How do we know a pandemic's over?

[Warp12]

You mean people like this?




Letting a virus that's lethal for them run rampant does actually mean that it will never end. They will have to mask up for the rest of their immunocompromised lives while being mocked by Covid minimizers, or they may die much too soon because those Covid deniers won't mask up.

But we should be forgiving since some of those Covid deniers may not even remember why they feel the way they do.
From a recent Danish study:

Maybe this is the reason why they don't seem to remember the foolishly optimistic predictions they made only three months ago ...



Yeah, right, that must be the reason!
You guys should have a meeting and try to agree on some kind of consensus on this issue: Are people masking up and self-quarantining for some obscure psychological reason, i.e because they have an irrational fear of a virus that isn't even there or, if it is, is just as mild as the common cold, or is it because they enjoy self-quarantining and masking up, kind of like furries dressing up in animal costumes?
Claiming both makes your claims look ridiculous.

As stated: For some people the pandemic will never end.

Immunocompromised people are advised take extra precautions...because I'm not looking out for them, nor changing my way of life for years to accommodate their needs. Neither are most others too concerned with these statistical outliers. Of course, if you are one of these people, it sucks that reality is not going to conform to what would be ideal for your situation.

As for the other aspect of your post, yes, even people on this forum have talked about enjoying masking and social distancing. It is a little strange, but it is what it is.

 

[Lplus]

As stated: For some people the pandemic will never end.

Immunocompromised people are advised take extra precautions...because I'm not looking out for them, nor changing my way of life for years to accommodate their needs. Neither are most others too concerned with these statistical outliers. Of course, if you are one of these people, it sucks that reality is not going to conform to what would be ideal for your situation.

As for the other aspect of your post, yes, even people on this forum have talked about enjoying masking and social distancing. It is a little strange, but it is what it is.

Immunocompromised people have always been advised to take extra precautions from the likes of colds, flu etc.

 

[dann]

So we now have two Covid-minimizing posts to study:

Warp12:
Instead of using every opportunity to spread lies, it would be appreciated if he stopped or at least came up with documentation. I doubt that crackers and 905 appreciate his euphemism for their very serious condition as "these statistical outliers."
"As for the other aspect of your post, yes, even people on this forum have talked about enjoying masking and social distancing."

No, that's not another aspect of my post. I said nothing about about "enjoying masking and social distancing." Neither did crackers and 905. Saying that you are, for instance, 'happy to wear a helmet' because you know that it prevents you from getting killed, doesn't mean that you enjoy wearing it, obviously. And social distancing isn't mentioned at all, but who cares when we are making up stuff anyway, right?

I am immunocompromised, so I am quite happy to continue wearing a mask until I am the only person I see wearing one.

I'm also immunocompromised and don't see dropping my N95 anytime soon, especially as my government (UK) is throwing us under the bus.

That Warp12 himself belongs to one of the risk groups if infected with the virus, a much more common risk group than being immunocompromised, is only mentioned for reason of completeness.

Lplus:
"Immunocompromised people have always been advised to take extra precautions from the likes of colds, flu etc."
Yes, it's not as if another, much more contagious as well as virulent infection should matter to them, is it?! They should be used to it by now, shouldn't they?! 'Learning to live with Covid' the way they have 'learned to live with' colds and flu. Notice the subtle way of saying that SARS-CoV-2 is like "colds, flu etc." without repeating the outright lie that it is no worse than "colds, flu etc."

 

[Lplus]

So we now have two Covid-minimizing posts to study:

Warp12:
Instead of using every opportunity to spread lies, it would be appreciated if he stopped or at least came up with documentation. I doubt that crackers and 905 appreciate his euphemism for their very serious condition as "these statistical outliers."
"As for the other aspect of your post, yes, even people on this forum have talked about enjoying masking and social distancing."

No, that's not another aspect of my post. I said nothing about about "enjoying masking and social distancing." Neither did crackers and 905. Saying that you are, for instance, 'happy to wear a helmet' because you know that it prevents you from getting killed, doesn't mean that you enjoy wearing it, obviously. And social distancing isn't mentioned at all, but who cares when we are making up stuff anyway, right?


That Warp12 himself belongs to one of the risk groups if infected with the virus, a much more common risk group than being immunocompromised, is only mentioned for reason of completeness.

