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The article takes a long time to essentially get around to saying this: > But covid-19 and the extreme social-distancing measures used to combat it pose a new

The article takes a long time to essentially get around to saying this: > But covid-19 and the extreme social-distancing measures used to combat it pose a new and more profound danger to the capital I feel that during lockdown a fair few people have turned mildly insane - they seem to honestly believe that we're going to stand very far apart from other humans for the rest of time. It's just not the case. I'll be in the pub by the end of the year.

kinkrtyavimoodh 6y ago
Considering that the virus is here to stay for a few years at least, how can we blame them for thinking this way? Lifting the lockdown is not gonna make the virus disappear.
- 650REDHAIR 6y ago
  Out of sight out of mind. I returned a bike yesterday in North Beach (SF) and people were crowded together. Maybe half of the people were wearing masks. There was a 4 piece street band walking around playing brass instruments like it was a carnival.
  - tjr225 6y ago
    And yet every single one of those people is going to be just fine.
    - deleted 6y ago
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    - dkdk8283 6y ago
      In my state you aren’t shamed for not wearing a mask, thankfully.
      - jshaqaw 6y ago
        My family has already had Covid-19. We wear masks to not be jerks and make others fearful or uncomfortable because we can’t be bothered to put a simple article of clothing on.
      - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
        Come on, just wear a mask. Why would you resist it as though it's something to be proud of? Even if the only thing that it does is make other people feel safe, that's a good enough reason.
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
        vorpalhex 6y ago
        Well the same reason you don't share your email with the FBI and agree to be monitored at all times. I wear a mask, and I choose to wear a mask. I also wore a mask before it was "supported" by the CDC. If tomorrow it was legally required, I would stop wearing a mask.
        kilroy_jones 6y ago
        If they had made it a temporary law and fined people heavily at the very beginning it would have saved thousands of lives and jobs. Look at the countries that acted swiftly back in January and February.
        vorpalhex 6y ago
        In the US, legal requirements would have been met with more resistance and people not wearing masks intentionally and probably civil unrest. Sometimes asking is better than demanding. Texas asked and had excellent compliance. Michigan demanded and had angry protestors.
        kilroy_jones 6y ago
    - fcurts 6y ago
      Except for the ones that will end up fighting the worst illness in their lifetime. It may not be them but their parents or grandparents.
      - tjr225 6y ago
        Maybe, maybe not.
        fcurts 6y ago
        "Maybe" at individual level becomes "certainly" at city, state, or nation level.
      - ACow_Adonis 6y ago
        You ever had/lived with multiple relatives going with cancer or Alzheimer's. I'm sure it's un-PC to say it, but Covid is a relative cakewalk in comparison...
        esotericimpl 6y ago
        What if your Alzheimer’s parent died of Covid. Should we assume this is a cakewalk for me? Stop acting callous.
        Aeolun 6y ago
        Depends, if you’re 70 and diagnosed with cancer, you may still have a few years or recover completely. If you are diagnosed with covid you have a pretty high chance of being dead before a month has passed.
        tinus_hn 6y ago
        If you are 70 and get Covid-19 you have a 90% chance of recovering. You make it sound like you have a 90% chance of dying which is an extreme exaggeration.
        6y ago
    - roelschroeven 6y ago
      Even if that is true, it is missing the point. Avoiding infection is not just for your own good; more importantly, keeping the speed of the virus spreading down is for protecting everybody. And what you say isn't even true. Plenty of healthy young people get very very sick. The percentages are lower than for older and/or less healthy people, but the numbers are still significant. Don't think you're invulnerable, cause you're not. Don't think that if you get no or only mild symptoms, no harm is done. Think about the other people you have unknowingly infected, and how you've contributed to the spread of the virus. (Where 'you' = the generic 'you', not you personally).
      - tinus_hn 6y ago
        So what are the numbers if they are significant?
      - krona 6y ago
        Avoiding infection is not just for your own good; more importantly, keeping the speed of the virus spreading down is for protecting everybody. Twas ever thus. Norovirus kills 200,000 people every year, and yet we don't close entire cities every time there's an outbreak.
        deleted 6y ago
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        ben_w 6y ago
        IIRC, noro is too infectious for a lockdown to work, even though you can only catch it from the… emissions… when the patient goes off at both ends.
        rsynnott 6y ago
        > Norovirus kills 200,000 people every year That's true, but it kills very few people in the developed world. Deaths from norovirus are mostly a result of inadequate treatment, and/or lack of detection. And, frankly, if covid was only going to kill 200k people, we probably wouldn't be closing anything much. It has already killed almost 350k people, and that's _with_ most countries imposing variously draconian measures.
    - simonh 6y ago
      People were saying that in New York in February and going to street parties. A month later the hospitals were overwhelmed. I think it is reasonable to ease restrictions when case numbers fall. Hopefully enough people will maintain distance and minimise unnecessary contact to slow it spreading and keep the pressure off the hospitals. However free riders recklessly endangering themselves, others and health care staff should be ashamed of themselves.
      - xkapastel 6y ago
        I live in New York and I'm under the impression the hospitals were never overwhelmed. That was the fear, but it didn't actually happen. They also thought they would run out of ventilators, but never came close to using all of them, started giving them away to other states, and then discovered that ventilators were not actually a good treatment anyway.
        Retric 6y ago
        NYC hospitals increased capacity dramatically, with people treated huge wards and some sent to temporary facilities. That’s what being overwhelmed looks like, it’s not a binary condition just a decrease in the average quality of care. In terms of ventilators many people where kept off of ventilators who would have been given them in normal conditions. That was likely a good thing as ventilators have huge risks associated with their use, but things where a long way from ok. That said, the lockdown likely prevented a much worse situation at local hospitals.
        redis_mlc 6y ago
        > In terms of ventilators many people where kept off of ventilators who would have been given them in normal conditions. Sadly, that wasn't the case in NY. Even though Chinese doctors warned of the risks of ventilators in Jan/Feb, the US ignored that. There were 2 reasons: 1) intubating patients protected staff from aerosolization after the intubation 2) old understanding of oxygen levels led doctors to intubate way too early for corona.
        6y ago
  - analog31 6y ago
    I play in a jazz band, and one of the first things that came to mind when the lockdown started was standing next to the all of the horn players blowing their spit all over the place. Fortunately, both our rehearsal and performance spaces shut down before we had to decide as a group whether to continue operating.
    - sandworm101 6y ago
      >> standing next to the all of the horn players blowing their spit all over the place. That's an aspect of the universal 6-foot rule that everyone seems to forget. It originally appeared as advice for business (restaurants). You don't want to sit too close to someone else in still air. But if we are spitting, singing, shouting, coughing, panting, playing in a Jazz band, or are simply downwind of someone, that 6-foot distance is probably not enough. Airlines have basically said as much about their cabins. If the air is being circulated artificially in a closed environment, specific measured distances are probably irrelevant.
      - nradov 6y ago
        The "universal 6-foot rule" is anything but universal. Other countries have recommended 1m, 1.5m, 2m, etc. The distance rules are almost entirely arbitrary and not based on sound science.
        chimprich 6y ago
        Distances can be both arbitrary and based on sound science. You can scientifically determine that your chances of infecting someone at 1.5m and 2m are e.g. 40% and 50%, but you still have to pick one to recommend.
        nradov 6y ago
        No one has scientifically determined the infection risk at various distances. Such an experiment with human subjects would never pass ethical review due to the serious risk. Some scientists have created mathematical models of virion distribution, but those models are basically a joke and don't appear to align with observed reality. I do appreciate that public health authorities have to make clear and simple recommendations to avoid confusing people. But let's not pretend there is anything scientific about it.
  - TomK32 6y ago
    Wearing masks outside when you are not close to someone from outside your bubble isn't necessary. The virus needs close human contacts for several minutes to spread successfully. On the outside you have wind and other positive factors.
    - hellofunk 6y ago
      There have been plenty of reports of infection with far less than a few minutes of close contact. Proximity to a single cough can do it.
  - deleted 6y ago
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- bdamm 6y ago
  Eventually we will have herd immunity, a weakened virus, a vaccine, reduced pressure on health care facilities, or all four. At some point we'll be back in the airport bar. There may be a few waves before we get there, but get there we will. This social isolation will not go on, it is not the new normal.
  - marcell 6y ago
