Now that COVID is here permanently
- Thread starter Yossarian
- Start date
SpookyFrank
A cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel
'Data' is a plural. You gave us one number, generated by an algorithm, which you chose because it was the closest number you could find to zero. Because that was the point you wanted to make; that it's all a lot of fuss about nothing.
Anyway, I thought you'd flounced off this thread because we're all so irrational.
Tbf they didnt only give one number. They also gave their own percentage risk (4.5% or whatever it was, so a lot higher than for the 19 year old). And their point wasn't that it was "a fuss over nothing" at all, as they personally are in a fairly high risk group. I don't get why they are being attacked.
co-op
But....but cLoWnFiSh....
No, I'm just not bothering to answer your points (and others who jump in with the whole "just fuck off" approach) because they're so obviously straining for an argument before even pausing for breath and are going to die before ever being caught engaging sensibly. Hope that's cleared this point up.
elbows
Well-Known Member
Well take that to the thread on covid in Sweden, where it's been done to death.
I feel sorry for Yossarian, who started this thread to discuss going forward, which could have made an interesting thread, and it's been totally buggered by certain posters wanting to drag up what has gone on in the past and regurgitate old beef.
Even if the beef is removed, attitudes and expectations of the future are shaped by attitudes and opinions about the past.
And so it is no surprise that the faces tend to be the same ones as expressed certain attitudes to restrictions or what an acceptable amount and sort of death is from this virus in the past. Likewise with those whose stance is more similar to mine.
My views on the future are really still quite broad at this point, and I hope to narrow them a bit only once we have discovered what the burden of the current Omicron wave will be like. So my attitude will at least evolve as the truths of the Omicron wave become much clearer. I invite people to consider whether that will be the same for some other stances that conflict with my own - it seems to me that some of those attitudes have persisted in the past no matter how bad and deadly the waves of those times subsequently turned out to be. Having now reached quite far into the vaccination phase of the pandemic, they are bound to stick to their guns with the expectation that reality will finally become compatible with their long-held stances. Whereas my own attitude will have to adjust based on the experiences of each wave.
I've been locked into a precautionary, act strongly to minimise deaths and healthcare burden stance since late February or early March 2020, so it will be no surprise if people have lost sight of the fact that I am well aware of what attitudes towards death from diseases are like during non-pandemic or mild-pandemic times. In fact I was following and talking about flu for many years before this current pandemic, and as a result I am well aware of how even a nasty spike of death can happen in a way that utterly fails to register at the time, fails to leave a big mark on something we might think of as the collective memories of a population.
I will likely underline that last point by soon posting a graph I've posted once or twice in the past but not recently, which showed just how much flu death could happen in a short space of time without having a big impact on a nations psyche. And I do keep such things in mind when pondering the future of humanity living and dying with this virus.
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SpookyFrank
A cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel
Partly because of the trivialisation of the covid death rate but for me it's mostly an issue with this 'covid anxiety' thing he's repeatedly trotting out. It's a deliberate attempt to paint anyone who disagrees with his, 'we've suffered enough from restrictions' position as irrational. It's gaslighty as fuck and it stinks. It stinks that he's dismissing the well-informed concerns of doctors, scientists, frontline workers as mere skittishness or hysteria or whatever.
Don't want to continue this beef here though so I'll put him on ignore.
Agent Sparrow
the age of slippers and migraines
I think, given how this thread is evolving, that I’m quite glad I wasn’t back on urban in 2020 when it was all kicking off. 
At the end of the day it was a global pandemic, the most widespread health disaster, and probably disaster disaster, in all our lifetimes. There was never, ever going to be an outcome that wasn’t hard for the vast majority of people. And that’s why I’ve never liked the “why should less vulnerable groups follow restrictions?” argument - it basically suggests that one group of the population should attempt normality again at the direct expense of another group. Ditto the continual lockdown argument but that’s made much less frequently now.
