COVID-19 Thread [V2.0]

[PeaveyFury]

 

You were probably at a higher risk of dying in the daily 40 miles of car rides to/from school with your carpool partner all through 2019 than from covid 2020-2021, vaccinated or not.

 

Seems like a bewilderingly blanket statement to make without knowing a thing about his personal health condition or possible underlying conditions, right?

 

 

Also, ask yourself if you are just as worried sharing an indoor space for an entire school day with many more people who aren't vaccinated...or a grocery store...or anything else you do indoors.

 

I think we can all agree that in the case of any illness, your chances of transmission are effected dramatically by proximity and size of the space you're in with an infected person. Claiming that a car and a grocery store present similar risks is simply inaccurate.

 

Risk-wise it seems to be pretty small for anything severe, it might be worth figuring out what your schools isolation policy is going to be in the fall for vaccinated individuals just to see if that might be a big inconvenience if she tests positive at some point.

 

This is a very good point, as it sounds like different businesses/school districts, etc. may have different policies going forward regarding quarantining, etc. if there's a known exposure, vaccinated or not.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

A 57 y/o obese, male asthmatic (I don't know any of this about turbo) without a vaccine has about a 1.2% chance of death and a 26.2% chance of hospitalization, so the car death statement is almost certainly true but I don't think the car has a 1/4 chance of you being hospitalized.

[TURBO]

A 57 y/o obese, male asthmatic

 

56

 

not obese, fit...

 

correct, male.

 

not asthmatic

 

no underlying health conditions

[rickh150]

Open the windows…

[PrestigeWorldwide]

CDC updates guidelines, now recommends masks be worn indoors by all in counties with "substantial" or "high" transmission of the virus.

 

Sure hope the CDC COVID Data Tracker website can handle all that traffic as I'm sure everyone will be constantly checking that to see where they fall.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

The government and "officials" (CDC, or whoever) have truly botched this on too many levels to count.

[logan82]

The messaging was bad from the start. Telling people covid was no big deal last year in March was a terrible idea.

 

This year I think they thought people would continue to get vaccinated at a good rate instead of things plateauing in early June. I don't think they anticipated the delta variant being do contagious either. Does seem like it is time to mask up again though and hope the vaccinated people don't turn out another mutation that makes the current vaccines useless.

[Thurston Fluff]

The government and "officials" (CDC, or whoever) have truly botched this on too many levels to count.

 

I don't know if they botched it as much as people were expecting to much of them. People expect them to know all the answers when there is no way to know all the answers. They take the best information available and update it when new information comes about. That's still far better than listening to any of the other quacks out there but that doesn't mean you're totally protected by following their advice.

Personally I've been on the conservative side of taking chances and more than follow protocols. I would never carpool with someone not vaccinated. Then again I never stopped wearing a mask and still don't do deliveries inside work places, bars or restaurants even though it's been a bit tough financially to say no. I guess I'd rather be poor and healthy than sick and wealthy.

[DHonks]

The messaging was bad from the start. Telling people covid was no big deal last year in March was a terrible idea.

 

Except this was never the case. They said it was quite concerning in January 2020. They never said it was no bid deal. In fact March of 2020 is when they encouraged everyone to shut down.

 

I don't think the CDC has botched this. I think people expect them to be all-knowing. The CDC makes recommendations based on the preponderance of evidence. Last year we had an administration (that I helped vote in back in 2016) that tried to bully and belittle the CDC's best guidance. Under political pressure and extreme resistance by a part of the electorate, the CDC often massaged their recommendations to try to avoid covid fatigue.

 

In 2021 the CDC has been very clear in saying that EVERYONE should get vaccinated, and that non-vaccinated people shouldn't be going out in public, especially without masking and taking precautions. The problem is that America has a free-rider problem that we all saw coming, with a large portion of the population wanting others to get vaccinated to achieve herd immunity, but they themselves not getting vaccinated. As the CDC has been clearly stating, the current epidemic in the US is an epidemic of the unvaccinated. While some are having re-infections, most are linked to the J&J from what I've heard, which was only somewhere around 65-80% (If I recall correctly) effective protecting against initial COVID strains (although over 90% effective in minimizing severity of sickness)

 

I feel very good about returning to the classroom having had COVID and then being fully vaccinated. But if they offer a booster in the fall, I will be happy to get it. Still, I do worry about our kids and families as last year I had around 50 students that were either immunocompromised or had vulnerable family members.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

Fauci said on national TV it was nothing for Americans to be concerned about in the last week of January 2020.

