totm april 2020 Coronavirus

[Spacescifi]

1 hour ago, KerikBalm said:

I would strongly disagree, but that is a topic for another thread.

 

I didn't say do nothing. There are intermediates between doing nothing and a full lockdown.

In Switzerland, we are getting through the 2nd wave without a full lockdown, and even that is with poor compliance amongst the population regarding proper mask wearing and social distancing.

Certainly the US f-d up by not even passing legislation to guarantee 10 days sick leave for infected people.

One shouldn't have to choose between having money for food, or infecting others. Its also ridiculous that a law would be needed.

There's a lot that can be done short of lockdown.

 

I agree with you that the virus could have been taken seriously earlier...and you can guess where I am from via that comment.

 

What do they say?

"To err is human."

Not an excuse...but really....what did you expect LOL?

It's what we do! I am not saying accept it...just...expect it LOL.

[tater]

On 12/23/2020 at 10:37 AM, sevenperforce said:

The past year has been a disaster but it could have been averted if governments had actually done their job. Complete lockdown. Pay everyone to stay at home for six weeks. Then reopen slowly, continuing to pay people.

Abject nonsense, sorry. Lockdown? If you want to take my freedom, you need to demonstrate efficacy FIRST. Guess what, I might vote for it—but I get to vote. This should be passed by legislatures, NOT by executive fiat. Not any executive, anywhere.

This was in worldwide community spread BEFORE China told anyone. So the lockdown needed to be maybe 1 year ago. Maybe even 134, 14 months ago. Zero international travel, LOCKED borders. How would that have gone over? LOL. Seriously, imagine a call to shut Christmas last year. What happens? half the people cheer it, and the others talk about totalitarianism. Happens either way, whichever exec does it, the opposition would be against it.

Also, definitionally "everyone" cannot possibly stay home. "Everyone" needs to eat. Everyone needs basic supplies. Emergency people have to work. Medical people have to work, they are literally exposed every single day, and they are never quarantined, only isolated when actually sick. Which means everyone in food service, related transportation, healthcare, and all kinds of infrastructure MUST work. In NYC, locked down in spring, 70% of the cases reported never leaving their apartments. YOU get to hide at home, safe, but my wife gets to work anyway, then take care of YOU, if you get sick? My grocery checker, Bill, needs to go in every day so you can live? Staying at home is a gift to the people lucky enough to not have to do anything. All that is without the absurd cost of the mitigations.

Lockdown was NEVER part of pandemic planning before, it's idiotic, particularly for this nothingburger of a pandemic. I already survived on pretty close to this, apparently (my dad doesn't remember it happening in 1968, nor does he remember 1957, he lived normally in spite of similar pop level mortality to this from both). If this had a large, universal mortality, sure.

BTW, what is the cutoff for locking down 331 million people in future? Give an actual number. At what point, using whose math, do we do this? R₀ demonstrated >X (need transparent data to show they collected ALL the initial cases, BTW). IFR? WHO says the IFR is 0.136%, flu is 0.06-0.15%. A combo of IFR>Y, and R₀>X? Whose math do we trust, China?

My buddy runs testing for movie people here (he's a doc). They test everyone daily (some twice a day) at huge cost (he's making a mint, himself, Hollywood spends money like water, it's a great gig). He counsels every single positive, and there are many. The universally claim they have done everything right. They mask all day at work (except the actors who take them off while acting), they don't go out much, always mask when they do go (get food), distancing, too. All the things.

Thought experiment:

A terrorist group says they have planted some "devices" that will kill off a huge number of elderly people spread around the country unless we stop acting like normal humans, and cower at home. We'd say we don't negotiate, and go spend money to flip them the bird.

 

 

Edited December 25, 2020 by tater

[mikegarrison]

1 hour ago, tater said:

Lockdown was NEVER part of pandemic planning before, it's idiotic, particularly for this nothingburger of a pandemic. I already survived on pretty close to this, apparently (my dad doesn't remember it happening in 1968, nor does he remember 1957, he lived normally in spite of similar pop level mortality to this from both). If this had a large, universal mortality, sure.

This "nothingburger of a pandemic" killed more people in the US yesterday than who died in the 9/11 attack.

