Mega-Thread: Coronavirus Pandemic

[Forogil]

That doesn't seem to be where variants are coming from. It seems like it might be people who can't get rid of the virus and it sits inside of them mutating over and over: https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsan...ants-come-from

Hmmm...

If a few immunocompromised persons are such a problem for the human population at large we really need to rethink how we treat them, as the current way seem to make them living petri-dishes for virus-development (at least for sars-cov-2, but possibly also for other viruses). Especially the idea of giving them immuno-depressants seem far from ideal.

[Granyala]

Viruses do not give a flying fuck what people want to put up with.

Viruses don't but governments and economies do. At some point, necessary sacrifices will be made to prevent global unrest.
Acceptance of measures is already below 50% after 1 year in Germany. You want to continue that for a decade?

LoL.... good luck.

[Draco-Onis]

There is 0% chance that masks are here to stay. Don't need to worry about that. Social distancing might become slightly more commonplace beyond Covid-19, but... not really.

But let's not forget the about the people that catch Covid-19 and survive it. Because it's not either death or 100% fine. It can really mess your brain, lungs and heart for good, after you no longer have the illness itself.

They are here to stay in for a few years at least. it is foolish to think the world will go back to the way it was. Every global pandemic has changed our society in a major way.

[Santti]

It totally could, if it were as infectious as SARS-CoV-2, were a new virus for everybody and if we didn't have a vaccine against it.
Flu is much more serious that most people give it credit for.

But of course it could. But there aren't new novel viruses spreading right now, so that's not something to worry about, what that new virus might be like.

[Draco-Onis]

Viruses don't but governments and economies do. At some point, necessary sacrifices will be made to prevent global unrest.
Acceptance of measures is already below 50% after 1 year in Germany. You want to continue that for a decade?

LoL.... good luck.

Dead bodies will do the convincing I don't need luck. Who knows what this virus will turn into if it keeps mutating for years and years due to morons

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But of course it could. But there aren't new novel viruses spreading right now, so that's not something to worry about what that new virus might be like.

Well Russia just announced that the bird flu has jumped to humans

[Granyala]

Dead bodies will do the convincing I don't need luck.

Honestly?
It will have to produce A LOT more dead bodies than it does now to convince people to maintain this state of crisis for years on end.

At some point, most people will not want to put their life on hold for some 80yr olds, once vaccines drive the body count down a lot that will become more evident.
Especially if the state reaches it's limits in terms of supplementing their income.

[Santti]

Well Russia just announced that the bird flu has jumped to humans

Seems like it's one of the strains of bird flu (H5N8) that has jumped for the first time. Other strains have infected humans before.

Luckily, it seems there has been no human to human transmission, and the infected were asymptomatic and have recovered. But yeah, there is potential there.

[Draco-Onis]

most people will not want to put their life on hold for some 80yr olds

Why are you so certain that a mutating virus will be constant in it's age range? We already it's adapting to vaccines already but keep thinking you are invincible.

[Vash The Stampede]

In case you didn't know: humans are social animals - and contact with other humans is important. One of the problems with not having students in schools is the lack of social development (another is that online learning isn't as good, and it also often reinforces existing social divides).

It's that or death. You could just continue with life ignoring the virus which would remove the weak and keep the strong. That's how humans have traditionally dealt with pathogens in the past. Eventually humans with mutations that protect them from viruses and bacteria were the ones left alive to reproduce. How else you think modern humans deal with things like influenza? It certainly isn't the flu medicine at your local super market, that's for certain. Natural selection is still a thing, and the question you need to ask is are you strong enough to survive? What about your family and friends?

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But let's not forget the about the people that catch Covid-19 and survive it. Because it's not either death or 100% fine. It can really mess your brain, lungs and heart for good, after you no longer have the illness itself.

As someone who's had COVID I can tell you that I had a hard time breathing even after it went away. Still do a bit.

Such nonsense it hurts.
The virus will NEVER go away again. You all need to accept that. We will live with this thing forever.

Not disagreeing with you there.

Vaccines are there to take the serious cases out of the equation. What's left are mild cases.

Hopefully what's left are mild cases. Hopefully it removes the serious cases.

Boom, case closed. Accept the residual damage and continue your life. This idea of hunkering down in panic in hopes that the virus will one day not be a threat anymore is idiotic.

Assuming one has a life to live if they don't die from COVID.

Also, the changes you propose are a pipe dream. humans cannot function w/o social interactions for an indefinite periot of time, many people are suffering after merely a year already. At some point the psychological consequences of this perma-crisis terror nonsense will take bigger toll on people that a few cases of C19 in a mostly vaccinated population ever will.