 

Just a couple of weeks ago, he again on national TV went rambling off about the amazing discoveries as to how effective the vaccine was against the variant and a host of other statements that have been almost entirely walked back by the CDC within like 15 days.

 

The CDC has communicated like they are talking to research scientists about a theory that will be tested and changed later on. You can't put stuff like out for consumption by the general public and then change your mind on it 14 times. People don't trust you anymore and don't care what you have to say.

 

I've also never seen a goal post moved more in my life. Flatten the curve. We can't overrun the hospitals. This our shot. Yadda yadda yadda. I got the shot, time for life and society to move on. I don't know what has to happen or how long this has to drag out for people to realize this is a never-ending cycle of masks and variants and periodic lockdowns. Another 4 weeks of virtual school and 1/4-hearted masks at Brewers games isn't fixing it. The same people who won't get the shot are the same ones who won't wear it anyway.

[logan82]

The messaging was bad from the start. Telling people covid was no big deal last year in March was a terrible idea.

 

Except this was never the case. They said it was quite concerning in January 2020. They never said it was no bid deal. In fact March of 2020 is when they encouraged everyone to shut down.

 

I don't think the CDC has botched this. I think people expect them to be all-knowing. The CDC makes recommendations based on the preponderance of evidence. Last year we had an administration (that I helped vote in back in 2016) that tried to bully and belittle the CDC's best guidance. Under political pressure and extreme resistance by a part of the electorate, the CDC often massaged their recommendations to try to avoid covid fatigue.

 

In 2021 the CDC has been very clear in saying that EVERYONE should get vaccinated, and that non-vaccinated people shouldn't be going out in public, especially without masking and taking precautions. The problem is that America has a free-rider problem that we all saw coming, with a large portion of the population wanting others to get vaccinated to achieve herd immunity, but they themselves not getting vaccinated. As the CDC has been clearly stating, the current epidemic in the US is an epidemic of the unvaccinated. While some are having re-infections, most are linked to the J&J from what I've heard, which was only somewhere around 65-80% (If I recall correctly) effective protecting against initial COVID strains (although over 90% effective in minimizing severity of sickness)

 

I feel very good about returning to the classroom having had COVID and then being fully vaccinated. But if they offer a booster in the fall, I will be happy to get it. Still, I do worry about our kids and families as last year I had around 50 students that were either immunocompromised or had vulnerable family members.

I am not saying the CDC. I am saying some people made it a political/partisan issue and tried to silence the CDC at the start and it split the nation.

 

Edit: I understand that your conclusion will change based on data. That is how science works. I would expect the CDC to change guidelines based on new information.

 

Edit Edit: It is probably in everyone's best interest to just mask until everyone can act like adults and get vaccinated.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

There's 30-40% of the population who is never getting vaccinated under any circumstances. There is no 100% vaccinated America and no zero Covid ever happening.

[LouisEly]

I am not saying the CDC. I am saying some people made it a political/partisan issue and tried to silence the CDC at the start and it split the nation.

 

Edit: I understand that your conclusion will change based on data. That is how science works. I would expect the CDC to change guidelines based on new information.

 

Edit Edit: It is probably in everyone's best interest to just mask until everyone can act like adults and get vaccinated.

This, this, and this.

 

I distinctly recall the CDC saying when they relaxed the mask guidelines that they essentially reserved the right to reverse that if cases start rising again.