Two days ago an internet friend of mine told me that her husband died of COVID on Monday.

[Superfluous J]

2 hours ago, tater said:

Thought experiment:

A terrorist group says they have planted some "devices" that will kill off a huge number of elderly people spread around the country unless we stop acting like normal humans, and cower at home. We'd say we don't negotiate, and go spend money to flip them the bird.

Thought experiment:

A terrorist group says they have planted devices (no quotes) that will kill 300 thousand Americans a year (note I'm rounding down the number dead and up the time frame, just to be fair and not make it sound so bad) unless we put masks on our faces when we go outside.

But mah freedoms!

[Silavite]

1 hour ago, tater said:

[snip]

Without addressing the argument directly, I'd like to point out that our knowledge of the virus when lockdowns began was far, far poorer than what we have now. Even if I were to agree with everything you wrote, I still think that the assertion @sevenperforce made is correct.

Quote

Complete lockdown. Pay everyone to stay at home for six weeks. Then reopen slowly, continuing to pay people.

Without a good handle on the characteristics of the virus at that time, and with cases increasing in a neatly exponential fashion, I think such a response would be warranted.

Quote

If you want to take my freedom, you need to demonstrate efficacy FIRST. Guess what, I might vote for it—but I get to vote. This should be passed by legislatures, NOT by executive fiat. Not any executive, anywhere.

I'd like to argue a bit against plebiscites and such an ironclad interpretation of separation of powers during a crisis, but that topic is outside the scope of this forum.

Also, @Superfluous J, I think that your framing is a bit unfair, since @tater is arguing against lockdowns (which are far more economically damaging and pose an actual restriction to freedom of movement and on the right to assemble) rather than mask wearing.

[Superfluous J]

13 minutes ago, Silavite said:

@tater is arguing against lockdowns

@tater has also argued against (and lol'd at how all his doctor friends don't follow the rules of) wearing masks.

Painting it all as a "old people who we obviously don't care about are the only ones dying and we've had to shut down the entire economy for the whole year" is just as hyperbolic as "everybody is now dead because you didn't wear a mask" and I don't really care at this point if others don't see it that way.

[Silavite]

On 4/30/2020 at 4:41 PM, tater said:

I have yet to wear a mask anywhere other than in the storage closet of my carport (I'm much, much more afraid of hantavirus from critters in there than COVID since it has a CFR of 36%). None the less, I have cleaned out that closet. If my Governor became tyrannical enough to require one, I'd fabricate it out of cheesecloth in my kitchen (1 layer)—which is about as effective as homemade masks, or the ones I see people wearing over their chin, under their nose, etc.

 

8 minutes ago, Superfluous J said:

@tater has also argued against (and lol'd at how all his doctor friends don't follow the rules of) wearing masks.

Painting it all as a "old people who we obviously don't care about are the only ones dying and we've had to shut down the entire economy for the whole year" is just as hyperbolic as "everybody is now dead because you didn't wear a mask" and I don't really care at this point if others don't see it that way.

I forgot about his statement there. I retract my objection.

[Entropian]

On 12/24/2020 at 7:04 PM, tater said:

[snip]

Not just old people are dying and having severe reactions to this "nothingburger of a pandemic."  A family member of mine died recently due to COVID-19.  A (young) friend of a family member of mine had a severe reaction to COVID-19 and now has severe brain damage, among other organ damage.  Just because many old people are dying (young people are dying and have severe reactions as well) is not a reason to stop measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19.  People need to get unbiased, accurate information about this pandemic, and they can do that by listening to the scientists and experts in the field, not conspiracy theorists and unqualified, unsupported, overreacting, hyperbolic naysayers.

 

Edited December 27, 2020 by Entropian

[sevenperforce]

On 12/24/2020 at 7:04 PM, tater said:

Quote

sevenperforce: The past year has been a disaster but it could have been averted if governments had actually done their job. Complete lockdown. Pay everyone to stay at home for six weeks. Then reopen slowly, continuing to pay people.

Lockdown? If you want to take my freedom, you need to demonstrate efficacy FIRST. Guess what, I might vote for it—but I get to vote. This should be passed by legislatures, NOT by executive fiat. Not any executive, anywhere.