It isn't just for COVID but for other future outbreaks. We do a lot of unnecessary things that can be removed in favor of better protection. Yes it's a pipe dream as you've proven, but it's the right way to deal with this problem. You aren't 100% ignoring people but you do keep people from grouping up and spreading infections very quickly. You don't need a taxi cab driver to take you places, when a self driving one would work better. You don't need to be a cashier at a super market when we have self check out. You don't need Amazon workers packed together to ship you out facial cream when we can automate the process. You don't need to get into your car and drive to your office job when you can work from home. The only exception is maybe schools, and that really depends on the person. Like if someone is picked on in school or maybe the school is a toxic environment.

[Forogil]

It's that or death.

It's literally not.
The fatality rate isn't that high (for school-age kids it is perhaps 0.001%) - and the cost of isolating ourselves for long times is too great.

How else you think modern humans deal with things like influenza?

Mostly by ignoring it, as it also not that deadly.

It's no coincidence that influenza infections have dramatically fallen the last year compared to previous years - as the precautions for covid-19 also protect against influenza; it's just that we didn't view influenza as bad enough (except for the elderly that got vaccine) to do more.

[Vash The Stampede]

It's literally not.
The fatality rate isn't that high (for school-age kids it is perhaps 0.001%) - and the cost of isolating ourselves for long times is too great.

Good thing schools only have children and no adults. Not like children don't go home and interact with their parents.

Mostly by ignoring it, as it also not that deadly.

Today we see it as not deadly but my grandparents have told me stories in how they had to bury their siblings because they died from the flu. People didn't have a choice back then but to ignore it.

It's no coincidence that influenza infections have dramatically fallen the last year compared to previous years - as the precautions for covid-19 also protect against influenza; it's just that we didn't view influenza as bad enough (except for the elderly that got vaccine) to do more.

Kinda makes you wonder if we've been going about this wrong before COVID.

[Forogil]

Why are you so certain that a mutating virus will be constant in it's age range? We already it's adapting to vaccines already but keep thinking you are invincible.

We don't see that it is adapting to vaccines yet, it just mutated on its own; as viruses do.

That the fatality rate increases with age isn't so much due to the virus as due to how humans age, so I don't see any particular reason why it would change.
It can happen, but there's no particular reason to expect it.

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And to correct some of the earlier doomsayers:

Vaccination does, as was likely, reduce the risk of people infecting others by decreasing the viral load of the ones that are infected (already after the first dose).

https://www.pharmaceutical-technolog...ovid-19-cases/

Good thing schools only have children and no adults. Not like children don't go home and interact with their parents.

The risk for their parents is still not that high - and the downside of not having children in school is higher.

Kinda makes you wonder if we've been going about this wrong before COVID.

We are just telling you that's how humans normally behave.

[Granyala]

Why are you so certain that a mutating virus will be constant in it's age range? We already it's adapting to vaccines already but keep thinking you are invincible.

Because I said "IF it remains as selective".
Seriously, people should stop painting the mutation boogeyman at every wall they see. It' ridiculous.
Nobody ever cared whether the flu could mutate into some super strain either.

People have so gotten used to the fear, it appears they are now afraid of letting it go.

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We do a lot of unnecessary things that can be removed in favor of better protection.

Protection from what exactly?
At some point you have to accept that living on this planet entails risks.

If the vaccines work well and severe cases / fatalities are reduced to a minimum, there is nothing left to protect from.
With yearly shots, Sars-CoV-2 will be like a flu 2.0, no one ever proposed "protective measures" on this scale for flu 1.0, did they now?

So lets wait for the actual data to appear before we all get our knickers into a twist about some imaginary horror contagion.

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Kinda makes you wonder if we've been going about this wrong before COVID.

Maybe, maybe not.
I think the cost/benefit ratio just wasn't there to put all lives on hold, destroy countless existences, run around like bank robbers 24/7.

Yeah diseases kill. So do cars, electricity, alcohol, tobacco, bungee jumping, cruising on ships, flying planes etc yadda yadda.

If you want protection, go live in a bunker but leave the rest of us out of your panic induced paranoia.

[Forogil]

If the vaccines work well and severe cases / fatalities are reduced to a minimum, there is nothing left to protect from.
With yearly shots, Sars-CoV-2 will be like a flu 2.0, no one ever proposed "protective measures" on this scale for flu 1.0, did they now?