Lplus:
"Immunocompromised people have always been advised to take extra precautions from the likes of colds, flu etc."
Yes, it's not as if another, much more contagious as well as virulent infection should matter to them, is it?! They should be used to it by now, shouldn't they?! 'Learning to live with Covid' the way they have 'learned to live with' colds and flu. Notice the subtle way of saying that SARS-CoV-2 is like "colds, flu etc." without repeating the outright lie that it is no worse than "colds, flu etc."[/I]

Congratulations on comprehending my post correctly.

 

[dann]

I always do.

Contrary to the myth that we are sliding into a comfortable evolutionary relationship with a common-cold-like, friendly virus, this is more like being trapped on a rollercoaster in a horror film. (Danny Altman, professor of epidemiology, Imperial College London.)
Where's the herd immunity? (Guardian, July 1, 2022)

 

[Rolfe]

I had a nice day yesterday. Drove to meet a friend. When she answered the door I asked her if she'd recently done anything covid-unsafe (unmasking in public in a poorly-ventilated space, basically) and she said no, and she'd just done a negative test. We decided to trust each other.

We drove to a nearby leisure centre and put our masks on as we entered the building. We spent two hours in an art exhibition, masked. It wasn't busy and the air quality was probably good, but why unmask if you don't have to? (I spent most of the time exclaiming how well I could see the exhibition with my new eyes.)

Then we went into the food mall, where all the restaurants had seating areas in the same big double-height atrium. I checked the air quality with the CO₂ meter I was carrying in my handbag, and discovered it was absolutely fine. So we selected our restaurant and were given a seat in a booth more than 2 metres from anyone else. We had a lovely meal, and the light on the CO₂ meter stayed green throughout. (If the air quality in the mall had been poor, our Plan B was to go to a nearby gastropub which we knew had outdoor seating.)

We masked up again to go to the car park, although again it was probably not necessary. But there have been stories of people being really unlucky and just walking too close to someone infectious at the wrong moment.

This is how you live with covid. Maybe it's easier because I was always used to complying with infection control protocols in my job, but you just work out a safety routine and stick with it. We go to the theatre and the cinema, masked, and it's a small price to pay for not spending time being ill. I don't even want to catch "just a cold", because I've been sick for two weeks with "just a cold" quite often in the past and have bitter memories of lying sick with pneumonia alone in the house over 30 years ago. No thanks, not again. Even though none of these bugs was at all likely to hand me permanent impairment as a reminder, I don't want a repeat.

My friend is immunocompromised according to her doctors. She disagrees, but took the extra vaccine dose anyway. Personally, I think if the doctors think so, she ought to consider they may be on to something (she has chronic leucopenia). I didn't qualify for the extra vaccine dose and my last dose was over seven months ago, so I'm not confident about my current level of protection.

Never mind, I'm starting to pack for a 10-day holiday in the Highlands, trail riding. Probably the safest activity you can do, as it's quite hard to get within breath-exchanging distance of another human being when you're all on horses. I'll just continue to mask up indoors and find somewhere with good air quality to eat. I've been doing a lot of riding in the spring to get fit for the holiday, including a whole day on the village common ride.

I'll be pretty happy when such precautions aren't necessary, or aren't so necessary, but while they are, they're way preferable to getting ill, especially with something that might hit you a lot harder than you bargained for. And it's still possible to have a good time and still stay acceptably safe. I'm just sorry for people who have children at school, or who work in an environment where masking isn't possible (this shouldn't happen, but I gather it does).

 

[Puppycow]

Well, it's as good as officially over now (at least in the US):

CDC drops quarantine, distancing recommendations for COVID

 

[Chanakya]

Well, it's as good as officially over now (at least in the US):

CDC drops quarantine, distancing recommendations for COVID

It is, apparently.



Except it isn't, is it?

As it happens, I was speaking with a friend of mine, less than a half hour ago. Poor guy's come down with Covid. For the first time. He's a doctor, he's had all of the vaccine doses, and is super careful about masking and, where possible, distancing. Even now.

But he's come down with the thing, and while it's true he's not in ICU or anything, but he's still come down rather hard, well beyond what regular flu levels are like. Being treated, and is fully quarantined. Early days, hopefully he'll get through without complications.

