How do we know a pandemic's over?

[Warp12]

I went to the movies the other day and nobody was wearing a mask....including me.

Flip Side: I saw a woman walking down an empty sidewalk outside, alone, in 90 degree heat, wearing a mask. There was nobody within 100 yards of her, minimum.

I think for some people it will never end. Some enjoy the comfort of social distancing and masking up.

 

[Myriad]

I went to the movies the other day and nobody was wearing a mask....including me.

Flip Side: I saw a woman walking down an empty sidewalk outside, alone, in 90 degree heat, wearing a mask. There was nobody within 100 yards of her, minimum.

I think for some people it will never end. Some enjoy the comfort of social distancing and masking up.

I will continue wearing a mask whenever I go into a bank or liquor store. Just because I can.

 

[TragicMonkey]

I just heard from some friends who live in Virginia. All three of them got covid last week. They'd had both shots originally but no boosters, and none of them have been wearing masks for months. They said nobody in their area has been wearing masks lately.

This is why it continues.

My own personal guidelines include "never be the first to adopt a new technology" and "never be the last to abandon a safety measure".

 

[Rolfe]

I went to the movies the other day and nobody was wearing a mask....including me.

Flip Side: I saw a woman walking down an empty sidewalk outside, alone, in 90 degree heat, wearing a mask. There was nobody within 100 yards of her, minimum.

I think for some people it will never end. Some enjoy the comfort of social distancing and masking up.

Sometimes it's just easier to leave the mask on than to take it off and put it back on again.

I'd be surprised if many people, or indeed anyone, likes either social distancing or masking up. It's only a "comfort" if you actually have a clear grasp of the risks of not doing it. Which a lot of people lack, obviously.

(I took my mask off to watch a film because the CO2 concentration in the cinema was about 500 ppm, the only person anywhere near me was my friend who is also very careful not to expose herself to infection, and actually there was only one other couple in the place and they were way at the back in a corner - I didn't look any closer at what they were doing.)

 

[Chanakya]

I continue masking, and mentally middle-finger anyone who throws me funny looks.

Out in public and with strangers and merely-acquaintances it does not really matter; but it does get kind of awkward when people come visiting, and those people do not themselves mask up. It's awkward to ask them to mask up when they're not of themselves doing it; and even if you choose to let that slide, even then it's awkward to keep wearing your mask when those others aren't doing that.

I generally do my own thing, provided I'm convinced it's the right thing to do, and don't much worry about how others might perceive it; but in social occasions, and with people that are close to you, and when the whole point is basically getting together to relax and all, when people are at different wavelenghts on this, then that creates ...a certain, I don't know, a certain something that's not very conducive to relaxed-time-together thing.

Ah well. Hopefully in a few months this thing will truly be behind us, but in the meantime I'm damned if I'm going to breathe in someone's foul germs just to maintain utterly spurious social niceties.

 

[dann]

Hopefully in a few months this thing will truly be behind us, but in the meantime I'm damned if I'm going to breathe in someone's foul germs just to maintain utterly spurious social niceties.

Do you know something the rest of us don't?!
In a few months, it will be first autumn and the winter in the northern hemisphere, and in most of Europe the numbers are rising now when they were expected to fall because it's summer. Compare the current USA numbers to the numbers in late June of 2020 and 2021.
I don't see any signs that make me assume that there is reason to expect it to be behind us soon. Unless the policies change, i.e. masking up and TTI, I don't think it will happen.
The virus is working tirelessly on creating new and improved variants, and our governments think that we should let get on with it.

 

[mgidm86]

Sometimes it's just easier to leave the mask on than to take it off and put it back on again.

I'd be surprised if many people, or indeed anyone, likes either social distancing or masking up. It's only a "comfort" if you actually have a clear grasp of the risks of not doing it. Which a lot of people lack, obviously.

(I took my mask off to watch a film because the CO2 concentration in the cinema was about 500 ppm, the only person anywhere near me was my friend who is also very careful not to expose herself to infection, and actually there was only one other couple in the place and they were way at the back in a corner - I didn't look any closer at what they were doing.)

