What is "Heard Immunity"?

[eppie]

The pandemic is ongoing. Why would this be something to keep in mind? All this will track is where it hit first. When all is said and done, Brazil and India will have hundreds of thousands, if not millions of deaths, unless something rather surprising happens. Brazil is already 2nd highest cumulative deaths-per-million, and will no doubt overtake Italy shortly. India likely will not, but even a "modest" death toll is millions of dead people.

-Jester

Why? I don't know...there are websites where you can find these things. 
The website I check has Brazil as 13th at the moment. Behin countries with severe lockdowns like Italy and Belgium. Likely the higher death tolls will be higher yes.....those countries generally have a less developed health care system
Anyway, what is your point? A modest death toll in India is millions of people? Yes indeed. If there were 500 billion people living on earth the death toll would be much higher still.

The countries that did very well will likely have to keep vaccinating their risk groups every year because if not the the casualties in the following years will be higher (again just like this happens with normal flue).

I am just saying that because of human rights, and constitutional law I find the reactions overdone. I understand you want to ensure the healthcare system will not overflow, but for that a better investment in this is more important. The difference between Germany and the Netherlands was very well visible the last year......where in the Netherlands our health care system is 'lean'.....meaning that when one crazy thing happens we are directly at full capacity and over.

In terms of 'saving' lives; (I wrote this before) the focus can be better on prevention and healthy life style. If an obese person dies on average 25 years earlier than a healthy person.....and with covid dies 27 years earlier.....isn't it better to work on preventing obesity. 
Another thing is the question of poverty in 'rich' countries. In the netherlands the higher socio-economic classes live on average 7 years longer than those in the lower classes, while their healthy live span is around 15 years longer.

In Sweden the difference in life expectancy is even higher (15 years). And those are just a few examples that come to mind. I mean we can also discuss the life expectancy in rich countries in comparison with poor countries. 

Covid numbers can just be read of from a list. But if you want to do something sensible with them is is better to dig deeper in the how and why. I guess you agree.

[Jester]

Why? I don't know...there are websites where you can find these things. 
The website I check has Brazil as 13th at the moment. Behin countries with severe lockdowns like Italy and Belgium. Likely the higher death tolls will be higher yes.....those countries generally have a less developed health care system

Anyway, what is your point? A modest death toll in India is millions of people? Yes indeed. If there were 500 billion people living on earth the death toll would be much higher still.

Fair enough that Brazil is (currently, slightly) behind not only Italy, but also Belgium, and a handful of countries in Southwestern Europe. I only checked vs. other large countries. (Check back in a couple weeks, Brazil is still climbing fast.) The point is, the Brazilian death toll per million is clearly among the highest in the world, which is in direct contradiction to the claim you made earlier that it wasn't. 

The point about the death toll is that this is *literally millions of people dying*. Is that not something that worries you much? Or is it just "oh, some people are old, or have bad healthcare systems, or fat, or poor, so they were probably going to die anyway, better to lecture them about healthy eating than help stop this pandemic"? I do not understand the scattergun of points you are throwing out, but they seem both incoherent and (frankly) cruel.

-Jester

[Kevin]

The countries that did very well will likely have to keep vaccinating their risk groups every year because if not the the casualties in the following years will be higher (again just like this happens with normal flue).

That's an interesting assumption, but that's all it is, an assumption. Remember this is SARS-CoV-2. Why 2? Because SARS-CoV-1 happened in 2003. You know the original SARS. So yes, it came back, 16 years later. It does not have to be an annual thing like influenza. It might be, but that isn't for sure. This may be the last time humans ever see a severe coronavirus infection like this as well. Part of the reason that we got vaccines so quickly, is because they started working on them for SARS-CoV-1 and that research was relevant. We are seeing different strains with this like we do with influenza, but that is normal too, and the vaccines efficacy is still high enough that community immunity is still possible with what we have. This epidemic may very well be like the 1918 influenza the "Spanish Flu" (which actually started in Kansas, but due to war time reporting only Spain was really reporting on it at first). That strain of influenza was super nasty, but it didn't come back year over year. This strain of coronavirus may or may not not be a yearly thing. We have evidence both ways, and considering the strain it put on the healthcare systems in many places, working to eradicate this variant makes sense.

Of course it also makes sense to try and make preventative healthcare better and more widespread and more affordable, but this isn't exactly a zero sum game either. Resources aren't infinite, but diverting them temporarily, or if things are planned well using the dedicated emergency funds that are set aside for stuff like this, to eradicate it doesn't completely stop other things from happening. It may delay them, but it's not like all other healthcare concerns, research, or efforts have stopped. I know that this pandemic has helped accelerate plans that were in the works and dragging to expand capacity at some local facilities. It's accelerated wellness projects that are focused on helping people improve diets and making healthier foods more readily available. That stuff didn't stop and in fact the need for it to be better was highlighted, because if capacity in the system isn't taken up by chronic issues, then you have more for emergencies.

But minimizing this current pandemic really doesn't help anything. That's the frustration, that's what leads people to get angry with you. We had to do something. I'm furious that the leaks that the Trump administration were downplaying it because they wanted it to just "infect everyone" didn't stay in the news cycles longer. That plan would not have worked, and it would have crashed the economy even harder than it did crash. But I'm getting off track.

