How do we know a pandemic's over?

[Brainster]

Absolutely correct.

The number of people concerned about covid is infinitesimal, which is as it should be. Governments aren't concerned, health departments aren't concerned and only a very few squeaky wheels are bleating on about it.

Keep in mind that while the Covid year was horrible for most of us, it was great for people who love the idea of state control over every aspect of our lives.

 

[dann]

"... the Covid year ..."

 

[dann]

The brutal truth is that life is a bit more dangerous now than before Covid, and there is nothing we can do about it, beyond cutting ourselves off completely. The vast majority have come to terms with that, and have learned to live with it.

Absolutely correct.

The number of people concerned about covid is infinitesimal, which is as it should be. Governments aren't concerned, health departments aren't concerned and only a very few squeaky wheels are bleating on about it.

Absolutely incorrect.
There are plenty of things we can do about it. To claim otherwise is a bloody lie, as is the claim that the only alternative to doing nothing is to cut ourselves off completely.
That The Atheist adds his usual lies about health departments and people in general not being concerned was to be expected. Some health agencies are concerned, the CDC is concerned, WHO is concerned, links and quotations from those organizations have been provided upthread, which makes the lie conspicuously blatant.
The Atheist knows this. That he pretends to be unaware of it is disingenuous but not unexpected.

 

[GraculusTheGreenBird]

Absolutely incorrect.
There are plenty of things we can do about it. To claim otherwise is a bloody lie, as is the claim that the only alternative to doing nothing is to cut ourselves off completely.
That The Atheist adds his usual lies about health departments and people in general not being concerned was to be expected. Some health agencies are concerned, the CDC is concerned, WHO is concerned, links and quotations from those organizations have been provided upthread, which makes the lie conspicuously blatant.
The Atheist knows this. That he pretends to be unaware of it is disingenuous but not unexpected.

Well then, what can we do about it, realistically?

Short of complete eradication, which seems impossible, its here to stay.

Its still going to be here next year, in 5 years, in 10 years. Are you going to wear a mask for the rest of your life?

 

[dann]

1. The point is they are Islands. Hence can close the borders completely.

2. No, there were riots, that involved huge stand offs with police, trashing of buildings and covid testing booths etc. That you didn't see this simply means China did a good job of censoring it, but the riots happened, and video is still available.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_COVID-19_protests_in_China

And, again, your timing is wrong. Western companies had been derisking for a long time, closing factories and moving to other places, Vietnam in particular. Xi didnt care about that, against the advice of his premier, Li, who was actively concerned about the economy, because zero covid had become so closely associated with Xi, it was his personal policy. Even in December 2022, he was still publically unshakable in his belief that Zero Covid was the way forward, forever.

Then the riots started happening, and in 1 month, zero covid was over. Just like that.

And you completely ignored my example of Hong Kong. If all those restrictions couldn't stop it from spreading uncontrollably, what possibly could? There was no alternative to lifting the restrictions in Hong Kong, because they demonstrably had failed, and were overly onerous on the population TO NO GOOD EFFECT. Once it was out, it was out.

And, I think masking may have helped a bit initially, but it didnt stop Omicron. And that is in a population where it was illegal to NOT wear a mask, where you could and were fined on the spot. Where everybody wore a mask, police, bus drivers, children, even babies.

So again, what do you suggest that governments and people do?

The brutal truth is that life is a bit more dangerous now than before Covid, and there is nothing we can do about it, beyond cutting ourselves off completely. The vast majority have come to terms with that, and have learned to live with it.

Whats your plan? Are you going to wear a mask for the rest of your life?

1. If the point is that they are islands, you should have stuck with that and not mentioned their size: "relatively small islands." Are you unaware that GB is an island?

2. They were protests, demonstrations. 2022 COVID-19 protests in China. It's funny how Western media always turn protests into riots and riots into protests when they are reporting from what they consider to be enemy countries.