You did vote for it.

I mean, I assume you vote, right? And you vote for elected representatives. And in 2003, those elected representatives passed House Bill 231, codified as  N.M.S.A. § 12-10A-5, authorizing the governor of New Mexico to declare a state of public health emergency upon consultation with the secretary of health. This law provides plenary power to the governor to authorize specific public health officials to enforce necessary orders, rules, and procedures. The powers granted to the executive branch by the legislature during a public health emergency include rationing of health care supplies, government control of health care facilities, isolation orders, quarantine orders, compulsory vaccinations, and even specifically isolation orders without prior written ex parte court authorization (§ 12-10A-9). It also provides a way for isolated individuals to request a hearing to contest the necessity of the orders in court.

We don't live in a pure democracy. We live in a representative democracy. We voted for them; they voted for this. This is the law. You might not like it, but that's the way it is.

On 12/24/2020 at 7:04 PM, tater said:

This was in worldwide community spread BEFORE China told anyone. So the lockdown needed to be maybe 1 year ago. Maybe even 134, 14 months ago. Zero international travel, LOCKED borders. How would that have gone over?

We've discussed this claim before and it's simply not true. SARS-CoV-2 was not in worldwide community spread in mid-2019. RNA sequencing can trace exactly how the spread happened. We know who the first carrier to enter the United States was, and we know that the majority of cases in the United States actually came through NYC via European travel. This is known.

On 12/24/2020 at 7:04 PM, tater said:

Also, definitionally "everyone" cannot possibly stay home. "Everyone" needs to eat. Everyone needs basic supplies. Emergency people have to work. Medical people have to work, they are literally exposed every single day, and they are never quarantined, only isolated when actually sick. Which means everyone in food service, related transportation, healthcare, and all kinds of infrastructure MUST work. In NYC, locked down in spring, 70% of the cases reported never leaving their apartments. YOU get to hide at home, safe, but my wife gets to work anyway, then take care of YOU, if you get sick? My grocery checker, Bill, needs to go in every day so you can live?

I'm not saying it would be easy. It's quite challenging, and obviously there are essential workers who would have to continue showing up. If the federal response had been better and all states had instituted the kinds of lockdown standards practiced by the District of Columbia, plus broad economic relief, then we would have had this thing under control by June. Unfortunately, locking down one jurisdiction but not the one next door is like having a peeing section in the pool.

On 12/24/2020 at 7:04 PM, tater said:

I already survived on pretty close to this, apparently (my dad doesn't remember it happening in 1968, nor does he remember 1957, he lived normally in spite of similar pop level mortality to this from both). If this had a large, universal mortality, sure.

I already addressed this here. The 1968 epidemic resulted in 42% more deaths per capita than an average flu season in the United States. By February, the COVID-19 pandemic will have resulted in 1164% more deaths per capita than an average flu season in the United States. They aren't comparable. And neither are mitigation strategies; the world was much less mobile in 1958.

On 12/24/2020 at 7:04 PM, tater said:

BTW, what is the cutoff for locking down 331 million people in future? Give an actual number. At what point, using whose math, do we do this?

I would trust competent state and federal executives to consult with public health officials and use legislated powers. I am not a public health official.

On 12/24/2020 at 7:04 PM, tater said:

Thought experiment:

A terrorist group says they have planted some "devices" that will kill off a huge number of elderly people spread around the country unless we stop acting like normal humans, and cower at home. We'd say we don't negotiate, and go spend money to flip them the bird.

Thought experiment: an international terrorist group begins releasing clouds of sarin gas at random in specific, predictable areas. The terrorist network is large enough that initial efforts by DHS to stop the attacks are unsuccessful. How long would it take the government to order people to stay away from the specific, predictable areas where the gas is being released? 

[tater]

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2774102

Asymptomatic/pre-symptomatic spread in a household (close proximity, basically all the time) has an attack rate of 0.7%.

That's effectively 0, and in a situation away from 24/7 togetherness? Zero.

The idea of a 6 week lockdown requires it is simultaneous, global, and universal. Any failure, anywhere, and it just leaves everyone vulnerable as soon as travel begins again. There is zero probability of doing that in the world.