[igor67]

The CDC has not been communicating publicly like they are talking only to research scientists. They've been trying to 'message' from the beginning. Which as you identified is about the best one can hope for from the public. The possibility of something like delta has been talked about from relatively early in the process. I will admit that as time went on and the infection number got so high without seeing a really gaming changing mutant arise I thought we were going to be clear of that problem. Other countries certainly managed to keep their death totals lower, but by the same token many countries seem to have struggled with a populace unhappy with restrictions and anti-vaccine sentiment, and rampant promotion of quack treatments, so I tend to grade on a little bit of a curve. Most of those are deep seated human problems. Focusing for the moment on the communication difficulty that delta is causing, it quite simply has managed to find a sweet spot of faulty human reasoning. In this case it is the difference between population type thinking and individual perspectives (lots of science ed articles on why this is tough for people to learn) on the individual level the vaccine effectiveness is both lower against delta and still very high. But on the population level since well over 100 million people have been vaccinated the breakthroughs are suddenly a meaningful add on to the problem because the data is showing that with delta specifically they can still have some level of transmission to others. Despite data showing it is difficult for people to grapple with the distinction I don't think it is unreasonable to try and break it down, nor do I consider it remotely unreasonable to expect citizens to try and understand. Rights come with responsibilities.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

Nobody should even care about cases rising. It's out in the open that cases rising is a nearly useless measure especially considering vaccinated people get "cases" and essentially never get sick or die. We should only care about "flattening the death curve" and not over-running hospitals. Hospitalizations and deaths should be the only thing in the news. But of course CNN can't stop itself from yelling about cases surging every 3 hours. Who cares. Everyone would better to stop obsessing about it.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

The CDC has not been communicating publicly like they are talking only to research scientists.

 

Yes they are. In other words they have given the public WAY too much credit to be able to adapt to a fluid situation. You can't do that. You just can't. Our culture doesn't allow for you to change guidance on something like that. You just get tuned out. You simply cannot go on national TV and say the vaccine is supremely effective against the variant and then 2 weeks later say mask up even if vaccinated. You just can't.

[xisxisxis]

Nobody should even care about cases rising. It's out in the open that cases rising is a nearly useless measure especially considering vaccinated people get "cases" and essentially never get sick or die. We should only care about "flattening the death curve" and not over-running hospitals. Hospitalizations and deaths should be the only thing in the news. But of course CNN can't stop itself from yelling about cases surging every 3 hours. Who cares. Everyone would better to stop obsessing about it.

You couldn't be any more wrong.

 

The level of infection is very important because each person infected is a potential candidate to harbor an additional mutation to the virus that COULD lead to a highly transmissible, highly lethal variant. The more people infected the higher the likelihood that one of those types of variants occurs. IT HAS AND ALWAYS WILL BE THE BEST HEALTH POLICY TO REDUCE/ELIMINATE infections. And while many people are vaccinated there is no guarantee that will protect against a much higher lethality variant.

 

Get a variant with a 10% lethality and that's a game changer. 50%? goodbye most of the planet...

[Machu Peach]

Nobody should even care about cases rising. It's out in the open that cases rising is a nearly useless measure especially considering vaccinated people get "cases" and essentially never get sick or die. We should only care about "flattening the death curve" and not over-running hospitals. Hospitalizations and deaths should be the only thing in the news. But of course CNN can't stop itself from yelling about cases surging every 3 hours. Who cares. Everyone would better to stop obsessing about it.

You couldn't be any more wrong.

 

The level of infection is very important because each person infected is a potential candidate to harbor an additional mutation to the virus that COULD lead to a highly transmissible, highly lethal variant. The more people infected the higher the likelihood that one of those types of variants occurs. IT HAS AND ALWAYS WILL BE THE BEST HEALTH POLICY TO REDUCE/ELIMINATE infections. And while many people are vaccinated there is no guarantee that will protect against a much higher lethality variant.

 

Get a variant with a 10% lethality and that's a game changer. 50%? goodbye most of the planet...

This isn't how viral evolution works.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2021-06-21/cases-don-t-matter-like-they-used-to

 

"Now, as governments learn to live with the virus after vaccination and are starting to see them break the link between cases and deaths, Covid is slowly joining the ranks of diseases we’ve lived with for years that governments mostly fret about because they fill up hospital beds and challenge the wider resilience of health-care systems."

 

I stand by what I said. Case counts are the media's favorite thing to keep scaring people and tell us almost nothing. You want to live in fear of mutations, nobody can stop you. But deaths and hospitalizations are what matter and they have remained low.

 

This isn't going away. There will be a new super scary variant in the news every 8 months.

[xisxisxis]

This isn't how viral evolution works.

Sorry. 1) Viral evolution for novel viral genomes was not a discipline until Covid-19. 2) You're wrong.