As for Western countries "derisking": They always do that!
As for protests and "then riots started happening":

Beijing’s endless lockdowns are causing shortages for western firms such as Apple, and it may not be long before they move their supply chains elsewhere
Zero-Covid policy is costing China its role as the world’s workshop (The Guardian, Dec 3, 2022)

And immediately after, China embraced the virus!
You can't just invent your own timeline!
(By the way, businesses always move around to where they expect the highest and/or most safe profits. It also didn't stop after December 2022: Why businesses are pulling billions in profits from China (BBC, Nov 14, 2023))

As for "And, I think masking may have helped a bit initially, but it didnt stop Omicron. And that is in a population where it was illegal to NOT wear a mask, where you could and were fined on the spot. Where everybody wore a mask, police, bus drivers, children, even babies.
So again, what do you suggest that governments and people do?"
Those of us who followed the development of Sweden's pandemic approach from the start are familiar with this argument. It was one of Anders Tegnell's favorites to point at one measure and blaming it for not putting an end to the pandemic on its own. It is funny how this line of thinking is never an argument for using more than one measure, i.e. the Swiss cheese model.

Back then, it was Anders Tegnell's argument for sticking with entirely useless precautions: hand washing and social distancing (indoors! against an airborne disease!), which was dishonest but consistent with his herd-immunity-by-infection strategy.
Nowadays, it is the argument for letting the virus run wild, while pretending to be powerless to do anything about it, which is your argument, too: 'See?! Masks alone don't stop Omicron, so please tell me what else we can do, but it obviously has to be something that in and of itself and not in combination with other precautions will put an end to the pandemic!'

If it weren't such a tragedy, the flailing about of minimizers would be funny: At the beginning of the pandemic, we shouldn't do anything about it (other than meaningless gestures like in Sweden) because there was no reason to do so: It was supposed to be so harmless that everybody had already been infected without noticing it and herd immunity by infection had already been achieved.
Nowadays, it is supposed to be impossible to do anything about it, and since any one attempt in and of itself can't stop it, nothing can.

So why don't you answer my question?

Have you seen or heard anybody at all complain about being weary of air purifiers? Have you heard anybody say that they have had enough of virus-free air and can't put up with any more of it? (Anybody but The Atheist, that is, but I don't think he is a "real world concern.")

The combination of precautions
Face masks (at least FFP2/N95) limit transmission of the virus. They always did and they still do.
Ventilation/air filtration limits transmission of the virus. It always did and it still does.
Vaccination limits transmission of the virus.
Working from home limits transmission of the virus.
Isolating when infected (not merely sick) limits transmission of the virus.
And for this reason, testing limits transmission of the virus by letting you know when your are infectious in spite of being presymptomatic or asymptomatic.
Staying away from (particularly crowded) indoor places limits transmission of the virus.

Finally, making people understand all of this, i.e. proper information about the ways of the virus, limits transmission of the virus, but as we have seen in the Californian example recently, many public health agencies promote disinformation, which helps spread the virus.
The idea that spreading this disease as fast as possible is somehow the way to make it go over sooner and even help save lives was insane in 2020 once we learned how virulent it is, and it hasn't become any saner since then.

 

[jt512]

A global CT forum? Your post makes no sense.

Failure to understand my post? Neither does yours.

 

[dann]

Well then, what can we do about it, realistically?

Short of complete eradication, which seems impossible, its here to stay.

Its still going to be here next year, in 5 years, in 10 years. Are you going to wear a mask for the rest of your life?

Pretending that you are actually interested in doing something about it, realistically, should make you respond to my suggestion about realistic precautions like air filtration, which you instead choose to ignore.
More suggestions in my previous post.

You keep repeating the lie that there is no alternative to "complete eradication" other than total isolation. It doesn't get any better by being repeated, but in combination with deliberately ignoring proposed alternatives, it makes it obvious that you are being disingenuous and fighting a strawman.
Those of us who take other precautions - and there are several of us in this thread - don't live in total isolation and never did.

As for what I am going to do for the rest of my life, it depends on the pandemic: If it continues at the current level, I will be masking up on public transport and when shopping for groceries, i.e. in public indoor places. It's not much of an inconvenience in comparison to being sick. I will also continue to get updated booster shots.