    FWIW, in most of the US and Europe there is no pressure on healthcare facilities. Most hospitals are seeing lower than normal utilization, primarily from non-Covid cases. Edit: as an example, my county (Santa Clara) is using under 10% of hospital beds for Covid. This is typical, check your county dashboard if they have one and you are likely to see a similar number. Source: https://www.sccgov.org/sites/covid19/Pages/dashboard.aspx#hospital https://www.sccgov.org/sites/covid19/Pages/dashboard.aspx#ho...
    - ithkuil 6y ago
      See reverse Tinkerbell effect
    - hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
      My take is that what happened in Northern Italy freaked out the world, but it was actually rather unique. Very high density coupled with lots of intergenerational living. One reason Sweden's approach may work out in the end is they have the highest proportion of single person households of any country on Earth.
      - kgwgk 6y ago
        > what happened in Northern Italy freaked out the world, but it was actually rather unique Was it? NYC has reported more deaths than Lombardy (with less population) and NY/NJ as many deaths as Italy with half the population.
        xamuel 6y ago
        The high death count in NY/NJ is probably related to the fact that in both states, the governors ordered that nursing homes not be permitted to refuse coronavirus patients.
- matz1 6y ago
  The virus is not gonna disappear but it doesn't mean you are going to be infected as well. If you do infected, doesn't mean you are going to have the symptom. If you do have the symptom, doesn't mean you are going to have severe symptom. If you do have severe symptom, doesn't mean you are going to require hospitalization.
  - kinkrtyavimoodh 6y ago
    Then why are we doing any lockdowns at all? If most of the young are near-safe, we should have just isolated the 60+ and kept society running as usual for the rest. Clearly a lot of people are not willing to take the risk of contracting the virus.
    - hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
      That is an excellent question, and essentially exactly the argument Sweden is making. TBH, I have yet to hear a decent argument against this, given the following thoughts: 1. Development of a vaccine will take a minimum of 12 months, more like 18. 2. It is not feasible, either for democracy or our economy, to stay locked in/sheltered at home for this long. 3. Thus, the main concern should be to "flatten the curve": keep the infection rate low enough so that, even though people still get infected, hospital systems don't get overwhelmed. I think it's important to note that the only places yet that have had overwhelmed (or close to it) hospital systems had extreme density (Wuhan, NYC), often coupled with lots of mixing of young and old (Northern Italy). 4. A corollary to number 3 is that as long as hospital systems aren't overwhelmed, or close to it, that you shouldn't lock down further. The belief is that the majority of society becoming infected within 12/18 months is inevitable, so extreme lockdowns will do little beyond push deaths out a bit. 5. Do everything you can to protect the highly vulnerable (old, immuno-compromised) as they appear to be at exponential greater risk. I mean, as the US starts to open up, it is quite clear the virus has not been contained, so for better or for worse the above is the approach we are taking as well.
      - cma 6y ago
        Sweden is 6th worst in deaths per capita in the world among non-microstates, and still isn't very close to herd immunity.
- metreo 6y ago
  I guess we've lost sight of how important early containment is and the reality that once the virus is in the wild it's essentially a force of nature.
- jinushaun 6y ago
  Not years, but decades. However, I think the virus will hit an equilibrium state sooner than we expect because there will be less of an appetite for lockdowns when the fall/winter wave hits. Covid deaths will be seasonal but not headline news.
  - bhouston 6y ago
    Virus also evolve to be less deadly I understand. Thus Covid19 becomes more like the common cold over time. How much time required? I don't know that.
    - gberger 6y ago
      Interesting, I hadn't heard about this. Do you mind sharing the reasoning around this?
      - notadog 6y ago
        This article from The Scientist provides an overview of why it happened in a rabbit population: https://www.the-scientist.com/features/do-pathogens-gain-virulence-as-hosts-become-more-resistant-30219 https://www.the-scientist.com/features/do-pathogens-gain-vir... > The question Fenner asked was: What happens when such a virulent virus spreads through a very susceptible host species on a continental scale? He focused on two possibilities. First, the highly lethal virus might evolve to become less lethal. Second, the highly susceptible rabbits might evolve resistance. Thanks to Fenner, we now know both happened. > The work showed that the almost invariably lethal progenitor virus strain was replaced within a few years by strains with case fatality rates of 70 percent to 95 percent. Some field isolates killed fewer than half the lab rabbits. Over the next few decades, things settled down, and strains at both ends of the lethality spectrum become increasingly difficult to find. Fenner showed why. The highly lethal progenitor virus killed rabbits so fast that its infectious period was shorter than that of the less lethal viral mutants. That meant that the less lethal strains were able to infect more new victims and spread throughout the population.
        6y ago
- guscost 6y ago
  For healthy people it’s about as dangerous as any other cold, the data are in. Most people will simply refuse to put their lives on indefinite suspension once they discover this fact. The mass psychosis will end soon. By the way “healthy” also means mental health, to a degree. If you’re irrationally terrified of this thing you’re not going to do as well. My prescription: Try growing the fuck up and learning to handle fear.
  - Griffinsauce 6y ago
    Please go talk to a doctor who works on the ICU.
    - guscost 6y ago
      Please get out of my business, and stay there.
- amelius 6y ago
  If we can get the virus contained then there is no need to stay in lockdown. Compare with Ebola. They don't have Ebola in Europe. But if it pops up somewhere, we will contain it as soon as possible. It doesn't mean that they need to live in isolation for the rest of time.
  - WoahNoun 6y ago
    People who are spreading ebola tend to be bleeding from their eyeballs. Covid can be spread widely by someone with no symptoms. The transmission of the two viruses are so different that comparing them is extremely misleading.
  - sod 6y ago
    As of https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/ebola/frequently-asked-questions https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/ebola/frequently-as... ebola is not very infectious until you show symptoms. And when you show symtoms (feever, headache, vomitting) you probably won't run into the cinema or restaurant the next day to spread the virus.
  - kinkrtyavimoodh 6y ago
    Ebola couldn't be more different from Corona. Millions of people with Corona are asymptomatic or have mild flu-like symptoms and are therefore easy carriers. OTOH once you have Ebola symptoms (and that's when you are infectious), you have only a coin's flip chance of surviving it. You can be pretty sure no random guy on the street is giving you Ebola. You can't say the same for Corona.
    - lbeltrame 6y ago
      To be honest, the debate is still open on whether the asymptomatic people spread it as much as the people who show symptoms. I haven't been able to find a paper that does not offer more than just circumstantial evidence.
- drstewart 6y ago
  > Lifting the lockdown is not gonna make the virus disappear. Lifting prohibition wasn't going to make alcoholism disappear. Lifting the war on drugs won't make overdoses disappear. There are many things we could do in society to make negative externalities that cause hundreds of thousands or millions of deaths disappear. Yet we don't do those.
  - AQuantized 6y ago
    Do you think that the lockdown actually makes the virus more prevalent? Seems like a strange analogy
  - deleted 6y ago
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- snowwolf 6y ago
  The virus may be around for a few years but surely it is likely we will have an effective vaccine in the next 18 months if not the next 6 at which point the risks will become similar to the flu?
  - redisman 6y ago
    A vaccine has never been developed that quickly so I’m not sure you can say “surely”.
    - snowwolf 6y ago
      A vaccine has never had the resources put behind its development as much as this one before either. Human trials have already started in the US, UK and China which has never happened so quickly either.
      - kinkrtyavimoodh 6y ago
        9 women can't make a baby in one month. I for one don't want to inject myself with something rushed through trials and whose testing was hand-waived away. If anything it only gives the anti-vaxxers more ammunition and brings down the overall credibility of vaccination as a concept, and heaven knows we don't want to deal with that right now.
        riffraff 6y ago
        We develop flu vaccines every year, and we do have knowledge of other coronavirus. I tend to agree that there is some potential for fuckups, but 12-18 months seem reasonable to have most (if not all) of the vaccines as reliable.
        redisman 6y ago
        One thing that's funny is everyone keeps saying 12-18 months. But it's already been 3 months so shouldn't that estimate at the very least be (12 to 18 minus 3) if the confidence was going up.
- IAmEveryone 6y ago
  I‘m in a city of 3.5 Million that saw 15 to 20 new infections per day over the last week (Berlin, Germany). At that level, it’s perfectly possible to mostly open up again and still reduce infections further by extensively tracking every single case and their contacts.
- onlyrealcuzzo 6y ago
  Does anyone have a good idea on what the probability is if you get COVID-19 this year that you will be immune to it next year?
  - 2019-nCoV 6y ago
    Would you like next week's lottery numbers too?
  - nradov 6y ago
    Based on recent animal experiments and past experience with other coronaviruses, the probability of immunity lasting at least 12 months is high. However no one can give you a precise number. https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/05/19/science.abc4776.full https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/05/19/scie...