The system as it stands could not sustain the pressure that unmitigated SARS-CoV-2 infections were putting on it. What has been done, and done poorly in many cases, has helped and may just be a stop gap. That is true, it may not be a long term solution. But it had to happen and it needs to continue, because increasing the robustness of a healthcare system will not and almost certainly can not happen in the span of just a year. That's stuff that takes multiple years. Depending on the deficiency, like if it's trained personnel, it could take nearly a decade to fix.

So that is part of the frustration. The simple things that helped slow stuff down and keep the healthcare systems working being ignored are just infuriating. It's not hard to wear a mask or social distance. I recognize that it is way way easier for my introverted Gen-X self than many others, but so many people just fight tooth and nail against because they are SELFISH or being blinded by their preferred information sources who love leading people to their own agendas. It is not, in general because there are lots of different areas, government overreach to mandate health related protections either. If you want to be concerned about abuse of power and over reach look no further than US assassinations via drones. Something that Obama did a lot of but at least reported on. Trump, we think, did even more of it. I say we think because he decided that he didn't need to report on it anymore. Just assassinate people, including US citizens, because. That fucking steps on my potential freedoms way fucking more than saying "Wear a mask, don't allow more than X people in Y amount of space, get a vaccine." Though perhaps a better example would be the massive data collection and not support net neutrality and the massive targeting of information that is being used for by both governments and private corps. I'm also way more worried about the power that private corporations have over the government than the government mandating shit to keep people healthy. But certain people can make a lot of money by making people think their freedoms are being trampled on. It lets them maintain a power base and control the flow of resources.

Yeah I got a bit off the path there, but I'm leaving it as it might help show why people like Bolty and I get so frustrated at some of things you and others said. And yes I can only process something many things at once in my head so yes I do lump a bunch of people together based on just a few pieces of information. Apologies for any offense that caused. I know everyone is unique, it's part of why people are awesome, but I don't have the processing capacity to treat everyone as unique all the time, and neither do you. So when you drop talking points of certain people don't be surprised if you are lumped in with them even if you only agree with 1 of their 15 points. That will get worked out if both sides continue to communicate, like it has here.

[eppie]

The countries that did very well will likely have to keep vaccinating their risk groups every year because if not the the casualties in the following years will be higher (again just like this happens with normal flue).

That's an interesting assumption, but that's all it is, an assumption. Remember this is SARS-CoV-2. Why 2? Because SARS-CoV-1 happened in 2003. You know the original SARS. So yes, it came back, 16 years later. It does not have to be an annual thing like influenza. It might be, but that isn't for sure. This may be the last time humans ever see a severe coronavirus infection like this as well. Part of the reason that we got vaccines so quickly, is because they started working on them for SARS-CoV-1 and that research was relevant. We are seeing different strains with this like we do with influenza, but that is normal too, and the vaccines efficacy is still high enough that community immunity is still possible with what we have. This epidemic may very well be like the 1918 influenza the "Spanish Flu" (which actually started in Kansas, but due to war time reporting only Spain was really reporting on it at first). That strain of influenza was super nasty, but it didn't come back year over year. This strain of coronavirus may or may not not be a yearly thing. We have evidence both ways, and considering the strain it put on the healthcare systems in many places, working to eradicate this variant makes sense.

Of course it also makes sense to try and make preventative healthcare better and more widespread and more affordable, but this isn't exactly a zero sum game either. Resources aren't infinite, but diverting them temporarily, or if things are planned well using the dedicated emergency funds that are set aside for stuff like this, to eradicate it doesn't completely stop other things from happening. It may delay them, but it's not like all other healthcare concerns, research, or efforts have stopped. I know that this pandemic has helped accelerate plans that were in the works and dragging to expand capacity at some local facilities. It's accelerated wellness projects that are focused on helping people improve diets and making healthier foods more readily available. That stuff didn't stop and in fact the need for it to be better was highlighted, because if capacity in the system isn't taken up by chronic issues, then you have more for emergencies.

But minimizing this current pandemic really doesn't help anything. That's the frustration, that's what leads people to get angry with you. We had to do something. I'm furious that the leaks that the Trump administration were downplaying it because they wanted it to just "infect everyone" didn't stay in the news cycles longer. That plan would not have worked, and it would have crashed the economy even harder than it did crash. But I'm getting off track.

The system as it stands could not sustain the pressure that unmitigated SARS-CoV-2 infections were putting on it. What has been done, and done poorly in many cases, has helped and may just be a stop gap. That is true, it may not be a long term solution. But it had to happen and it needs to continue, because increasing the robustness of a healthcare system will not and almost certainly can not happen in the span of just a year. That's stuff that takes multiple years. Depending on the deficiency, like if it's trained personnel, it could take nearly a decade to fix.

So that is part of the frustration. The simple things that helped slow stuff down and keep the healthcare systems working being ignored are just infuriating. It's not hard to wear a mask or social distance. I recognize that it is way way easier for my introverted Gen-X self than many others, but so many people just fight tooth and nail against because they are SELFISH or being blinded by their preferred information sources who love leading people to their own agendas. It is not, in general because there are lots of different areas, government overreach to mandate health related protections either. If you want to be concerned about abuse of power and over reach look no further than US assassinations via drones. Something that Obama did a lot of but at least reported on. Trump, we think, did even more of it. I say we think because he decided that he didn't need to report on it anymore. Just assassinate people, including US citizens, because. That fucking steps on my potential freedoms way fucking more than saying "Wear a mask, don't allow more than X people in Y amount of space, get a vaccine." Though perhaps a better example would be the massive data collection and not support net neutrality and the massive targeting of information that is being used for by both governments and private corps. I'm also way more worried about the power that private corporations have over the government than the government mandating shit to keep people healthy. But certain people can make a lot of money by making people think their freedoms are being trampled on. It lets them maintain a power base and control the flow of resources.