I don't disagree that we could end a new infectious disease with a perfect lockdown globally that encompasses the entire infectious period of everyone exposed at the instant it starts. But it would need to be universal, and that's simply  impossible in the real world—particularly months after it is in global community spread (which was true last fall).

Imagine a President wanting to even lock a single border perfectly. Like building a wall or some sort of crazy talk like that. Would go over SO well, we'd all agree, right? Not to mention doing it quickly. (many hospitalizations here in my state were in fact imported from across an international border).

The US results are firmly in the middle of Europe's in terms of outcomes.

http://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/?chart=countries-normalized&highlight=Sweden&show=25-lg&y=both&scale=linear&data=deaths-daily-7&data-source=jhu&xaxis=right&extra=Florida%2CEuropean Union%2CUnited States#countries-normalized

 

1 hour ago, sevenperforce said:

I would trust competent state and federal executives to consult with public health officials and use legislated powers. I am not a public health official.

You suggested a 6 week lockdown. For a disease that almost entirely kills people who were going to die soon anyway. In some countries 80% of deaths are in nursing homes. Nursing homes are hospice. Pre-2020, average stays are about 1 year in nursing homes. Anyone more than 2-3X as concerned about COVID-19 than they are about flu each year is being irrational.

Having watched 2020, I no longer trust public health officials. The CDC guidelines BEFORE 2020 were sensible, and rational. And they didn't involve lockdowns, and indeed didn't involve forced NPI. They were to present data, and make suggestions. Isolating infectious people, and monitoring their close contacts. Never has the CDC suggested the draconian nonsense 2020 has given us. Everyone fell over backwards to copy China—a totalitarian regime—when it is turning out unsurprisingly, that outcomes by country are complicated. What causes low COVID impact? Genetics. Lifestyle (diet, etc). Demographics. NPIs are demonstrably not effective (NC/SC, ND/SD, FL vs NY, Peru vs everywhere, etc). Papers posted above showing not relationship between stringency and outcomes.  All of "the west" looks much the same, and places that were spared early, are now spiking in winter (unsurprising, coronaviruses are all seasonal, and lightly hit places are places ripe for infection).

Destroying society also has costs. My friend in LTC (management) says their mortality from NOT COVID is up 50% this year, just as one example. She also hates the fact that these people who on average only have a year or 2 left (they are in a nursing home, so that's the reality), just spent 50% or more of their remaining life in solitary confinement. It's a human wellbeing disaster, IMO. Death is bad, but so is ruining lives.

My kids are OK, but we're very well off. Kids in worse household situations? They're possibly set back for life. All these things matter. All this nonsense over a tiny increase in mortality in 1 year—and I'd bet money that when we look at a long timeframe average, it will turn out even less significant (people died who dodged a bullet in the last couple years, and people died who likely would have died of flu/RSV/etc in coming years had COVID not gotten them).

I think everyone here wants the same thing—less suffering. Focusing on only one source of suffering—the tiny % of people infected with SARS-CoV2 who have bad outcomes—and not looking at the big picture is my problem. If I thought I had some infinite other life in the future, maybe losing a year of the only life I think I have would be less concerning to me. My in-laws have ignored the hysteria WRT to seeing us this whole year. I know people who have not seen their parents, kids who have not seen grandparents, for this whole time. Those elderly people have had a substantial % of their remaining life wrecked. If you have only a few years to live... I for one would rather see my kids whatever the risk than not see them. YMMV.

1 hour ago, sevenperforce said:

Thought experiment: an international terrorist group begins releasing clouds of sarin gas at random in specific, predictable areas. The terrorist network is large enough that initial efforts by DHS to stop the attacks are unsuccessful. How long would it take the government to order people to stay away from the specific, predictable areas where the gas is being released? 

That's fine. We have exactly that. They are called Long Term Care facilities. 50%+ of the deaths in the 0.6% of the population in LTC.

The rest of us are not at meaningfully increased risk. Sure, maybe as a 50 YO I am at double my annual flu risk. Call it 3X to be extra concerned. 3X nearly zero risk is still nearly 0 risk. I never want to get the flu, it's terrible. I don't alter my life over flu fears, and I'd not alter my life at all over 3X flu fears when my baseline flu risk is so very low.