Sure, things have eased off, a bit, in fact a great deal, from the dire conditions we've all seen and been through. But the thing isn't ******* over, not by a long shot, not yet.



But you're right, of course, as far as the official stance. For better or for worse, it's the rare oddball that still observes all of the Covid niceties these days.

 

[theprestige]

Some people come down with a really bad case of the flu, too.

I think you're tilting at windmills on this one. You say you want a formal scientific answer, but you reject all the indicators from the scientific authorities. You say you don't want a social or policy answer, so what do you want?

Are you imagining there must be some clear line, that can be drawn by a system of formal logic, between "pandemic" and "not pandemic"? And you're asking what that line is and what system of formal logic is used to draw it?

 

[Chanakya]

Some people come down with a really bad case of the flu, too.

Occasionally, yes. Usually, no, not this bad.

I think you're tilting at windmills on this one. You say you want a formal scientific answer, but you reject all the indicators from the scientific authorities.

I don't see how I'm doing that? Rejecting scientific authorities, that is?

You say you don't want a social or policy answer, so what do you want?

I've agreed that this is, indeed, the policy answer.

What do I want? For this damn thing to go away for good. I realize we can't have everything we want, though.

As things stand, I can understand the policy decision. Economics is a thing after all, even if you leave aside politics. So I don't blame the policy decision, really. But I'm going to persist with my personal protection awhile longer. I realize this is starting to kinda sorta verge on the germaphobic, but better a germaphobe, for a while longer, than sorry.

Are you imagining there must be some clear line, that can be drawn by a system of formal logic, between "pandemic" and "not pandemic"? And you're asking what that line is and what system of formal logic is used to draw it?

Er... no, I'm not? Not in that recent post of mine that you've quoted, at any rate. (But in general, sure, there's no reason why there shouldn't be a fairly clear line between "pandemic" and "not pandemic", even if a subective-ish one. And I can accept that that line seems to have been crossed, at this time. Which doesn't mean that we're all entirely out of danger, not quite yet; and how we deal with that remainder danger, and indeed how we assess the risk of such, I guess that's a personal thing?)

 

[Trebuchet]

New USA cases have been trending down for a couple of weeks after increasing through most of 2022. But they are still averaging over 100,000 per day according to the CDC. And two or three hundred people daily are dying.That doesn't spell "over" to me.

 

[TragicMonkey]

Well, it's as good as officially over now (at least in the US):

Heh. Five of my family members caught it this week.

 

[Chanakya]

Heh. Five of my family members caught it this week.

No complications, I hope? True, most cases these days don't amount to all that much. But some sure do, and with the elderly you never know.

 

[TragicMonkey]

No complications, I hope? True, most cases these days don't amount to all that much. But some sure do, and with the elderly you never know.

TBD. My mom's 78, so far it's just "flu-like" but they're giving her paxlovid so here's hoping it doesn't get worse.

 

[theprestige]

Heh. Five of my family members caught it this week.

No they didn't. I call absolute, unequivocal shenanigans.

I, vaxxed and boosted, caught it in February. MsTP, also vaxxed and boosted, sharing a single room loft with me, did not. Then in May she, also vaxxed and boosted, caught it, and I did not.

Even if your second cousin were patriarch of an inbred bug-chasing cult, it beggars belief that they all caught it at once. Are they all in China? Did they all get monkey pox (no relation) and are trying to play it off?

According to the ancient law: Pics or it didn't happen.

 

[xjx388]

No they didn't. I call absolute, unequivocal shenanigans.

I, vaxxed and boosted, caught it in February. MsTP, also vaxxed and boosted, sharing a single room loft with me, did not. Then in May she, also vaxxed and boosted, caught it, and I did not.

Even if your second cousin were patriarch of an inbred bug-chasing cult, it beggars belief that they all caught it at once. Are they all in China? Did they all get monkey pox (no relation) and are trying to play it off?

According to the ancient law: Pics or it didn't happen.

It happens. My wife just had a family of four get it along with other friends and family that were at a wedding. A lot more than 5 in that particular cluster. TM’s story is not at all unusual.

From my point of view, COVID hasn’t really slowed down at all; doctors and labs just stopped reporting cases. I think the situation is much worse than what “the numbers” make it look like.

