This is in reference to a specific study that followed 1.2M fully vaccinated individuals and found that 28 of the 36 deaths had at least 4 high-risk factors (https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7101a4.htm). They are not referring to the unvaccinated who still have a much higher risk of hospitalization and death.
The unvaccinated are unvaccinated. They know what they're getting into (even if they deny it), and they don't believe studies anyway. Once they catch it a couple of times, they'll be as good as vaxed anyway.
edit: if there's anything that should be done about the unvaccinated, it's to make sure that vaccines and tests are convenient and free. There are still plenty of people who aren't vaccinated because it's too much of a hassle.
The quote was the whole sentence. And the following sentences implied they meant everyone. The clarification was important.
https://acdis.org/articles/news-94-patients-who-died-covid-1...
Fortunately the vaccines and other improved therapies are now pretty effective at preventing deaths even among high risk patients.
That is not correct. Vaccination does reduce, but does not eliminate, transmission of the virus
“ We found that both the BNT162b2 and ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccines were associated with reduced onward transmission of SARS-CoV-2 from index patients who became infected despite vaccination.”
Think of it this way: assume that an unvaccinated person, on average, spreads COVID to 10 people and a fully vaccinated person spreads it to only 1. Then put 92 fully vaccinated people and 8 unvaccinated people (I.e., vaccination in proportion to the Icelandic population.) into a room full of people. The 8 unvaccinated people will infect 80 additional people, while the fully vaccinated will infect 92. Thus, "most" of the transmission was from vaccinated people, even though the vaccine reduced transmission by 10x.
And this is probably obvious, but its worth emphasizing that vaccinating those last 8 (percent of the) people would still have a hugely beneficial effect. If they were all vaccinated, then, in the toy example, they would infect a total of only 8 people instead of 80, leading to only 100 total cases, rather than 172.
Of course, even setting this aside, the bigger issue is that your casual parsing of one country's aggregate statistics is just no substitute for the actual scientific research that GP cited.
Of course not. It's not about the absolute transmission rate of vaccinated people. It's about the reduction in the transmission rate compared to the unvaccinated. Regardless of the absolute effectiveness of the vaccine in preventing transmission, it seems to me it should remain fundamental to protecting public health if unvaccinated people spread the virus several times faster.
Of course, if the effect were only marginal, that would be one thing. But that is not what the data seems to show at this point.
I tried to find the original article about negative effectiveness in the UK but all I could find was this:
https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/has-covid-vaccine-effica...
This covers Iceland, Denmark and the UK but doesn't really go into much detail about alternative explanations which I remember being covered in the original article I read.
You can't really make that conclusion based on a simple case count chart, because you don't know what those numbers would look like if the vaccination rate was lower.
Iceland also has a higher vaccination rate, I would be very interested in demographic breakdowns of the unvaccinated there vs in California. Is the Iceland group much more atypical in terms of how often they leave their house, say? Is the California group possibly just much more boosted (the Iceland numbers show that the boosted group has still less Covid than the unvaccinated group stil) - but actually, that doesn't seem like it, because that ratio is still far higher than the CA one. Though... even your own link for data on boosted adults in Iceland contradicts your "not even a little" statement.
Actually I bet it's just a small number problem. Iceland has a population of 366K. 8% of that population is just under 30K. California has a population of over 39 million. Much more significant sample for unvaccinated people in CA.
If getting vaccinated reduced your odds of spreading the virus by 90%, and 92% of the population were double-vaccinated, then the majority of the spread would be...
Among, and by the double-vaccinated. (8.28% vs 8%)
Most people that die in car crashes are wearing seatbelts, but you'd be a fool to not wear one. Just like you'd be foolish to not get vaccinated.
> Among, and by the double-vaccinated. (8.28% vs 8%)
I don't know how you're getting those numbers.
If baseline spread is 100% unvaccinated spreading to 100% unvaccinated, then 92% vaccinated spreading 10% to 92% vaccinated amounts to 8.464% of baseline, 92% vaccinated spreading 10% to 8% unvaccinated is 0.736% of baseline, 8% unvaccinated spreading to 92% vaccinated is 7.36% of baseline and 8% unvaccinated spreading to 8% unvaccinated is 0.64% of baseline. The total sums to 17.2% of baseline, of which vaccinated to vaccinated spread amounts to 49.2%.
(It's not terribly important since the numbers are made-up anyway, but I'd like to know whether I made a mistake somewhere.)
Funny enough, I just recently checked the stats for that. According to the first report I found with a simple googling, 47% of people who died in car crashes were not wearing seat belts.
- The majority of those who died WITH THE VACCINE had 4+ co-morbidities. The virus is still very dangerous to the unvaccinated
- The vaccine does indeed reduce your propensity to spread the virus, although it doesn't eliminate the risk.
