Neverending Covid-19 Coronavirus

[Chucktshoes]

The basis of society is people agreeing not to kill each other. No, most laws nowadays don't have to do with my safety. All of those came after people saying, "I won't kill you if you won't kill me" and then carrying that forward several more steps. If we're not agreeing to take care of each other, what is the point?

The problem arises when your definition of “taking care of each other” become indistinguishable to me from “controlling you with the violence of the state because I don’t like the choices you make” which is how the vast majority of the shit y’all all talk about reads to me. But in that note, I think we’re venturing into that other thread’s territory.

 

[yukbon]

I have all of the above. I’m just not a fear filled ninny scared of his own shadow. I make the decisions I feel are best for me and leave others to do the same for themselves. I also understand that it’s only for the last hundred years or so we have gotten as far removed as a species from death by common disease. Nature is reasserting itself and contrary to our hubris, we can’t outsmart it forever. You can deal with it or not, but that’s not ever going to change.

But you wear seatbelts, live in a home that's passed safety inspections, but medicine and food from reputable sources and manufacturers that are inspected and regulated. Clearly there are circumstances where you go the extra step and have decided 'well no reason to tempt fate'. I assume you go to the Dr if you have an infection.

I'm glad you don't live in fear of killing a kid or someone you know that can't be vaccinated, but that doesn't mean you're not putting them at risk whether or not you personally fear it. How awesome for grandma or the CVS cashier's 8-year-old that you have faced your mortality and are aware that you can't fool mother nature, so why bother fighting it so hard, eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die, and if it takes someone else, well, at least you didn't have to care about knowing them personally.

The unafraid: a fratboy driving recklessly on the highway, weaving through cars at 30 over the limit, bemoaning how people get so scared for no reason, can't they see he's got it under control and is a good driver?

 

[Chucktshoes]

But you wear seatbelts, live in a home that's passed safety inspections, but medicine and food from reputable sources and manufacturers that are inspected and regulated. Clearly there are circumstances where you go the extra step and have decided 'well no reason to tempt fate'. I assume you go to the Dr if you have an infection.

I'm glad you don't live in fear of killing a kid or someone you know that can't be vaccinated, but that doesn't mean you're not putting them at risk whether or not you personally fear it. How awesome for grandma or the CVS cashier's 8-year-old that you have faced your mortality and are aware that you can't fool mother nature, so why bother fighting it so hard, eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die, and if it takes someone else, well, at least you didn't have to care about knowing them personally.

The unafraid: a fratboy driving recklessly on the highway, weaving through cars at 30 over the limit, bemoaning how people get so scared for no reason, can't they see he's got it under control and is a good driver?

You’re making a lot of assumptions there that aren’t necessarily true there, Bucko.

You might want to start at the beginning and reassess what you actually know and what you’re assuming.

 

[yukbon]

I mean, sure, I don't know anything about your use of seatbelts/home/medicine and food or medical choices, but I think if these things do not apply to you in some generalized way, you're kind of out on the fringe of american society anyway. If the FDA isn't OK'ing your food and drugs -- and true, maybe you don't do traditional medicine or store-bought food, sure -- but this automatically places you on the margins. I concede that my assumptions may be wholly incorrect; I'm not trying to use you personally as an example, just trying to pick the places where the government regulates safety in a way that intersects with most people's lives (in a mostly transparent manner).

 

[bother]

But you wear seatbelts, live in a home that's passed safety inspections, but medicine and food from reputable sources and manufacturers that are inspected and regulated. Clearly there are circumstances where you go the extra step and have decided 'well no reason to tempt fate'. I assume you go to the Dr if you have an infection.

I'm glad you don't live in fear of killing a kid or someone you know that can't be vaccinated, but that doesn't mean you're not putting them at risk whether or not you personally fear it. How awesome for grandma or the CVS cashier's 8-year-old that you have faced your mortality and are aware that you can't fool mother nature, so why bother fighting it so hard, eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die, and if it takes someone else, well, at least you didn't have to care about knowing them personally.