 

Unrelated to all the above, people have now had 10 months to get their personal health in order. What % of people deeply worried about COVID-19 have made sure their BMI is below 30, since that has been know to be the second highest risk factor after being very elderly since February?

I sure see a lot of fat people around. Odd that when there are lockdowns with runs on stuff at the store, the veggie and meat sections are full, the pasta and prepared food sections are empty.

Edited December 28, 2020 by tater

[sevenperforce]

1 hour ago, tater said:

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2774102

Asymptomatic/pre-symptomatic spread in a household (close proximity, basically all the time) has an attack rate of 0.7%.

That's effectively 0, and in a situation away from 24/7 togetherness? Zero.

This was a meta-analysis of 54 studies with almost 78,000 participants. Out of the studies analyzed, only 3 studies looked at presymptomatic tarnsmission, and those included a total of less than 24 presymptomatic patients. That's why the reported confidence interval for asymptomatic and presymptomatic cases is so large. When the upper limit of your 95% confidence interval (4.9%) is 700% of your average (0.7%), you know you don't have enough data to draw a good conclusion.

Besides, what exactly is the point of this? Are you trying to say that isolation/quarantine is effective? Isn't effective?

1 hour ago, tater said:

The idea of a 6 week lockdown requires it is simultaneous, global, and universal. Any failure, anywhere, and it just leaves everyone vulnerable as soon as travel begins again. 

No, it just needs to be coordinated. There was no federal coordination.

1 hour ago, tater said:

The US results are firmly in the middle of Europe's in terms of outcomes.

http://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/?chart=countries-normalized&highlight=Sweden&show=25-lg&y=both&scale=linear&data=deaths-daily-7&data-source=jhu&xaxis=right&extra=Florida%2CEuropean Union%2CUnited States#countries-normalized

I'm not sure why you think this demonstrates good data for the US. Look at the area under the curve. 

Spoiler

While most of Europe rapidly brought the daily per capita death rates way, way down after the initial peak, the United States kept merrily plugging along, averaging well over a thousand deaths per day, all summer long. In a normal year, there are around 7,800 deaths in the United States every day...from ALL causes.

"Don't worry, this pandemic isn't serious. It will only increase the average daily death rate by about 13% during the summer. It will get twice as bad in the winter, though...hope that's okay."

As of yesterday, COVID-19 has killed one out of every thousand Americans. Think about that.

1 hour ago, tater said:

You suggested a 6 week lockdown. For a disease that almost entirely kills people who were going to die soon anyway. In some countries 80% of deaths are in nursing homes. Nursing homes are hospice. Pre-2020, average stays are about 1 year in nursing homes.

In the United States, it is half of that: 39-42%. Why mention "some countries" when you know that's not the number for the United States?

More importantly, this nonsense about how people "were going to die soon anyway" has got to stop. Nursing homes may be considered a sort of hospice; the average stay is 1-2 years before death (not 1 year as you claimed). But that number includes nursing homes and assisted-living facilities. The average length of stay in assisted living is 2.5-3 years before moving to a skilled-care nursing home. And even within skilled-care nursing homes, the length-of-stay distribution has a VERY long tail:

About half of the people who are moved into a skilled-care nursing facility are dead in six months. But once you go past that point, the distribution becomes very flat. That means that at any given point, the majority of the people actually in a skilled nursing facility have been there for quite some time and will continue to be there for quite some time.

The total average duration of long-term care received by elderly patients who ultimately die in institutions is 4-5 years. "Don't worry. Between a third and a half of the people who will die from this disease probably would have been dead in half a decade anyway." That's not a good argument.

1 hour ago, tater said:

Never has the CDC suggested the draconian nonsense 2020 has given us. Everyone fell over backwards to copy China—a totalitarian regime—

The lockdowns in the United States were nothing like what China did. There were no doors welded shut, no blockaded roads, no mandated shopping schedules, no household food ration deliveries, no door-to-door screening. There's no comparison whatsoever.

1 hour ago, tater said:

Destroying society also has costs. My friend in LTC (management) says their mortality from NOT COVID is up 50% this year, just as one example. She also hates the fact that these people who on average only have a year or 2 left (they are in a nursing home, so that's the reality), just spent 50% or more of their remaining life in solitary confinement. It's a human wellbeing disaster, IMO. Death is bad, but so is ruining lives.

