How do we know a pandemic's over?

[dann]

Of being completely misrepresented? Quite right.

Good to see you still unable to admit to being wrong and changing the subject while still managing to post misinformation:



What happened in 2020-21 is completely irrelevant to what's happening now, but it does emphasise how desperate you are.

You clearly haven't noticed, but nobody even thinks about covid in 2023, and if you think your lone voice in the vast wilderness will encourage people to continue panicking, then you're severely deluded. Even your beloved New Zealand has zero covid rules. A few recommendations, but no rules.



What you, in your panicked state, refer to as "minimising" is actually reality.

Covid kills the very old & already very sick, plus a tiny number of other people. As do lots of things.

Move on.

(And just so there's no misconception, or further misprepresentation of my position, I'm well aware it's not going away, it will continue to kill people, and must continue to be monitored and managed by WHO, as it does with HIV, ebola, TB and a plethora of other diseases.)

I wonder what the numbers need to be to declare HIV, TB and a plethora of other infectious diseases over! Why don't they?!

I wonder what the numbers need to be to declare it [= the C-19 pandemic] over?

It wasn't easy to convince The Atheist of the fact, but he only recently discovered that Covid-19 kills more people than other infectious diseases. Maybe he should consider if that might be the reason why it's not declared over.

He could make it so easy on himself if he reduced all his posts about the pandemic to:
SARS-CoV-2 will continue to kill people, but I don't give a **** because the majority are older than 65 and/or frail. And those who aren't don't really matter because it's much easier to ignore them than to ignore somebody wearing a face mask because that reminds us that there's a pandemic going on. The dead and dying are much more discreet than people masking up. They don't make it so conspicuous that the virus is still spreading, mutating, evolving, maiming and killing.

 

[The Atheist]

The desperation of coronaphobiaphobics shows, and it's tragic to behold. Some of them even get anxiety attacks if they are near a vaccinated person because they fear that they may get killed by shedding! There is really no reason why they should continue to suffer from this panic when the cure is so simple.

What a complete load of utter garbage - there isn't a single person has ever written in any covid thread that "shedding" is anything other than lunatic conspiracist nonsense.

You seem to be having fun setting fire to strawmen of your own design right now.

Good game.

I wonder what the numbers need to be to declare HIV, TB and a plethora of other infectious diseases over! Why don't they?!

Again conflating two different things incorrectly - the list of logical fallacies you're posting is way past hilarious now.

Nobody said covid was over, just the pandemic.

It wasn't easy to convince The Atheist of the fact[/url], but he only recently discovered that Covid-19 kills more people than other infectious diseases.

While continuing to flat-out lie about what I said. I admitted to making a mistake by leaving a word out of my post.

Your dishonest posting seems to have no limit.

SARS-CoV-2 will continue to kill people, but I don't give a **** because the majority are older than 65 and/or frail.

That's getting close, and if you were honest and had said: SARS-CoV-2 will continue to kill people, but I don't give a **** because the majority are older than 80 and/or frail...

...you'd have hit my position dead on. I really don't care that people who would be dead within weeks or months are sent early by covid, it saves a lot of tax dollars.

And as marting showed you in the covid thread - and you conveniently ignore because it doesn't suit your scenario - people now dying of covid are either unvaccinated (and I certainly don't care) or are very old and very ill.

And those who aren't don't really matter because it's much easier to ignore them than to ignore somebody wearing a face mask because that reminds us that there's a pandemic going on.

Yet another idiotic strawman - nobody gives a toss about people wearing masks other than conspiracist loons, and none of them are participating in the thread. I do, however, think it's unconscionable that Chinese parents insisting their children wear masks in 28-degree heat all day at school.

But hey, at least they're keeping the paranoid people happy.

 

[dann]

I'll give The Atheist a chance to correct the 'mistakes' he has made in his most recent post, be it "by leaving a word out" or whatever other excuses he can come up with.
And then I'll pull it apart and show his 'mistakes' for what they are.

 

[The Atheist]

I'll give The Atheist a chance to correct the 'mistakes' he has made in his most recent post...

No need, I'm quite happy, and I'm finished with the subject for the meantime.

Like I said, you're a lone voice and 99.999% of the population does not give a toss about the disease any more.

Have at it.

 

[Chanakya]

No need, I'm quite happy, and I'm finished with the subject for the meantime.

Like I said, you're a lone voice and 99.999% of the population does not give a toss about the disease any more.

Have at it.

I don't think that's true. While it's true the situation's far less dire now, obviously, but I don't think we're quite there, yet, where no one gives, or should give, a toss. I think it makes sense to stay careful, within reason, and without going overboard.

If your work requires you to expose yourself to lots of people --- in a manner of speaking, heh, you know what I mean --- and if distancing and even constant masking can make it difficult for you to function (given other people's reaction to you, among other things), then I can understand going easy. Things are much safer now, after all. But if you're able to, then why not stay careful for a few months more, until we're fully sure it's over? I don't see any downside to staying cautious --- within reason, and within the limits of what one's work necessitates.

That's prescriptive, or at least my version of it. As far as what is, rather than what ought to be, I agree, probably more than 50% no longer give a toss, either out of necessity, else due to temperament. But I don't think it's 99%. Plucking numbers off of thin air, my impression is at least 25% or so do give something of a toss. And at least 10% still give more than a toss.