The unafraid: a fratboy driving recklessly on the highway, weaving through cars at 30 over the limit, bemoaning how people get so scared for no reason, can't they see he's got it under control and is a good driver?

It’s not worth arguing with him. He keeps doing this: comes into the thread, makes a few reasonable posts, then says something shitty and very dumb.

 

[gouis]

CDC shares 'pivotal discovery' on Covid-19 breakthrough infections that led to new mask guidance

A new study shows the Delta Covid-19 variant produced similar amounts of virus in vaccinated and unvaccinated people if they get infected -- illustrating a key motivation behind the federal guidance that now recommends most fully vaccinated Americans wear masks indoors.

www.cnn.com

CDC study shows three-fourths of people infected in Massachusetts coronavirus outbreak were vaccinated but few required hospitalization — The Washington Post

A sobering scientific analysis published Friday found that three-quarters of the people infected during an explosive coronavirus outbreak fueled by the delta variant were fully vaccinated. The report on the Massachusetts cases, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, offers key...

apple.news

Basically, with Delta, if you catch it, you have the same virus load whether you are vaccinated or not. The vaccination has no effect as reducing the spread, thus the mask guidance has been updated again.

A vaccine will still make it less likely you will catch COVID, but if you do catch it, you are just as likely to spread it to other people.

The messaging here is bad. You can pass it on if you get a breakthrough infection, which is still incredibly rare.

Masks are a half measure (even if they work). Vaccine mandates are the only thing that is going to stop this.

 

[gouis]

It is still a pandemic. It's still spreading across continents in waves. Endemic means it belongs to a specific group or region, though the US definitely seems to be working to make that the case for us. Sure, it very likely will exist long-term, like influenzas, and hopefully with better vaccination rates we'll get mortality numbers closer to those, but we aren't there yet.

----

If people would mask up indoors and vaccinate where possible, we could function pretty normally. It's absurd that people (including government) have been pretending this was basically over when there isn't even a vaccine available for almost 50 million citizens.

The problem is that 'masking up indoors' is not functioning normally. Anything involving eating, drinking, singing, even movie going is lessened. And for me teaching SUUUUUCKS in masks. Specifically I teach at a school that has a large deaf population, and it's EXTREMELY detrimental to that student population which relies on lip reading. It's not a viable long term solution.

 

[GritNGlitter]

The problem is that 'masking up indoors' is not functioning normally. Anything involving eating, drinking, singing, even movie going is lessened. And for me teaching SUUUUUCKS in masks. Specifically I teach at a school that has a large deaf population, and it's EXTREMELY detrimental to that student population which relies on lip reading. It's not a viable long term solution.

Yes, I said "pretty normally" which isn't 100%, and mask *and vaccinate*, which would hopefully allow for less masking in scenarios like teaching. Point being that if businesses want to stay open at capacity and have a living workforce available, masks are the way to go at stores and such. Right now we have a variant as contagious as chicken pox, concessions need to be made.

But out of curiosity, why don't you have interpreters? I know you're at the college level, but I went to a deaf magnet middle and high school. Interpreters were a regular part of my educational experience.

 

[gouis]

Yes, I said "pretty normally" which isn't 100%, and mask *and vaccinate*, which would hopefully allow for less masking in scenarios like teaching. Point being that if businesses want to stay open at capacity and have a living workforce available, masks are the way to go at stores and such. Right now we have a variant as contagious as chicken pox, concessions need to be made.

But out of curiosity, why don't you have interpreters? I know you're at the college level, but I went to a deaf magnet middle and high school. Interpreters were a regular part of my educational experience.

Not all students qualify for interpreters/note takers. There’s a wide spectrum of needs and there isn’t infinite resources.

Tons of our students can “pass” and it just makes their lives really hard. And clear masks fog up and much more uncomfortable.

 

[nolalady]

go see your concerts/events now, because with Delta spreading easier and hitting harder, I wouldn't be surprised if another nationwide shutdown is coming...