 

[dann]

I found this on X:

When I lived in South Korea friends in the USA thought I was always in lockdown. No, we just wore a mask everywhere. There was never any lockdown there. Covid infection was really low because of masking and contact tracing.

Sue J
Just a reminder that no one- quite literally NO ONE is calling 4 lockdowns in perpetuity *
And anyone who misrepresents us as such is trying to cancel us
because they’re threatened by our message of simple, sustainable & often invisible layers of protection that benefit all

Sue (X, Jan 14, 2024)

Just a reminder that in this thread no one is calling for "cutting ourselves off completely," but it's such a convenient strawman!

 

[GraculusTheGreenBird]

1. If the point is that they are islands, you should have stuck with that and not mentioned their size: "relatively small islands." Are you unaware that GB is an island?

2. They were protests, demonstrations. 2022 COVID-19 protests in China. It's funny how Western media always turn protests into riots and riots into protests when they are reporting from what they consider to be enemy countries.

As for Western countries "derisking": They always do that!
As for protests and "then riots started happening":

And immediately after, China embraced the virus!
You can't just invent your own timeline!
(By the way, businesses always move around to where they expect the highest and/or most safe profits. It also didn't stop after December 2022: Why businesses are pulling billions in profits from China (BBC, Nov 14, 2023))

As for "And, I think masking may have helped a bit initially, but it didnt stop Omicron. And that is in a population where it was illegal to NOT wear a mask, where you could and were fined on the spot. Where everybody wore a mask, police, bus drivers, children, even babies.
So again, what do you suggest that governments and people do?"
Those of us who followed the development of Sweden's pandemic approach from the start are familiar with this argument. It was one of Anders Tegnell's favorites to point at one measure and blaming it for not putting an end to the pandemic on its own. It is funny how this line of thinking is never an argument for using more than one measure, i.e. the Swiss cheese model.

Back then, it was Anders Tegnell's argument for sticking with entirely useless precautions: hand washing and social distancing (indoors! against an airborne disease!), which was dishonest but consistent with his herd-immunity-by-infection strategy.
Nowadays, it is the argument for letting the virus run wild, while pretending to be powerless to do anything about it, which is your argument, too: 'See?! Masks alone don't stop Omicron, so please tell me what else we can do, but it obviously has to be something that in and of itself and not in combination with other precautions will put an end to the pandemic!'

If it weren't such a tragedy, the flailing about of minimizers would be funny: At the beginning of the pandemic, we shouldn't do anything about it (other than meaningless gestures like in Sweden) because there was no reason to do so: It was supposed to be so harmless that everybody had already been infected without noticing it and herd immunity by infection had already been achieved.
Nowadays, it is supposed to be impossible to do anything about it, and since any one attempt in and of itself can't stop it, nothing can.

So why don't you answer my question?



The combination of precautions
Face masks (at least FFP2/N95) limit transmission of the virus. They always did and they still do.
Ventilation/air filtration limits transmission of the virus. It always did and it still does.
Vaccination limits transmission of the virus.
Working from home limits transmission of the virus.
Isolating when infected (not merely sick) limits transmission of the virus.
And for this reason, testing limits transmission of the virus by letting you know when your are infectious in spite of being presymptomatic or asymptomatic.
Staying away from (particularly crowded) indoor places limits transmission of the virus.

Finally, making people understand all of this, i.e. proper information about the ways of the virus, limits transmission of the virus, but as we have seen in the Californian example recently, many public health agencies promote disinformation, which helps spread the virus.
The idea that spreading this disease as fast as possible is somehow the way to make it go over sooner and even help save lives was insane in 2020 once we learned how virulent it is, and it hasn't become any saner since then.

1. Yes, coming from the UK, I was completely unaware that it was a island. I had absolutely no idea. Why do you think I mentioned it? New Zealand is a small island, of a similar size to the UK, and hence has a maritime border, limited number of access points, a relatively small population, no land borders with other countries with potentially different rules etc etc. Its far far easier to control a pandemic in such a place, and yet it still failed.

