Mega-Thread: Coronavirus Pandemic

[Forogil]

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

In terms of basic education you are simply wrong as experts have found the past year, and it still doesn't explain why you gave an example of bygone days where kids still met in groups but didn't get a good education.

And to quote another person with experience of humans:

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

I'm aware of this, but when I had COVID I only had diarrhea and a runny noise for a week.

You didn't read the warning label saying: "Past Performance is Not Indicative of Future Results"?

[Pann]

A study in Scotland finds that by the fourth week after the first dose hospitalisations were reduced by 85% and 94% for the Pfizer and AstraZeneca jabs respectively.

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/...al-admissions/

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-56153600

[Wilfire]

The real cost of endless lockdowns

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...isolation.html

You "saved" grandma, but at what cost?

[Granyala]

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.

Nobody I know thought that, we all were aware that there would be a second wave in fall.
Why did we know that? Because up here, Coronaviruses are seasonal, it was to be expected that the shiny new one followed the same pattern.

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I know people want to go back to "normal" like it was before COVID but normal is what got us into this mess.

Newsflash: our species evolved on this planet.
We always coexisted with contagions.

The only reason why C19 is actually a problem is because technology allowed us to maintain a popular of seniors that is unnatural. There is no reason to fret for the human race if we don't keep wearing chin-diapers for the rest of our existence.

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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.

Yo and who cares, now a hundred years after?
Right. No one.

Did our species cease to exist?
No. We did what every biological entity on this planet does: find equilibrium and coexist.

Don't get me wrong: as long as we are not vaccinated, we should definitely keep up some of the protective measures to reduce the impact. Absolutely.
Once the vaccines are done, we can go back to "normal" (whatever that is) and accept the residual damage as unavoidable.

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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.

I have 26 teachers at work with me that would WILDLY disagree with your statement.
Not because they fear for their jobs but because they are deeply worried about the children's lack of progress.

[Forogil]

A study in Scotland finds that by the fourth week after the first dose hospitalisations were reduced by 85% and 94% for the Pfizer and AstraZeneca jabs respectively.

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/...al-admissions/

It's good that it works in the real world. (As the Israeli studies have suggested.)

Note that when we add confidence intervals for those numbers is that Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine reduced hospitalization by 85% (CI 76 to 91%), and for Astra-Zeneca 94% (CI 73 to 99%), it becomes clear that we don't know which one is better. Since the vaccine rollouts were at different times it may also be difficult to compare them.

However, what makes me concerned is that as far as I know Pfizer/BioNTech have only been phased III tested with two doses about a month apart, and Scotland is following the rest of the UK in delaying the 2nd dose - and basically using the general population as guinea pigs.

If we look 42+ days after first dose (as far as I understand without a 2nd dose) the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine was only 64% (49 to 75) effective in reducing hospital admissions. (Astra-Zeneca vaccine has no real data for such a delay.)

To me this suggest that delaying the 2nd dose of Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine is not a good idea.

I'm also a bit confused about how the vaccination was implemented - the first priority group was the elderly and the first vaccine to be approved was Pfizer/BioNTech - so why were 75+ primarily given the Astra-Zeneca vaccine that was approved later, and the ones below 60 were primarily given Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine?

Added: The pre-print is now available as https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....act_id=3789264 - I looked at the pre-preprint :-)

[Easo]

Are some people here really arguing that we totally can keep sitting at home for couple more years? Really?
Well, what can I say, that suggestion indeed proves nicely that being without social contact screws with your mental health
P.S.
I finally started to feel it all pressing down sometime in January, until then it was meh, I have computer games and shit. Right now it is not so fun, have not seen mother in half a year, have not seen girlfriend in almost a year now.

[Draco-Onis]

Are some people here really arguing that we totally can keep sitting at home for couple more years? Really?
Well, what can I say, that suggestion indeed proves nicely that being without social contact screws with your mental health
P.S.
I finally started to feel it all pressing down sometime in January, until then it was meh, I have computer games and shit. Right now it is not so fun, have not seen mother in half a year, have not seen girlfriend in almost a year now.

I am not sure what you are reading but the argument is that the world is not going to go back to the way it was because the virus has changed the world. You will be wearing masks and social distancing from strangers for a couple more years if not more.

Also if you haven't seen your girlfriend for almost a year it's probably not because of the virus. You can both quarantine for 14 days and see each other or just move in together.

[Forogil]

I am not sure what you are reading but the argument is that the world is not going to go back to the way it was because the virus has changed the world. You will be wearing masks and social distancing from strangers for a couple more years if not more.

Doubtful prediction.

Obviously some things will change, but historically the pandemic of 1918 led to the roaring twenties.

[Easo]

I am not sure what you are reading but the argument is that the world is not going to go back to the way it was because the virus has changed the world. You will be wearing masks and social distancing from strangers for a couple more years if not more.