At this point, we are past the point of shutdowns being effective. If this were a month or two ago, shutdowns could have helped us out, but the delta variant is so contagious and so prevalent that epidemiologically speaking, the cat is already out of the bag.

The messaging here is bad. You can pass it on if you get a breakthrough infection, which is still incredibly rare.

Masks are a half measure (even if they work). Vaccine mandates are the only thing that is going to stop this.

Acutally, breakthrough infections are becoming very common. It's just rare that you will get really bad symptoms if you have the vaccine. There was a story over the weekend of a woman who died after getting vaccinated and then contracting Covid, but she had some other risk factors/comorbid conditions.

New Orleans business owner dies from COVID-19, family says she was vaccinated

'We are going to miss her': NOLA business owner dies from COVID-19, family says she was vaccinated.

www.wdsu.com

But this sort of outcome is not the norm. However, you can still get Covid and if you have a detectible viral load, you can spread it.

Not all students qualify for interpreters/note takers. There’s a wide spectrum of needs and there isn’t infinite resources.

Tons of our students can “pass” and it just makes their lives really hard. And clear masks fog up and much more uncomfortable.

As a special needs parent, can confirm.

 

[yukbon]

yeah, i'm thinking this is going to kill steely dan and thievery corp in october for me

And Dead & Co, dammit

 

[sjaygray]

I have all of the above. I’m just not a fear filled ninny scared of his own shadow. I make the decisions I feel are best for me and leave others to do the same for themselves. I also understand that it’s only for the last hundred years or so we have gotten as far removed as a species from death by common disease. Nature is reasserting itself and contrary to our hubris, we can’t outsmart it forever. You can deal with it or not, but that’s not ever going to change.

Here’s a secret for you, in case nobody has told you yet.

You’re going to die.

We all are and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. Make peace with that and live your life the best you can. As others of a similar worldview as myself are fond of saying “Let go and let God.”

Yeah. I've been on the verge of blocking you for a while now, so, thanks for the nudge I guess? This cavalier "fuck it" attitude is precisely why we're still wrestling with this god damn thing and my patience for accepting it as some sort of alternative "opinion" or whatever the fuck has officially expired.

 

[ayayrawn]

This is just me, and I would totally understand if people are still hesitant about going out and doing things, but 99.998% odds that you're good post-vaccine are more than enough for me. Fauci has said that he thinks enough folks are vaccinated to where we won't need another shutdown, so my plans are staying in place. The smart thing for venues to do would be to ask for proof of vaccination at the door/gate. That would clear any worries about these shows happening.

It sounds crass, but I imagine there's coming a time where we just can't keep accommodating people who simply refuse to vaccinate. It sucks, and harms otherwise innocent people, but what is the alternative? Putting our lives on hold 6 months out of the year for the foreseeable future? Don't think so.

 

[nolalady]

Here's an article that's in preprint regarding breakthrough cases and covid illness burden:

the Survivor Corps group, a grassroots COVID-19 organization focused on patient support and research, posted a poll to its 169,900 members that asked about breakthrough cases, Long Covid, and hospitalizations. 1,949 people who self-report being fully vaccinated have responded to date. While robust data are needed in a larger, unbiased sample to extrapolate rates to the population, we analyzed the results of this public poll to determine what people were reporting regarding Long Covid after breakthrough infection and to prompt discussion of how breakthrough cases are measured. The poll was posted in the Survivor Corps Facebook group (∼169,900 members). Of the 1,949 participants who responded to the poll, 44 reported a symptomatic breakthrough case and 24 of those reported that the case led to symptoms of Long Covid. 1 of these 24 cases was reported to have led to hospitalization in addition to Long Covid.