2. No, I am not making up my own timeline. Zero covid was dropped in a very short space of time, because of the risk of social instability. Again, because I was reading what the Chinese government was actually saying AT THE TIME. I know this. Economic issues were not what Xi was were worried about, staying the Zero covid course was.

And, what do you call a situation when windows are smashed, covid testing centres are burned? I call it a riot. I saw the videos AT THE TIME. You, apparently, did not. There were both protests and riots. Both were indications of social instability, and that is what the CCP cares about more than literally anything. Including the economy, including the health of its own citizens.

3. Those combinations of precautions are fine. Sensible, even!

The problem is, Hong Kong did all that, including air purification, and went further, such as installation of UV disinfectors on things like escalators. And, again 100% mask compliance, enforced by law.

It didn't work. The virus was still prevalent. So is your list of far less stringent precautions actually going to do anything?

People cannot work from home forever, and many cannot work from home at all.
People cannot avoid crowded places forever, because they are not willing to permanently give up a social life.
People cannot wear masks forever, not because its not a good idea, but because they are just not willing to do so. Studies here showed that there was real damage to children's education and social development, because of the lack of human facial contact. Suicide rates in HK increased 10-fold because of these and other constant restrictions.

So all the things you mention can be done, and your list is certainly less onerous than that of HK at its peak. But they will need to be done forever. And realistically, its not going to happen, is it?

You have to deal with the actual reality of human behaviour, and the truth is, people have moved on. You might not like it, but its a fact.

 

[The Atheist]

1. Yes, coming from the UK, I was completely unaware that it was a island. I had absolutely no idea. Why do you think I mentioned it? New Zealand is a small island, of a similar size to the UK, and hence has a maritime border, limited number of access points, a relatively small population, no land borders with other countries with potentially different rules etc etc. Its far far easier to control a pandemic in such a place, and yet it still failed.

Also to add to that is the fact we're exceedingly remote, with nearest neighbours being 3000 km away, so there was zero chance of illegal migration.

People cannot work from home forever, and many cannot work from home at all.

People promoting work from home really piss me off, because it ignores the vital workforce that keeps the rest of us alive. The entire food supply chain, emergency workers, doctors, nurses, police, infrastructure workers, rubbish collectors...

Work from home is selfish and counter-productive, Thank christ it's now a thing of the past here and most other places. And yet, virtually no workers are dying of covid.

You have to deal with the actual reality of human behaviour, and the truth is, people have moved on. You might not like it, but its a fact.

Thus nailing the difference between an idealist and a realist.

A realist deals with reality, an idealist is a selfish person wrapped in his or her own insecurity and phobias.

 

[icerat]

Well, I think the part of it...which is to say just about all of it...where he says that public health agencies are trying to perpetuate the disease is unhinged. If you disagree, perhaps you should be owning a global conspiracy theory forum rather than a skeptical one.

He said "some public health agencies". Here in Sweden we have documented evidence the PHA "wanted people infected". Jonathan Howard documents extensively in his book that many of those advising governments have had the same goal. It's how you get their mythical version of "herd immunity"

Currently, the advice in most countries now clearly does encourage spread of infection. Why this is the approach is open to speculation.

 

[icerat]

Well then, what can we do about it, realistically?

Short of complete eradication, which seems impossible, its here to stay.

It was emininently eradicatable in the first year or two. Now, yes, difficult to impossible.

But tell me - is it possible to eradicate Cholera? Rabies? Measles?

Its still going to be here next year, in 5 years, in 10 years. Are you going to wear a mask for the rest of your life?

Is masking the only way to clean the air you breath in?

 

[icerat]

The problem is, Hong Kong did all that, including air purification, and went further, such as installation of UV disinfectors on things like escalators. And, again 100% mask compliance, enforced by law.

It didn't work. The virus was still prevalent. So is your list of far less stringent precautions actually going to do anything?

That's utter rubbish. Hong Kong had very little covid until they lifted all precautions. UV and HEPA were still relatively rare, and mask requirements were (a) surgical masks and (b) came and went throughout the pandemic.