- The reason for lockdowns is not to make the virus "go away". It is to control the impact on the healthcare system. We have now surpassed the previous hospitalization record and this thing is still going exponential. You may be fully vaccinated and at low risk for a COVID related death, but if you'd like to be able to get acute treatment for appendicitis or a heart attack, we need to take steps toward a lockdown immediately.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-breaks-covid-19-hospital...
>the virus is still very dangerous to the unvaccinated
According to gallup (which I hope we can agree is not some sort of alt-right outlet) the risk of an unvaccinated person needing to be hospitalized if they get covid is 0.89%. https://news.gallup.com/opinion/gallup/354938/adults-estimat...
That is insanely low. That is just the risk of hospitalization, the % of those that are hospitalized that actually die from (not with) covid is even lower, which is a key distinction that your Reuters article doesn't make. Most hospitals are required to test patients for covid (if they are admitted), even if they are being admitted for something else (like a broken leg) if they come back positive then they show up in the stats even if they exhibit no covid symptoms and require no to little treatment from the hospital for covid.
The healthcare system is not remotely being overrunning by covid, it only appears that way because of these scary, missleading, numbers.
Take a look.
https://i.imgur.com/o3DJfN2.png
https://i.imgur.com/g8tyRdQ.png
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/01/09/us/omicron-ci...
For reference to a Covid prevalence measurement that isn't sensitive to testing artifacts, check out the Boston wastewater analysis: https://www.mwra.com/biobot/biobotdata.htm
This would be confounded by the greater viral loads for Omicron, wouldn't it?
https://abc7ny.com/new-york-hospitals-stop-elective-surgerie...
That’s overrun in my book.
"The vaccine does indeed reduce your propensity to spread the virus, although it doesn't eliminate the risk." agreed, but at this point Omicron is so incredibly transmissible that I think everyone is going to get it and it is impossible to eliminate all the potential infection vectors. I have to come down on the side of bodily autonomy at this point. If the virus was as deadly as ebola I would likely change my mind but at this point with the severity of omicron, I have landed here.
"The reason for lockdowns is not to make the virus "go away". It is to control the impact on the healthcare system." This is a very good point but there is no way to practically implement this in the current political environment. If we implemented a lockdown, we would still be telling the poorest among us, those we call essential that they still have to go to work to support the rest of us. In addition, there is just no way that states like Texas or Florida are going to agree to a lockdown. Are we willing to risk armed conflict over this? Personally I am not.
Do we know this about omicron? How dangerous is "very dangerous"? As it is with pre-omicron, CFR for COVID-19 was, pessimistically, 0.5-1%, less if you're not in an at-risk group. AFAICT we have no reliable numbers on "long covid".
For the record, I am not anti-vaxx, I am vaccinated, I'm just anti-using-science-as-an-ideology.
Here's the early numbers out of major cities:
https://i.imgur.com/g8tyRdQ.png
It's probably somewhere between 75% as serious and as serious as Delta, but we can't be sure yet.
The handwaving about 0.5% - 1% is ultimately not something I can address because it is opinion. A million Americans are dead from this and more deaths are coming. Reminds me of the Stalin quote.
Those who don't want to get vaccinated should take personal responsibility for that, not expect society to take as much care of them when they're choosing not to help take care of society (even in terms of "reducing burden on healthcare system by getting a likely-less-severe case", even if transmissibility isn't affected as much).
If you have ethical qualms about this, I'd like to point out that ethics go both ways. It's unconscionable to take a hospital bed away from someone who needs it, because you refuse to take your medicine, with predictable consequences.
I do agree however. And, I think it's an ethically defensible position to not treat people who refuse to get vaccinated... even though it will never happen.
Will be put at the end of recipient lists, or outright denied for organ transplants if you're an active smoker of the last 6 months.
> uninsured people
Will only be stabilized in the ER and sent home - actual treatment is only to stabilize the patient to get them back out the door as-per law.
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On motorcycles and obesity those are a bit harder to get into - but I will say that yes... for 2/4 of those we do actively deny medical treatment for better or worse. That makes me feel like we're already on the "slippery slope" - especially in regards to those without insurance... We literally have no problem denying life saving treatment to the uninsured here.
And hell - even as an ex-smoker I agree with the places that don't allow active smokers on their transplant lists. Ethically that makes perfect sense to me.
"Will only be stabilized in the ER"
In other words: they will be treated.
No one is saying we need to give the best treatments, or any kind of treatment that is scarce and competitive (like transplants) to unvaccinated people, but you're talking about refusing people any treatment and sending them out to die at home or on the streets. That's extremely cruel and certainly is not done anywhere in the US currently.