Yeah I got a bit off the path there, but I'm leaving it as it might help show why people like Bolty and I get so frustrated at some of things you and others said. And yes I can only process something many things at once in my head so yes I do lump a bunch of people together based on just a few pieces of information. Apologies for any offense that caused. I know everyone is unique, it's part of why people are awesome, but I don't have the processing capacity to treat everyone as unique all the time, and neither do you. So when you drop talking points of certain people don't be surprised if you are lumped in with them even if you only agree with 1 of their 15 points. That will get worked out if both sides continue to communicate, like it has here.

Hi kevin,

thanks for your reply. And no offence taken. You wrote a clear piece with a lot of good points and I do agree on most of them.
(my harsh reaction to Bolty was partly because he must know me a bit, seeing that I registered on this forum oin 2003 I believe, and I know he reads a lot of things, and so he must know that most things I write and do are out of an ethical and morally social point of view. I have no problems with criticism but saying I am self-centred and maybe egoistical is not something I like. That said; as far as I am concerned I have no problem anymore....I know Bolty (as far as you can know someone that you only know from some writings on a website) and he has al my respect as do most people here).

With regards to SARS-CoV-1 coming back; I assume the two are not related apart from both being a corona-virus? I mean it is not SARS-CoV-1 coming back after 16 years it is a newly formed coronavirus that affects humans. Sars Cov 1 was (I guess) much less infectious making it easier to ''end''. Seeing how the current virus goes around to me it seems quite sure it will keep coming back.....like it has come back in three waves in many countries already with a summet break in between.

A big difference with other pandemic is that Covid 19 affects a certain group (high age an/or underlying diseases) while for example the spanish flue was most harsh on young adults. I find that a big difference. I know Covid 19 can in some cases also cause rampaging immune systems becoming very dangerous without notice, but in general it is a weakening conditions which gives people the last push. So if that was it I would be fine fine with all these lockdown measures (which I obide to by the way) but it causes an enormous amount of suffering among others. And I don't mean wearing a mask and not being able to go on holiday but I mean pshychological distress leading to higher suicide rates, a general eduction lag, social problems etc. on top of that the amount of people with too late cancer diagnoses because they don't go to a dokter to have themselves checked.  Making good calculations is difficult but the loss of healthy years might be on the same level or bigger than that because of the diseases itsself. And the difference is that these problems I mentioned are suffered by kids and young adults. And not just that, it is felt harder by the lower socio-economic classes. Having to stay at home is easy if you have a nice big garden in a good neaighbourhood but not so much if you live with a family of 6 in a 60m2 mould infested appartment.
Covid 19 is causing a magnification of the divide between young and old. And in my country there are enough problems the younger generations have to deal with such as difficulty of buying houses because they just can't get the money with the ever increasing prices......and all the old timers (and myself as well by the way) have their nice house that increases 10% in value every year. This as well affects mainly the kids who don't have parents who can support them financially.

And all this is said when we somehow up till now escaped this economic crisis.


Me personally; I don't have many direct problems now;  I can work at home, me and the wife are pretty safe in the job, I am perfectly fine not going in crowded places....I spend way less money etc. etc. It is just a fear of what is coming.

[Lissa]

A big difference with other pandemic is that Covid 19 affects a certain group (high age an/or underlying diseases) while for example the spanish flue was most harsh on young adults. I find that a big difference. I know Covid 19 can in some cases also cause rampaging immune systems becoming very dangerous without notice, but in general it is a weakening conditions which gives people the last push. So if that was it I would be fine fine with all these lockdown measures (which I obide to by the way) but it causes an enormous amount of suffering among others. And I don't mean wearing a mask and not being able to go on holiday but I mean pshychological distress leading to higher suicide rates, a general eduction lag, social problems etc. on top of that the amount of people with too late cancer diagnoses because they don't go to a dokter to have themselves checked.  Making good calculations is difficult but the loss of healthy years might be on the same level or bigger than that because of the diseases itsself. And the difference is that these problems I mentioned are suffered by kids and young adults. And not just that, it is felt harder by the lower socio-economic classes. Having to stay at home is easy if you have a nice big garden in a good neaighbourhood but not so much if you live with a family of 6 in a 60m2 mould infested appartment.

The bit I'm highlighting here is simply wrong.  COVID-19 has attacked all age groups and all underlying conditions.  Has it affected certain groups more, yes.  Has it killed people that were perfectly healthy and had no underlying conditions, YES.  To say that simply going after those underlying conditions does not show that it would stop all cases.  Right now in the US, the most affected age group is...*drumroll*  Children between the ages of 5 and 12.  While other ages groups are still getting infected, the most hospitalized age group right now is children and from statistics I have seen, about 4000 kids between 5 and 12 are presently in various hospitals around the US right now.

I'd really like people to sit down and do some research and actually confirm things with firm statics before starting to think they've got the full picture as I just showed in this case that what is thought is the actual situation is completely not the situation.  Until everyone is immunized, COVID-19 is going to stick around in some level of pandemic effect (hell, TB and HIV are still pandemics depending on where you are in the world, typically low economy nations).