And it worked. In 2020 cases were in the hundreds per month. Sweden, with only a slightly larger population and far more dispersed, was having thousands of cases a day. Hong Kong, in the first 2 years of the pandemic, had 213 deaths. Sweden had nearly 18,000

People cannot work from home forever, and many cannot work from home at all.
People cannot avoid crowded places forever, because they are not willing to permanently give up a social life.
People cannot wear masks forever, not because its not a good idea, but because they are just not willing to do so.

So?

Studies here showed that there was real damage to children's education and social development, because of the lack of human facial contact. Suicide rates in HK increased 10-fold because of these and other constant restrictions.

Link to these studies please? Adolescent and youth suicide rates nearly everywhere else decreased significantly. I've seen no proper study demonstrating damage to social development.

I am always curious thou - why is a few weeks off school for a pandemic so damaging, but a few months off school for holidays is not? Very odd.

So all the things you mention can be done, and your list is certainly less onerous than that of HK at its peak. But they will need to be done forever. And realistically, its not going to happen, is it?

I'm old enough to remember when seat belt laws came in. All the arguments were essentially the same.

You have to deal with the actual reality of human behaviour, and the truth is, people have moved on. You might not like it, but its a fact.

People have moved on in no small part because they've been lied to and they do what humans do - look around and see how everyone else is behaving.

The sad things is that people can still see that something is obviously going on, and they've - in somewhat of a contradiction - decided to believe authorities who tell them SARS2 is harmless, but not believe them when they say the vaccines are safe.

So they're blaming the vaccines, and we're getting a knock on effect where vaccine uptake is down in many places for all vaccines.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

From someone who has no clue whatsoever. The incredibly draconian measures implemented not only failed, they cost the country somewhere around $40B.

Wrong. The elimination strategy was a complete success, and the dire predictions of economic damage were proved wrong.

Unfortunately the rest of the World didn't follow suit. Half-hearted attempts to tamp down the virus failed and it raged out of control. The result of that was quite predictable - the virus mutated until it became impossible to eliminate.

Personally I would have been quite happy for us to remain a 'hermit kingdom' but of course that was impossible so eventually the mutated strains hit us too. But this was not a failure, we held off the virus just long enough to get the majority vaccinated - which was the plan all along.

Since we don't steal money off billionaires to pay for that, it's the taxpayers who will be doing so for the next 50 years. Why do you hate workers so much?

BS. The 'draconian measures' you talk about saved the country a lot of money. Unfortunately that wasn't the case in many other countries, and since we live in a global economy everyone is suffering.

But there is something that has cost us more and will continue to do so - global warming. Cyclone Gabrielle is the costliest tropical cyclone on record in the Southern Hemisphere, with total damages estimated to be at least NZ$13.5 billion. The cost in the Hastings District alone (where I live) is estimated to surpass NZ$2 billion. A year later we are still trying to repair the damage. Insurance rates are going up dramatically as insurers save up for the inevitable repeat. We will be paying for this forever. No wonder people in Hawke's Bay aren't that concerned about the virus now - it was nothing compared with what we have had to face since.

Whether it's a global pandemic or global warming, we can be sure of one thing - most people won't do the right thing, and everyone will suffer for it. But that's just the way it is with humans - too many clueless idiots who aren't nearly as smart as they think they are.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

if New Zealand eliminated it, how did it come back? The infectivity of the modern variants is far higher than before.

We trusted the Aussies. Big mistake.

But we would have to open up eventually anyway. Getting Delta when we did was actually fortuitous because it goaded people into getting vaccinated. And just in the nick of time too, since Omicron was nipping at Delta's heels.

Having completely eliminated the virus and living covid-free without any restrictions for a year it was extremely disappointing to see infection rates soar and people dying. I have to remind myself though that it would have been much worse if the idiots arguing against elimination had gotten their way.

 

[icerat]

And if we can't eliminate it, what could we do to mitigate it, again bearing in mind a the real world concern of a population weary of more restrictions, vaccinations etc.