Again, purely subjective estimates, those. And I'm among that last. Like I said, having persevered so long, it seems silly not to hold on for a few months more, even if in retrospect that turns out overly cautious. Provided one's work and life situation permits it. Why go out of your way to court trouble, simply from being unable to stay patient for a few months more?

 

[8enotto]

In the area I live in people use masks because the place they are mandates it. Three steps outside and its no mask.

No "karen" incidents, no loud protests either.

The shock of it all is over. Many if not most here are vaccinated and feeling safe in the vaccine=resistance thing we were all told.
Most of the extremely vulnerable were the first wave of deaths which is unfortunate but historically inevitable.

The frequency of old person house cleaning loads coming through my work are very few. There used to be a lot more a year ago.
The kids scrap everything not sellable nor modern.

The disease is not over. It is with us for a few centuries more at least. Everyone seems to know that too. Maybe that is why there are no loud protests now. Between high survival rates and vaccine hype people have not been as worried.

Don't blame the public for believing what the government told us was true. Most followed the guidelines more or less. As best we could at least.

 

[The Atheist]

I don't think that's true. While it's true the situation's far less dire now, obviously, but I don't think we're quite there, yet, where no one gives, or should give, a toss. I think it makes sense to stay careful, within reason, and without going overboard.

I'm just not seeing it anywhere I know about. The population has put it in the past, in the enormous majority of people.

But if you're able to, then why not stay careful for a few months more, until we're fully sure it's over?

I think "a few more months" is ridiculously optimistic. Covid is now an endemic disease and needs to put in with all the others as something to be watched, vaccinated against, and continuing research done to see if we can knock the little bastard off. Having it retain pandemic status is crazy in 2023, and might well be counter-productive when the next pandemic arises, as it surely will.

We got lucky with the H1N1 'flu, and only slightly unlucky with covid, and the way that's gone we should be looking for ways to bolster response to next pandemic, not spend years crying wolf for a disease that now kills fewer people than suicide and homicide.

I think NZ's response is spot on, as we've been for most of the pandemic - we now have no enforceable rules for the disease.

I don't see any downside to staying cautious --- within reason, and within the limits of what one's work necessitates.]/QUOTE]

People are still welcome to be cautious. I live in an area where about 30% of the population are Chinese and they're largely still wearing masks and that's fine. I'm not so fine with kids being made to wear them all day in NZ heat, however. It's 28 degrees every day, and kids as young as 5 are being forced to wear masks inside and out all day by their parents.

I think that's not just stupid, but also dangerous and pointless. They've got to take them off to eat, and even on sunny days the kids are cramped together to eat outside, so if covid's around, they'll get it anyway. n rainy days kids sit 35 to a room to eat lunch, so there's no way of avoiding exposure.

Plucking numbers off of thin air, my impression is at least 25% or so do give something of a toss. And at least 10% still give more than a toss.

I'm sure different countries are treating it differently, but I only see western groups, and masks are rare as rocking horse poop.

In the area I live in people use masks because the place they are mandates it.

There you go - that's news to me, Mexico must be one of the last places with mandates.

Don't blame the public for believing what the government told us was true. Most followed the guidelines more or less. As best we could at least.

Yeah, I think that's not a bad summary - I'd give the world a mild pass for covid. Most people acted and took it seriously, and we were lucky it wasn't anywhere near as contagious early on as it is now. Had we started with the infectiousness of omicron with the severity of delta, we'd be in a much different place today.

 

[dann]

Like I said, you're a lone voice and 99.999% of the population does not give a toss about the disease any more.

I live in an area where about 30% of the population are Chinese and they're largely still wearing masks and that's fine.

Sometimes numbers are difficult. Sometimes people don't get them right because they don't give a toss.

Then there are the children. Won't anybody think of the children?!

I'm not so fine with kids being made to wear them all day in NZ heat, however. It's 28 degrees every day, and kids as young as 5 are being forced to wear masks inside and out all day by their parents.

I think that's not just stupid, but also dangerous and pointless. They've got to take them off to eat, and even on sunny days the kids are cramped together to eat outside, so if covid's around, they'll get it anyway. n rainy days kids sit 35 to a room to eat lunch, so there's no way of avoiding exposure.

Exactly! When people are in denial about the actual, already existing ways to avoid exposure and insist that not even trying is the way to go, preventable diseases do indeed become unavoidable, the natural order of things. Ordinary children obviously no longer count in a society that doesn't prioritize their health.

However, some parents obviously still care. But who can those weird, insensitive parents be? Are they the allegedly 0.001% of the population who still gives a toss? Are they Chinese or other minority groups (Māori?) who don't count? Or do they come from countries that prioritize children's health?

Longer-term (or ‘post-acute effects’) of Covid-19 in children (including multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children [MIS-C] and long Covid) are well-described. But there is a lack of robust evidence about the prevalence of these conditions. In this blog we summarise findings from a rapid review of the evidence. These findings indicate to us the need for a precautionary approach in Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ) with greater efforts to prevent children from being infected during the current Omicron outbreak. Protections for children could include improvements to ventilation, mask use, and vaccine equity, and a lower threshold for closing schools and early childhood facilities with greater support for temporary home learning when community transmission is high.
The evidence suggests greater efforts are needed to protect children in Aotearoa NZ from infection (University of Otago, Mar 9, 2022)

Long Covid Kids New Zealand
Cumulative confirmed COVID-19 deaths in New Zealand, March 7, 2022 to March 6, 2023

 

[The Atheist]

Or do they come from countries that prioritize children's health?