[eppie]

A big difference with other pandemic is that Covid 19 affects a certain group (high age an/or underlying diseases) while for example the spanish flue was most harsh on young adults. I find that a big difference. I know Covid 19 can in some cases also cause rampaging immune systems becoming very dangerous without notice, but in general it is a weakening conditions which gives people the last push. So if that was it I would be fine fine with all these lockdown measures (which I obide to by the way) but it causes an enormous amount of suffering among others. And I don't mean wearing a mask and not being able to go on holiday but I mean pshychological distress leading to higher suicide rates, a general eduction lag, social problems etc. on top of that the amount of people with too late cancer diagnoses because they don't go to a dokter to have themselves checked.  Making good calculations is difficult but the loss of healthy years might be on the same level or bigger than that because of the diseases itsself. And the difference is that these problems I mentioned are suffered by kids and young adults. And not just that, it is felt harder by the lower socio-economic classes. Having to stay at home is easy if you have a nice big garden in a good neaighbourhood but not so much if you live with a family of 6 in a 60m2 mould infested appartment.

The bit I'm highlighting here is simply wrong.  COVID-19 has attacked all age groups and all underlying conditions.  Has it affected certain groups more, yes.  Has it killed people that were perfectly healthy and had no underlying conditions, YES.  To say that simply going after those underlying conditions does not show that it would stop all cases.  Right now in the US, the most affected age group is...*drumroll*  Children between the ages of 5 and 12.  While other ages groups are still getting infected, the most hospitalized age group right now is children and from statistics I have seen, about 4000 kids between 5 and 12 are presently in various hospitals around the US right now.

I'd really like people to sit down and do some research and actually confirm things with firm statics before starting to think they've got the full picture as I just showed in this case that what is thought is the actual situation is completely not the situation.  Until everyone is immunized, COVID-19 is going to stick around in some level of pandemic effect (hell, TB and HIV are still pandemics depending on where you are in the world, typically low economy nations).\

In the netherlands 3 people below the age of 20 died ''of''covid. These were people with very severe underlying conditions.

Again, I don't want to say I don't care about those things but I think the measures taken are disproportional....for example because in that time more kids commited suicide.....part of whom because of lockdown related psychological issues.

The numbers look always very big but look at them in perspective of total deaths per year. Also would numbers be so much higher if no lockdowns were set??? For example in the Netherlands positively tested people were not obliged to stay at home.....well they were but nobody checked/enforced this......25% of them actually didn't obey quarantine rules.....and because supermarkets were the only shops that were open....people would concentrate there.


The only very clear fact that everybody agrees on is that obesity was the most important factor determining this high death toll.

(please mark that I don't present any opinion in this reaction)

Again, I am not against vaccination, I do my bit in ensuring (minimizing the chance) that will be a burden on the health care system. I do my bit in not being to blame for the diseases jumping over from animals to people because of an almost vegan diet. I also try to get my numbers right....I have no benefit from lying here.

[Jester]

The numbers look always very big but look at them in perspective of total deaths per year. Also would numbers be so much higher if no lockdowns were set??? For example in the Netherlands positively tested people were not obliged to stay at home.....well they were but nobody checked/enforced this......25% of them actually didn't obey quarantine rules.....and because supermarkets were the only shops that were open....people would concentrate there.

Lockdowns are not very effective (compared to no lockdown) on average because unless you enforce them, some people ignore them, and if you don't have a lockdown, sensible people isolate themselves anyway. But you only have to look at the case of China to see that severe lockdowns obviously work, since they didn't use any other method, didn't have any vaccines, and yet have effectively eradicated it within their borders. While the repressive state apparatus of China is hardly something to be emulated, the lesson here is that lockdowns need to be better enforced. Telling us that lockdowns are not very effective when you are also advocating the same "not such a big deal" attitude that makes lockdowns ineffective in the first place is more than a little frustrating. They work fine if people obey them.

The only very clear fact that everybody agrees on is that obesity was the most important factor determining this high death toll.

I'm pretty sure everyone with half an ounce of sense knows that the most important factor in determining this high death toll is *the spread of Covid-19*. If they had contained it in Wuhan, there would have been no excess mortality. I'm all for improving health care, poverty, mental health, and whatever else. There is no either/or about this, stopping the pandemic has no bearing on whether people will eat healthier, or we will give more generous foreign aid, or improve the social safety net. But if we want to save peoples' lives *today*, our most effective intervention is to stop this pandemic. 

-Jester

[Taem]

But if we want to save peoples' lives *today*, our most effective intervention is to stop this pandemic. 

-Jester

Today in the United States, the CDC announced vaccinated individuals do not have to wear masks anywhere in public, either outdoors or indoors. It seems inevitable that it is only a matter of time everything opens back up. Having said this, those who chose not to get the vaccination are the ones whom put themselves at risk, not those who took the liberty to inoculate themself. There is no reason to be punitive towards the rest of the population about doing the right thing, but what I keep hearing seems to be a fanatical, "wear a mask, social distance, isolate" even though the data now shows that contracting a virus outdoors is less than 1% to .1%. Anyway, I didn't really have a point other than to mention the new CDC rules in the hopes that those on a soapbox will lower their voice to those of us who did get inoculated, like myself.

[LavCat]

Today in the United States, the CDC announced vaccinated individuals do not have to wear masks anywhere in public, either outdoors or indoors. It seems inevitable that it is only a matter of time everything opens back up. Having said this, those who chose not to get the vaccination are the ones whom put themselves at risk, not those who took the liberty to inoculate themself. There is no reason to be punitive towards the rest of the population about doing the right thing, but what I keep hearing seems to be a fanatical, "wear a mask, social distance, isolate" even though the data now shows that contracting a virus outdoors is less than 1% to .1%. Anyway, I didn't really have a point other than to mention the new CDC rules in the hopes that those on a soapbox will lower their voice to those of us who did get inoculated, like myself.