We have a global goal to eradicate many other diseases, including cholera, measles, rabies etc. We will probably never achieve this, just like we'll likely never achieve the goal of Zero Road Deaths.

Nevertheless we set these goals, and in many places we have in fact eliminated the diseases - cases arise only because they're introduced from elsewhere.

The "covid" approach now appears to be - if we can't get rid of it completely, why bother doing anything?

That's bizarre to me.

Back in 1998, Walt Dowdle - then Deputy Director of the CDC and a leader in polio eradication efforts - published a paper called The principles of disease elimination and eradication. He states there -

"Elimination and eradication are the ultimate goals of public health, evolving naturally from disease control. The basic question is whether these goals are to be achieved in the present or some future generation"

Until 2020, this was mainstream public health. Now it's somehow been branded extremist. Why and how that has happened is fascinating to contemplate.

I am 100% confident that we can significantly reduce - even eliminate (ie only introduced cases) Covid in much of the world simply by doing almost exactly the same thing as we did to eliminate cholera. For cholera, we began to clean the water. For Covid - and many other diseases - we simply need to start cleaning the air. Remember any action doesn't have to instantly stop all transmission, just get R_eff under 1 for long enough, a disease will die out "naturally".

Chicago was literally raised 1.5-2m to help defeat water-born diseases

Now, we apparently can't even consider implementing already mandated building codes to ensure we have clean air.

 

[theprestige]

We have a global goal to eradicate many other diseases, including cholera, measles, rabies etc. We will probably never achieve this, just like we'll likely never achieve the goal of Zero Road Deaths.

Nevertheless we set these goals, and in many places we have in fact eliminated the diseases - cases arise only because they're introduced from elsewhere.

The "covid" approach now appears to be - if we can't get rid of it completely, why bother doing anything?

That's bizarre to me.

Back in 1998, Walt Dowdle - then Deputy Director of the CDC and a leader in polio eradication efforts - published a paper called The principles of disease elimination and eradication. He states there -



Until 2020, this was mainstream public health. Now it's somehow been branded extremist. Why and how that has happened is fascinating to contemplate.

I am 100% confident that we can significantly reduce - even eliminate (ie only introduced cases) Covid in much of the world simply by doing almost exactly the same thing as we did to eliminate cholera. For cholera, we began to clean the water. For Covid - and many other diseases - we simply need to start cleaning the air. Remember any action doesn't have to instantly stop all transmission, just get R_eff under 1 for long enough, a disease will die out "naturally".

Chicago was literally raised 1.5-2m to help defeat water-born diseases

Now, we apparently can't even consider implementing already mandated building codes to ensure we have clean air.

[qimg]https://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/thum_2482765afaa5c7ca7e.png[/qimg]

We don't have a global goal to eliminate the common cold, or influenza. Hell, influenza gets a vaccine update every year, and it's still expected to be endemic forever.

 

[icerat]

We don't have a global goal to eliminate the common cold, or influenza. Hell, influenza gets a vaccine update every year, and it's still expected to be endemic forever.

I'd suggest we should rethink that, given we most likely not just eliminated but accidentally eradicated one or two strains of influenza thanks to Covid precautions.

A few words on definitions here. Elimination is the extinction of a disease in a defined geographic area. New cases may arise, but because they've been introduced from elsewhere. Eradication is the global elimination of the disease, at least in nature, there may be stores for scientific purposes.

What we have learned in the past 4 years from aerosol scientists has convinced me that we absolutely can massively reduce influenza burden, and likely eliminate it in many places. Same with other airborne diseases.

We're in a John Snow moment. #CleanTheAir

 

[dann]

1. Yes, coming from the UK, I was completely unaware that it was a island. I had absolutely no idea. Why do you think I mentioned it? New Zealand is a small island, of a similar size to the UK, and hence has a maritime border, limited number of access points, a relatively small population, no land borders with other countries with potentially different rules etc etc. Its far far easier to control a pandemic in such a place, and yet it still failed.