Which is why nipping this thing in the bud back in July would have been nice.

1 hour ago, tater said:

All this nonsense over a tiny increase in mortality in 1 year...

Average annual mortality in the United States is 867.8 deaths per 100,000 citizens. By February (one year from when all this started), COVID-19 will have killed 150/100k. 

Only a 17% increase in mortality. Tiny.

1 hour ago, tater said:

I think everyone here wants the same thing—less suffering. Focusing on only one source of suffering—the tiny % of people infected with SARS-CoV2 who have bad outcomes—

For the 15% of COVID-19 patients whose illness becomes severe, it is FAR worse than the flu. And while we can argue over CFR vs IFR, the fact remains that 10% of patients who DON'T die end up with complications that last for months or are permanent. This is not a tiny percentage.

[DDE]

At home in the red zone

[Serenity]

13 hours ago, DDE said:

At home in the red zone

Kindly remove that picture please, its a bit too much for this place i think.

[sevenperforce]

Guess who got the vaccine?

Me!

 

It was also on the news.

https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/friends-get-lucky-randomly-receive-covid-19-vaccine-before-doses-expire/2527704/

[Entropian]

Can somebody please explain how the immunization works?  From what I've heard, there's 2 injections, each 3-4 weeks apart.  If this is the case, why?

[RCgothic]

The UK is in full national lockdown as of tonight. A day after schools went back.

These measures are very, very, very, very late.

[sevenperforce]

3 hours ago, Entropian said:

Can somebody please explain how the immunization works?  From what I've heard, there's 2 injections, each 3-4 weeks apart.  If this is the case, why?

For Moderna it's two injections four weeks apart; for Pfizer it's two injections three weeks apart. The particular antibodies that bind to SARS-CoV-2 spike proteins are produced very rapidly by the body and, for reasons we don't quite fully understand, tend to be short-lived. Giving a second dose causes those antibodies to be produced again and leads to them becoming fixed in the immune system.

[K^2]

5 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

The particular antibodies that bind to SARS-CoV-2 spike proteins are produced very rapidly by the body and, for reasons we don't quite fully understand, tend to be short-lived. Giving a second dose causes those antibodies to be produced again and leads to them becoming fixed in the immune system.

Not producing a lot of memory cells to some one-off infections sounds like a good optimization. But yeah, it'd be nice to understand how determination is made between "keep a few just in case," and "make enough to be ready." If nothing else, might help make more effective vaccines.

4 hours ago, Entropian said:

Can somebody please explain how the immunization works?

To add to the above, the new thing about these vaccines is that rather than introduce a denatured (dead) virus, a weak form of the virus, or antibodies from another source (animal blood, usually), these new vaccines contain engineered mRNA strands coding for just a specific spike protein. Once lipid bilayer particles from vaccine make it into your cells and deliver mRNA strands, your cells start to produce the spike protein identical to that used by the virus. This protein is entirely harmless on its own, but is easily recognized by your body as foreign, so antibodies for it are produced. The mRNA strands don't last long in your cells, however, so it's just a short burst of spike protein production. The good news is that it greatly shortens vaccine development time while also reducing the risk of side-effects, which is the only reason we can have a reasonably safe vaccine just a year after the virus was discovered. In fact, the few severe allergic reactions we've seen so far have apparently been reactions to inactive ingredients - some chemicals that were added to vaccine to help it store better. This new technique is the only reason we have something that works and safe to administer so quickly. Having to take two doses seems like a fairly insignificant disadvantage in comparison.

[KerikBalm]

Many vaccines require booster shots, this is nothing specific to mRNA

[RCgothic]

The UK trendline is scary. Nearly 60k a day are testing positive, even allowing that we're bad at testing enough and have 1/5th the US population.

 

The spike from being allowed to mingle at Christmas is still 3-4 days away. New year is more than a week. The spike from schools going back despite all the evidence they shouldn't is two weeks away.

Our hospitals are *full* of Covid cases to the point where oxygen is starting to be rationed because the hospitals weren't designed to supply so many oxygen patients at once. 