Not here.  States set policy, not the CDC.

[LavCat]

And for any who may or may not have ever been guilty of an egregious public spelling error, this week The Economist published an apology for misusing "grizzly" for "grisly" -- "Thank you for bearing with us."

[Jester]

Today in the United States, the CDC announced vaccinated individuals do not have to wear masks anywhere in public, either outdoors or indoors. It seems inevitable that it is only a matter of time everything opens back up. Having said this, those who chose not to get the vaccination are the ones whom put themselves at risk, not those who took the liberty to inoculate themself.

This is the problem. This idea right here.

Anything that keeps the virus alive and circulating increases the risk for everybody. Not just themselves, not just their family or neighbours, but literally everyone on earth. Anyone who is not innoculated, anyone who takes undue risks, anyone who increases the transmission risk of the virus, is doing serious harm. There are only three endgames: eradication, herd immunity, and endemic Covid-19. We've missed the boat on the first one, so now it's a race between vaccinations getting us up to herd immunity, and mutations that are resistant to the vaccines we have. The more people who are infected, the greater the risk of new mutations. This is not a hypothetical risk, new variants are evolving constantly. East Asian countries have shown that containment-until-vaccines is a workable strategy. But we have to actually follow the strategy, and anyone with a "it's my risk to take" mentality is missing the point in a very dangerous way - which was exactly Bolty's point above.

-Jester

[eppie]

Lockdowns are not very effective (compared to no lockdown) on average because unless you enforce them, some people ignore them, and if you don't have a lockdown, sensible people isolate themselves anyway. But you only have to look at the case of China to see that severe lockdowns obviously work, since they didn't use any other method, didn't have any vaccines, and yet have effectively eradicated it within their borders. While the repressive state apparatus of China is hardly something to be emulated, the lesson here is that lockdowns need to be better enforced. Telling us that lockdowns are not very effective when you are also advocating the same "not such a big deal" attitude that makes lockdowns ineffective in the first place is more than a little frustrating. They work fine if people obey them.

---------------------

Yes, and of course grass is green.

I would imagine if a government is planning a lockdown they take into account behavioural sciences.

I understand that if you tell everybody to stay at home for 4 weeks and everyone actually does that the virus is gone.
That it doesn't work like this you can 'blame on people' but this is just how things work.

Again, for your information: I have not infected anyone....so you can be frustrated about that or not but that is not the point here.




My government for example has  a set of rules in place: some enforced (if you are with too many people in one place they can fine you, out in the streets after 9 they will fine you, more than 1 guest in the house...you are fined).
On the other hand our prime minister has stated several times that of positively tested people 25 % don't self contain. My question is how much of the infections are caused by that 25% of positively tested people. And if those 25% positively tested people did go in quarantine.....how fast the R-factor would go below 1 and so make the virus dissappear in a few weeks.
So in other words; so instead of making sure that people who have covid 19 are not in contact with others.....they just everyone they can't visit their 85 year old dying grandfather.

[Jester]

I would imagine if a government is planning a lockdown they take into account behavioural sciences.

I understand that if you tell everybody to stay at home for 4 weeks and everyone actually does that the virus is gone.
That it doesn't work like this you can 'blame on people' but this is just how things work.

Peoples' behaviour is not some inherent, invariant thing. It is shaped by the rules of society, both formal (laws) and informal (norms). East Asian countries have had a relatively mild problem with Covid-19 for a number of reasons, but cultures where some combination of mask-wearing, social distance, obsessive cleanliness and respect for group welfare (or, more darkly, deference to authority) is normal have kept the virus to quite low levels (Japan) or nearly eradicated it (China). The Japanese case is especially interesting in that they have an enormous population of old people who should be vulnerable.

Now, maybe European and (anglo-)North American cultures are just not capable of this sort of thing, that the premium on individual choice is simply so ingrained that we can neither choose to lock down successfully via voluntary action, nor are we willing to suspend freedoms for this sort of purpose. But it's not some kind of law of human nature. That's politics and ideology.

My government for example has  a set of rules in place: some enforced (if you are with too many people in one place they can fine you, out in the streets after 9 they will fine you, more than 1 guest in the house...you are fined).
On the other hand our prime minister has stated several times that of positively tested people 25 % don't self contain. My question is how much of the infections are caused by that 25% of positively tested people. And if those 25% positively tested people did go in quarantine.....how fast the R-factor would go below 1 and so make the virus dissappear in a few weeks.
So in other words; so instead of making sure that people who have covid 19 are not in contact with others.....they just everyone they can't visit their 85 year old dying grandfather.

Watching Rutte navigate this crisis has been tragicomic, though I guess that's the perspective I would get from watching Zondag met Lubach. ("We can't do anything serious, I don't even really take it seriously myself, and even if we did take it seriously, nobody would listen, so why bother.") I appreciate that Dutch history is rife with some old-but-pertinent examples of the importance of respecting the rights of individuals and groups even if you think they're literally the devil; constitutions are important. But there is also a long tradition of collective action against common problems that appears to have been sidelined in favour of a narrowly libertarian approach. I don't believe it has even been successful in preserving liberties, let alone solving the problem of the pandemic. Here's hoping that vaccination uptake is wide enough to prevent the mortality rate from just increasing permanently ("like the flu," just killing a bunch of people every year forever).