There were some similar attempts in 1918, for a flu that was more deadly that covid-19 - but not so much for later.

So lets wait for the actual data to appear because we all get our knickers into a twist about some imaginary horror contagion.

True, and it's not only vaccines, but we are also improving other treatments.

[Draco-Onis]

Nobody ever cared whether the flu could mutate into some super strain either.

Yea totally it's not like the last pandemic that killed countless people was a flu no one ever worries about the flu /s

I am really tired of people pulling out the flu card and making themselves look foolish.

[Vash The Stampede]

The risk for their parents is still not that high - and the downside of not having children in school is higher.

Like what? There was a time when not everyone went to school and people still grew up just fine.

Because I said "IF it remains as selective".
Seriously, people should stop painting the mutation boogeyman at every wall they see. It' ridiculous.
Nobody ever cared whether the flu could mutate into some super strain either.

People have so gotten used to the fear, it appears they are now afraid of letting it go.

Should we just ignore the fact that viruses mutate because that's how we got COVID19.

Protection from what exactly?

It's in the title of this thread.

At some point you have to accept that living on this planet entails risks.

Famous last words.

If the vaccines work well and severe cases / fatalities are reduced to a minimum, there is nothing left to protect from.

Back in 2020 when summer came around the amount of people dying was really low, to the point where everyone thought it was nearly over. Then COVID infections and deaths jump up sky high during fall and we're here again. If only we kept the lock downs. If only we weren't huffing spray paint when Donald Trump told people to drink bleach, and they fucking did.

I know people want to go back to "normal" like it was before COVID but normal is what got us into this mess. Normal is what keeps getting us new record deaths. Bill Gates and many others warned us this was coming and we ignored it.

With yearly shots, Sars-CoV-2 will be like a flu 2.0, no one ever proposed "protective measures" on this scale for flu 1.0, did they now?

They called it the Spanish Flu and nearly 50 million people died world wide from it. It's literally the influenza virus. Nobody did shit back then to stop it. We consider the 2.46 million deaths from COVID19 to be really bad today, but today we're doing something about it. About 675,000 in the U.S have died from the Spanish Flu. We're nearly at 500,000 with COVID.

Yeah diseases kill. So do cars, electricity, alcohol, tobacco, bungee jumping, cruising on ships, flying planes etc yadda yadda.

Just because people die from other things, doesn't make this form of death any more correct.

If you want protection, go live in a bunker but leave the rest of us out of your panic induced paranoia.

I've had COVID and I barely noticed it. I don't have to worry. I know you wanna go back out maskless with a vaccine and do whatever but if you end up in the hospital because of COVID then remember what I've told you. Too many people that think they're invisible.

[Arrashi]

Like what? There was a time when not everyone went to school and people still grew up just fine.

Yup, and anti-vaxxers and flat-earthers are few of many wonderful relics of that time.

[Forogil]

Like what? There was a time when not everyone went to school and people still grew up just fine.

And what is your point?

My point based on having met humans is that social interactions are important, and people need to interact with others to grow up; and even if they didn't go to school they certainly met their peers. (And everyone didn't grow up fine and they certainly didn't get the knowledge currently needed.)

I've had COVID and I barely noticed it. I don't have to worry.

Re-infections do happen, you are not invincible.

[NED funded]

And what is your point?

My point based on having met humans is that social interactions are important, and people need to interact with others to grow up; and even if they didn't go to school they certainly met their peers. (And everyone didn't grow up fine and they certainly didn't get the knowledge currently needed.)


Re-infections do happen, you are not invincible.

Not only are social interactions important to grow up but literally every metric for online education shows its worse for student learning

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https://www.cp24.com/news/usa-now-va...otal-1.5317891

Canada is a 3rd world country

Scratch that 3rd world countries are doing better than Canada

[Vash The Stampede]

And what is your point?

My point is that people don't need constant interaction with large groups of people to get an education.

My point based on having met humans is that social interactions are important, and people need to interact with others to grow up; and even if they didn't go to school they certainly met their peers. (And everyone didn't grow up fine and they certainly didn't get the knowledge currently needed.)

You don't need to go to school to get an education. The entire year of 2020 is proof of that. Kids today interact socially through things like Roblox. Online classes is something they enjoy.

Re-infections do happen, you are not invincible.

I'm aware of this, but when I had COVID I only had diarrhea and a runny noise for a week. My breathing isn't 100% but not something I'd die from. My concern is always others around me as they may not have the same disposition as I do with COVID. Which is why I'm trying to avoid getting it a second time.