Normal CO2 levels in my area are about 420 ppm. 500 is perfectly safe.

How did you know the CO2 level in the theater? Why would it be high if there were only 3 people in it?

Finally, when you exhale, the CO2 isn't trapped in the mask. What is the volume of air your lungs can hold vs the amount of CO2 a mask could trap in the tiny area between it and your face? Gigantic.

It makes no sense.

Also, the mask isn't for you or your friend's own protection. I still wear mine in some situations but since most people are not I wonder why I bother. I mainly avoid crowds and I shop for groceries online now and pick up at the curb.

 

[Rolfe]

I knew the CO2 concentration because I had a CO2 meter in my handbag. I was expecting it to be low, and I actually behaved as if it was that low on previous occasions before I had the CO2 meter. It was just nice to confirm it.

Of course CO2 concentrations aren't affected by whether or not anyone is wearing a mask. That doesn't change the metrics on how to behave though. You're just generally safer at any particular CO2 level if the other people are masked compared to if they aren't. CO2 concentration is used as a proxy measurement for the likelihood that you are breathing air that someone else has recently breathed out, that's all. Yes that air is less likely to have virus in it if the other person is masked.

Finally, my mask - an FFP3 for which I had to pass a face-fit test at work - most certainly is for my protection. (My friend was wearing an FFP2, which isn't quite so good but still pretty protective.) I have got to the point that I am looking out for myself. I have had it with urging masks and ventilation on other people. You can all get it twice a month for all I care. (No that isn't really true, I really wish you'd all stop incubating new variants of concern, but since nobody is listening to Cassandra, she's plotting how to survive the Greek attack all by herself.)

 

[Chanakya]

Do you know something the rest of us don't?! In a few months, it will be first autumn and the winter in the northern hemisphere, and in most of Europe the numbers are rising now when they were expected to fall because it's summer. Compare the current USA numbers to the numbers in late June of 2020 and 2021.
I don't see any signs that make me assume that there is reason to expect it to be behind us soon. Unless the policies change, i.e. masking up and TTI, I don't think it will happen.
The virus is working tirelessly on creating new and improved variants, and our governments think that we should let get on with it.

Ha ha, no, absolutely not! To be frank, I've not been following the latest developments on the Covid front with anywhere close to the attention I would lavish on it in earlier times. It's my impression that overall it's all kind of petering out, with the relatively milquetoast Omicron crowding out other variants. I was generally thinking --- hoping! --- that maybe by year-end things might improve enough that we can take Omicron in our stride, like we do the flu, especially with enough vaccination. But in any case, I'm not letting down my guard, paranoid thought that looks and sounds to some people. Better paranoid for a few months more, than sorry, is my view.

So well, that was just a general expression of hope, and of general uninformed hope at that.

Yes, one does hope that in the meantime Omicron isn't upstaged by a more malevolent cousin, or that it does not itself turn out more deadly than it has started to seem.

If only people weren't so impatient, like little children, to snatch off their masks in indulge in the "freedom" to breathe in one another's germs. But of course, if we're going for "if only"s, then there's a whole stack of them. Things are what they are, unfortunately.

 

[dann]

I can assure you that there is nothing milquetoast about Omicron. The death toll has more than doubled in Denmark. It has quadrupled in Finland during the Omicron wave, in Iceland, too, and I expect it to take off again in a couple of weeks when the death toll catches up with the recent rise in new Omicron BA.5 infections: Cumulative confirmed COVID-19 deaths per million people

When I watch The Late Show, Seth Meyers, Jimmy Kimmel Live, etc., I can see that people in the audience still masking up. I get the same impression when I watch footage from the NY subway. In Copenhagen, it is probably fewer than 1 in 50 right now.

As for predictions:

Drosten, German virologist:
In the interview, Drosten apologized for his statement this spring about the pandemic would be ending by the end of this year. "I no longer think that by the end of this year we will think that the pandemic is over."
https://twitter.com/dannXsim/status/1540579230869766144

And as for unprofessional predictions a few months ago ...