Your love affair with Cuba is hilarious.

They love their kids so much!

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-64811310

 

[dann]

What a complete load of utter garbage - there isn't a single person has ever written in any covid thread that "shedding" is anything other than lunatic conspiracist nonsense.

You seem to be having fun setting fire to strawmen of your own design right now.

Good game.

This is The Atheist having fun pretending that I accused anybody of having "written in any covid thread" that vaccine shedding is real. My link was to an article in Health about the delusion that "people who had received a COVID vaccine could "shed" the virus to others and cause harm." I never claimed that it had been posted in an ISF thread.
In other words: This is The Atheist is having fun setting fire to a strawman of his own design.

Again conflating two different things incorrectly - the list of logical fallacies you're posting is way past hilarious now.

Nobody said covid was over, just the pandemic.

The pandemic isn't over, but some people think that it will go away if only they pretend it's over, and they panic unless everybody else pretends that it's over, too.

Nobody is safe until everybody is safe.
The pandemic is not over and nor is the response.
EVERYONE COUNTS COVID-19 - Nobody is safe until everybody is safe (International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Geneva, 2023)

This is the part of the pandemic that seems to be difficult for The Atheist to grasp: It isn't over just because to pretend that it is.

While continuing to flat-out lie about what I said. I admitted to making a mistake by leaving a word out of my post.[/hilite]

Your dishonest posting seems to have no limit.

This is me correcting The Atheist's claim, highlighting his lie in a quotation, and providing him with links that prove him wrong (post 2,725).
This is The Atheist doubling down, accusing me of "total dishonesty" and a "failed attempt at lying," and trying to prove his accusation with a quotation that proves me right and him wrong.
This is me pointing out his lie for the third time.
And this is The Atheist pretending that he just made the mistake of leaving ""non" out of the sentence" and pretending that that was all he did.
And no sooner has it been established that COVID-19 is the infectious disease: The fact that's the number 1 infectious disease is irrelevant.

That's getting close, and if you were honest and had said: SARS-CoV-2 will continue to kill people, but I don't give a **** because the majority are older than 80 and/or frail...

I think we all know The Atheist's attitude to the lives of people who "are older than 80 and/or frail" (I think he forgot to bold the word frail). As for his claim that the majority are older than 80, I am not sure that he is right. When I look at COVID-19 deaths at Weekly Updates by Select Demographic and Geographic Characteristics (COVID-19) (CDC, 2019 to Mar 1, 2023), there are 589,426 in the 75+ age bracket and 524,135 younger than that, but it is safe to assume that about 50% of COVID-19 deaths are in people younger than 80!

...you'd have hit my position dead on. I really don't care that people who would be dead within weeks or months are sent early by covid, it saves a lot of tax dollars.

And that is the whole point of The Atheist's posts about the pandemic: He doesn't care about people's lives, he doesn't care about people's health (even though bad health costs "a lot of tax dollars"), and he repeats his usual lie about "people who would be dead within weeks or months" (see [url=http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=13985187#post13985187]post 250) as if that is the reality of the pandemic.

And as marting showed you in the covid thread - and you conveniently ignore because it doesn't suit your scenario - people now dying of covid are either unvaccinated (and I certainly don't care) or are very old and very ill.

I have no idea what marting is supposed to have shown me and I am supposed to have ignored. It is so convenient to lie about these things when you don't provide any links. And since he is an expert on conveniently ignoring posts, I will take the opportunity to remind him of post 234 (Dec 30, 2022) and post 251 (Jan 11, 2023) in this thread. It has been convenient for him to ignore them no matter how many times I remind him.

Yet another idiotic strawman - nobody gives a toss about people wearing masks other than conspiracist loons, and none of them are participating in the thread. I do, however, think it's unconscionable that Chinese parents insisting their children wear masks in 28-degree heat all day at school.

But hey, at least they're keeping the paranoid people happy.

See post 288.

 

[dann]

Or do they come from countries that prioritize children's health?

Your love affair with Cuba is hilarious.

They love their kids so much!

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-64811310

Yes, Cuba loves children and prioritizes children's health. Unlike The Atheist, Cuba doesn't invent a false dichotomy between immunizing children against Covid-19 and immunizing them against other diseases, as if it would be impossible to do both:

I support sensible measures, but it can't be at the cost of ignoring other - and often worse - problems.

Childhood vaccinations have fallen off a cliff in the past two years: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-02051-w

We need to be working to getting those sorted out before we try to get kids having covid vaccines. Samoa had over 60 children under 4 die from a single measles outbreak in 2019. Covid has killed a total of 29 Samoans across all age groups in three years, including zero children.

Let's keep our priorities straight.

'Let's keep the priorities straight by refusing to immunize children against a disease using an effective vaccine with no serious side effects'.

Unlike The Atheist's priorities, Cuban health care is based on science, as it should be, whereas The Atheist in the case of children advocates what the anti-vaxxers refer to as natural immunization by Covid-19 infection, i.e. let children get infected, so they can learn to live (or die) with the virus!