 

We're in serious danger of a mortality spike as people start dying untreated as the system gets overwhelmed. Sure, Covid only kills 1% (and permanently debilitates another 19%), but that's under ideal conditions. 

The UK has for months attempted to keep things under control without a proper lockdown. We've had 4 tiers of increasing restrictions, none of which have worked because none of them have halted mingling, none of them a proper lockdown.

And now the situation has fallen off a cliff because of a new virus strain that could have been avoided if proper restrictions had reduced the virus in circulation and denied it a pool of cases in which to mutate.

 

Months and months of half-measures only delay stronger measures! 

 

[sevenperforce]

I just had an interview with the largest French news organization and she told me that half of the people in France are refusing the vaccine.

Ridiculous.

More interviews:

https://www.insideedition.com/man-goes-to-dc-grocery-store-to-run-errand-leaves-having-gotten-surprise-covid-19-vaccination-64125

[Scotius]

Meanwhile in Poland, politicians, actors and celebrities are shoving themselves to the front of vaccination queue - ahead of medical workers etc. At the same time our government regretfully announces that teachers will have to wait longer for vaccinations, because there is not enough doses available.

[Clamp-o-Tron]

6 hours ago, sevenperforce said:

I just had an interview with the largest French news organization and she told me that half of the people in France are refusing the vaccine.

Ridiculous.

More interviews:

https://www.insideedition.com/man-goes-to-dc-grocery-store-to-run-errand-leaves-having-gotten-surprise-covid-19-vaccination-64125

This surprised me. I found some numbers from 2016, and they all show higher confidence in vaccines in general that we see with the SARS-CoV-19 vaccine. France was interesting- they were near the bottom in all 4 categories and were the lowest of the Western European nations. Do any Frenchmen (or -women or -whatever) of the forums have any insights into why this might be?

(Numbers from here)

I can see why the refusal rate would be so high, with the theories becoming more popular pre-pandemic, some political and public figures entertaining them, the extremely quick development time, and (I assume) more time stuck inside, exposed to misinformation online.

I hope that the numbers aren’t actually that high, in France, the US, and everywhere, so that we can beat the R0 down below 1.

 

BTW, I want curry now. Thanks.

[K^2]

1 hour ago, Scotius said:

Meanwhile in Poland, politicians, actors and celebrities are shoving themselves to the front of vaccination queue - ahead of medical workers etc. At the same time our government regretfully announces that teachers will have to wait longer for vaccinations, because there is not enough doses available.

Ok, it's in poor taste, and short-term kind of horrible, but if that has significant impact on number of common people who want vaccine and will be lining up (metaphorically speaking) to get it, then maybe it's a good thing in the long run?

It's a little hard for me to nail down a specific number, as I've seen wildly different values for some key parameters, and I'm not involved in any relevant field, so trying to figure out which papers are more reliable is hard for me, but it seems pretty certain that the target number to halt the spread is certainly significantly higher than half of the population being immunized. Having better coverage among teachers, doctors, and services workers will probably let you get away with lower coverage overall, but these are still some high numbers. And there are going to be a lot of people who refuse the vaccine. The more people think of vaccine as something coveted, the fewer will refuse out of fear, hopefully. That might make a difference between going back to life as normal or having to maintain most restrictions in place for a long time.

7 hours ago, sevenperforce said:

I just had an interview with the largest French news organization and she told me that half of the people in France are refusing the vaccine.

Yeah, like that. You know, I don't at all expect the situation across the US to be any better. Maybe not even across California overall. But it's this kind of thing that makes me glad that I live in the San Francisco Bay Area. Our bottleneck in getting critical number of vaccinations done is only going to be in the supply.

[steve_v]

8 hours ago, sevenperforce said:

Ridiculous.

Ridiculous, illogical, and properly infuriating. Not particularly surprising though.

Meanwhile, living on an island has it's perks.
I imagine the arrival of a vaccine will be instructive as to just how many pig-headed wilfully-misinformed idiots live here too. Where there are people dumb enough to set fire to cell towers (because 5G mind control or some such nonsense), I'm sure there are considerably more who are dumb enough to refuse modern medicine for similarly moronic reasons.

Edited January 6, 2021 by steve_v