- newacct583 6y ago
  > Considering that the virus is here to stay for a few years at least, how can we blame them for thinking this way? It has been widely reported since the very beginning of the pandemic that the likely time to develop and deploy a vaccine is on the order of 18 months. Yes, it might be more, it might also be less (quite a few are already in testing!). But the idea that this is permanent has never been a feature of any expert advice nor mainstream reporting. The idea that the people who support lockdowns (which is, let's be clear, almost everyone) want to be shut down forever is, itself, a fever swamp hallucination. Stay home until it's beaten, and then open up slowly so we don't lose control again. Much of the world outside the US and the UK, in fact, is already opening up.
- rurban 6y ago
  Who tells you that? Of course it does disappear, at least until the next winter. Without lockdown much earlier. The problem with London are the aristocratic measures of social distancing. The danger of being caughed at at low distance is exponential. The recommendation is 1-2 meter. The UK did 2m, likely because the ones who came with that idea never use public transport, and want to be safe from the plebs. Face masks don't help at all against direct caughing. only against droplets. 2m distancing doesn't work in public places at all. 1 - 1.5m do work, if in the subway, bus, restaurant, pub somehow. I don't know who else did 2m. And the death mortality is directly proportional to the severity of the measures. Maybe not causal, but those are the numbers. 2m don't help at all. When you are being caughed at, it goes far over 5m, even up to 20m. So social distancing in public places does not help much. indirect caughing via droplets is not that dangerous, transmission via surfaces at very low percentages. there's no known case so far. but hard to prove.
  - vertex-four 6y ago
    Germany did (and is still doing) 2m. I'm actually unaware of anywhere doing 1-1.5m - perhaps the US?
    - travolter 6y ago
      Here in Belgium it's 1.5m
      - vertex-four 6y ago
        Ah, cool. Good luck to you all. :)
    - majewsky 6y ago
      I'm in Germany. Most signs/posters say 1.5 meters.
      - vertex-four 6y ago
        Weird! Where I am in Germany they all say 2 metres.
- random32840 6y ago
  Cambridge recently released a study estimating that 9% or so of the UK population already have antibodies. You only need to get to ~60% and (assuming it doesn't become endemic) you have herd immunity, it doesn't matter that the virus is here to stay.
  - oxfordmale 6y ago
    There is a paper (not peer reviewed) that suggests that herd immunity starts occurring around 20% as long as mass gatherings remain are banned. If true life could go back to normal a lot quicker.
  - pvaldes 6y ago
    We don't even know still if immunity would last for more than a couple of months, it seems that would be a short duration issue in any case, so the herd immunity plan has some loopholes on it.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
throwphoton 6y ago
> I'll be in the pub by the end of the year. Does this mean that you think the risk of serious morbidity or mortality is overestimated, or because you think at some point the reduction in social interaction is worse than the pandemic itself?
- deleted 6y ago
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- joaomacp 6y ago
  both
  - tinus_hn 6y ago
    Not to mention that everyone can see that as in many countries measures are being loosened with little effect.
    - dan-robertson 6y ago
      This is sort of inevitable though: if the disease were not serious and measures were an overreaction, you would see little change as they were lifted. If the disease were serious, measures were effective and they were lifted sufficiently late, you would also hope to not see much difference after they were lifted. The only cases one would expect to see a large increase in cases would be if the measures were ineffective (but then you’d also have seen an increase while the measures were in place) or if the measures were lifted too early. Personally I’m mostly indifferent to whether or not the current restrictions are an overreaction, though I’m in the fortunate position of not being particularly severely affected by them. I would rather an overreaction than an underreaction.
      - tinus_hn 6y ago
        Why would you see a large increase in cases when ineffective measures are lifted? Ineffective measures have no effect.
GuiA 6y ago
> I'll be in the pub by the end of the year. "The war will be over by Christmas."
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  See, it's this kind of thing that makes me worry social distancing proponents aren't confronting reality. Many countries are already opening their pubs; do you really think the UK population or any other population will submit to have them closed until 2021?
  - esotericn 6y ago
    I use the phrase 'mild insanity' because I honestly feel that it's some element of cabin fever that's caused a minority of individuals to become paralyzed in this way. At this point we've gone way beyond any semblance of 'flattening the curve' and gotten stuck because there was no plan to unwind the lockdown.
  - GuiA 6y ago
    You don't know what things will be like by the end of the year. As long as 1) the virus is still around, 2) we do not have a vaccine, 3) we have not reached a certain level of herd immunity, policy making should be based on the day to day data that we have, and about the immediate term. Perhaps the evolution of the situation means that it will be safe to be back in the pub celebrating with your buddies for Christmas. But then again, perhaps not. We don't know. Claiming broad things like "I will be back in the pub by the end of the year" is not about sensible decision making, it's pure emotion and is not what we need right now.
    - deleted 6y ago
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    - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
      I don't agree. It would be a complete abdication of responsibility to not have a concrete plan after months of lockdown.
Reason077 6y ago
> "I'll be in the pub by the end of the year." Some London pubs have already figured out that they can legally sell take away beers in plastic cups. So while you can't sit down inside the pub, everyone stands around in the street outside the pub drinking their "take away" beer.
- 0xFF0123 6y ago
  Presumably they have to be off licenses to do that?
  - 2019-nCoV 6y ago
    It's an open container. Entrances to half the pubs in London are, British weather permitting, perpetually encircled with punters, fag and pint in hand.
- nerfhammer 6y ago
  I've noticed this start to happen in SF. They sell you a drink in a coffee cup with a lid and people stand around on the sidewalk outside. I think it's probably completely illegal, but the opaque cup raises legal barriers to search.
  - chrisseaton 6y ago
    I guess it's likely ok as long as it's an open container - that's how it works in the UK.
ChuckMcM 6y ago
Not sure about 'by the end of the year' but agree with the basic sentiment. The key of course is whether or not the virus can mutate to avoid the immunity provided by antibodies to the current strain. What I've been reading so far, the genetic analysis of its mutations[1] has not suggested that it will. That isn't to say that it won't evolve into something more like the common cold, just that the features that make it SARS appear to me to be locked into specific genetic elements of the current virus (and MERS and SARS-Covid-1). If this trend continues, then the vaccines developed will provide immunity for people and prevent further widespread outbreaks. Covid-19 will become "just like the flu" in that you get a shot for it (possibly only 1 or 2), and your chances of catching it become low enough that even if you are exposed to someone with it, your immune system will kill it. At which point the world goes back pretty much to exactly the way it was before, except that we have experienced a worldwide pandemic in "living memory" and there will be a crap ton of sovereign debt which is going to drag on the various economies of the world for a decade at least. Things to watch for are the results of vaccine trials, and follow the genetic tracking with respect to the virus' use of its 'spike' to infect cells. Good results in vaccines and no change in the virus without also making it just a regular cold virus, and the world goes on. [1] https://www.pnas.org/content/117/17/9241 https://www.pnas.org/content/117/17/9241
- gshdg 6y ago
  It doesn’t even have to mutate if the antibody reaction fades over time, as there is evidence for with other coronaviruses.
  - ChuckMcM 6y ago
    True, if it were an annual vaccine like influenza it wouldn't be a much of a change from our previous lives either though right?
rsynnott 6y ago
> I'll be in the pub by the end of the year. I mean, you might be, but it may not be the pub as you know it. The current Irish plan calls for reopening of pubs in phase 5 (last phase) in late August (I don't think the UK has a concrete plan on this, but it'll likely be similar enough). But it will be pubs with social distancing. EDIT: Looks like UK pubs may be allowed reopen in July, but with social distancing and table service. So, not very pub-like, then.
- esotericn 6y ago
  In the real world, people across the country will be piling in to pubs to socialise (actually socialise, not just 'chat at 2 metres away from a person they already know') and a blind eye will be turned. People will go out, get smashed, snog, dance, hug, etc. If you force them out onto the street they'll do that. Maybe we'll even have a resurgence of good old pub violence. Most pubs can't even support this nonsense - a business with 10% of its' normal capacity is a dead business, there's no point in even opening the doors. I'll accept that the Government _might_ attempt a re-closure after the above happens, but I find that unlikely.
  - lkrubner 6y ago