Breakthrough Symptomatic COVID-19 Infections Leading to Long Covid: Report from Long Covid Facebook Group Poll

Vaccines have been shown to be extremely effective in preventing COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths. However, a question remains whether vaccine breakthrough cases can still lead to Post-Acute Sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 (PASC), also known as Long Covid. To address this question, the Survivor Corps...

www.medrxiv.org

So their initial numbers are:
Breakthrough infections that caused symptoms: 44/1949 = 2.3% of all vaccinated people in this cohort
Breakthrough infections that caused hospitalization: 24/1949 = 1.2% of all vaccinated people in this cohort

If you consider the risk of getting symptoms and being hospitalized without the vaccine, the preliminary data that is coming in suggests that being vaccinated doesn't completely eliminate the risk of getting sick, but it sure does make your risk go down a huge amount. This thing isn't going away and we will have to learn to live with it, but we don't have to get sick en masse. Most of the severe illness is contained to those that are unvaccinated.

re: Risk Behaviors and the fact that we are all going to die
Every day you are at risk of some sort of anomaly, whether it be winning the lottery, coming down with a rare illness, or freak accidents. No one is safe. But the primary rule of statistics is that while nothing is impossible, there are a lot of things out there that are highly unlikely. But someone always wins the lottery and someone else gets hurt in a spectacularly rare event or accident, so it does happen. The question that we need to ask ourselves is whether or not we think the risk of something should control our actions. For instance, my dad has a bad heart and a lot of people on my dad's side of the family have bad hearts and have died relatively young (in their 50's) so I believe my risk for heart disease to be enough of a risk for me that I go to the gym and watch what I eat. So the risk of heart disease, in my perception, is enough of a threat for me to take actions to try to offset this outcome. I realize that a bad heart is a bad heart, but my dad is alive and his little brother is dead because my dad took care of himself. My uncle did not and died at 53.

So now, let's consider that since the risk of having an adverse event that causes severe morbidity or mortality from a vaccine. We've previously established that that risk is around 4-6 events per one million people. However, there's some science suggesting that you're at around a 20% risk of catching Covid from someone who is Covid positive. That means that for ever person that you encounter with Covid, your risk of getting Covid from that person, and depending on how long you hang out with that person, the risk of getting Covid just goes up. So the risk of getting Covid is very large and the risk of an adverse vaccine reaction is small. On top of that, the hospitalizations prior to the vaccine suggest that about 10% of all Covid cases were being hospitalized. The vaccine shrinks that risk dramatically. So the risk of adverse events for the vaccine are incredibly small but the benefit of getting it puts you in a lot less risk. Just looking at the numbers, the logical answer is to get vaccinated.

 

[sjaygray]

This is just me, and I would totally understand if people are still hesitant about going out and doing things, but 99.998% odds that you're good post-vaccine are more than enough for me. Fauci has said that he thinks enough folks are vaccinated to where we won't need another shutdown, so my plans are staying in place. The smart thing for venues to do would be to ask for proof of vaccination at the door/gate. That would clear any worries about these shows happening.

It sounds crass, but I imagine there's coming a time where we just can't keep accommodating people who simply refuse to vaccinate. It sucks, and harms otherwise innocent people, but what is the alternative? Putting our lives on hold 6 months out of the year for the foreseeable future? Don't think so.

Yeah, I mostly agree here. I've got plans to go see Kevin Morby and Hamilton Leithauser in Vermont in November, and despite it being held in the most vaccinated state in the country, I'm still doubting we'll actually go given this delta variant's current trajectory. I messaged the venue asking if they'd be requiring proof of vaccination going forward and heard nothing. If we didn't have a 3-year-old at home that can't be vaccinated yet, we'd likely adopt a more positive and outgoing outlook on our lives, but that's not where we are yet.

 

[ayayrawn]

Yeah, I mostly agree here. I've got plans to go see Kevin Morby and Hamilton Leithauser in Vermont in November, and despite it being held in the most vaccinated state in the country, I'm still doubting we'll actually go given this delta variant's current trajectory. I messaged the venue asking if they'd be requiring proof of vaccination going forward and heard nothing. If we didn't have a 3-year-old at home that can't be vaccinated yet, we'd likely adopt a more positive and outgoing outlook on our lives, but that's not where we are yet.