We're splitting hairs - I'm out.
You're advocating for sending unvaccinated people away with zero treatment. None of your examples are remotely comparable. If you were really discussing in good faith, you would admit it.
Right and that's why I'm out. I have made my arguments, and I don't appreciate you implying that I am discussing these things in bad-faith. If we disagree that is fine.
Respectfully, I am done discussing this with you.
They were wrong hospitals shouldn't treat unvaccinated patients. They were right withholding treatment someone needs to live months and withholding treatment someone needs to live days aren't 100% different.
I never made the claim that they shouldn't treat unvaccinated patients:
> And, I think it's an ethically defensible position to not treat people who refuse to get vaccinated... even though it will never happen.
And specifically to the parent comment I was agreeing to the following (quoting parent):
> It's unconscionable to take a hospital bed away from someone who needs it, because you refuse to take your medicine, with predictable consequences.
Although maybe it's not my best self showing here - but I do feel angry toward people taking those hospital beds away. And I was very specifically agreeing that "It's unconscionable to take a hospital bed away from someone who needs it [...]" I have friends/family who are suffering real consequences of hospitals being overrun with largely unvaccinated people...
---
Overall, I don't think "ethically defensible position" is equivalent to "they should not treat unvaccinated people" - yeah I guess this can be seen as "walking it back" but overall I did not mean to outright state we shouldn't treat the unvaccinated.
Sure - it comes from a place of frustration. But I don't think I'm alone in thinking about these things.
Sorry if this is off-base.
Thanks for clarifying. They also said "Drop the vaccine mandates, and drop the mandates to treat the unvaccinated." And you said "I do agree however." But I can believe you just meant the last sentence. Feeling frustrated is natural when your friends and family are harmed. I hope they can get what they need.
100% we need to treat people regardless of anyone's attitude (mine included), and 100% we need to continue to mandate vaccines.
Thank you again for giving me the space to clarify =)
Perhaps they should be able to opt out of both as a package deal?
No, just like how if I need surgery, and the hospital is full of anti-vaxxers with COVID, and I can't get treatment, I currently don't get my money back.
How would that work practically though? They still end up in the hospital, they're not going to test if they're vaxxed and put them at the end of the line if not.
This would be called "heartless" on the individual scale, but towards a group that I believe is being heartless on a societal scale.
Honestly, it's a capsule of where we are as a country: Here we have a government entity whose suggestions are rejected by these people still suggesting to prioritize them in order to get them the best treatment possible. I don't see anything like the same consideration for others being made by most of the unvaccinated. One side is trying to do what's best for everyone, the other side doesn't really give a shit about thinking things through.
If two do arrive at the same time, an unvaccinated person with far worse sickness faintly mumbling about ivermectin who waited until the last minute to come in, and a vaccinated person who is suffering but nowhere near the danger zone - do you put the unvaccinated person on the sidewalk outside?
What about smokers or fat people?
Long answer: you'd probably come up with a protocol around "ok, we have this ventilator available, give it to the unvaxed patient, but if we have other patients who end up needing one and they haven't improved in X hours/days, we will reallocate" and similar for all the various ways people can present, but "conveniently"... if the health system is that overloaded, you're gonna have ERs with a lot of patients all arriving at the same time.
Hell, even pre-COVID, I got stuck waiting in an ER in December for days because the hospital was full once.
(To your edit: has either smoking or obesity caused hospitals to fill to capacity and have to turn away patients? You'll notice here I'm talking about scarce medical resource allocation prioritization where they're actively competing with those more considerate of the rest of us, not something like insurance payments or coverage.)
Unfortunately as much as I agree with this it will never be the case. Hospitals are hurting for blood too - sucks. These spikes are largely unvaccinated folks from everything I'm reading. They're stressing the system but I guarantee you they don't care outside of their own selfishness.
I very, very much disagree with this.
Unvaccinated people have a much higher rate of severe illness that requires hospitalization. Filling up hospitals unnecessarily kills people, and delays preventative care.
People who are voluntarily unvaxxed without a medical necessity are, to be clear, 1) categorically stupid 2) responsible for the injury and death of others.
I could call them names ,like typhoid Maries. Fat fucks. Ban them from participating in society unless they show a proper BMI index card. Force them into diet camps.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BdPKpWbxTg.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6....
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32929833/.
But I would never do that. I happily spend my tax money for peole who smoke, overeat, drink and drive, get bothched breas augmentations, beat the crap of eachother, OD on heroin and all the amazing horrible things that make us humans.
Whatever choice you make in your life, you can NEVER EVER be threatened to have medical care taken away from you.
Unconditinal medical care is one of the corner stones of our society.
Red Cross workers in conflict areas will treat rape victims in one tent, and their rapist in the next.
