imagine others are working on similar.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[davidscott]

Thanks. I hope that will help but I'm afraid they will have to come out with a new shot every year.