Of course it’s been evident that the hardness wasn’t equal in terms of marginalised vs more privileged people but a huge part of that was due to the problems already rife in our society and magnified by the rich, selfish and incompetent fuckers in charge. It didn’t have to be that way and I would say that’s more about how the restrictions were put in place than the need for any in the first place.
I do wonder, in a more socially and financially equitable society where we all had a bit more solidarity and care for each other to start with, led by a thoughtful government aiming for equalising the impact on people but also rallying community spirit, how less traumatic these last two years would have been.
At the end of the day it was a global pandemic, the most widespread health disaster, and probably disaster disaster, in all our lifetimes. There was never, ever going to be an outcome that wasn’t hard for the vast majority of people. And that’s why I’ve never liked the “why should less vulnerable groups follow restrictions?” argument - it basically suggests that one group of the population should attempt normality again at the direct expense of another group. Ditto the continual lockdown argument but that’s made much less frequently now.
Of course it’s been evident that the hardness wasn’t equal in terms of marginalised vs more privileged people but a huge part of that was due to the problems already rife in our society and magnified by the rich, selfish and incompetent fuckers in charge. It didn’t have to be that way and I would say that’s more about how the restrictions were put in place than the need for any in the first place.
I do wonder, in a more socially and financially equitable society where we all had a bit more solidarity and care for each other to start with, led by a thoughtful government aiming for equalising the impact on people but also rallying community spirit, how less traumatic these last two years would have been.
Reno
The In Kraut
Why when it comes to Covid, do you think we need to aim for zero risk, when with so many aspects of our lives, we accept small risks without even thinking ? Should we have lockdowns for the seasonal flu so you feel 100% safe ? The risk from dying from that are not to dissimilar from dying from Covid if vaccinated. Should you get into a car, on public transport, on a plane, doing DIY, go for a swim, eat fatty food, the list of small risks people unthinkingly accept is endless. But for Covid, where if everybody is vaccinated the risk of serious disease or death is really quite small, we should we all live the rest of our lives with social restrictions ?
Reno
The In Kraut
They didn't have several vaccines one year into the pandemic.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
They also didn't have air travel. This pandemic has certainly been supercharged by the modern world, for better or worse. The way omicron has spread across the whole world in just a few weeks shows that.
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
"Spanish" 'flu was rather more than that in terms of frank epidemic presentation, but it bounced around the place for quite a while afterwards before it became background noise.
Everybody isn't vaccinated though. In my borough, for example, 35% of people haven't even had a first jab. Last time I looked, that wasn't atypical for inner London boroughs.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
elbows
Well-Known Member
It will be extra boring if I get tempted into talking about flu too much on this thread.
But in regards the 1918 H1N1 flu:
Most accounts suggest the massive death phase didnt last anywhere near as long as you suggest.
The H1N1 of the flu virus that arrived on the scene with that pandemic carried on for many decades, until another strain came along in a subsequent pandemic int he 1950s and displaced it. But probably for a mix of reasons including the evolution of that strain and the population immunity picture, the death burden, especially in the young people that were badly affected in the first years of the 1918 pandemic, was not the same.
Then after being gone for several decades the H1N1 flu actually came back again in the 1970s in a pandemic of the young (because they werent old enough to have met that version of flu decades earlier) - this 1970s return was probably the result of a lab accident at a time when many labs were urgently researching vaccines & H1N1 strains due to a false alarm a year or so previously about a new H1N1 swine flu pandemic that never ended up happening, never got beyond an isolated outbreak, but set research in motion. That 1970s version of H1N1 then carried on evolving, co-existing with a H3N2 strain that was very nasty and arrived in a 1968 pandemic. The classic H1N1 was eventually supplanted by a different H1N1 strain that arrives as the 2009 swine flu pandemic. Not sure what the Influenza A picture will look like once this coronavirus pandemic is over as it hasnt been seen so much in recent years, but in theory both H1N1(2009 version evolving further over time) and H3N2(continued evolution of the 1968 version) are to be expected. The H3N2 version is still quite a nasty one and waves of that version tend to create the most memorable epidemics, with the worst consequences for the elderly. And there were some problems with the effectiveness of the vacciens against the H3N2 strain, which is why in countries like the UK they felt the need to offer a different sort of vaccine to older people in recent years, in the hope that it would be more effective.