Fun job, no. But if you cannot handle it than you should not have gone into medicine.
This tendency to normalice demands of who gets medical care and who doesnt stops now. There are not many things I will violently defend, but if society will ever hint that it is going to elect who gets medical support and who doesnt based on their personal life choices I will protest. Violenty if I have to.
This is a basic human right I am willing to die for.
> This tendency to normalice demands of who gets medical care and who doesnt stops now. There are not many things I will violently defend, but if society will ever hint that it is going to elect who gets medical support and who doesnt based on their personal life choices I will protest. Violenty if I have to.
This is a basic human right I am willing to die for.
Perfectly expresses how I feel as well. Thank you.
But the idea that vaccination status is remotely comparable to weight, smoking, drug addiction – that's laughable.
It's a single goddamn shot (sorry – two shots for mRNA). You can get them fucking everywhere, for free, with a walk-in appointment.
We know they're safe. We know they keep people out of the hospital. We know that putting people in hospitals right now is a huge drain on a strained resource.
Again: people who are sick deserve care. Always. Regardless of their moronic views.
But the idea that an unvaccinated person is somehow free of the responsibility of their actions, when they could so easily fix them? I find that hard to swallow.
I absolutely agree that no one should ever be threatened to have medical care taken away from them! That is precisely why I'm ok with villifying (note that I'm not saying "calling them names" or "refuse treatment") the unvaccinated, as that is precisely what they are doing! And no, this is absolutely not comparable to anything else: there has been no sudden explosion in the last two years of obesity or drunk driving or smoking to the point that there are no hospital beds for anyone else. Only covid has done that.
Hospital Costs and deaths associated with covid are easily surpassed by the obese if you add up just a few years.
https://www.healthycommunitieshealthyfuture.org/learn-the-fa...
Are you British or something?
Not if they already had covid or are young and healthly. I would agree with your statement with the qualifier "unvaccinated people that are over 60 or have comorbidity".
Unvaccinated people of all ages are significantly more likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19 than vaccinated people of the same age group [1].
12-34 year olds are 10 times more likely to be hospitalized.
Even if the absolute numbers are very low for young and healthy people – even if that's 0.01% instead of 0.001% of cases – that is an absolutely unacceptable amount of people to be putting into hospital beds when they could just get a motherfucking shot instead.
[1] Page 3 of https://www.doh.wa.gov/Portals/1/Documents/1600/coronavirus/... Study published 3 days ago.
Tell me it's not material when you're waiting in a rural ER for six hours because one of their two ventilators is taken by an unvaccinated 19-year-old who went to three New Year's Eve parties.
There would be a conversation to have here if getting the vaccine wasn't the easiest goddamn thing in the world.
But it is. So there's not.
I've yet to see any convincing evidence that a prior infection isn't good enough, but I see plenty of people convinced that the recovered are selfish/evil/stupid if they aren't rushing out for a vaccine.
Obese people have a much higher rate of severe illness that requires hospitalization. Filling up hospitals unnecessarily kills people, and delays preventative care.
People who are voluntarily obese without a medical necessity are, to be clear, 1) categorically stupid 2) responsible for the injury and death of others.
-------------------------------------------
See how off-putting this gets very quickly?
These two things are a perfect, 1:1 analogy.
I'm also in favor of vaccination btw, but against the shaming.
Do you have a reference for this claim? Nearly everyone I know that has caught it and has gotten sick in the past 2 weeks has been vaccinated, sometimes boostered as well. I don't think this claim is true with Omicron.
Vaccination makes you less likely to end up on a ventilator.
And in a big storm, even everyone being 25% less likely to get infected impacts rate of transmission, which is the big one for resource constraints and such.
But there is no data to indicate that it's >0% effective either. So until we have data to back things up one way or the other, talking about it just creates more science disinformation.
Early studies suggested that vaccine antibodies were much weaker but boosted individuals still had antibodies that had some effect on omicron, and gave no reason to believe that non-antibody parts of the immune system would have 0% effect. So based on that, and high level of protection against previous strains, my default assumption would be "some, but much lower, protection."
Then, as of Dec 26, being vaccinated in CA still resulted in a much lower case rate per 100K: https://covid19.ca.gov/state-dashboard/#postvax-status That likely isn't 100% omicron data, but the ratio looks the same as what it was before, so still not reason to drop my belief to 0%.
It is quite the leap to say "new strain, I should restart my assumption at 0% effectiveness."
Strangely, you can find this information in Fig 2 of this short anti-vax paper claiming the vaccine doesn't correlate with case numbers at all.
I don't blame people for being confused.
https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10654-021-008...
