Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[ChairmanPoo]

It has been said for months now: mask = lower infection dose = more asymptomatic, less severe cases

[scriver]

They: Foolish covid party

Me: Classy covid masquerade

[McTraveller]

Crazy how people so readily turn a blind eye to nearly 200k deaths.
But the same people were up in arms over a few Ebola deaths under Obama’s administration.

This isn't really that crazy.  It's the "large number" problem manifest: the total numbers are large and truly significant, but the proximal experience of any random individual is likely very small numbers.  Unless you work in front-line health care, or are in a very hard-hit urban area, the odds of experiencing high instances of illness are low by "everyday" standards - I mean yes 1% of a population being infected is low, but if 1 out of 100 people you know are sick, you hardly notice.  Heck most people are sick themselves for any reason more than 1 out of 100 days a year, but it doesn't even register...

Consider my sphere of acquaintances is roughly 1000 people when I consider my work and church.  Out of that 1000 people, I only know 5 people personally who have had COVID-19, and only one that has died from it (and they were in their upper 80s).  5 out of 1000 infected and 1 out of 1000 deaths is very much of in the personal statistical noise area. Especially when there have been several other deaths due to "old age" (leukemia, other chronic issues).  But that is my experience, not yours.

In other words, don't be surprised by the highly localized geography and personal experiences when it comes to how people respond to this.  Also, don't say people are not experiencing what they experience - when something truly is not that bad in their area, don't tell them they are wrong and it is really bad! Because for them it isn't - even though in other places it really is.

But when you scale 5 out of a 1000 (just to keep the math simple, not to be an accurate count) to 10M people, or 1B people, you start getting large absolute numbers that really are meaningless to the average person.  I mean 5000 sick? What does that mean?  5 million sick?  It really is just a number on a page; it's not something the mind can easily comprehend in a concrete way.

[Akura]

So, my mom just told me she has no intentions of getting a coronavirus vaccine once one is available. This'll be... interesting, since I do intend to. Granted, I'm going wait a little bit before getting one; getting a rush-developed vaccine right way might not be the best idea.

Her argument was that since she doesn't get the flu vaccine, why should she get the coronavirus.


As she was saying this, we passed by the elementary school playground, which had some children playing there. Little social distancing, and about half the kids had masks. Then my mom made a racist comment about one them.

[Zangi]

Realistically, not gonna advocate touching the vaccine coming out this year. 
Sounds like a rush job. Let other people be the guinea pigs of this mass public test.  Wait till June of next year to see if there are no adverse/unknown effects.

ScaryHilarious if enough vaccine takers become asymptomatic super spreaders, but with longer incubation times.

[misko27]

Her argument was that since she doesn't get the flu vaccine, why should she get the coronavirus.

She is at least consistent in her stupid, which I approve of, at least compared to alternatives.

I think it is crazy how people cannot accept the severity of the pandemic. I mean, if you look at the data given, it is so obvious that we should be careful and look after each other. Instead, some people are just so stubborn and see wearing a mask as a violation of rights.

Yes the equivalent of all the US casualties in Vietnam and Korea 2 1/2 times over, and people go "well I mean people die." The speed at which people became numb to sustained and shocklingly high death rates is genuinely troubling.

[Reelya]

When they say "people die" it often comes with the hand wave of "who really knows what they died of?"

And if you point at excess deaths they can claim the lockdowns caused those deaths. There's a lot of circular logic there but people just believe what they want to believe then come up with the rationalizations later. Sadly there's no talking to those people until someone they know dies of the thing.

[Frumple]

Hell, straight up dying to it didn't stop herman cain.

You'd hope family or friends dying to it or otherwise being personally effected would change a mind, but... well, not as often as it should

[Starver]

In the end, we have millenia of experience that human mortality without Covid is very almost 100% (not all figures are in yet). Mortality after catching Covid is so far much less than 100% (again, some fiddling not-yet-finalised figures, until we check everyone in our current cohort again in... say 100 years?).

So, obviously, it's healthier to catch the virus!


...

What we currently have is people who are known to have Covid who died without any obvious other condition, who died with co-morbidity not usually considered high risk in this day and age, died with a life-limiting condition that should not have been so limiting, were already in terminal decline from something but with heavy Covid effects, ... got hit by a bus (and straight into the path of a steamroller) while infected.

Some commentators only accept the very first figure as the basis of the 'true death rate', perhaps as an extreme backlash against the stats not always being able to remove the very last (especially if it also includes "untested but suspected Covid" versions of the above, which apparently isn't good enough for the front-end list items even with the word "highly" stuck in there) from the grand total.

And now they're also 'benefitting' from the latest Excess Deaths figures (by picking a suitable historic lead-up that works well for them) being depressed due to a large number of those who might have been a current Excess having already been taken by the initial peak, leaving a marginally fitter population to ride easier over any later surge in infections.


Another problem with the bare stats being used is the inadequate initial testing rates meant many highly likely infections were unable to be confirmed (mostly those where things were not so bad as to have any doubt of survival) which inflates the "known known" death rate (but also the unprovable "known unknown" and "unknown unknown") and now with greater testing numbers, cherry-picking the right detection and death stats makes it look like it's just "too much testing, when things are actuay getting better", when it's just as deadly.

