Now that COVID is here permanently

[existentialist]

The success of Omicron and it really has been phenomenal in unseating the far more dangerous Delta is primarily its ability to break through vaccine protection and infect the entire population at unimaginable speed.
You couldn't really come up with a better solution.
Vaccines have protected lives but have little effect on removing a dangerous corona virus from society but this virus is appearing to be doing that.

This comment isn't even worthy of a resp...oh, fuck

 

[8ball]

This comment isn't even worthy of a resp...oh, fuck

I think it’s worth noticing how elbows effectively predicted the narrative just four posts earlier.

 

[elbows]

This article isnt bad, although a lot of it deals with the present rather than the future. But I'll stick it here because it confirms the complete uncertainty about Omicron and Long Covid, and has some thoughts about the politics and certain forms of optimism.

Is the end of Omicron in sight?

Much as we'd all like the disruptions caused by Omicron to be reduced, it is still too early to know its trend, explains Matthew Taylor.

www.nhsconfed.org

The second is that we surely won’t fully know what is going on in term of Omicron’s impact until later in the week and into next week. With Christmas, New Year and bank holidays, official data is volatile and unreliable. It is only five weeks since we first heard of this new variant, and it is only now starting to affect more older and more vulnerable people. Uncertainty abounds. For example, as far as I can tell, we have absolutely no idea whether Omicron is more or less likely than earlier variants to add to the huge numbers of people dealing with Long covid.

There is nothing wrong with optimism. On balance, I share the view that when Omicron has passed through the population we may move to an era when we live with COVID-19 without it disrupting our lives. As a parent, I desperately want my nine-year-old daughter to live a normal life with face-to-face schooling, playdays and holidays. But simply wanting something to happen is a poor alternative to trying to make it happen. It is not hope that leads to action so much as action that leads to hope.

So, over the coming days, instead of making optimism and complacency a kind of political virility symbol let’s focus on facts, let’s wait for the data, let’s listen to those trying to cope on the frontline. Most of all, instead of turning the science and policy on COVID-19 into a new terrain for the culture wars, let’s try to get through these next few weeks together.

 

[8ball]

Glanced a little earlier at something about a new variant that has just popped up.
People on this thread likely know more than me at this stage..

 

[BigMoaner]

Glanced a little earlier at something about a new variant that has just popped up.
People on this thread likely know more than me at this stage..

Covid-tracking scientists in France spot ANOTHER variant

Some 12 infections have been spotted so far near Marseille, with the first linked to travel to the African country Cameroon. But there is little sign that it is outcompeting the Omicron variant.

www.dailymail.co.uk

elbows - when they are prattling about not "out competing with omincon", i kinda know what they mean on a layman level but is that another way of saying that it's unlikely to "take over"?

 

[8ball]

elbows - when they are prattling about not "out competing with omincon", i kinda know what they mean on a layman level but is that another way of saying that it's unlikely to "take over"?

I know this was meant for elbows, but just in case he’s not about, you are correct in that regard.

Thanks for finding a link.

 

[BigMoaner]

on a microbiological level, covid sounds like a right cunt. literally fighting it's cousins etc to kill us.

 

[fishfinger]

on a microbiological level, covid sounds like a right cunt. literally fighting it's cousins etc to kill us.

It's a virus eat virus world.

 

[8ball]

on a microbiological level, covid sounds like a right cunt. literally fighting it's cousins etc to kill us.

Basic evolution/selection. Any new mutants will have compromised access to hosts (compared to, say, early 2020) due to social mitigations, vaccination and immunity from previous infection by similar viruses. It looks like a war to us because we see the outcome of very many interactions and their emergent statistical results, and impute intention from that.

One good outcome of that is that the virus isn’t actually interested in killing us. People don’t do that much to wipe you out if you just give them a sniffle.
That said, we shouldn’t assume things will move in that direction in a timely and convenient fashion. Just means that changing in a malevolent direction is not a core part of how it functions.

 

[two sheds]

Basic evolution/selection. Any new mutants will have compromised access to hosts (compared to, say, early 2020) due to social mitigations, vaccination and immunity from previous infection by similar viruses. It looks like a war to us because we see the outcome of very many interactions and their emergent statistical results, and impute intention from that.