    "In the real world" This is denial masquerading as cynical realism. Covid-19 cases in the UK continue to increase at 1% or 2% a day. This is much better than the double digit growth of March and early April, but it is still bad. At 2% a day cases double every 5 weeks. Would anyone apply this reasoning to any other disease? Can you imagine anyone saying "We have AIDS under control, cases are only doubling once every 5 weeks." You might say that on the best days, the increase has only been 1%. That's fantastic. As soon as people start going back to the pubs, the rate of spread will again accelerate to something more than 1% a day. Classic psychological denial is clearly operating in force. A textbook case might be the man with pain in his chest and numbness in his left arm but instead of thinking it's a heart attack he keeps thinking "It's nothing, just stress." Denial is in force when things are so grim that people do not feel comfortable facing how grim they are. Some people don't see reality until they are forced to. Some people only have a lucid moment when they are in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. Some people never have a lucid moment, they simply die. In reality, the struggle against Covid-19 will take at least another year and might take two or more years. Things are going to be very bad for a long time. But no doubt, some people won't see that clearly till they've personally known some people who've died. The biggest worldwide increase for this illness was 2 days ago: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-52748894 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-52748894
helsinkiandrew 6y ago
> I'll be in the pub by the end of the year. You maybe, but how many others will? 10-20% less people in pubs, fewer tourists visiting west end shows, banks and other companies using work from home, could have a huge knock on effect on other businesses, property and taxes.
- deleted 6y ago
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- 2019-nCoV 6y ago
  Counterexample: pubs reopened this past weekend in NZ and every venue was at capacity. No tourists, but increased domestic consumption. This will obviously be more pronounced in countries with a greater historic discrepancy between tourism expenditure and receipts. e.g. Spain will no doubt be more effected than NZ, whereas the UK could actually benefit: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/ST.INT.XPND.CD?end=2018&locations=NZ-GB-ES&start=1995&view=chart https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/ST.INT.XPND.CD?end=2018... https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/ST.INT.RCPT.CD?end=2018&locations=NZ-GB-ES&start=1995&view=chart https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/ST.INT.RCPT.CD?end=2018...
  - Gibbon1 6y ago
    Yeah but unlike the US it's possible the the virus is no longer present in NZ.
    - 2019-nCoV 6y ago
      That's thinking too macro. The virus will plausibly be eliminated in the US gradually, e.g. French red/green zones.
      - dan-robertson 6y ago
        Red/green zones or just about any partial/segregated lockdown seems likely to not work. Being in a red zone is worse than being in a green zone so people are incentivised to move from red zones to green zones (if they can). This is not what you want. It seems hard to restrict movement or enforce a strict quarantine in countries that are generally not planned to support restricting movement across internal boundaries.
hanoz 6y ago
> I'll be in the pub by the end of the year. You may be in a pub by the end of the year, but you won't be in a pub at the end of the year, because at that point we'll locked down in the midst of a second wave of coronavirus, with some pent up seasonal flu thrown in for good measure.
- esotericn 6y ago
  Yeah, I reckon that's fairly probable (the lockdown - not the second wave, I think that's inevitable, where the case numbers sit after that is yet to be seen though). I figure we have N waves, with herd immunity building during the process, and an eventual vaccine which may or may not need to be applied across the whole population by that point.
  - deleted 6y ago
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  - dan-robertson 6y ago
    Perhaps seasonal lockdowns will be the new solution to reducing nhs funding while not becoming overrun by flu cases in the winter.
  - gshdg 6y ago
    And if immunity isn’t long lasting? And how many people have to die to reach it?
blhack 6y ago
Im in a pub right now. I just don’t think that people are going to quarantine any longer. Almost no matter how bad it gets, I think people care about social interaction above almost all else even their own safety. Now that said: I’m in a bar that is only outdoors, it’s sunny, there is a breeze, and the closest person is 15 feet away. Everybody is wearing a mask who isn’t eating, everything is getting washed and sanitized. People will find a way to keep doing this, and it isn’t going to be VR or zoom calls. It’s going to be real in person experiences where you can see other people’s faces.
- xyzzy_plugh 6y ago
  Preface: I'm glad you're in a pub. I wish I could be! Sounds nice, masks and all. > Almost no matter how bad it gets, I think people care about social interaction above almost all else even their own safety. Ultimately, my struggle is that I don't understand this. I don't value social interaction this way, and most of my close family and friends don't either (though it's far closer to 50/50 than I am comfortable with). Ultimately people are irrational. People want to be masters of their own destiny. Is it illegal to go outside? Am I going to get in trouble? So long as people can act without consequence, they will. With a deadly virus that spreads so silently, I really fear for humanity here. The fools will be the end of us all. The only hope of real consequence is contract tracing and frankly, I don't think the majority of people want contract tracing to even work, especially Americans, who value their liberties to such extremes. People would rather kill anonymously without consequence. This all makes me so sad.
  - Noos 6y ago
    If it helps, think of social interaction like sunshine. If you could only be safe by never ever going out into the sun, at all, for a year or more, could you do it? Social interaction is like this, it warms people up, makes them healthier, and people feel the loss when they can't, yes, even introverts.
    - xyzzy_plugh 6y ago
      I could probably avoid the sun forever. I don't have some innate requirement to be exposed to the sun to survive, or to enjoy life.
SirHound 6y ago
I’d like to believe you’re right about the end of the year, personally I don’t think things will be “normal” for a bit longer. But yeah, the “rest of time” is a very long time, and these theories forget how quickly we adapted to this in the first place. It’s reversible.
- esotericn 6y ago
  My leading theory at the moment is that we're going to see some sort of huge societal fissure. It already seems to be happening - there's a massive ideological split between the group that wants to minimise risk at all cost, and the group that is willing to die to live a normal life.
narrator 6y ago
You need to check with an app before you can get within 6 feet of a stranger. You want to make physical contact, that's going to be $20/months for 3 checks a month. Each person you get close to will increase your chance of getting hauled off to contact tracing quarantine. You'll also need a properly isolated location for 9 months if you want to get your wife pregnant. Population control advocates will be ecstatic.
deleted 6y ago
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chvid 6y ago
I can tell you how it is in Copenhagen (which has lifted many restrictions within the last two weeks); there are people at the pubs, at the high street, and in the metro. It is not crowded as it used to be and it is a noticeable younger crowd. But people do come back.
lanevorockz 6y ago
It’s just normal to go insane when isolated from the world. Only the newer generation that lives digital lives. This lockdown forced me to open social media accounts and that only made thing worse. I am glad that I have so many hobbies to dive or else I would have gone insane.
cylinder 6y ago
it's amazing how Very Smart People(TM) can't seem to think past 1-2 months ahead. That said, I was always a germophobe and always practiced social distancing on the train whenever I could so I support this.
mrmonkeyman 6y ago
I'm one of the lucky ones that enjoys not being physically near people. Never gave it much thought, but now I actually feel better. Interesting.
SideburnsOfDoom 6y ago
> I'll be in the pub by the end of the year. Until there is either a vaccine that I have taken, or a complete eradication of the COVID-19 in London; then "the pub" or any other voluntary gathering of strangers in close quarters is an unnecessary risk that I will not be taking. That is the reality of our situation. You have to face up to it, disbelieving it does not help anyone.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  I think everyone is facing up to it. It's likely to be a risk, and you're free to not take it, but the rest of us can't be expected to follow your extreme risk aversion for years.
  - SideburnsOfDoom 6y ago
    It's an extreme situation, so an "extreme risk aversion" response is actually proportionate. The problem with the thinking of "you do that, I'll do otherwise" is that with an infectious disease, what our neighbours do impacts us. To germs, there really is such a thing as human society.
    - esotericn 6y ago
      It bears repeating again - as responsible individuals, we can handle lock down for a few months. It's a reasonable thing to do given the uncertainty of the situation. We won't do it for years - that's a delusion, a fantasy that ignores how the human mind works. It sounds like you don't want to take the risk of either contracting, or further spreading, the disease. No-one _wants_ to take that risk. But if the only alternative that you can suggest is deleting 1, 2, ... years of the prime of my life, staring at screens or meeting friends behind plexiglass, you've lost me completely, because you're describing the actions of a paperclip maximizer, not a human being. You're impacting others by expecting them to give up their lives. In that world view, either I'm autistic or you are; we don't have the same brain chemistry; your experience of the world is _so far_ from my own and most people I know that a blanket policy for both of us makes no sense.
deleted 6y ago
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kinkrtyavimoodh 6y ago