And an analogy I used the other day (which was quicker to explain in the context of that moment) about lockdowns was like being in a car going down a steep hill. You suddenly notice sheep on and by the road ahead, slam on the brakes (jolting the passengers, things fly off the parcel-shelf; basically disruptive to all concerned) before realising they're actually further off than you realised (any that you did avoid hitting are just part of a larger flock). So you ease off on the brakes (you're still on the hill, so you're naturally speeding up), and someone in the back seat is complaining about the lost time so you might even step heavier on the gas. But there are still sheep on the road and you're still heading towards them, and you're now back to recklessly anti-ovine speeds again. Anyone complaining that putting the brakes in the first time just did more harm than good isn't honestly thinking through what would have happened if there were no brakes at all, etc.

[Greiger]

Had to go to a dollar general a bit over a week ago because the place we usually get groceries delivered from was out of my mom's supplements 2 weeks in a row.  Put my mask on, saw they had a nice big sign out front saying that they enforce their mask policy.

Went in to get the supplements, as well as a few other things (If I have to go out might as well get everything in one trip) and there were literally no customers in the store wearing masks, so much for enforcing the mask policy.

Now I've been sick with what I had assumed was the flu for the last 2 days, basically bedridden.  I'm only at the computer now because my back is sore from lying in bed so long and sitting feels better.

Because I'm sick my mom can't get chemo until I show it's not covid.  Can't do the quick test because I have not been sick long enough, apparently the 15 minute test is not accurate if you've been sick less than 5 days.  So I get a normal covid test and get a flu test too, because if I'm confirmed for the flu it's probably not covid and mom can get chemo.

....Flu test came back negative. Covid test still pending. If I got covid because a store didn't have the balls to enforce a mask policy despite a big bright yellow sign out front saying they do I'll lose my shit.  If I have covid my mom's chemo is put on hold for a month, let alone what happens if she catches it from me.

(also flu and covid nasal swabs suck eyes were still watering 5 minutes later)

[ChairmanPoo]

Had to go to a dollar general a bit over a week ago because the place we usually get groceries delivered from was out of my mom's supplements 2 weeks in a row.  Put my mask on, saw they had a nice big sign out front saying that they enforce their mask policy.

Went in to get the supplements, as well as a few other things (If I have to go out might as well get everything in one trip) and there were literally no customers in the store wearing masks, so much for enforcing the mask policy.

Now I've been sick with what I had assumed was the flu for the last 2 days, basically bedridden.  I'm only at the computer now because my back is sore from lying in bed so long and sitting feels better.

Because I'm sick my mom can't get chemo until I show it's not covid.  Can't do the quick test because I have not been sick long enough, apparently the 15 minute test is not accurate if you've been sick less than 5 days.  So I get a normal covid test and get a flu test too, because if I'm confirmed for the flu it's probably not covid and mom can get chemo.

....Flu test came back negative. Covid test still pending. If I got covid because a store didn't have the balls to enforce a mask policy despite a big bright yellow sign out front saying they do I'll lose my shit.  If I have covid my mom's chemo is put on hold for a month, let alone what happens if she catches it from me.

(also flu and covid nasal swabs suck eyes were still watering 5 minutes later)

That's ludicrous. They shouldnt hold your mother's chemo for a month for being a contact

[Greiger]

Maybe if I do get confirmed they'd work something out, but she was supposed to get chemo today and they cancelled because I'm an unknown factor.  I can't imagine the test coming back positive meaning anything good for her continued treatment.

[ChairmanPoo]

It means they wont do it in a place where she is in contact with other patients. But they'll do it

[Starver]

Surely "needs chemo" means "needs chemo with additional full protections" for both confirmed and suspected cases (as it should for any initial assumption of being clear, because assumptions can be wrong, and then you have huge problems from the cases that passed through the mesh...). Anything less is a sad indictment upon availability of the resources currently required.

If the chemo is for (or incidentally harms) the immune system, then perhaps the risk must be weighed up between continuing to immuno-compromise the patient (in an effort to keep on treating for the original condition) or hold off on that (in order to allow them a better chance of fighting off any Covid). And if that choice seems awful to make, either method can be riskier if you do it on merely a heavy assumption that suspected-Covid is/isn't real-Covid. So you make damn sure you know (while ideally holding off the chemo for a few days at most) before making the decision to continue/discontinue/replace the treatment.

Or so my reading of it is, without knowing Greiger's Mum's precise situation (which I sincerely hope will improve, to the absolute limit to which my best wishes could ever influence this scenario) and making some huge assumptions of my own...

[misko27]

I am concerned to note that in the US, cases stopped falling over a two week average yesterday (which is to say, cases are no longer down from where they were two weeks ago). Deaths were flat for the first time in a while; cases were up 1% from two weeks ago yesterday. Today they're up 7%.

I'll admit I was convinced the shift down came primarily from the administration getting their hands on the data, so imagine my alarm when it starts going up again anyway. The drop had not even brought us back down to the level of the first peak in April/May, and it spikes again.