 

[TragicMonkey]

No they didn't. I call absolute, unequivocal shenanigans.

I, vaxxed and boosted, caught it in February. MsTP, also vaxxed and boosted, sharing a single room loft with me, did not. Then in May she, also vaxxed and boosted, caught it, and I did not.

Even if your second cousin were patriarch of an inbred bug-chasing cult, it beggars belief that they all caught it at once. Are they all in China? Did they all get monkey pox (no relation) and are trying to play it off?

According to the ancient law: Pics or it didn't happen.

It was a family vacation at a rental house. One person felt ill and tested positive on Sunday morning. Three others had been travelling in a car with Patient 1 for the several days prior and thus felt they'd probably already got it and there was no point in leaving. My mother and I, having travelled separately, decided to bail on the vacation. Three days after our return my mother felt sick and tested positive today. I have tested negative. Those who'd stayed in the rental house have tested positive.

All of us had the number of vaccine doses we should have had, including boosters, and my mother being a senior has had two boosters. None of us wore masks indoors around each other (until the first postive test, anyway. After that mom and I isolated and masked until our flights).

Why on earth would I make this up? I'm out a couple of thousand bucks (changing plane tickets isn't cheap) and my first vacation since January 2019 has been ruined. What "pics" do you want? I can dig my negative covid test I took this morning out of the trash. My mom texted a photo of the paxlovid box she was given today, I could upload that.

It's an airborne virus which has (you may not have been paying attention for the last three years) been rather noticeably contagious. Why you think it unrealistic that five people in the same house would get it I can only chalk up to your ludicrous contrarianism.


eta: "pics" added. One of my test in front of my very own monitor with this very same post. The others are my mom's covid drugs. I did black out the identifying info. But of course these don't actually prove anything. I'm not sure what photographic proof is possible in this case. You want a video of a team of doctors testifying in court as to the identity of patients? But even then you wouldn't know I hadn't hired a bunch of actors.

 

[TheGoldcountry]

There are still morons that think it's no big deal just because it doesn't dominate the news anymore.

Cases are still (slowly) on the rise in my rural county, because it was one of the last to be hit by it in the beginning.

Today, I went to work, and my co-worker told me that she had just been casually chatting with a customer the day before when he revealed he had it. No big deal, though, he just had a little cough. He was glad his employer wasn't testing him; apparently, quarantining himself out of a sense of social responsibility wasn't even a distant thought.

Every day, there are more and more people I just want to slap, and it's still not legal, but walking around stupid is.

 

[TragicMonkey]

There are still morons that think it's no big deal just because it doesn't dominate the news anymore.

Cases are still (slowly) on the rise in my rural county, because it was one of the last to be hit by it in the beginning.

Today, I went to work, and my co-worker told me that she had just been casually chatting with a customer the day before when he revealed he had it. No big deal, though, he just had a little cough. He was glad his employer wasn't testing him; apparently, quarantining himself out of a sense of social responsibility wasn't even a distant thought.

Every day, there are more and more people I just want to slap, and it's still not legal, but walking around stupid is.

My coworker's wife and one son caught it right before his own vacation a few weeks ago...and he and his other son went on the vacation without them! That's kind of ice cold, especially because I think it was their wedding anniversary.

And one of my cousins and her husband have gotten covid a couple of times now, including in 2022. However my cousin is a [pause for shudder here] "dance mom" and hauls her daughters all over for competitions, so it's not surprising she's constantly plagued and frankly I'm not certain she doesn't deserve it. (Remember Donnie Darko, where his kid sister was in dance competitions? Every time my cousin's dance stuff is mentioned I hear the line "sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion")

CDC recommendation changes notwithstanding, I think we're still in the midst of this. The treatments are indeed getting better (three days of paxlovid and my sister says she feels "not that bad" now) but I think I shall continue masking in public. Good masks -- I use the N95s, and put a cloth one over it (mostly because it looks better, not because I think an added layer of cloth is doing much medically that the N95 isn't).

 

[ponderingturtle]

It is, apparently.



Except it isn't, is it?

What it means is it has gone from pandemic to endemic, of course there are people getting sick and dying from it, but not in the huge waves like when it was a pandemic. COVID is certainly not going to go away any time soon.