Considering that the virus is here to stay for a few years at least, how can we blame them for thinking this way? Lifting the lockdown is not gonna make the virus disappear.

650REDHAIR 6y ago
Out of sight out of mind. I returned a bike yesterday in North Beach (SF) and people were crowded together. Maybe half of the people were wearing masks. There was a 4 piece street band walking around playing brass instruments like it was a carnival.
- tjr225 6y ago
  And yet every single one of those people is going to be just fine.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - dkdk8283 6y ago
    In my state you aren’t shamed for not wearing a mask, thankfully.
    - jshaqaw 6y ago
      My family has already had Covid-19. We wear masks to not be jerks and make others fearful or uncomfortable because we can’t be bothered to put a simple article of clothing on.
    - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
      Come on, just wear a mask. Why would you resist it as though it's something to be proud of? Even if the only thing that it does is make other people feel safe, that's a good enough reason.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - vorpalhex 6y ago
        Well the same reason you don't share your email with the FBI and agree to be monitored at all times. I wear a mask, and I choose to wear a mask. I also wore a mask before it was "supported" by the CDC. If tomorrow it was legally required, I would stop wearing a mask.
        kilroy_jones 6y ago
        If they had made it a temporary law and fined people heavily at the very beginning it would have saved thousands of lives and jobs. Look at the countries that acted swiftly back in January and February.
        vorpalhex 6y ago
        In the US, legal requirements would have been met with more resistance and people not wearing masks intentionally and probably civil unrest. Sometimes asking is better than demanding. Texas asked and had excellent compliance. Michigan demanded and had angry protestors.
        kilroy_jones 6y ago
  - fcurts 6y ago
    Except for the ones that will end up fighting the worst illness in their lifetime. It may not be them but their parents or grandparents.
    - tjr225 6y ago
      Maybe, maybe not.
      - fcurts 6y ago
        "Maybe" at individual level becomes "certainly" at city, state, or nation level.
    - ACow_Adonis 6y ago
      You ever had/lived with multiple relatives going with cancer or Alzheimer's. I'm sure it's un-PC to say it, but Covid is a relative cakewalk in comparison...
      - esotericimpl 6y ago
        What if your Alzheimer’s parent died of Covid. Should we assume this is a cakewalk for me? Stop acting callous.
      - Aeolun 6y ago
        Depends, if you’re 70 and diagnosed with cancer, you may still have a few years or recover completely. If you are diagnosed with covid you have a pretty high chance of being dead before a month has passed.
        tinus_hn 6y ago
        If you are 70 and get Covid-19 you have a 90% chance of recovering. You make it sound like you have a 90% chance of dying which is an extreme exaggeration.
        6y ago
  - roelschroeven 6y ago
    Even if that is true, it is missing the point. Avoiding infection is not just for your own good; more importantly, keeping the speed of the virus spreading down is for protecting everybody. And what you say isn't even true. Plenty of healthy young people get very very sick. The percentages are lower than for older and/or less healthy people, but the numbers are still significant. Don't think you're invulnerable, cause you're not. Don't think that if you get no or only mild symptoms, no harm is done. Think about the other people you have unknowingly infected, and how you've contributed to the spread of the virus. (Where 'you' = the generic 'you', not you personally).
    - tinus_hn 6y ago
      So what are the numbers if they are significant?
    - krona 6y ago
      Avoiding infection is not just for your own good; more importantly, keeping the speed of the virus spreading down is for protecting everybody. Twas ever thus. Norovirus kills 200,000 people every year, and yet we don't close entire cities every time there's an outbreak.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - ben_w 6y ago
        IIRC, noro is too infectious for a lockdown to work, even though you can only catch it from the… emissions… when the patient goes off at both ends.
      - rsynnott 6y ago
        > Norovirus kills 200,000 people every year That's true, but it kills very few people in the developed world. Deaths from norovirus are mostly a result of inadequate treatment, and/or lack of detection. And, frankly, if covid was only going to kill 200k people, we probably wouldn't be closing anything much. It has already killed almost 350k people, and that's _with_ most countries imposing variously draconian measures.
  - simonh 6y ago
    People were saying that in New York in February and going to street parties. A month later the hospitals were overwhelmed. I think it is reasonable to ease restrictions when case numbers fall. Hopefully enough people will maintain distance and minimise unnecessary contact to slow it spreading and keep the pressure off the hospitals. However free riders recklessly endangering themselves, others and health care staff should be ashamed of themselves.
    - xkapastel 6y ago
      I live in New York and I'm under the impression the hospitals were never overwhelmed. That was the fear, but it didn't actually happen. They also thought they would run out of ventilators, but never came close to using all of them, started giving them away to other states, and then discovered that ventilators were not actually a good treatment anyway.
      - Retric 6y ago
        NYC hospitals increased capacity dramatically, with people treated huge wards and some sent to temporary facilities. That’s what being overwhelmed looks like, it’s not a binary condition just a decrease in the average quality of care. In terms of ventilators many people where kept off of ventilators who would have been given them in normal conditions. That was likely a good thing as ventilators have huge risks associated with their use, but things where a long way from ok. That said, the lockdown likely prevented a much worse situation at local hospitals.
        redis_mlc 6y ago
        > In terms of ventilators many people where kept off of ventilators who would have been given them in normal conditions. Sadly, that wasn't the case in NY. Even though Chinese doctors warned of the risks of ventilators in Jan/Feb, the US ignored that. There were 2 reasons: 1) intubating patients protected staff from aerosolization after the intubation 2) old understanding of oxygen levels led doctors to intubate way too early for corona.
      - 6y ago
- analog31 6y ago
  I play in a jazz band, and one of the first things that came to mind when the lockdown started was standing next to the all of the horn players blowing their spit all over the place. Fortunately, both our rehearsal and performance spaces shut down before we had to decide as a group whether to continue operating.
  - sandworm101 6y ago
    >> standing next to the all of the horn players blowing their spit all over the place. That's an aspect of the universal 6-foot rule that everyone seems to forget. It originally appeared as advice for business (restaurants). You don't want to sit too close to someone else in still air. But if we are spitting, singing, shouting, coughing, panting, playing in a Jazz band, or are simply downwind of someone, that 6-foot distance is probably not enough. Airlines have basically said as much about their cabins. If the air is being circulated artificially in a closed environment, specific measured distances are probably irrelevant.
    - nradov 6y ago
      The "universal 6-foot rule" is anything but universal. Other countries have recommended 1m, 1.5m, 2m, etc. The distance rules are almost entirely arbitrary and not based on sound science.
      - chimprich 6y ago
        Distances can be both arbitrary and based on sound science. You can scientifically determine that your chances of infecting someone at 1.5m and 2m are e.g. 40% and 50%, but you still have to pick one to recommend.
        nradov 6y ago
        No one has scientifically determined the infection risk at various distances. Such an experiment with human subjects would never pass ethical review due to the serious risk. Some scientists have created mathematical models of virion distribution, but those models are basically a joke and don't appear to align with observed reality. I do appreciate that public health authorities have to make clear and simple recommendations to avoid confusing people. But let's not pretend there is anything scientific about it.
- TomK32 6y ago
  Wearing masks outside when you are not close to someone from outside your bubble isn't necessary. The virus needs close human contacts for several minutes to spread successfully. On the outside you have wind and other positive factors.
  - hellofunk 6y ago
    There have been plenty of reports of infection with far less than a few minutes of close contact. Proximity to a single cough can do it.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
bdamm 6y ago
Eventually we will have herd immunity, a weakened virus, a vaccine, reduced pressure on health care facilities, or all four. At some point we'll be back in the airport bar. There may be a few waves before we get there, but get there we will. This social isolation will not go on, it is not the new normal.
- marcell 6y ago
  FWIW, in most of the US and Europe there is no pressure on healthcare facilities. Most hospitals are seeing lower than normal utilization, primarily from non-Covid cases. Edit: as an example, my county (Santa Clara) is using under 10% of hospital beds for Covid. This is typical, check your county dashboard if they have one and you are likely to see a similar number. Source: https://www.sccgov.org/sites/covid19/Pages/dashboard.aspx#hospital https://www.sccgov.org/sites/covid19/Pages/dashboard.aspx#ho...
  - ithkuil 6y ago
    See reverse Tinkerbell effect
  - hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
    My take is that what happened in Northern Italy freaked out the world, but it was actually rather unique. Very high density coupled with lots of intergenerational living. One reason Sweden's approach may work out in the end is they have the highest proportion of single person households of any country on Earth.
    - kgwgk 6y ago
      > what happened in Northern Italy freaked out the world, but it was actually rather unique Was it? NYC has reported more deaths than Lombardy (with less population) and NY/NJ as many deaths as Italy with half the population.
      - xamuel 6y ago
        The high death count in NY/NJ is probably related to the fact that in both states, the governors ordered that nursing homes not be permitted to refuse coronavirus patients.
matz1 6y ago
The virus is not gonna disappear but it doesn't mean you are going to be infected as well. If you do infected, doesn't mean you are going to have the symptom. If you do have the symptom, doesn't mean you are going to have severe symptom. If you do have severe symptom, doesn't mean you are going to require hospitalization.
- kinkrtyavimoodh 6y ago
  Then why are we doing any lockdowns at all? If most of the young are near-safe, we should have just isolated the 60+ and kept society running as usual for the rest. Clearly a lot of people are not willing to take the risk of contracting the virus.
  - hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
    That is an excellent question, and essentially exactly the argument Sweden is making. TBH, I have yet to hear a decent argument against this, given the following thoughts: 1. Development of a vaccine will take a minimum of 12 months, more like 18. 2. It is not feasible, either for democracy or our economy, to stay locked in/sheltered at home for this long. 3. Thus, the main concern should be to "flatten the curve": keep the infection rate low enough so that, even though people still get infected, hospital systems don't get overwhelmed. I think it's important to note that the only places yet that have had overwhelmed (or close to it) hospital systems had extreme density (Wuhan, NYC), often coupled with lots of mixing of young and old (Northern Italy). 4. A corollary to number 3 is that as long as hospital systems aren't overwhelmed, or close to it, that you shouldn't lock down further. The belief is that the majority of society becoming infected within 12/18 months is inevitable, so extreme lockdowns will do little beyond push deaths out a bit. 5. Do everything you can to protect the highly vulnerable (old, immuno-compromised) as they appear to be at exponential greater risk. I mean, as the US starts to open up, it is quite clear the virus has not been contained, so for better or for worse the above is the approach we are taking as well.
    - cma 6y ago
      Sweden is 6th worst in deaths per capita in the world among non-microstates, and still isn't very close to herd immunity.
metreo 6y ago
I guess we've lost sight of how important early containment is and the reality that once the virus is in the wild it's essentially a force of nature.
jinushaun 6y ago
Not years, but decades. However, I think the virus will hit an equilibrium state sooner than we expect because there will be less of an appetite for lockdowns when the fall/winter wave hits. Covid deaths will be seasonal but not headline news.
- bhouston 6y ago
  Virus also evolve to be less deadly I understand. Thus Covid19 becomes more like the common cold over time. How much time required? I don't know that.
  - gberger 6y ago
    Interesting, I hadn't heard about this. Do you mind sharing the reasoning around this?
    - notadog 6y ago
      This article from The Scientist provides an overview of why it happened in a rabbit population: https://www.the-scientist.com/features/do-pathogens-gain-virulence-as-hosts-become-more-resistant-30219 https://www.the-scientist.com/features/do-pathogens-gain-vir... > The question Fenner asked was: What happens when such a virulent virus spreads through a very susceptible host species on a continental scale? He focused on two possibilities. First, the highly lethal virus might evolve to become less lethal. Second, the highly susceptible rabbits might evolve resistance. Thanks to Fenner, we now know both happened. > The work showed that the almost invariably lethal progenitor virus strain was replaced within a few years by strains with case fatality rates of 70 percent to 95 percent. Some field isolates killed fewer than half the lab rabbits. Over the next few decades, things settled down, and strains at both ends of the lethality spectrum become increasingly difficult to find. Fenner showed why. The highly lethal progenitor virus killed rabbits so fast that its infectious period was shorter than that of the less lethal viral mutants. That meant that the less lethal strains were able to infect more new victims and spread throughout the population.
      - 6y ago
guscost 6y ago
For healthy people it’s about as dangerous as any other cold, the data are in. Most people will simply refuse to put their lives on indefinite suspension once they discover this fact. The mass psychosis will end soon. By the way “healthy” also means mental health, to a degree. If you’re irrationally terrified of this thing you’re not going to do as well. My prescription: Try growing the fuck up and learning to handle fear.
- Griffinsauce 6y ago
  Please go talk to a doctor who works on the ICU.
  - guscost 6y ago
    Please get out of my business, and stay there.
amelius 6y ago
If we can get the virus contained then there is no need to stay in lockdown. Compare with Ebola. They don't have Ebola in Europe. But if it pops up somewhere, we will contain it as soon as possible. It doesn't mean that they need to live in isolation for the rest of time.
- WoahNoun 6y ago
  People who are spreading ebola tend to be bleeding from their eyeballs. Covid can be spread widely by someone with no symptoms. The transmission of the two viruses are so different that comparing them is extremely misleading.
- sod 6y ago
  As of https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/ebola/frequently-asked-questions https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/ebola/frequently-as... ebola is not very infectious until you show symptoms. And when you show symtoms (feever, headache, vomitting) you probably won't run into the cinema or restaurant the next day to spread the virus.
- kinkrtyavimoodh 6y ago
  Ebola couldn't be more different from Corona. Millions of people with Corona are asymptomatic or have mild flu-like symptoms and are therefore easy carriers. OTOH once you have Ebola symptoms (and that's when you are infectious), you have only a coin's flip chance of surviving it. You can be pretty sure no random guy on the street is giving you Ebola. You can't say the same for Corona.
  - lbeltrame 6y ago
    To be honest, the debate is still open on whether the asymptomatic people spread it as much as the people who show symptoms. I haven't been able to find a paper that does not offer more than just circumstantial evidence.
drstewart 6y ago
> Lifting the lockdown is not gonna make the virus disappear. Lifting prohibition wasn't going to make alcoholism disappear. Lifting the war on drugs won't make overdoses disappear. There are many things we could do in society to make negative externalities that cause hundreds of thousands or millions of deaths disappear. Yet we don't do those.
- AQuantized 6y ago
  Do you think that the lockdown actually makes the virus more prevalent? Seems like a strange analogy
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
snowwolf 6y ago
The virus may be around for a few years but surely it is likely we will have an effective vaccine in the next 18 months if not the next 6 at which point the risks will become similar to the flu?
- redisman 6y ago
  A vaccine has never been developed that quickly so I’m not sure you can say “surely”.
  - snowwolf 6y ago
    A vaccine has never had the resources put behind its development as much as this one before either. Human trials have already started in the US, UK and China which has never happened so quickly either.
    - kinkrtyavimoodh 6y ago
      9 women can't make a baby in one month. I for one don't want to inject myself with something rushed through trials and whose testing was hand-waived away. If anything it only gives the anti-vaxxers more ammunition and brings down the overall credibility of vaccination as a concept, and heaven knows we don't want to deal with that right now.
      - riffraff 6y ago
        We develop flu vaccines every year, and we do have knowledge of other coronavirus. I tend to agree that there is some potential for fuckups, but 12-18 months seem reasonable to have most (if not all) of the vaccines as reliable.
        redisman 6y ago
        One thing that's funny is everyone keeps saying 12-18 months. But it's already been 3 months so shouldn't that estimate at the very least be (12 to 18 minus 3) if the confidence was going up.
IAmEveryone 6y ago
I‘m in a city of 3.5 Million that saw 15 to 20 new infections per day over the last week (Berlin, Germany). At that level, it’s perfectly possible to mostly open up again and still reduce infections further by extensively tracking every single case and their contacts.
onlyrealcuzzo 6y ago
Does anyone have a good idea on what the probability is if you get COVID-19 this year that you will be immune to it next year?
- 2019-nCoV 6y ago
  Would you like next week's lottery numbers too?
- nradov 6y ago
  Based on recent animal experiments and past experience with other coronaviruses, the probability of immunity lasting at least 12 months is high. However no one can give you a precise number. https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/05/19/science.abc4776.full https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/05/19/scie...
newacct583 6y ago
> Considering that the virus is here to stay for a few years at least, how can we blame them for thinking this way? It has been widely reported since the very beginning of the pandemic that the likely time to develop and deploy a vaccine is on the order of 18 months. Yes, it might be more, it might also be less (quite a few are already in testing!). But the idea that this is permanent has never been a feature of any expert advice nor mainstream reporting. The idea that the people who support lockdowns (which is, let's be clear, almost everyone) want to be shut down forever is, itself, a fever swamp hallucination. Stay home until it's beaten, and then open up slowly so we don't lose control again. Much of the world outside the US and the UK, in fact, is already opening up.
rurban 6y ago
Who tells you that? Of course it does disappear, at least until the next winter. Without lockdown much earlier. The problem with London are the aristocratic measures of social distancing. The danger of being caughed at at low distance is exponential. The recommendation is 1-2 meter. The UK did 2m, likely because the ones who came with that idea never use public transport, and want to be safe from the plebs. Face masks don't help at all against direct caughing. only against droplets. 2m distancing doesn't work in public places at all. 1 - 1.5m do work, if in the subway, bus, restaurant, pub somehow. I don't know who else did 2m. And the death mortality is directly proportional to the severity of the measures. Maybe not causal, but those are the numbers. 2m don't help at all. When you are being caughed at, it goes far over 5m, even up to 20m. So social distancing in public places does not help much. indirect caughing via droplets is not that dangerous, transmission via surfaces at very low percentages. there's no known case so far. but hard to prove.
- vertex-four 6y ago
  Germany did (and is still doing) 2m. I'm actually unaware of anywhere doing 1-1.5m - perhaps the US?
  - travolter 6y ago
    Here in Belgium it's 1.5m
    - vertex-four 6y ago
      Ah, cool. Good luck to you all. :)
  - majewsky 6y ago
    I'm in Germany. Most signs/posters say 1.5 meters.
    - vertex-four 6y ago
      Weird! Where I am in Germany they all say 2 metres.
random32840 6y ago
Cambridge recently released a study estimating that 9% or so of the UK population already have antibodies. You only need to get to ~60% and (assuming it doesn't become endemic) you have herd immunity, it doesn't matter that the virus is here to stay.
- oxfordmale 6y ago
  There is a paper (not peer reviewed) that suggests that herd immunity starts occurring around 20% as long as mass gatherings remain are banned. If true life could go back to normal a lot quicker.
- pvaldes 6y ago
  We don't even know still if immunity would last for more than a couple of months, it seems that would be a short duration issue in any case, so the herd immunity plan has some loopholes on it.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]