Yeah, understandable, it's a whole nother thing if you're living with someone who simply can't get vaccinated. Odds of danger are still extremely low, but I still don't blame any individuals who want to be cautious at this point. I'm hoping delta causes enough of an uptick in vaccines to where we reach a spot where worries can be softened for more people. Or at least more data comes out that really hammers home how safe one really is with a vaccine.

 

[sjaygray]

Yeah, understandable, it's a whole nother thing if you're living with someone who simply can't get vaccinated. Odds of danger are still extremely low, but I still don't blame any individuals who want to be cautious at this point. I'm hoping delta causes enough of an uptick in vaccines to where we reach a spot where worries can be softened for more people. Or at least more data comes out that really hammers home how safe one really is with a vaccine.

I hope so too. There is still a fair bit of ill-informed vaccine fear out there though. Hell, my wife's mother who is an RN just got her first dose last week after spouting off all this time about how scared she was of it and how no one knows if it's safe or not. Of course, they listen to nothing but Fox News in their home, so I'm sure that did nothing to foster any common sense.

 

[gouis]

Yeah, understandable, it's a whole nother thing if you're living with someone who simply can't get vaccinated. Odds of danger are still extremely low, but I still don't blame any individuals who want to be cautious at this point. I'm hoping delta causes enough of an uptick in vaccines to where we reach a spot where worries can be softened for more people. Or at least more data comes out that really hammers home how safe one really is with a vaccine.

I'm in a super weird place where I don't interact with anyone who is not vaccinated on a personal level, and basically everyone at my work is required to be vaccinated. What the things I NEED to do is not particularly clear. Obviously I can be super cautious and that would solve the problem, but where the line is of "good enough" is completely lost to me.

 

[RenegadeMonster]

The local news had a story this morning about how first it was with the airlines, and now it's happening at restaurants. Unruly customers and thin patience causing waitresses to walk out mid shift.

According to the latest poll out this past weekend, customer satisfaction at restaurants are at an all time low.

46% of customers complained about restaurants being "short staffed".
66% of customers were concerned over increased costs.

Waitresses are getting getting screwed on tips over people's anger over the above and how they say their experience was not as good as pre covid. Slow service and more expensive.

And people getting frustrated aren't just complaining, they are getting unruly. Name calling, threatening staff and what not. A local business owner told a pair of guys to leave after they threatened one of waitresses last month only to have those guys then break in the back and start trashing the kitchen.

Add the return of mask mandates when not eating, (such as when ordering or walking around the restaurant) and short fuses are igniting full TNT.


The business owner who had the two guys trash her kitchen said, "you think you are frustrated by us being short staff, how about think about us and how frustrated we and our staff must be as well. It's not just you. We are doing everything we can to hire help, but there are not enough people applying and current workers are quitting at a record pace and leaving the industry."

 

[sjaygray]

The local news had a story this morning about how first it was with the airlines, and now it's happening at restaurants. Unruly customers and thin patience causing waitresses to walk out mid shift.

According to the latest poll out this past weekend, customer satisfaction at restaurants are at an all time low.

46% of customers complained about restaurants being "short staffed".
66% of customers were concerned over increased costs.

Waitresses are getting getting screwed on tips over people's anger over the above and how they say their experience was not as good as pre covid. Slow service and more expensive.

And people getting frustrated aren't just complaining, they are getting unruly. Name calling, threatening staff and what not. A local business owner told a pair of guys to leave after they threatened one of waitresses last month only to have those guys then break in the back and start trashing the kitchen.

Add the return of mask mandates when not eating, (such as when ordering or walking around the restaurant) and short fuses are igniting full TNT.


The business owner who had the two guys trash her kitchen said, "you think you are frustrated by us being short staff, how about think about us and how frustrated we and our staff must be as well. It's not just you. We are doing everything we can to hire help, but there are not enough people applying and current workers are quitting at a record pace and leaving the industry."

Almost every restaurant/bar around here is operating on a greatly reduced schedule and many have to close unexpectedly day to day due to staffing issues. Totally makes sense that it's escalating. I just don't see how you go to a headspace where you blame (and attack?!) the place itself, or the people that ARE there trying to serve you. That's just straight up assholery.