Cuba even cares about old people, even the 80+ (very much unlike The Atheist). Cuba doesn't pretend that SARS-CoV-2 is ...

just not dangerous to people under 85 who have had vaccines and aren't immuno-compromised, or very sick before getting it.

Again: Cuba's health care is science-based - unlike the tall tales told by The Atheist:

It's a risk, but to me, it's on par with the risk of driving to the clinic.

New Zealand road deaths in 2022: 373 - a little more than the average of recent years and yet no comparison to the SARS-CoV-2 death toll:
New Zealand Covid-19 deaths in 2022: 2,280
Cuba Covid-19 deaths in 2022: 208

It is obvious that even the hypocritical strategy of allegedly prioritizing the lives of young people over the lives of old or frail people whose toe tags have allegedly already been written is based on a false dichotomy. You can do both: Care for lives and health of the old as well as the young. And some countries do care!

 

[Arcade22]

God I wish I lived in a totalitarian communist hellhole.

 

[dann]

I see no reason why you shouldn't make your wish come true. Do it! Judging by the North-Korea-style appeal to false authority that seems to characterize a majority of Swedish skeptics, I don't think you will have any problems fitting in.

The New Totalitarians: The Swedish COVID-19 strategy and the implications of consensus culture and media policy for public health (SSM Population Health Vol 14, June 2021/ScienceDirect)
Evaluation of science advice during the COVID-19 pandemic in Sweden (Humanities & Social Sciences Communications, Mar 22, 2022 (correction July 15, 2022))
Coronavirus: Should We Aim for Herd Immunity Like Sweden? (Thomas Pueyo, June 9, 2020 (update Nov 22, 2020)

I think the North Korean numbers are as unreliable as Sweden's promise to protect the old and infirm while the rest of the population was exposed to its state epidemiologist's attempts to achieve herd immunity by infection. I wonder if Kim Jung-Un did worse than Anders Tegnell.

As for Cuba, the country is just a little larger than Sweden, so I see no reason to use the "relative to population" function:
Cumulative confirmed COVID-19 deaths
Even though the pandemic isn't over, the epidemics can actually be considered to be over in a few countries that didn't buy into Kulldorff's Great Barrington libertarianism.

 

[dann]

Who's next after XBB.1.5 'Kraken'? XBB.1.16 'Arcturus', apparently.

The staff dedicated to investigating disease outbreaks for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention received a reminder this week of the pandemic’s persistence: confirmed covid cases at their own conference.
“We’re letting you know that several people who attended the [Epidemic Intelligence Service] Conference have tested positive for COVID-19,” a CDC branch chief wrote in an email to staff on Friday and obtained by The Washington Post, adding that at least one person at the division’s recruiting event on Wednesday had tested positive.
Current and former CDC staff also told The Post that moderators at the conference warned staff several times that some attendees had tested positive for the virus.
A CDC official said the agency was “aware” of several confirmed cases that could be connected to the conference, but cautioned “the cases we’re aware of at this time should not be referred to as an ‘outbreak.’”
“These cases are reflective of general spread in the community. It’s not news that public health employees can get COVID-19,” CDC’s Kristen Nordlund wrote in an email.
CDC meeting, intended to mark covid progress, sees virus cases of its own (WP, April 28, 2023)

'Don't worry. This is not an super-spreader event. It is already everywhere and it's definitely not news!'

Federal health officials say that covid-19 remains one of the leading causes of death in the United States, tied to about 250 deaths daily, on average, mostly among the old and immunocompromised.
Few Americans are treating it as a leading killer, however — in part because they are not hearing about those numbers, don’t trust them or don’t see them as relevant to their own lives.
Covid is still a leading cause of death as the virus recedes (WP, April 16, 2023)

XBB.1.16 — dubbed “Arcturus” on social media — is another descendant of omicron. It was first detected in early January and the majority of cases have been seen in India so far. It’s been steadily rising in the U.S. in recent weeks, although it still made up slightly less than 10% of new confirmed Covid cases as of Saturday, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
(...)
Mokdad said that XBB.1.16 is gaining ground on the previously dominant strain in the U.S., called XBB.1.5.
That increased transmissibility appears to be due to the subvariant’s ability to avoid immune detection in the body.
“It can’t be spreading so fast unless it has some immune escape,” Mokdad said.
What to know about XBB.1.16, the 'Arcturus' variant (NBC News, April 27, 2023)

 

[The Atheist]

Meanwhile, in the real world, where panic about covid is dead and buried, like the very old, frail people it's still killing, even ultra-cautious Japan just removed travel restrictions.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/news...lly-drop-all-covidrelated-border-restrictions

 

[dann]

The real world is what The Atheist always ignores whenever he is confronted with it. For instance when he declared that flu deaths in New Zealand "are ~500 a year, and omicron's going to be much lower than that", and yet:

Cumulative confirmed COVID-19 deaths, New Zealand, March 25 to Dec 27:
Mar 25, 2022: 273
Dec 27, 2022: 2,331

Hospitalizations 2022
Flu: 5,087
Covid-19: 20,516

But that was in 2022, and The Atheist's attitude to his own predictions is always: Let bygones be bygones, and ignore them if they don't suit him.