In the US, with the delta wave, case-rate-per-100k-people very much showed that the vaccinated were less likely to catch Covid. For instance: "From December 20, 2021 to December 26, 2021, unvaccinated people were 3.9 times more likely to get COVID-19 than fully vaccinated people." (with a chart showing the trend similarly for months). https://covid19.ca.gov/state-dashboard/#postvax-status
I expect the omicron wave to be less dramatically tilted, but that there will still be some difference.
Positive of which % pos test % population
Age Tests vaxed vaccinated vaccinated
<18 395,335 57,284 14% 35%
18-29 257,526 181,705 71% 60%
30-39 254,435 193,623 76% 65%
40-49 230,670 195,908 85% 77%
50-59 147,033 129,440 88% 85%
60-69 58,233 51,037 88% 90%
70-79 18,858 16,263 86% 95%
>80 9,067 7,658 84% 95%
Total > 18 975,822 775,634 79%
You had the same outcome in November, i.e. pre-Omicron.
What's the case rate per 100K at the population level there?
Edit: actually, didn't find exactly that table, but did find a section in the doc you link, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/..., on page 14, that shows vaccine effectiveness remains against symptomatic disease as a result of a study against delta and omicron both. But I would love to see the overall case rate to know about asymptomatic disease too.
The % per 100k is available p40 of the same pdf. But I find that much harder to read given that the size of the vaxxed and unvaxxed populations vastly differ.
The table on page 40 is consistent with US data, where case rates at the population. It says to read in conjunction with pages 32 to 34, which basically says "stats won't be as accurate as formal assessment of vaccine effectiveness, please see the formal data." The formal data suggests effectiveness against transmission. The raw cases-per-100k numbers agree. Yet you latch onto a different number - another one that the report says isn't authoritative for those purposes either - to claim the data shows ineffectiveness! That seems backward.
During the recent recall attempt for Gov. Gavin Newsom, the ads supporting him essentially said, "The Republican candidate will remove the mask mandate and kill your grandma. Vote to keep Newsom, he'll keep grandma alive with mask mandates." so yeah I figure it's gonna be a while before California Democrats, at least, can support easing up on the masks.
What I remember about HIV in the early 80s was that fear of it fueled a lot of homophobia from those who were ignorant about the disease, certainly to begin with. In fact I remember it originally being seen as a disease that only infected homosexuals and drug addicts - and those being the people who were vilified - which proved to be a fatally uninformed point of view for some.
But HIV is, fundamentally, a very different pathogen to COVID. In the 80s HIV was a death sentence: if you were infected with HIV, sooner or later it would develop into AIDS and you would die. However, a relatively small proportion of the population was infected, and it wasn't very transmissible (you had to have sex or other transfer of body fluids, such as a blood transfusion). Nowadays, HIV treatments have improved to the extent that in developed countries most people receiving treatment can expect to lead a fairly normal and full life, and to live a normal lifetime (ignoring other causes of death that might intervene). I'm not sure what the story is in less developed countries, but I imagine it's not as encouraging.
COVID has never close to that deadly, but is far more transmissible. It's that high transmission rate that has seen so many people die, even though these represent a small fraction of those infected. And this time, nobody is being vilified for their sexual preference, or their gender identity, or any other characteristic that is fundamental to who they are and over which they may not have had much if any agency. You might argue that drug addicts have agency but they don't have very much once they're hooked.
No, with COVID, people are being vilified for wilful ignorance, which is a choice: a conscious decision, and one that - in this case - has a substantial negative impact on their surrounding community and the world at large.
I can't tell you how effective, or not, that vilification is, but I can tell you that a lot of people - myself included - who are fully vaxxed, boosted, and will gladly accept further vaccinations (and would also welcome effective treatments for those who are sick), are getting enormously fed up of having restrictions placed on our lives which, to a non-trivial extent, are being propagated as a result of people who are spreading misinformation and choosing not to get vaccinated. I'm not old - somewhere in the middle - but the remaining count of the best years of my life is finite and even in the best possible case very limited, so I'm getting sick to death of people telling me what I can and can't do with them.
I even agree with you that pointing fingers and calling names won't change anything, but it doesn't matter. Lots of people have had their fill and the anti-vaxxers are a convenient, and frankly not entirely unjust, target for their rage and frustration, which pays to a key point: the rest of us, the "vaxxed and done", or whatever you want to call us, will eventually tire of allowing the lowest common denominator to set the agenda. That's not a threat: it's just a reality, just who we are. Eventually we'll tire of the yoke and throw it off.
1. I live in the UK. Sadly I can't just up and move anywhere I choose. Even more frustrating, since we left the EU I can't even just up and move anywhere I choose in Europe (not that restrictions-wise it's much better there at the moment).