Also if you haven't seen your girlfriend for almost a year it's probably not because of the virus. You can both quarantine for 14 days and see each other or just move in together.

We definitely won't be wearing masks everyday or always follow social distancing. Be realistic. Before you mention Asia - important part of why they wear masks is air pollution, smog in Eastern Europe is really not a thing.
What I meant is lockdowns and heavy restrictions, remote schooling, etc. Those simply cannot and will not last.

No, it is because of a virus. She literally cannot leave a specific country without long term visa, nor can I go there.

[Granyala]

You will be wearing masks and social distancing from strangers for a couple more years if not more.

If the vaccines work, there is -0- reason to do that.

[Draco-Onis]

If the vaccines work, there is -0- reason to do that.

Vaccines have to get to people around the world first. Even within countries vaccines are being distributed by class. race etc. A couple of years is a conservative estimate assuming we can keep up with mutations.

You can keep wishing upon a star in the meantime.

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We definitely won't be wearing masks everyday or always follow social distancing. Be realistic. Before you mention Asia - important part of why they wear masks is air pollution, smog in Eastern Europe is really not a thing.
What I meant is lockdowns and heavy restrictions, remote schooling, etc. Those simply cannot and will not last.

No, it is because of a virus. She literally cannot leave a specific country without long term visa, nor can I go there.

Where did I say always? As for your girlfriend not aware of any country with year long ban on travel. You can look into flying into intermediate countries but you will have to go through months of quarantine due to restrictions and testing.

[Granyala]

Vaccines have to get to people around the world first. Even within countries vaccines are being distributed by class. race etc. A couple of years is a conservative estimate assuming we can keep up with mutations.

1st world countries should be done with the critical groups by 2022.

[Forogil]

Vaccines have to get to people around the world first. Even within countries vaccines are being distributed by class. race etc.

In most western countries it's distributed by age and occupation.
And the differences in vaccination for races within countries is primarily variations in vaccine hesitancy.

A couple of years is a conservative estimate assuming we can keep up with mutations.

Well, a couple of months is the plan for many western countries. If we cannot do that it seems unlikely we would be able to keep up with mutations.

[Granyala]

Well, a couple of months is the plan for many western countries. If we cannot do that it seems unlikely we would be able to keep up with mutations.

This. Once production is ramped up properly, it won't take years to vaccinate the population.

[Easo]

Where did I say always? As for your girlfriend not aware of any country with year long ban on travel. You can look into flying into intermediate countries but you will have to go through months of quarantine due to restrictions and testing.

Couple years are already insane point and this thread was going on about basically permanent masks and distancing.

Brah, you can't even enter most of EU right now if you are not a citizen or do not have a real basis for entry (work, school, illness of relatives, long term visa). I mean, borders are not closed, but restrictions basically mean that anything "for fun" is off the table. That includes girlfriends as well. Then there is Russia where you can't leave the country without the same basis.
Intermediate countries right now are also not a real option, as you said, tests, highly restricted traveling options, sitting in quarantine, stupid amount of planning required, etc.

As for my mom, I could visit her, but we decided that the risk is too great, not until both of us get vaccines. She may have hers in 1-2 months, I have no idea when I will get mine.

[Draco-Onis]

1st world countries should be done with the critical groups by 2022.

Oh yea once that happens totes nothing from other countries can change the equation /s

[Easo]

Oh yea once that happens totes nothing from other countries can change the equation /s

Unless we are talking about some kind of super mutation, then no, not really. What would, in your opinion?

[Draco-Onis]

Unless we are talking about some kind of super mutation, then no, not really. What would, in your opinion?

At the moment it's a race between vaccination and the mutations because the human race is not coming together we know the virus is going to be in the wild mutating for quite sometime. Since there's already a variant resistant to vaccines thinking this is all going to be over by next year is being Santa Claus levels of optimistic.

[Pann]

Data from Public Health England supports Public Health Scotland's findings that vaccination greatly reduces the risk of serious illness in the over 80s, with both AZ and Pfizer vaccines cutting the risk of hospitalisation by 81% four weeks after the first dose.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-56153617

[Edge-]

At the moment it's a race between vaccination and the mutations because the human race is not coming together we know the virus is going to be in the wild mutating for quite sometime. Since there's already a variant resistant to vaccines thinking this is all going to be over by next year is being Santa Claus levels of optimistic.

It's not resistant to vaccines themselves, it just suppresses the immune response. Though Moderna's vaccine is still effective against it - https://www.bbc.com/news/health-55900625

It has, and will continue to have thousands upon thousands of mutations with the overwhelming majority having functionally no affect. Thus far the vaccines are proving effective against every major mutation that I've seen reported on, thankfully.