So now we're back with "small" again!
Population density and border control are no doubt important in attempts to bring a pandemic under control, and yet Sweden (26 per km²) didn't do much better than the UK (270 per km²) and the USA (37 per km²) because of its pre-vax herd-immunity-by-infection strategy. A comparison with its neighbors Norway (15 per km²) and Denmark (137 per km²) is also interesting:
Cumulative confirmed COVID-19 deaths per million people

2. No, I am not making up my own timeline. Zero covid was dropped in a very short space of time, because of the risk of social instability. Again, because I was reading what the Chinese government was actually saying AT THE TIME. I know this. Economic issues were not what Xi was were worried about, staying the Zero covid course was.

And, what do you call a situation when windows are smashed, covid testing centres are burned? I call it a riot. I saw the videos AT THE TIME. You, apparently, did not. There were both protests and riots. Both were indications of social instability, and that is what the CCP cares about more than literally anything. Including the economy, including the health of its own citizens.

Smashed windows, maybe. We usually call that demonstrations or protests in my country, and those smashed windows never made respective prime ministers consider if they needed to change any policy, Yet, for some reason, that is supposed to have been what made Xi, usually portrayed as a super authoritarian oppressor, change his mind about restrictions.
As for burning down testing centers, I have only found this one where something is obviously burning, but there is no sign of a riot or of the alleged "21-storey quarantine centre":
China’s COVID-19 protests: A 21-storey quarantine centre burnt down in Lanzhou (The Economic Times on YouTube, Dec 21, 2022)

In the Wikipedia article, "burn" appears only once: "The U.S. Embassy in Beijing said that Ambassador Nick Burns had raised concerns directly with senior Chinese officials." (I wonder what they talked about: human rights concerns or the concerns of U.S. businesses stationed in China.)

Icerat already wrote about what you wrote about Hong Kong.

So all the things you mention can be done, and your list is certainly less onerous than that of HK at its peak. But they will need to be done forever. And realistically, its not going to happen, is it?

You have to deal with the actual reality of human behaviour, and the truth is, people have moved on. You might not like it, but its a fact.

Yes, all the things I mention can be done (and should be done), and I seriously doubt that you didn't already know about most of them. Yet you continue with your "realistically," which I interpret as your unwillingness to find actually realistic measures realistic for no other reason than that they aren't being implemented.
It also doesn't seem to concern you that getting sick again and again and again will also "need to be done forever" until it either kills you or gives you Long Covid.
(By the way, if the disease were actually bound to get mild, as claimed by minimizers, why would precautions have to go on forever?)

So what we are left with is another fact: that "people have moved on," which is true, of course, except for the ones who haven't. Some of them have passed on, instead.
Maybe unlike you, however, I know how people have moved on. I experience it often when I talk with people outside of my group of closer friends: They don't know **** about the pandemic. They are uninformed and thus ignorant.

The current death toll is no longer made public in a way that makes it possible for most people find the numbers, and they are never mentioned in the news. Instead, focus is on "respiratory illnesses," a term used to hide the fact that COVID-19 is by far the dominating 'respiratory illness'. Another fact that isn't easy to find is that COVID-19 may be transmitted much the same way as other respiratory illnesses but is nevertheless far more than that:
Months after hospitalization for COVID-19, MRIs reveal multiorgan damage (Science, Sep 22, 2023)
COVID-19 just isn't and probably never will be "the common cold, or influenza," as theprestige would like to think and make others think.

Do people know about this? For the most part, they don't. I noticed it two months ago when two of my friends started having symptoms, which are known (but obviously not well known) to be caused or accelerated by COVID-19: heart fluctuations and Parkinson's (in this case, only suspected, so far). I pointed out the possible connection to them. They weren't aware of it, in spite of usually being better informed about the world that people on average.

That is also a fact: The reason why "people have moved on."
And you are right: It is a fact I don't like, but unlike covid minimizers, I don't spend my time denying facts and presenting lies as facts instead.

 

[dann]

We're in a John Snow moment. #CleanTheAir

Come on, you're panicking!
It's the nearest pump!
You can't expect us to go all the way to Warwick Street. Everybody else is using this one in Broad Street.
You might not iike it, but it's a fact!