 

[dann]

How do we know a pandemic's over?

When the pandemic minimizers stop pretending that it's over. I think that will be a sure sign that it actually is.

 

[Chanakya]

How do we know a pandemic's over?

When the pandemic minimizers stop pretending that it's over. I think that will be a sure sign that it actually is.

What tests my patience to the limit, is when some bright spark, themselves unmasked obviously, that glories in knowing more about the wider world than is contained within the dark comorting confines of their backside orifices, invariably lets loose the very original quip comparing my resolute mask-wearing with what the Japanese tend to do. Like, "It's great that you keep masking on, apparently that's what the Japs do all time, very civilized, keeps all kinds of germs out, that's how they apparently live such long lives, those Japs."

 

[dann]

One of the Swedish pundits is Agnes Wold, an aging bacteriologist, who is conspicuously lacking in any new knowledge since the finished her education back in the '70s or '80s. Very early on, she declared that the use of face masks in Asian countries was a cultural tradition that had nothing whatsoever to do with the prevention of virus transmission.
At this point, she is telling people in their 60s that as soon as they get vaccinated there is no need to mask up anymore.

This was when cases in Sweden hadn't quite been discovered yet:
Munskydd är en ritual som man använder i asiatiska länder för att visa någon sorts hövlighet mot andra. (Twitter, March 9, 2020)
Face masks are a ritual used in Asian countries to demonstrate some kind of courteousness to others.

Man, those primitive Asians just don't know any better. And to this day, they're still doing it, masking up, as if it had anything at all to do with the low number of cases in comparison to Sweden. When will they ever learn?!

 

[xjx388]

Well, it certainly isn't over yet! And probably won't be for the foreseeable future.

I, myself, am just getting over an infection I got three weeks ago. 2nd time I've gotten it (1st was in Jan 2021) and it was actually worse this time. Lots of severe fatigue and brain fog and I had fever and cough for the first week. I am vaccinated and had one booster about 5 months ago. I knew I should have gotten the second booster!

My wife has seen a lot of cases in her practice as well. A lot of my friends have gotten it around the same time frame. I think we can call it a surge here in South Texas. I've also read about how cruise ships are debarking a lot of sick people and quarantining people on-board.

But it's like the general public doesn't care anymore. There is definitely a sense of "can we stop hearing about this now?" Heads in the sand . . .

 

[Chanakya]

Well, it certainly isn't over yet! And probably won't be for the foreseeable future.

I, myself, am just getting over an infection I got three weeks ago. 2nd time I've gotten it (1st was in Jan 2021) and it was actually worse this time. Lots of severe fatigue and brain fog and I had fever and cough for the first week. I am vaccinated and had one booster about 5 months ago. I knew I should have gotten the second booster!

My wife has seen a lot of cases in her practice as well. A lot of my friends have gotten it around the same time frame. I think we can call it a surge here in South Texas. I've also read about how cruise ships are debarking a lot of sick people and quarantining people on-board.

But it's like the general public doesn't care anymore. There is definitely a sense of "can we stop hearing about this now?" Heads in the sand . . .

Hope you recover fully soon!

Agreed, the head in the sand thing. I just don't get it, how people can do this. How they can still do this, after two years of this virus rampaging around. Surely taking some elementary precautions --- that one has had enough time to get used to by now --- is not that big a deal, given the alternative might be to fall ill, perhaps seriously ill? It's actually suicidal, exactly like speeding on a bike without a helmet, or driving without belting up.

The other day some family friends came visiting at my parents' place from out of town. I happened to be there as well. These guys had been badly hit by the pandemic, and actually lost a family member --- the father to the kid, the son of the elderly parents, the husband of the still-kind-of-young wife/widow --- to Covid. And none of them were ******* masked on! And my parents, although masked to begin with, soon started feeling awkward, sitting masked up like that, and discreetly took theirs off after a while. And I ...somehow refrained from making a scene. I should have, I guess, better an awkward scene than my parents getting ill; but what the hell, I did not, and stood sitting there, the only masked one in a room full of people. Thankfully they left soon after, else I don't know how much longer I could have taken it before actually making a royal scene over it all.