One good outcome of that is that the virus isn’t actually interested in killing us. People don’t do that much to wipe you out if you just give them a sniffle.
That said, we shouldn’t assume things will move in that direction in a timely and convenient fashion. Just means that changing in a malevolent direction is not a core part of how it functions.

you're fooling yourself it's just practicing with the increased transmissibility

 

[8ball]

you're fooling yourself it's just practicing with the increased transmissibility

It’s not standard evolutionary theory, but tbf that’s what I’d be doing.

 

[two sheds]

number of species we've wiped out/are wiping out I'm starting to come down on the side of the virus

 

[HoratioCuthbert]

Disagree. There are complex reasons around distrust of authority that are in play in low bame uptake of the vaccine that aren’t true of drink driving. Also, ones a crime and the other is a medical decision that’s entirely legal. There’s that too.

I think that's true for wider anti-vax stuff too. Like they are heavy into the "don't trust the BBC" stuff as well. I've tried to find common ground with the anti vaxxers posting leaflets in our community on those points. I mean it doesn't usually work unless I'm talking to someone that's just on the turn, and even then 50-50!

 

[Magnus McGinty]

I think that's true for wider anti-vax stuff too. Like they are heavy into the "don't trust the BBC" stuff as well. I've tried to find common ground with the anti vaxxers posting leaflets in our community on those points. I mean it doesn't usually work unless I'm talking to someone that's just on the turn, and even then 50-50!

I wonder how many anti-vaxxers refuse medical intervention from the very same 'distrusted authorities' when they fall seriously ill? I'm sure some do but lots seem to have a change of heart.

 

[HoratioCuthbert]

I wonder how many anti-vaxxers refuse medical intervention from the very same 'distrusted authorities' when they fall seriously ill? I'm sure some do but lots seem to have a change of heart.

oh loads, but I think FUCK I NEED AN AMBULANCE NOW is a very different scenario to will I or won't I go and get this shite put in my body. ETA: having said that I do know some from the group i mentioned that are hostile to the NHS in all scenarios

 

[HoratioCuthbert]

Case in point- My neighbour and I used to hate each other until one day she had pancreatitis and her partner screamed at me to come upstairs and then I'm sat with her for 1 hr holding her hand until the ambulance arrived, and we've been mates ever since. Mad shit changes folk.

 

[gentlegreen]

I wonder how many anti-vaxxers refuse medical intervention from the very same 'distrusted authorities' when they fall seriously ill? I'm sure some do but lots seem to have a change of heart.

I know one from Paltalk - like many on there seriously fucked-up.
Approx 45 YO.
Claims the DPT vaccine harmed her child - I suspect she claimed this on the back of Wakefield and is pissed off mostly because the time had elapsed to even make a claim.
Claims to have had her mercury fillings replaced ... claims to never visit the doctor.
Recently was disappointed when I told her she couldn't get her cholesterol tested by sending a pin prick of blood to a private company.
So far as I know, quite seriously obese - it remains to be seen if she would accept emergency treatment.

 

[wemakeyousoundb]

Passing on herpes, I mean. It's not even deadly. It has to be a personal choice!

Not quite right, unless you can pass herpes by breathing (off I go to google to double check)

 

[wemakeyousoundb]

ANYWAY TO ANSWER THE THREAD TITLE:
DEATH AND TAXES IS WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FORWARD TO.





noteveneditedtoadd:
sorry for shouting I just found the capslock key

 

[mojo pixy]

Not quite right, unless you can pass herpes by breathing (off I go to google to double check)

Generally from the lesions, but virus debris can rarely be shed from unbroken skin too.

The point is, we frame taking precautions or not (in terms of masks, distancing and vaccination in particular) as merely a personal choice. But it's a personal choice that can have devastating consequences for other people. Anyone who recklessly passed on herpes would be rightly condemned for it. But making a conscious choice to refuse to take precautions againt spreading covid is somehow presented as no more than a 'personal choice' .. though covid is easier to spread than herpes, and more dangerous by an order of magnitude.

No, they're not the same disease. It's a dubious analogy, I admit. But this fetishization of personal choice in the face of a global pandemic, and the prioritization of my lifestyle over your actual life, is ugly and unworthy IMO.