[xisxisxis]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2021-06-21/cases-don-t-matter-like-they-used-to

 

"Now, as governments learn to live with the virus after vaccination and are starting to see them break the link between cases and deaths, Covid is slowly joining the ranks of diseases we’ve lived with for years that governments mostly fret about because they fill up hospital beds and challenge the wider resilience of health-care systems."

 

I stand by what I said. Case counts are the media's favorite thing to keep scaring people and tell us almost nothing. You want to live in fear of mutations, nobody can stop you. But deaths and hospitalizations are what matter and they have remained low.

 

This isn't going away. There will be a new super scary variant in the news every 8 months.

[sarcasm]Yeah, continue to make policy based on articles on business websites. That's the place to learn all about health policy.[/sarcasm]

 

Yes it is now with us. We will still be affected by it's presence for years. Still need to reduce infections.

[Machu Peach]

This isn't how viral evolution works.

Sorry. 1) Viral evolution for novel viral genomes was not a discipline until Covid-19. 2) You're wrong.

1) This is incorrect. People have been studying evolution of novel viral genome for decades. A simple pubmed search will result in thousands of articles on the topic.

2) Well, I guess that settles that

[OldSchoolSnapper]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2021-06-21/cases-don-t-matter-like-they-used-to

 

"Now, as governments learn to live with the virus after vaccination and are starting to see them break the link between cases and deaths, Covid is slowly joining the ranks of diseases we’ve lived with for years that governments mostly fret about because they fill up hospital beds and challenge the wider resilience of health-care systems."

 

I stand by what I said. Case counts are the media's favorite thing to keep scaring people and tell us almost nothing. You want to live in fear of mutations, nobody can stop you. But deaths and hospitalizations are what matter and they have remained low.

 

This isn't going away. There will be a new super scary variant in the news every 8 months.

[sarcasm]Yeah, continue to make policy based on articles on business websites. That's the place to learn all about health policy.[/sarcasm]

 

Yes it is now with us. We will still be affected by it's presence for years. Still need to reduce infections.

 

The classic argument from authority once you can't defend your position.

 

My point was that this isn't some fringe looney thought I had, it's been published a ton and has very respectable folks on its side. The vaccine is doing precisely what it should have done, stave off death and not always prevent cases.

 

I'd be $10k that if you walked down the street and asked 100 people, 80 would say deaths are surging. Which is of course false, but people only know about the cases surging. Odd, huh?

 

Again, 0 Covid is a fantasy, it's never happening. "Preventing infection" at this point is a joke outside of getting the vaccine. It's been almost 2 years you guys. You either get the shot or you don't and the rest of it is just busy ants marching.

[LouisEly]

The classic argument from authority once you can't defend your position.

 

My point was that this isn't some fringe looney thought I had, it's been published a ton and has very respectable folks on its side. The vaccine is doing precisely what it should have done, stave off death and not always prevent cases.

 

I'd be $10k that if you walked down the street and asked 100 people, 80 would say deaths are surging. Which is of course false, but people only know about the cases surging. Odd, huh?

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/covidview/index.html

 

Interpretive Summary for July 30, 2021

 

COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths are once again increasing in nearly all states, fueled by the B.1.617.2 (Delta) variant, which is much more contagious than past versions of the virus.

 

Now, about that $10K...

[adambr2]

The classic argument from authority once you can't defend your position.

 

My point was that this isn't some fringe looney thought I had, it's been published a ton and has very respectable folks on its side. The vaccine is doing precisely what it should have done, stave off death and not always prevent cases.

 

I'd be $10k that if you walked down the street and asked 100 people, 80 would say deaths are surging. Which is of course false, but people only know about the cases surging. Odd, huh?

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/covidview/index.html

 

Interpretive Summary for July 30, 2021

 

COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths are once again increasing in nearly all states, fueled by the B.1.617.2 (Delta) variant, which is much more contagious than past versions of the virus.

 

Now, about that $10K...

 

Increasing relative to what? Relative to moderate variance from week to week, or relative to peak COVID-19?

 

The highest daily death average in a rolling 7 day period in July while Delta has been raging has been 360 deaths/day. The highest daily average in a rolling 7 day period in January of this year was 3,352 deaths per day.