Since the H3N2 flu strain is nasty, it might be useful to comapre how many people were estimated to have died from that strain in the immediate pandemic waves it caused, and then look at how many deaths its responsible for in all the epidemics since. But its quite the task and I've not stumbled on other people doing this work much. But even without completing this exercise, I know that its killed a really large number of people over the decades. Also complicated by the fact we dont try to formally test everyone for flu in the way we have found ourselves doing in this covid pandemic.
At what cost though? We know that Omicron currently doesn't look too bad for people who've had two jabs and the booster. That's approx 30% of people round here. So that leaves 70% of people who've had none, one or two. That's pretty scary.
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
Interesting. I know I had 'flu very young, and I strongly suspect that it might have been just about around '68, anecdotally. I recall there being a lot of vomiting. I've had some form of 'flu twice, since. But I swerved the swine 'flu in 2009.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Yeah, we're about to find out. People haven't started dying in significant numbers yet. Let's hope it stays that way.
I was concerned for London with delta, but London has had far below the UK average deaths from delta, possibly because it suffered so badly with alpha. Covid is rarely less than surprising.
Yep.
Apart from when I had to visit some unvaccinated relatives over Christmas, which was a worry, I'm pretty much meh, about the risk to myself. I open windows, started wearing a mask in shops again, was not anti the lockdowns last year though like everyone else, they done my head in.
I'm in the camp now of being anti any lock downs this time round. Unless things get worse obviously, the NHS being able to cope for values of cope, is the deciding factor.
planetgeli
There's no future in England's dreaming
Is it that simple? Immunity doesn't seem to last. I now know of people who have had it twice. Even if their experience seems to suggest second time around is less harmful to them, they can still transmit the disease to others.
None of us live in a vacuum.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Sorry I didn't mean to imply that this would be the end of it, merely that eg getting omicron means you join the antibody camp (for now) - mitigating the problem of a low vaccination rate.
Reno
The In Kraut
We need to keep restrictions till everybody had the chance to get boostered and till we weathered Omicron. But how long can everybody be asked to keep much of their life on hold for those who refuse to get vaccinated ? In Germany that is supposed to get solved with mandatory vaccinations by spring and I hope Omicron will immunise many unvaccinated people with a less severe bout if Covid.
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bimble
floofy
Mandatory how? I hadn’t heard about this.
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
Probably works much the same way as mandatory taxes.
Reno
The In Kraut
The aim is to not get seriously ill or to die, eventually we'll all get it. Six of my friends had Covid since they've been vaccinated, all had no more than mild cold symptoms for a few days. The solution is vaccinations every few months and ideally adjusted vaccinations to new variants once they are available. The biggest challenge now is to get vaccines to poorer countries with low vaccination rates.
I don't know what we do tbh. It seems fairer to restrict those who could have the vaccinations but haven't/won't than those who have but I've no idea how you'd do it.
Orang Utan
Psychick Worrier Ov Geyoor
I don’t want this to come across as rude, but just what qualifications do posters such as elbows and littlebabyjesus have to be such ‘experts’? I’m sure the former has some degree of expertise just from the sheer amount of information they post but I’ve avoided the science stuff on here not just cos it’s boring (to me) and too hard to understand, but also cos I just don’t know which information is to be trusted or not when it comes from anonymous posters rather than folk like Whitty and Van Tam - even they have proven to have feet of clay after all!
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Reno
The In Kraut
Coronavirus: Germans back mandatory vaccination plan – DW – 12/05/2021
Germany's new government wants to make vaccinations compulsory, a move that nearly two-thirds of the public supports. Meanwhile, India's death rate from COVID is at its highest since July. Follow DW for the latest.
www.dw.com
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