-Jester

[Taem]

Today in the United States, the CDC announced vaccinated individuals do not have to wear masks anywhere in public, either outdoors or indoors. It seems inevitable that it is only a matter of time everything opens back up. Having said this, those who chose not to get the vaccination are the ones whom put themselves at risk, not those who took the liberty to inoculate themself.

This is the problem. This idea right here.

Anything that keeps the virus alive and circulating increases the risk for everybody. Not just themselves, not just their family or neighbours, but literally everyone on earth. Anyone who is not innoculated, anyone who takes undue risks, anyone who increases the transmission risk of the virus, is doing serious harm. There are only three endgames: eradication, herd immunity, and endemic Covid-19. We've missed the boat on the first one, so now it's a race between vaccinations getting us up to herd immunity, and mutations that are resistant to the vaccines we have. The more people who are infected, the greater the risk of new mutations. This is not a hypothetical risk, new variants are evolving constantly. East Asian countries have shown that containment-until-vaccines is a workable strategy. But we have to actually follow the strategy, and anyone with a "it's my risk to take" mentality is missing the point in a very dangerous way - which was exactly Bolty's point above.

-Jester

I appreciate your response Jester! I honestly did not even consider that aspect of the virus since it is constantly mutating! So what do you think of the CDCs decision to stop the mask mandate for vaccinated individuals? Do you think people should be forced to get the vaccine to eradicate the virus?

[Jester]

I appreciate your response Jester! I honestly did not even consider that aspect of the virus since it is constantly mutating! So what do you think of the CDCs decision to stop the mask mandate for vaccinated individuals? Do you think people should be forced to get the vaccine to eradicate the virus?

Until relatively recently, the question of forcing people to get vaccinated has not been a big issue, because the supply bottleneck was bad enough that even people who wanted to be vaccinated couldn't be. But yes, were I dictator of the earth, I would make vaccination mandatory, with exceptions on medical religious grounds only. 

The decision to end the mask mandate seems premature to me, mostly on messaging grounds. They're not wrong that vaccination has caught on enough that the vaccinated can probably resume their everyday lives safely...ish. The problem is, once some people are allowed not to wear masks, nobody will. No matter how hard they try and emphasize that it is still important for unvaccinated people to wear masks, people won't listen. Businesses can't actually tell at a glance who has been vaccinated, I don't think this is sensible, and runs the risk of the constant pattern everywhere: half-assed measures that are barely enforced, and retracted too early, then re-imposed just in time to fail to prevent the next wave. A single, decisive, draconian response would have led to better outcomes both for health and freedom. 

-Jester

[Vandiablo]

(I hesitate to say anything, because most of what I would want to say Jester can say much more clearly and thoughtfully and calmly and eloquently and etc.)

I am not making this about anyone here, because these thoughts are widespread among public factions.

"did not consider": that is the biggest part of the problem right there. Inconsideration. Literally!

"Old people gonna die anyway." My mother is 86 and in good health; her father lived to 98. COVID would have a very high chance of keeping her from seeing what may happen in the next 10 years. She has 7 grandchildren from 16 to 34 -- how many will get married, will graduate college, will have kids during that time? She would miss all that. She's had to struggle this past year with the reduced contact.

"The obese deserve to suffer and die." (Usually not said explicitly, but the thought is there.) But a lot of obeseses contribute to society in positive ways. Where I work, we've had about 11 people die; these people had years of experience that benefited us greatly. In our case, a lot of the experience is unusual; these people are hard to replace, their jobs are not just cookie-cutter stuff. Obese people, even diabetic ones, can be diligent and actually live long; but it is much more difficult if there's a pandemic and a large number of people are too petulant or inconsiderate to take measures to keep others from getting sick. Along the same lines, a lot of good doctors who were over 55 have died; the world lost a lot of expertise. (What's my point?) Uh, so, don't just assume that losing someone over 55 or big-boned is no loss for society.

"Smokers deserve to suffer and die." Actually this one is true. (Naw, not really, I know two smokers and a vaper whom I hope would not die.)

Anyway, I too think the no-mask thing is premature. It makes sense, but as Jester explained it's just going to be a mess.

So maybe the CDC is trying to get to herd immunity by making it so that no one is wearing masks!!! The non-vaccinated will catch the virus and then either die or be immune for 6 months or so. Genius! And the people who die will be anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers, who deserve what they get! Very clever, CDC! Hopefully those people won't be so smart, and hopefully won't catch on to the plan, and hopefully won't spoil the over-reaching government plan by wearing masks or getting vaccinations. So now the best way to show the CDC that you value your rights and can't be told what to do is to wear a mask!

-V

(Disclaimer: later portions of this post may be lame attempts at satire. Quotes out of context may be misleading and harmful to the public.)