2. My close family are all in the UK and, although the rules have made it hard to see them as regularly as I would have liked over the past 2 years, it's been a lot easier (and less costly) than it would have been had I "just moved somewhere else", and I want to continue to be nearish to them.
4. My girlfriend and her close family live in the UK. I'm not leaving her to move somewhere else, and especially not to move to Florida - WTF. Just as importantly I can't see her being keen on living that far from her family.
5. Most of my friends live in the UK, either close to where I live now, or close to where my parents live. I could start again somewhere else but, overall, I'm fairly content with my life. Ditto my girlfriend's friends.
6. My current employer places a 45 day limit on working abroad for tax reasons. This isn't insurmountable. I could find another job but finding another job is another barrier, and I quite like my current job.
7. I have a house that I'm part way through refurbishing. I'd have to figure out what to do with that but, whatever the outcome, that decision will require a significant investment of time, or money, or both. The reality is it would be a trade-off between the two but, in any event, would represent a substantial investment that due to the need to act quickly might well outweigh what I'd invest if I were less constrained by time.
8. I've never wanted to live in the US, though I like visiting, and I'd certainly want better employment conditions than I'm likely to find there: i.e., sensible amounts of holiday, decent employee rights, not to mention public healthcare.
Yes, if I was still 28, single, had my whole career ahead of me, and hadn't yet bought a house, I could simply up sticks and leave, as long as practicalities rather than relationships were my major driving factor. But it's not so simple, and the fact that I work in tech is basically irrelevant because the only part of the equation it simplifies is the "getting a job" part, which isn't even the most important aspect of said equation. As an aside, somebody like Joe Rogan can move from California to Texas relatively easily because he's a jetsetter and all his mates are jetsetters so he pretty much only gets the upsides from that move (not a criticism: with the kind of money he has, I might well see things differently too).
But far more important than all of that, your comment plays hard to the point I was making: why the hell should I give everything up because, in some part, of a bunch of people who won't see sense? What difference does it make whether that's because of rules and restrictions, or because I've had to walk away from my life and start again because of them?
That's a great question, and it also touches on the reason I'm not only infuriated with antivaxxers: vaccines don't fully protect against illness, nor do they stop transmission. So whilst I vaccines are of substantial benefit they're clearly not a total solution to the problem of COVID, nor do I think such a total solution exists or can exist within any foreseeable timeframe.
One becomes jaded living with controls over a situation that doesn't appear to be particularly controllable; certainly not a situation that can be controlled by the UK government, or other governments in Western Europe.
I've tolerated - we've all tolerated - restrictions for nearly two years now but, if they're not making much difference, well, eff the restrictions, I've had enough. I'm not getting any younger here and I'm fed up of wasting my life away. I suppose, to some extent, I'm a bit consumed with a sort of impotent frustration.
What's the situation where you are, if you don't mind me asking?
Along the same lines my kid is also quarantined for the the next few days as someone at his table tested positive this past Friday (did not even make it a week). They can either do virtual schooling for 10 days or return once they have a negative test. Only the 4 kids at his table are quarantined, rest of the class is not. He has actually had a low grade fever (99 - 100 degrees F) the last 3 days so he may have it but he tested negative on a covid test, so technically he can go back to school monday. Not sure I trust the test and will hold him home for a few more days until he has no fever. Other than that he has no symptoms. No one else in the family is symptomatic.
In grocery stores about 35 - 40% of people wear masks. I am hit or miss, mainly miss on masks. I used to mask all the time and not sure there was a conscious decision to stop but it just kind of faded away. I did recently get the booster. Have not vaccinated the kids yet, go back and forth on it. Service workers are generally masked, not sure if by choice or company policy, I am assuming the latter. No vaccination or masking req. to eat at a restaurant. Feel a little bad about the almost dual class structure created where the service industry is masked while those they serve are not.
There are places in the US like NYC that check your vaccine card before they will admit you. Federal government is attempting to push a vaccine requirement for all companies over 100 employees through the courts, sitting at the supreme court right now, not sure what will happen with that.
It is very hard to get a test though here and the state government is encouraging people not to get tested unless they have severe symptoms. Not sure I agree with this.
I am very center of the road politically and politicians here are now extreme so I find myself lost in the shuffle not agreeing with most of those that represent me. Covid has been very much politicized now with Republican governors essentially removing all restrictions and many democratic governors adding much more stringent restrictions although I think most of them fall short of Euro style restrictions and are not close to Australian levels.
My kids did not do well with the isolation that came with the initial outbreak so I think I have tailored my response more to ensuring they are mentally well than any real concern for the physical risks of Covid which are generally low (not saying zero) in younger patients.
I vote Democrat usually but find myself disliking the hardline approach they have taken on vaccination but dislike even more any politician that refuses to acknowledge how egregious what happened when they attempted to overthrow the election for Trump last year. So I just kind of worry about my family now and attempt to block out the country at large.