So how about 2023, then? Let's see:
Cumulative confirmed COVID-19 deaths in New Zealand from Jan 1 to April 17, 2023: 2,331 --> 2,716, i.e. 385 COVID-19 deaths in New Zealand so far this year, so again in 2023 omicron's death toll is not going to be "much lower than" 500. How much higher it will be remains to be seen. Winter in NZ hasn't even started yet.

There are also The Atheist's repeated lies about the death toll of COVID-19 compared to deaths in traffic:
"It's a risk, but to me, it's on par with the risk of driving to the clinic."

New Zealand road deaths in 2022: 373 - a little more than the average of recent years and yet no comparison to the SARS-CoV-2 death toll:
New Zealand Covid-19 deaths in 2022: 2,280

It is obvious that even the hypocritical strategy of allegedly prioritizing the lives of young people over the lives of old or frail people 'whose toe tags have allegedly already been written' is based on a false dichotomy. You can do both: Care for lives and health of the old as well as the young. And some countries do care!

Road deaths in NZ in 2023 so far: 110. Not even one third of COVID-19 deaths.

Old lives matter! Frail lives matter!
But ageists and ableists don't see it that way, which is why they celebrate any change in policy anywhere that sacrifices those lives.
The also ignore it when a country like Japan "still recommends travellers and locals wear masks in appropriate situations, such as “crowded commuter trains and buses”" even when it's mentioned in an article they link to.

 

[dann]

Tess Finch-Lees: The Covid pandemic isn't fully over and we've been too quick to ignore the continuing risks (Independent.ie, July 9, 2023)

 

[dann]

US flying blind to potential COVID-19 resurgence, experts say, as states scale back on testing, data reporting (ABC News, Mar 22, 2022)

Unreliable numbers, but still:

The extent of the increase in transmission is difficult to quantify. Official case counts are now largely unreliable due to the proliferation of at-home testing and reduced data reporting.
But other metrics point to an increase.
Coronavirus levels in Los Angeles County wastewater have been trending upward. And the statewide test positivity rate hit 7.6% for the week that ended Monday, up from 4.1% a month earlier. The number of coronavirus test results reported to the California Department of Public Health has also doubled over the last month, a possible indication that more people are getting sick — or are at least concerned they have been exposed to the virus.
COVID-19 hospitalizations in California, while still near record lows, are no longer decreasing. There were 834 coronavirus-positive patients in California’s hospitals as of last Saturday — smaller than the lows reported in the spring of 2021 and 2022 but an increase from July 1, when there were 747 coronavirus-positive hospitalized patients.
Summer brings COVID-19 uptick amid renewed travel, socializing. How bad will it get? (LATimes, July 28, 2023)

Parts of the country are seeing an uptick, and hospitalizations are rising nationwide.
(...)
In previous coronavirus waves, colder weather drove people indoors and allowed the pathogen to spread. Extremely hot weather could have the same effect. “We are in a very warm year, and people are spending a lot of time indoors,” infectious disease expert Dr. Luis Ostrosky told the Wall Street Journal. “People are congregating in air-conditioned settings, and that is providing an opportunity for transmission.”
Most institutions that had reported coronavirus cases with online trackers are no longer producing daily updates, making both local and national trends difficult to spot. For its part, the CDC drastically scaled back its own tracking in May.
Coronavirus is back, but how worried should you be? (Yahoo!News, July 28, 2023)

So there is reason to assume that Biden's heat-wave advice will help spread the virus:

Experts say extreme heat is already costing America $100 billion a year. And it hits our most vulnerable the hardest: seniors, people experiencing homelessness who have nowhere to turn, disadvantaged communities that are least able to recover from climate disasters.
(...)
Stay indoors if you’re vulnerable. Be careful on hot pavement.
Know the signs of heat stroke, like headache, nausea, dizziness.
And always have water with you. That sounds silly, but always have a bottle of water with you when you’re outside.
Check on loved ones and neighbors who may not have air conditioning, and check on them on a regular basis. Or go to the mall or community centers or movie theaters or libraries where there is air conditioning when you don’t have that air conditioning at home.
Remarks by President Biden on Actions to Protect Communities from Extreme Heat (WhiteHouse.gov, July 27, 2023)

Damned if you do, and damned if you don't.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

Damned if you do, and damned if you don't.

Now that we moved from isolation to relying on vaccinations to keep the virus at bay, we have to return to some kind of 'normal' and let it rip. Unfortunately that means more people will die, but it's now down to an acceptable risk for most of us.

I walked past the movie theater yesterday and saw there was one screening that I would like to see. I would to like go with friends, but that would probably mean a crowded theater and none us are comfortable with that. Maybe next year.

 

[Chanakya]

Now that we moved from isolation to relying on vaccinations to keep the virus at bay, we have to return to some kind of 'normal' and let it rip. Unfortunately that means more people will die, but it's now down to an acceptable risk for most of us.

I walked past the movie theater yesterday and saw there was one screening that I would like to see. I would to like go with friends, but that would probably mean a crowded theater and none us are comfortable with that. Maybe next year.

The prospect of people dying, we ourselves, or more likely the old and infirm among us, can that ever be acceptable? Well okay, it can be, but should it?

I'd suggest "letting it rip" as far as the essentials, but exercising restraint, within bounds and not going overboard with the restraint like in past times, for things that aren't essential.