[Taem]

and a large number of people are too petulant or inconsiderate to take measures to keep others from getting sick

It is difficult when a person (speaking mainly for myself here) PERSONALLY knows over 30-people who have had COVID from working in a fast passed restaurant chain as a regional manager overseeing eight stores, and every single one of the infected had mild to no symptoms, most only getting checked out for COVID because their boyfriend or girlfriend tested positive, or they felt slightly under the weather. Not a single one was hospitalized. These 30 individual people I personally know had families, and while their stories are anecdotal to me, it did not make it any less true and it so happens that in a single household, an average of 50% of the people in it got COVID from the infected person while the other 50% did not. Of the over 100 people in this small group, only one woman died who was 84, obese, high-risk diabetes, and on dialysis. I knew the information coming out of the media was incorrect from day 1 when they made the claim that COVID had an over a 3% mortality rate, and yet on those cruize ships with over 300 passangers each, only one person died. Or those military ships where everyone got COVID and nobody died. It was clear right from the start those numbers did not add up, so forgive me for being a bit cynical but while I was holed up in one of our stores doing to-go's only because our entire staff was furloughed, I watched a lot of news on the TV back then.

And when anyone brings up these inconsistencies, instead of having a reasonable conversation about it, people take a hard-line and become immediately aligned one-way or the other accusing the other side of being a conspiracy theorist, forgetting there is a middle ground of logic and debate. That is what causes somebody like me to become petulant in nature... the knee-jerk reaction of fanatics frothing at the mouth to expunge all non-believers... and it comes from BOTH SIDES OF THE ROPE! So fuck everyone who gets up on a soap box and cannot discuss logic! YOU are part of the problem, not the solution! (Thankfully, most Lurkers here have been patient and thoughtful in their reasoning). A quick example, there is apparently serious discussions happening now in congress deliberating the possibility COVID was manufactured in a lab; the idea was initially denounced last year with anyone speaking about it blasted to dust by frothing fanatics because people are stupid and cannot discuss things logically anymore, but have to be right-right-right, all the time! Anyway, what is the new mortality rate now? Looks like in the US it is 1.8% and worldwide it is 1.4%, which actually matches my own personal experience.

So what I really wanted to say was, in a perfect world, when you feel sick, if you are considerate of others you would wear a mask and social distance. The REALITY with COVID however is that most of the people I know who tested positive for COVID, including family members, felt either mild symptoms they attributed to seasonal allergies, or nothing at all. And I can't even image all of the people who DID NOT GET TESTED because they had no symptoms... And that seems to be the real disconnect here, and it is so frustrating! Why should we as a society be punitively forced to wear masks and social distance when we do not feel sick and have no symptoms? Never before in the history of this great country in the United States has the well and unaffected been forced to quarantine! This infringes upon so many of our rights, and is edging closer to a nation without freedoms, where everyone is so bent on supporting what ideology they believe is right, they never stopped to ask if we should be doing this in the first place. Now that the narrative for vaccines is in place, I see more and more of our civil liberties slowly eroding away and if you do not see it, then you are blind!

And of course, on the flip side you have Jesters argument that without mandatory vaccinations, the virus will continue to mutate and never go away and millions more people will die. That is a tough pill to swallow, but he is also right. And so we are caught at a crossroads of losing our liberties to chase the COVID demon away. COVID is not like the pox or flu. Most people I have met do not feel sick at all, so you cannot count on infected individuals to wear masks and social distance when they feel sick, because they may never know they have it. So do you force everyone to stay indoors? To get vaccinated if they want to fly, enter a government building, or go to school? We set a precedence here and if you remove the word COVID from it, the very concept becomes alarming... A pandoras box was opened by giving our governments so much power to arbitrarily shut things down when they make the claim their citizens are threatened in some way, to enact new laws and restrictions on travel, where they can and can't enter, what they wear on their faces, how close they can get to others... even who they can talk to. It is easy to turn the cheek and say, "but COVID...", but I say look past that word, because I honestly believe this is why people are so divided! Because there is more to this issue than just COVID. And the fanatics (on both sides) preaching from their soapboxes with their heads so high in the clouds they cannot hear the voices down below them, those are the ones that make me petulant.

I want to thank all of you Lurkers so far who have patiently helped explain many things to me; I am grateful for that! I am always willing to learn, and open enough to reverse my opinion where I can see my sources were incorrect. Bolty once posted a cartoon strip featuring a bird that really got me thinking how people can get stuck in a thought process without realizing it and become unwilling to change. I sincerely hope you all keep an open mind as well as we enter these uncertain times. I want to say that my own personal experiences may or may not reflect the reality of the majority of individuals in this world, so take it with a grain of salt. Peace, it was not my intention to offend anybody with my post. I think there are many aspects to this COVID pandemic and people want to simplify it, but it is not something that can be simplified. There is a lot at stake. And this is why people have such strong opinions about it!

[Taem]

And for any who may or may not have ever been guilty of an egregious public spelling error, this week The Economist published an apology for misusing "grizzly" for "grisly" -- "Thank you for bearing with us."

Lol, I hate to be the bearer of bad news here, but after pawsing to reflect on what you said above, it is an unbearable embearrassment fur our forbears before us that such spelling mistakes have perpetuated.

[eppie]

"Old people gonna die anyway." My mother is 86 and in good health; her father lived to 98. COVID would have a very high chance of keeping her from seeing what may happen in the next 10 years. She has 7 grandchildren from 16 to 34 -- how many will get married, will graduate college, will have kids during that time? She would miss all that. She's had to struggle this past year with the reduced contact.

"The obese deserve to suffer and die." (Usually not said explicitly, but the thought is there.) But a lot of obeseses contribute to society in positive ways. Where I work, we've had about 11 people die; these people had years of experience that benefited us greatly. In our case, a lot of the experience is unusual; these people are hard to replace, their jobs are not just cookie-cutter stuff. Obese people, even diabetic ones, can be diligent and actually live long; but it is much more difficult if there's a pandemic and a large number of people are too petulant or inconsiderate to take measures to keep others from getting sick. Along the same lines, a lot of good doctors who were over 55 have died; the world lost a lot of expertise. (What's my point?) Uh, so, don't just assume that losing someone over 55 or big-boned is no loss for society.