throwphoton 6y ago

> I'll be in the pub by the end of the year. Does this mean that you think the risk of serious morbidity or mortality is overestimated, or because you think at some point the reduction in social interaction is worse than the pandemic itself?

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
joaomacp 6y ago
both
- tinus_hn 6y ago
  Not to mention that everyone can see that as in many countries measures are being loosened with little effect.
  - dan-robertson 6y ago
    This is sort of inevitable though: if the disease were not serious and measures were an overreaction, you would see little change as they were lifted. If the disease were serious, measures were effective and they were lifted sufficiently late, you would also hope to not see much difference after they were lifted. The only cases one would expect to see a large increase in cases would be if the measures were ineffective (but then you’d also have seen an increase while the measures were in place) or if the measures were lifted too early. Personally I’m mostly indifferent to whether or not the current restrictions are an overreaction, though I’m in the fortunate position of not being particularly severely affected by them. I would rather an overreaction than an underreaction.
    - tinus_hn 6y ago
      Why would you see a large increase in cases when ineffective measures are lifted? Ineffective measures have no effect.

GuiA 6y ago

> I'll be in the pub by the end of the year. "The war will be over by Christmas."

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
See, it's this kind of thing that makes me worry social distancing proponents aren't confronting reality. Many countries are already opening their pubs; do you really think the UK population or any other population will submit to have them closed until 2021?
- esotericn 6y ago
  I use the phrase 'mild insanity' because I honestly feel that it's some element of cabin fever that's caused a minority of individuals to become paralyzed in this way. At this point we've gone way beyond any semblance of 'flattening the curve' and gotten stuck because there was no plan to unwind the lockdown.
- GuiA 6y ago
  You don't know what things will be like by the end of the year. As long as 1) the virus is still around, 2) we do not have a vaccine, 3) we have not reached a certain level of herd immunity, policy making should be based on the day to day data that we have, and about the immediate term. Perhaps the evolution of the situation means that it will be safe to be back in the pub celebrating with your buddies for Christmas. But then again, perhaps not. We don't know. Claiming broad things like "I will be back in the pub by the end of the year" is not about sensible decision making, it's pure emotion and is not what we need right now.
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  - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
    I don't agree. It would be a complete abdication of responsibility to not have a concrete plan after months of lockdown.

Reason077 6y ago

> "I'll be in the pub by the end of the year." Some London pubs have already figured out that they can legally sell take away beers in plastic cups. So while you can't sit down inside the pub, everyone stands around in the street outside the pub drinking their "take away" beer.

0xFF0123 6y ago
Presumably they have to be off licenses to do that?
- 2019-nCoV 6y ago
  It's an open container. Entrances to half the pubs in London are, British weather permitting, perpetually encircled with punters, fag and pint in hand.
nerfhammer 6y ago
I've noticed this start to happen in SF. They sell you a drink in a coffee cup with a lid and people stand around on the sidewalk outside. I think it's probably completely illegal, but the opaque cup raises legal barriers to search.
- chrisseaton 6y ago
  I guess it's likely ok as long as it's an open container - that's how it works in the UK.

ChuckMcM 6y ago

Not sure about 'by the end of the year' but agree with the basic sentiment. The key of course is whether or not the virus can mutate to avoid the immunity provided by antibodies to the current strain. What I've been reading so far, the genetic analysis of its mutations[1] has not suggested that it will. That isn't to say that it won't evolve into something more like the common cold, just that the features that make it SARS appear to me to be locked into specific genetic elements of the current virus (and MERS and SARS-Covid-1). If this trend continues, then the vaccines developed will provide immunity for people and prevent further widespread outbreaks. Covid-19 will become "just like the flu" in that you get a shot for it (possibly only 1 or 2), and your chances of catching it become low enough that even if you are exposed to someone with it, your immune system will kill it. At which point the world goes back pretty much to exactly the way it was before, except that we have experienced a worldwide pandemic in "living memory" and there will be a crap ton of sovereign debt which is going to drag on the various economies of the world for a decade at least. Things to watch for are the results of vaccine trials, and follow the genetic tracking with respect to the virus' use of its 'spike' to infect cells. Good results in vaccines and no change in the virus without also making it just a regular cold virus, and the world goes on. [1] https://www.pnas.org/content/117/17/9241 https://www.pnas.org/content/117/17/9241

gshdg 6y ago
It doesn’t even have to mutate if the antibody reaction fades over time, as there is evidence for with other coronaviruses.
- ChuckMcM 6y ago
  True, if it were an annual vaccine like influenza it wouldn't be a much of a change from our previous lives either though right?

rsynnott 6y ago

> I'll be in the pub by the end of the year. I mean, you might be, but it may not be the pub as you know it. The current Irish plan calls for reopening of pubs in phase 5 (last phase) in late August (I don't think the UK has a concrete plan on this, but it'll likely be similar enough). But it will be pubs with social distancing. EDIT: Looks like UK pubs may be allowed reopen in July, but with social distancing and table service. So, not very pub-like, then.