Apologies for the novel.
One of the things that really resonated with me is that if you're a customer of the hospitality industry, you don't have to wear a mask, but if you're a staff member, you do. It's very two tier, and they're obviously at far higher risk of contracting COVID than the rest of us.
Something that is different is that a fair number of events do check COVID passes - my GF and I went to a gig a couple of days ago, for example, where this was the case. So this is similar to NYC.
Like you, I'm pretty centrist, but I don't think COVID has become quite the political hot potato here in the UK that it perhaps is in the US. There's a lot of sniping but there's also broad cross-party support for measures that attempt to control the pandemic. That being said, there is still a notable left/right divide with, for example, some conservatives being very heavily against certain measures (e.g., COVID passports), and some on the left always being in favour of more restrictions.
There's quite a bit of politics playing across countries in Europe around travel measures as well, with the UK I think probably as guilty as other countries in this regard.
The situation with schoolchildren has been similar, but with mask wearing for teenagers now mandatory. No issues with younger kids though, which I think is good but also marginally aggravating when GF and I take her kids places, and we have to wear masks but they don't.
The quarantine/isolation rules are loosening, which I think is pragmatically sensible, with a testing regime defining when quarantine can end, rather than some sort of fixed 7 or 10 day rule. This is really an improvement because, before, you might not even realise you have COVID for a few days, then have to isolate for 10 days after testing positive, which was pretty difficult.
We are experiencing widespread disruption across the economy due to COVID related absences though. I was in a meeting a few days ago where, out of the 7 of us, 2 had COVID, and 1 was still recovering from quite a severe infection that had hospitalised him. We've never experienced that before, and clearly it's quite widespread with many people I know now having had it recent weeks.
I don't get the impression there's much appetite for further restrictions in England or much chance of further lockdowns but, across the Union as a whole, it's a pretty mixed picture, so it's hard to say how it's going to play out over the next few months. There is a sense that people are starting to care a lot less about the pandemic though.
The government, of course, have not done themselves any favours with recent revelations about parties and drinks events. The outdoor stuff I'm not so bothered about, but what I think a lot of us find tough to swallow is the "one rule for us, another rule for them" mentality that is perhaps behind it.
(Btw, sorry I was also a bit rude about Florida: it's the heat and humidity in summer that kills me but there's a lot there to like, obviously, and despite being drenched in sweat the moment I step outside in June in Orlando, I've had great times on both the trips I took there, both for business, even managing to catch a shuttle launch one evening back in 2007, which was incredible. I imagine the winters would be fine but the summers would definitely cripple me.)
Any way we choose, it amounts to sacrificing XYZk people so we can go back to living a normal life. I don't think that's an exchange most people are willing to take.
And yes, lockdown measures are usually in response to hospitals filling up. Check for example [0] against the timeline of lockdowns for that area. If you know any counter examples I'd like to hear about it.
[0]: https://www.alberta.ca/stats/covid-19-alberta-statistics.htm...
Covid does not spread in any meaningful way via surfaces. All of the cleaning and disinfecting nonsense that is still going on is pure theatre.
> Any way we choose, it amounts to sacrificing XYZk people so we can go back to living a normal life. I don't think that's an exchange most people are willing to take.
It's an exchange everyone makes every single day in order for society to function.
You may be correct about covid, but cleaning surfaces helps to prevent other illnesses from spreading anyway. In a situation where hospitals are impacted there's a strong argument that such behavior and precautions leads to better healthcare outcomes.
It's a reasonable precaution take, at least until we know precisely how the virus could get to the isolated Belgian Antarctic base, where everyone was isolated for weeks and tested and retested prior to being sent there.
Not at this rate though. In my country covid deaths are easily 20x that of traffic fatalities and the latter is seen as a serious social issue.
Also my friends in the medical profession are simply tired of doing 300h months.
Something has to be done around capacity issues, or we'll be in the same situation indefinitely. Or even worse when the next pandemic hits.
Probably not realistic, but I would love to see more personal involvement in care. One level could be prevention, and not just the vaccine. Lose weight, exercise, eat right. It's hard to change people though.
Another is care after the fact. Short staffed? Give me a procedure card and let me do the less skilled stuff. Most of nursing is really basic and many things are handled by machines (when's the last time a nurse took your BP with a manual sphig?). Maybe that's beyond many people's abilities, but there are some who are used to wearing respirators, practicing aseptic techniques, and following procedures. The artificial constraints of regulation and law prohibit it. So I guess that's another way society might be making the choice to sacrifice people.
I wonder if they have looked into it- not a new idea, China famously built a hospital early pandemic.
I do have the same questions as you though. How can we make this happen?