"

Vandiablo: The thought is not there. Nothing which you write here is something that comes to my mind. I can explain it again. Obesity and especially morbid obesity cuts of 10s of years of your life on average. One of the reasons is that when you get another diseases (diabetes, cancer, heart, pnuemonia, flu) it can get you extra hard making an otherwise not deadly disease deadly for you.  A fact is just that covid is almost not taking victims below 60 without any underlying diseases.  I guess in the US the number of healthy young people dying because of covid are far below the numbers of people dying in shooting or car incidents.
Again, no opinion, just facts.

Also yes I understand a healthy 86 year old would like to live another 10 years (most with covid do anyway) but a lot of things can happen at such an age.
People do die, anyway, period....and often way to early.


The question: and I agree with team last post, is what does this cost us.
-liberty (loss of human rights)
-damaged young people (they pay the price on many levels)
-economic problems...so far favouring the rich and double damaging the poor


Everyone can make his or her own choice. I do wear a mask, I am careful even though I will highly likely not suffer from covid, I don't eat meat but I am scared. And I see strange things happening.
Why can we just like this spend 100s of billions to fight this crisis why we don't want to do this for getting us of fossil fules a few years earlier.


Animal-mutated viruses will keep popping up often unless we cut down our meat consumption dramatically (it will not eliminate zoonoses but it will bring down the chance a lot). Global warming will (besides rising of the sea level, biodiveristy loss etc) also increase the chance of new diseases popping up.

I don't think it makes much sense to go on the way we do now just to create a society where we wear masks permanently, where we vaccinate for a series of diseases on a yearly basis and in the mean time blame other people and accuse them of not caring for the lives of other people.



@Jester. I don't want to defend dutch people (I hate nationalism) but to be fair....it is not that we are doing much worse than other countries......this is something that you read in the papers every week. AT moment A: '''we are better than the other because we behave in this and that way and that is just better'' moment B when numbers are rising '''we are worse than other because we do this and that''.....repeat.

[Vandiablo]

"The obese deserve to suffer and die." (Usually not said explicitly, but the thought is there.

Vandiablo: The thought is not there. Nothing which you write here is something that comes to my mind. ...

The question: and I agree with team last post, is what does this cost us.
-liberty (loss of human rights)
...

Everyone can make his or her own choice. I do wear a mask, ...
...
I don't think it makes much sense to go on the way we do now just to create a society where we wear masks permanently, where we vaccinate for a series of diseases on a yearly basis and in the mean time blame other people and accuse them of not caring for the lives of other people.

(Pardon me for cherry-picking a few things and leaving the rest (and Taem's post) for later ... I have have to work tonight and also can't stay up late.)

okay, maybe "deserve to die" was too strong, and your point is different than the "they deserve it", but I'm picking up a "COVID is an obesity issue, not a general populace issue". I am feeling that this is just a nice facade for "we don't need to do anything, let them suffer". Sorry if that's not underlying your argument, but I have heard people say it. There is evidence that many people feel that fat people deserve harsher punishment if they have done something wrong -- that's science (or at least one study.) Experience tells me that there are definitely haters out there who relish fat people suffering. (I'm BMI 30.5, just over the line into obesity. I used to be bigger.) I don't have time to talk about obesity health so I'll just mention this article about the health benefits of being overweight or mildly obese; I haven't read it closely yet.

I agree it would be better to not have to wear masks indefinitely and get shots every year. But that is the best case scenario if we don't get eradication. And to get to eradication, if too many people will not get vaccinated, we have to wear masks. (That's all out the window now.)

As for "human rights"... Do you know that in our current society people are REQUIRED, when in public and other times, to COVER various ORIFICES. Get on a bus naked sometime, and you'll find out. (Have I ever...?) Some of it is "I don't want to see your ugly thing" but it is mainly a matter of public health. It is part of living in society, especially in densely-populated areas. So when there is a pandemic where asymptomatic people are spreaders, it is not unreasonable to require people in public to cover their filthy mouths. If people could just strictly do that for a while, then masks would no longer be necessary. But once we learned that masks work, the anti-maskers have complained (thanks, Don!) about their "rights" and then we had hundreds of thousands (U.S.) MORE people die. People who would not have died otherwise, people who did not "deserve" to die, people who had no fault of their own. (eppie, most of this not directed at you, thanks for wearing the mask)

And "and in the mean time blame other people and accuse them of not caring for the lives of other people." Chr!st! Not caring about other people is a huge, huge driver in masklessness and needless deaths. When people are killing other people, it's not just "blame" and "accusation" to call them out on it! It is the responsible thing to do! All this crap just because you don't want a cloth on your face is frickin' criminal. ("You" meaning a typical anti-masker, not eppie, who wears a mask.)

(Ugh, even cherry-picking didn't keep me from going too long. And do you know I actually dislike disagreements? Hard to tell.)

-----
(And as for my comment about Jester, I don't mean that he would say the dumbass stuff I do, I mean that he replies very well to posts I feel need an informative, reasonable counter-response -- I cannot remember ever disagreeing with him -- my replies have too much froth and only contain a mere outline of a reasonable argument with some steps missing. )  
-----

-V
Warning: Quotes out of context may be misleading and harmful to the public.