esotericn 6y ago
In the real world, people across the country will be piling in to pubs to socialise (actually socialise, not just 'chat at 2 metres away from a person they already know') and a blind eye will be turned. People will go out, get smashed, snog, dance, hug, etc. If you force them out onto the street they'll do that. Maybe we'll even have a resurgence of good old pub violence. Most pubs can't even support this nonsense - a business with 10% of its' normal capacity is a dead business, there's no point in even opening the doors. I'll accept that the Government _might_ attempt a re-closure after the above happens, but I find that unlikely.
- lkrubner 6y ago
  "In the real world" This is denial masquerading as cynical realism. Covid-19 cases in the UK continue to increase at 1% or 2% a day. This is much better than the double digit growth of March and early April, but it is still bad. At 2% a day cases double every 5 weeks. Would anyone apply this reasoning to any other disease? Can you imagine anyone saying "We have AIDS under control, cases are only doubling once every 5 weeks." You might say that on the best days, the increase has only been 1%. That's fantastic. As soon as people start going back to the pubs, the rate of spread will again accelerate to something more than 1% a day. Classic psychological denial is clearly operating in force. A textbook case might be the man with pain in his chest and numbness in his left arm but instead of thinking it's a heart attack he keeps thinking "It's nothing, just stress." Denial is in force when things are so grim that people do not feel comfortable facing how grim they are. Some people don't see reality until they are forced to. Some people only have a lucid moment when they are in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. Some people never have a lucid moment, they simply die. In reality, the struggle against Covid-19 will take at least another year and might take two or more years. Things are going to be very bad for a long time. But no doubt, some people won't see that clearly till they've personally known some people who've died. The biggest worldwide increase for this illness was 2 days ago: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-52748894 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-52748894

helsinkiandrew 6y ago

> I'll be in the pub by the end of the year. You maybe, but how many others will? 10-20% less people in pubs, fewer tourists visiting west end shows, banks and other companies using work from home, could have a huge knock on effect on other businesses, property and taxes.

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2019-nCoV 6y ago
Counterexample: pubs reopened this past weekend in NZ and every venue was at capacity. No tourists, but increased domestic consumption. This will obviously be more pronounced in countries with a greater historic discrepancy between tourism expenditure and receipts. e.g. Spain will no doubt be more effected than NZ, whereas the UK could actually benefit: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/ST.INT.XPND.CD?end=2018&locations=NZ-GB-ES&start=1995&view=chart https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/ST.INT.XPND.CD?end=2018... https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/ST.INT.RCPT.CD?end=2018&locations=NZ-GB-ES&start=1995&view=chart https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/ST.INT.RCPT.CD?end=2018...
- Gibbon1 6y ago
  Yeah but unlike the US it's possible the the virus is no longer present in NZ.
  - 2019-nCoV 6y ago
    That's thinking too macro. The virus will plausibly be eliminated in the US gradually, e.g. French red/green zones.
    - dan-robertson 6y ago
      Red/green zones or just about any partial/segregated lockdown seems likely to not work. Being in a red zone is worse than being in a green zone so people are incentivised to move from red zones to green zones (if they can). This is not what you want. It seems hard to restrict movement or enforce a strict quarantine in countries that are generally not planned to support restricting movement across internal boundaries.

hanoz 6y ago

> I'll be in the pub by the end of the year. You may be in a pub by the end of the year, but you won't be in a pub at the end of the year, because at that point we'll locked down in the midst of a second wave of coronavirus, with some pent up seasonal flu thrown in for good measure.

esotericn 6y ago
Yeah, I reckon that's fairly probable (the lockdown - not the second wave, I think that's inevitable, where the case numbers sit after that is yet to be seen though). I figure we have N waves, with herd immunity building during the process, and an eventual vaccine which may or may not need to be applied across the whole population by that point.
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- dan-robertson 6y ago
  Perhaps seasonal lockdowns will be the new solution to reducing nhs funding while not becoming overrun by flu cases in the winter.
- gshdg 6y ago
  And if immunity isn’t long lasting? And how many people have to die to reach it?

blhack 6y ago

Im in a pub right now. I just don’t think that people are going to quarantine any longer. Almost no matter how bad it gets, I think people care about social interaction above almost all else even their own safety. Now that said: I’m in a bar that is only outdoors, it’s sunny, there is a breeze, and the closest person is 15 feet away. Everybody is wearing a mask who isn’t eating, everything is getting washed and sanitized. People will find a way to keep doing this, and it isn’t going to be VR or zoom calls. It’s going to be real in person experiences where you can see other people’s faces.

xyzzy_plugh 6y ago
Preface: I'm glad you're in a pub. I wish I could be! Sounds nice, masks and all. > Almost no matter how bad it gets, I think people care about social interaction above almost all else even their own safety. Ultimately, my struggle is that I don't understand this. I don't value social interaction this way, and most of my close family and friends don't either (though it's far closer to 50/50 than I am comfortable with). Ultimately people are irrational. People want to be masters of their own destiny. Is it illegal to go outside? Am I going to get in trouble? So long as people can act without consequence, they will. With a deadly virus that spreads so silently, I really fear for humanity here. The fools will be the end of us all. The only hope of real consequence is contract tracing and frankly, I don't think the majority of people want contract tracing to even work, especially Americans, who value their liberties to such extremes. People would rather kill anonymously without consequence. This all makes me so sad.
- Noos 6y ago
  If it helps, think of social interaction like sunshine. If you could only be safe by never ever going out into the sun, at all, for a year or more, could you do it? Social interaction is like this, it warms people up, makes them healthier, and people feel the loss when they can't, yes, even introverts.
  - xyzzy_plugh 6y ago
    I could probably avoid the sun forever. I don't have some innate requirement to be exposed to the sun to survive, or to enjoy life.

SirHound 6y ago

I’d like to believe you’re right about the end of the year, personally I don’t think things will be “normal” for a bit longer. But yeah, the “rest of time” is a very long time, and these theories forget how quickly we adapted to this in the first place. It’s reversible.

esotericn 6y ago
My leading theory at the moment is that we're going to see some sort of huge societal fissure. It already seems to be happening - there's a massive ideological split between the group that wants to minimise risk at all cost, and the group that is willing to die to live a normal life.

narrator 6y ago

You need to check with an app before you can get within 6 feet of a stranger. You want to make physical contact, that's going to be $20/months for 3 checks a month. Each person you get close to will increase your chance of getting hauled off to contact tracing quarantine. You'll also need a properly isolated location for 9 months if you want to get your wife pregnant. Population control advocates will be ecstatic.

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chvid 6y ago

I can tell you how it is in Copenhagen (which has lifted many restrictions within the last two weeks); there are people at the pubs, at the high street, and in the metro. It is not crowded as it used to be and it is a noticeable younger crowd. But people do come back.

lanevorockz 6y ago

It’s just normal to go insane when isolated from the world. Only the newer generation that lives digital lives. This lockdown forced me to open social media accounts and that only made thing worse. I am glad that I have so many hobbies to dive or else I would have gone insane.

cylinder 6y ago

it's amazing how Very Smart People(TM) can't seem to think past 1-2 months ahead. That said, I was always a germophobe and always practiced social distancing on the train whenever I could so I support this.

mrmonkeyman 6y ago

I'm one of the lucky ones that enjoys not being physically near people. Never gave it much thought, but now I actually feel better. Interesting.

SideburnsOfDoom 6y ago

> I'll be in the pub by the end of the year. Until there is either a vaccine that I have taken, or a complete eradication of the COVID-19 in London; then "the pub" or any other voluntary gathering of strangers in close quarters is an unnecessary risk that I will not be taking. That is the reality of our situation. You have to face up to it, disbelieving it does not help anyone.

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
I think everyone is facing up to it. It's likely to be a risk, and you're free to not take it, but the rest of us can't be expected to follow your extreme risk aversion for years.
- SideburnsOfDoom 6y ago
  It's an extreme situation, so an "extreme risk aversion" response is actually proportionate. The problem with the thinking of "you do that, I'll do otherwise" is that with an infectious disease, what our neighbours do impacts us. To germs, there really is such a thing as human society.
  - esotericn 6y ago
    It bears repeating again - as responsible individuals, we can handle lock down for a few months. It's a reasonable thing to do given the uncertainty of the situation. We won't do it for years - that's a delusion, a fantasy that ignores how the human mind works. It sounds like you don't want to take the risk of either contracting, or further spreading, the disease. No-one _wants_ to take that risk. But if the only alternative that you can suggest is deleting 1, 2, ... years of the prime of my life, staring at screens or meeting friends behind plexiglass, you've lost me completely, because you're describing the actions of a paperclip maximizer, not a human being. You're impacting others by expecting them to give up their lives. In that world view, either I'm autistic or you are; we don't have the same brain chemistry; your experience of the world is _so far_ from my own and most people I know that a blanket policy for both of us makes no sense.

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