And yes, sure, one man's essential is another's not-essential. If someone's quality of life is very substantially dented by not watching a movie on a big screen, or by not drinking in a pub rather than in private or not at all, well then that's valid enough for them. But the unquestioned and unquestioning gathering in masses as in times past, it might not hurt to question that, a bit, for as long as that questioning does not become completely nutso. IMV we're not there yet.

 

[Trausti]

I walked past the movie theater yesterday and saw there was one screening that I would like to see. I would to like go with friends, but that would probably mean a crowded theater and none us are comfortable with that. Maybe next year.

Damn. Can't imagine living like that. Exercise. Watch your diet. Take vitamin D. You'll be fine.

 

[Chanakya]

Damn. Can't imagine living like that. Exercise. Watch your diet. Take vitamin D. You'll be fine.

Can't make out if this is sarcasm, or literally meant.


"Can't imagine not smoking, not copulating indiscriminately, not drinking to excess, not eating indiscriminately, not questioning if that outing in public is something we really need to do, watching out to make sure we don't utter racist sexist slurs, damn that's no way to live." Like that.

If meant that way, then I agree! But probably aimed wrong, because Roger Ramjets wasn't saying anything totally weird, a small disagreement of degree rather than of kind, I'd say.


But if you meant that literally, then I disagree. Sure, general healthy living's cool, but if there's specific risks, then those must be addressed on their own terms. General platitudes, while not completely irrelevant, go only so far.

 

[dann]

Body of work. I'm surprised hydroxychloroquine isn't mentioned in addition to diet, exercise and vitamin D.

 

[dann]

Now that we moved from isolation to relying on vaccinations to keep the virus at bay, we have to return to some kind of 'normal' and let it rip. Unfortunately that means more people will die, but it's now down to an acceptable risk for most of us.

Some kind 'normal' would be the #DavosStandard for everybody, which would be the opposite of letting it rip. And it would also mean that those of us who are not the most of us might be able to venture into a cinema, a concert or other public venues without having to fear for their health and life.

I walked past the movie theater yesterday and saw there was one screening that I would like to see. I would to like go with friends, but that would probably mean a crowded theater and none us are comfortable with that. Maybe next year.

I consider going to watch the two Barbenheimer movies, but I'll probably buy my tickets online for a show in a fairly big movie theatre with few tickets sold. And I'll wear a face mask. That's as close as one can get to the #DavosStandard without being a Davos billionaire.

 

[dann]

Still not over. And it may be on the rise again according to WHO.

 

[Chanakya]

Still not over. And it may be on the rise again according to WHO.

Thanks for posting that!

I no longer follow Covid news, like I used to. Unless that is it jumps out at one, which it no longer does. This forum is the one place where I still continue to check these two threads --- and that other thread, the main Covid thread, had fallen off of my Subscriptions list, with a new volume of that ongoing discussions in place now, that I never noticed. Have put that new thread in my Subscriptions list now.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

99.999% of the population does not give a toss about the disease any more.

Not quite 99.999%, but pretty close.

 

[Puppycow]

Haven't looked at the stats in months, but it does appear to be mostly over:

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

At the peak of the pandemic there were over 10,000 deaths per day, compared to around 200/day over the last month or two. I have been vaccinated 4 times and don't plan to get any more. I have neither tested positive nor even felt like I was ill since then. The Japanese government plans to stop offering free vaccines next year.

Here's an interesting story about how free Covid testing was used to steal from the government:

Fraudulent COVID testing scheme in Japan using staff saliva pulled in $140,000 per day

TOKYO -- At the height of the coronavirus pandemic, when state-funded free testing sites were popping up all over Japan, one such center in Kanagawa Prefecture concocted a scheme to defraud the government out of as much as 20 million yen (approx. $140,000) a day in subsidies. Their method: Have staff use their own saliva for the tests.
. . .

The ring filed subsidy claims under the name of a testing site set up by the Kanagawa company, asking that the Kanagawa Prefectural Government or the Tokyo Metropolitan Government pay 8,500 yen (about $58) in testing fees and 3,000 yen (roughly $20) in expenses for a total of 11,500 yen (approx. $78) per PCR test -- the maximum subsidy amount. The testing in fact cost 2,000 yen (about $14) each plus some 150 yen (about $1) per saliva container.

Records show that the subsidies were paid to the Tokyo company, which cleared around 9,350 yen (about $63) in profit per test after expenses.

It cost them only 2,150 yen per test to run these unnecessary fake tests, but they billed the government 11,500 yen per test.

 

[Chanakya]

Still not over. And it may be on the rise again according to WHO.

Finally read that thread, that you’d linked to and I’d bookmarked the other day. (Yeah, short enough thread, but only got around to actually reading it just now.)

Agreed, Covid is “still not over.”



Heh, it was it was interesting to see the, the passions in that thread, with completely opposing viewpoints about whether we still need to bother with precautions, and each side coming down hard on the other.

Me, I think either choice is cool, at this time, and it's a personal thing, really. ...Those times, when we'd (very rightly) look on with horror at those cross-eyed morons that kept insisting that masks weren't needed, that vaccines are neither useful nor safe, the deliberate parties to spread infection, we'd see them as completely demented, and a danger both to themselves and to the rest of us. Those times are clearly past. But nor are we quite there, IMV, where someone still taking precautions should be looked on as some kind of nutjob. ...I'd say it's a personal thing, at this point, like I said. (And of course, for the personal thing to be based on facts and reason, one would need to keep on with what's happening on the Covid front. Not many do that nowadays, I guess.)