Empty beds aren’t making money for hospitals so they often run close to capacity.
(I wish I had the epidemiological understanding to look at data and understand that conclusion, but I don't.)
Or are you talking about other considerations like vaxxed/in-vaxxed?
The voters should decide. A jurisdiction could simply decide to allocate capacity based on vaccination status (ie, if 20% of the population is unvaccinated, they get 20% of available beds for COVID). Completely fair.
As viruses can remain active on surfaces, unless you irradiate the deliveries with a UV lamp (and do it again after unboxing them, since there may be viruses on the actual item) even that would not be enough.
> Even if we locked down for 3 months, once we were released someone from another country would come in and re-infect everyone again.
That's if you assume away animals, as viruses that affect mammals are rarely limited to humans (ex: chicken flu)
> Also during lock down do we once again tell the poorest among us that while they are 'essential' that they are also worth less and must continue to work and face the risk alone so as to ensure the rest of us can isolate in safety at home
Agreed. It's time to accept we're not immortals, viruses exist, and yes it's a shame that covid is now endemic, but it's even worse to perform lockdowns of dubious efficiency that only have one guaranteed effect: hurting the economy, and the "poorest among us".
We've long known that transmission of COVID through fomites (surfaces) is very low: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/more/science-and-r...
If this wasn't the case, grocery store protocol would have been very different during the early days of the pandemic.
Cases of COVID-19 spreading through fomites (particles on a surface) are extremely rare[1][2] and COVID-19 has a short lifespan on cardboard[3]. Just leaving deliveries somewhere for a day is probably enough to stop transmission.
[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34136133/
[2] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-95479-5
[3] https://www.sciencealert.com/how-long-does-coronavirus-last-...
> Similarly, on cardboard, no viable SARS-CoV-2 particles could be found after 24 hours, or SARS-CoV-1 after eight.
> They have also indicated that getting vaccinated does not reduce your ability to spread the virus
I said "does not reduce" I meant to say "does not remove". My fault.
I too am double vaccinated an boosted, but everyone has a point at which they say enough is enough and will stop getting boosters and isolating indefinitely.
For instance, take the CDC guidance on preparing for a hurricane or tropical storm:
Step 1: get a covid vaccine.
https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/features/hurricanepreparedness/inde...
Think about this: spreading covid misinformation like this leads to people dying earlier than they would have otherwise died.
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1257041/average-weight-g...
It actually still is important and advisable to keep your coronavirus vaccinations up to date. There's a reason why Israel marches ahead and begins to distribute the fourth shot in a year to the most vulnerable groups, and likely access will be expanded similarly like it was for the first three shots.
FWIW, it should become a normality that people visit their general practitioner once a year, get their general fitness and blood checkup done and their missing/expired vaccinations refreshed. Our societies may very well benefit from eliminating millions of workdays lost every year to the ordinary flu [1].
[1]: https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/1225629/umfra...
We are losing a lot of wealth, a lot of life simply because politicians are afraid of anti-vaxxer propaganda and because prior generations have abused minorities for medical experiments (e.g. the Tuskegee syphilis experiment) or vaccination programs for military purposes (e.g. the Bin Laden discovery).
I, for one, will not go on living in fear like this.
* People can be over 65 for decades without dying.
* People can be cancer survivors for decades without dying.
* People can have type-1, type-II diabetes for decades without dying.
* People can have heart valve issues for decades without dying.
* People can have COPD for decades without dying.
Let's quit blaming those people who are in the high risk category dying from a clearly preventable illness.
Right. That's why we need vaccines, and not an excuse for the crap your espousing to not get vaccinated.
What makes you say with any degree of confidence that the virus is less lethal now?
The data's not in yet. At this point, it's all magical thinking.
This is such a bad take. Unvaxxed cause the majority of hospitalizations, deaths and complications. This is just objectively wrong that it doesn't matter that much.
The same people who are vaccinated are the same ones who will likely isolate/mask-up if they catch the disease.
I think the issue now is a political one. The democratic party has hung their hat on how bad covid is and how important it is to get vaccinated and to state at this point, NVM lets just get back to normal would be a loss of face. Instead of just saying that the virus has evolved and is less lethal now they have continued to double down on the vaccine mandate which I don't agree with. I am a democrat so I am not coming at this as a republican. I am not downplaying the severity of the virus but at this point it is here to stay. Even if we locked down for 3 months, once we were released someone from another country would come in and re-infect everyone again. Also during lock down do we once again tell the poorest among us that while they are 'essential' that they are also worth less and must continue to work and face the risk alone so as to ensure the rest of us can isolate in safety at home.
Edit: I said "does not reduce your ability to spread the virus" I meant to say "does not remove". My fault.