It's utterly crazy, how little regard people have for their own health and safety. And others' as well.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

Very, I think. The current BA2 wave will subside as quickly as it began and the fat lady will be signing.

that didn't age well.

I can see the pandemic being over for all practical purposes by the end of April, and officially by WHO statement some time in June. China's the only place that might continue to have issues, which is ironically appropriate.

Weekly epidemiological update on COVID-19 - 29 June 2022

Globally, the number of weekly COVID-19 cases has increased for the third consecutive week, after a declining trend was observed since the last peak in March 2022. During the week of 20 to 26 June 2022, over 4.1 million cases were reported, an 18% increase as compared to the previous week...

At the regional level, the number of new weekly cases increased in the Eastern Mediterranean Region (+47%), the European Region (+33%), the South-East Asia Region (+32%)...

Geographic spread and prevalence of VOCs

the Omicron VOC remains the dominant variant circulating globally, accounting for 94% of sequences reported in the past 30 days. Among Omicron sequences, as of epidemiological week 24 (13 to 19 June 2022) BA.2 represents 25%, while BA.2.12.1 represents 11%, BA.4 represents 12%, and BA.5 represents 43%....

These trends should be interpreted with caution as several countries have been progressively changing COVID-19 testing strategies, resulting in lower overall numbers of tests performed and consequently lower numbers of cases detected.

July 1st and New Zealand is still on Orange alert. I wonder why...

 

[dann]

Well, it certainly isn't over yet! And probably won't be for the foreseeable future.

I, myself, am just getting over an infection I got three weeks ago. 2nd time I've gotten it (1st was in Jan 2021) and it was actually worse this time. Lots of severe fatigue and brain fog and I had fever and cough for the first week. I am vaccinated and had one booster about 5 months ago. I knew I should have gotten the second booster!

My wife has seen a lot of cases in her practice as well. A lot of my friends have gotten it around the same time frame. I think we can call it a surge here in South Texas. I've also read about how cruise ships are debarking a lot of sick people and quarantining people on-board.

But it's like the general public doesn't care anymore. There is definitely a sense of "can we stop hearing about this now?" Heads in the sand . . .

It has become obvious that the people who told us to 'learn to live with the virus' were full of it. Omicron isn't mild:
Where's the herd immunity? Our research shows why Covid is still wreaking havoc. (The Guardian, July 1, 2022)

Good convalescence!

 

[dann]

that didn't age well..

Maybe it was meant to say that the fat lady is sighing! She probably can't sing anymore anyway.

Daily new confirmed COVID-19 cases per million people But the problem with the number of daily new cases is that some countries drastically reduce testing. Sweden, for instance, is close to having achieved ZeroCovid in this way. The death toll is usually much more reliable:
Daily new confirmed COVID-19 deaths per million people
Cumulative confirmed COVID-19 deaths

There was a time when Jacinda Ardern called the relatives of people who had succumbed to Covid-19.

But we knew that 'learning to live with the virus' was never about people. It was always about the economy: New Zealand Economy Surprisingly Contracts as Covid Spread (Bloomberg)

Wait! That's not how it was supposed to work, was it?!
(The only thing that's surprising is that anybody's surprised.)

 

[Warp12]

I think for some people it will never end.

The above is pretty clear, I'd say.

 

[dann]

Some enjoy the comfort of social distancing and masking up.

You mean people like this?

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.

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:

Out of 919,731 individuals that were tested for COVID-19 within the study, researchers found that the 43,375 people who tested positive had a 3.5 times increased risk of being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, 2.6 times with Parkinson’s disease, 2.7 times with ischaemic stroke, and 4.8 times with intracerebral hemorrhage (bleeding in the brain).
COVID Associated With Neurodegenerative Disorders (Science-Based Medicine, June 29, 2022)

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

Some enjoy the comfort of social distancing and masking up.

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.