 

[Chanakya]

...

...

Interesting and informative posts both, snipped for brevity. ...What that got me wondering about, is ongoing vaccinations. Should we keep getting these vaccines on an ongoing basis, maybe once a year? ...That is, for the old and those with "co-morbidities", sure, they should, that's kind of a no-brainer, but I mean the rest of us?


eta: Although, I guess if one's to be consistent, then those who do believe that some reasonable precautions still make sense, should also keep up with vaccine doses.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

Should we keep getting these vaccines on an ongoing basis, maybe once a year? ...That is, for the old and those with "co-morbidities", sure, they should, that's kind of a no-brainer, but I mean the rest of us?

Of course you should. New variants are coming out all the time, and cases are on the rise. Even if you are immune to older variants you may still be vulnerable to new ones.

Plenty of young, fit, healthy people were laid low by covid, and some even died from it. Many are suffering from 'long covid' too - even those who don't realize it. If you had a simple, safe, cheap way to avoid that, why wouldn't you take it?

So it's a 'no-brainer' for everyone.

And not just Covid. I get the flu vaccine every year too, and any other one on offer. You may say that's a no-brainer for me because I'm old (I am 65), but I remember getting the flu in my 20's and it was no joke. I'd take the slight inconvenience of getting vaccinated over that no matter how old I was.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

Me, I think either choice is cool, at this time, and it's a personal thing, really. ...Those times, when we'd (very rightly) look on with horror at those cross-eyed morons that kept insisting that masks weren't needed, that vaccines are neither useful nor safe, the deliberate parties to spread infection, we'd see them as completely demented, and a danger both to themselves and to the rest of us. Those times are clearly past.

Are they? Some of the demented are no longer a threat because they are dead, but the rest are still a threat. The only difference now is that we do have vaccines which offer reasonable protection - at least for current variants.

But vaccines are not perfect. The more people don't take them, don't test and self-isolate, and don't wear masks if potentially infected, the harder it will be to keep the virus at bay. These morons are preventing us from stamping it out, increasing the risk of a variant evolving that is much more deadly and that we have no protection against. Actually there are so many morons out there now that another pandemic is pretty much guaranteed. The only good thing is that the authorities will (hopefully) treat the next one more seriously.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

Here's an interesting story about how free Covid testing was used to steal from the government:

Fraudulent COVID testing scheme in Japan using staff saliva pulled in $140,000 per day

It cost them only 2,150 yen per test to run these unnecessary fake tests, but they billed the government 11,500 yen per test.

That's not interesting, it's just sad. But not unexpected. It's the nature of capitalism that people will find ways - legal or illegal - to enrich themselves at the expense of others. Why should a pandemic be any different?

 

[dann]

Interesting and informative posts both, snipped for brevity. ...What that got me wondering about, is ongoing vaccinations. Should we keep getting these vaccines on an ongoing basis, maybe once a year? ...That is, for the old and those with "co-morbidities", sure, they should, that's kind of a no-brainer, but I mean the rest of us?


eta: Although, I guess if one's to be consistent, then those who do believe that some reasonable precautions still make sense, should also keep up with vaccine doses.

Very much unlike the flu, SARS-CoV-2 isn't really seasonal:

Virtually all Americans should get an updated coronavirus shot, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended Tuesday, with the vaccines expected to become available within 48 hours — as the respiratory illness season looms.
Mandy Cohen, director of the CDC, advised that anyone 6 months and older should get at least one dose of an updated shot. Her broad recommendation came after the agency’s expert advisers voted for a universal approach to seasonal coronavirus vaccination. The shots are intended to bolster defenses as the nation heads into the fall and winter virus season, when influenza and RSV are also primed to be on the rise.
CDC recommends updated covid shots, paving the way for vaccine this week (Washington Post, Sep 12, 2023)

The antivaxxers are already busy online!

Three countries that vaccinate everybody, including young children, and Denmark where we didn't vaccinate young children, and antivaxxer USA:
Cumulative confirmed COVID-19 deaths per million people USA, Denmark, Cuba, Japan, Singapore (Our World in Data)

Notice that many countries have stopped reporting. Of the five countries, I think that Cuba and Denmark are the only ones that still do. (Yes, Cuba hasn't had any COVID-19 deaths since August, 2022.)
Notice also the population densities of Singapore and the USA:
Singapore 8,592 per km² (22,254 per mi²);
USA: 37 per km² (96 per mi²).

And as for "the rest of us": If people don't want their children to get diabetes or MIS-C, they should get them boosted. If they themselves also don't want to get diabetes, they should get a booster shot, too. SARS-CoV-2 is not the common cold, and maybe it never will be. Verified: COVID-19 Infection Increases Diabetes Risk Cedars-Sinai, Feb 14, 2023)
The minimizers don't know what they are talking about. And they don't want to know.

 

[dann]

Very bad news

Haven't looked at the stats in months, but it does appear to be mostly over: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

At the peak of the pandemic there were over 10,000 deaths per day, compared to around 200/day over the last month or two. I have been vaccinated 4 times and don't plan to get any more. I have neither tested positive nor even felt like I was ill since then. The Japanese government plans to stop offering free vaccines next year.

The reason why it appears to be mostly over and why you now see "around 200/day over the last month or two" is that most countries have stopped reporting!!!
See my link to Our World in Data in my post above!
If you are not a mimizer yourself, make sure you don't get fooled by them and don't spread their iies! It's nowhere near over. It's on the rise with new variants.

As for Japan, see angrysoba's latest post.

Here's an interesting story about how free Covid testing was used to steal from the government:

Fraudulent COVID testing scheme in Japan using staff saliva pulled in $140,000 per day

It cost them only 2,150 yen per test to run these unnecessary fake tests, but they billed the government 11,500 yen per test.

A similar thing happened in Sweden, only worse:
People paid to be able to certify that they didn't have COVID-19 (for entry into other countries), and they issued certificates without ever examining the samples.
Ingenious way to spread Swedish 'herd immunity by infection' to the world.

 

[dann]

99.999% of the population does not give a toss about the disease any more.

Not quite 99.999%, but pretty close.

You should never believe The Atheist's numbers!
They are entirely imaginary.

 

[Puppycow]

That's not interesting, it's just sad. But not unexpected. It's the nature of capitalism that people will find ways - legal or illegal - to enrich themselves at the expense of others. Why should a pandemic be any different?

It should be of interest to the police and to taxpayers here in Japan, of which I am one. It took a newspaper to uncover the story, apparently. The government had been none the wiser.

Maybe some sort of auditing system could have found this earlier. The fake tests were given to people who didn't exist. The people who spit into the test tube existed, of course, but they didn't use their own names or other details for the accompanying paperwork. They were fictitious identities. Maybe if the government had actually checked some of them sampled at random, they could have found that some of the people aren't real. Given that we should have expected something like this, as you say.

 

[dann]

Three countries that vaccinate everybody, including young children, and Denmark where we didn't vaccinate young children, and antivaxxer USA:
Cumulative confirmed COVID-19 deaths per million people USA, Denmark, Cuba, Japan, Singapore (Our World in Data)

I forgot to mention that Denmark won't be boosting 'children' younger than 65 this fall. At least, that's what the health authorities have been saying so far. I also don't know if the Danish health authorities pay any attention to CDC announcements. A couple of the leading Danish virologists and epidemiologists seem to be listening more to the Brownstone Insitute. One of them, Christine Stabell Benn, has become a member of Florida's Public Health Integrity Committee, which doesn't bode well.
I don't know how libertarian health-care professionals managed to get in charge of Denmark's pandemic response.

 

[dann]

I'm surprised to see that New Zealand covers the pandemic news much the same way media everywhere else does:

Covid infections are putting people at higher risk of diabetes, strokes, heart disease and other long-term illnesses - but experts warn it may be decades before the full impact is known.
(...)
Dr Brooks said re-infections could also trigger long Covid, as her colleagues overseas were reporting.
"People are turning up at long Covid clinics and saying: 'No one told me that my fourth or fifth infection could cause this'.
"Covid is not done with us. We might be done with it, and our pandemic emergency response may be over, but the pandemic nature of this virus is certainly not over.
"And immunologically is where we are still sinking our teeth in and saying there's so much more we need to know."
Dr Brooks hoped people would adopt "a new normal" and continue to use masks in crowded situations and "avoid breathing in each other's viruses".
"Yes we're bored of Covid and everyone is over it, but it's still there," Dr Brooks said.
"It needs to be part of the norm, because ignoring it doesn't make it go away."
Covid may have permanently damaged people's immunity (1news.co.nz, Sep 13, 2023)

It is also surprising that people in NZ can have "fourth or fifth infection" already.
This was news in 2021: Ed Sheeran tests positive for Covid-19 (BBC, Oct 24, 2021)

This isn't news in 2023:

(Don’t bother trying to get his take on Clapton’s anti-vax turn, by the way: “I love Eric. I don’t want to say anything bad about him,” says Sheeran, who started playing guitar after seeing a “Layla” performance on TV. He is, himself, vaccinated, but has managed to contract Covid at least seven times, thanks to constant travel and the kids.)
Ed Sheeran Confesses: Tears, Trauma, and Those Bad Habits (RollingStone, Mar 21, 2023)

Seven times in 18 months! I would begin to worry what was wrong with me if I had the common cold 2-3 times in 18 months. I hope for his sake that he's exaggerating.

 

[Chanakya]

Roger Ramjets, dann, I guess I agree, about the (ongoing) vaccines.

What I was wondering is, whether now after all this time, and after having already gotten a boost via the vaccines we've all already taken in, and add to that that over these many months we may well have actually built up sizeable "herd immunity" --- back then a fiction, but now maybe not so --- so that, while in general vaccines are not a bad idea, but whether one really needs to, for the Corona virus specifically, and more than for all of the other things going around. ...And like I said, I did realize how internally inconsistent that doubt of mine turns out to be, given that in terms of masking and distancing I continue to take care when I can. It's inconsistent to abide by the one but not the other: if one is to doubt the necessity of ongoing vaccines, then it makes sense to also doubt the necessity of these precautions; and inasmuch as one prefers to take these precautions when possible, it makes sense to avail of the vaccines as well, specifically for the Corona virus I mean to say.

Haven't really given this thing much thought in recent days/weeks/months. This last exchange has clarified that thought in my mind, for which thanks!