7 ms·

Someone better come up with one. I don't want another year of this bull.

• djsumdog 6y ago
  It's unlikely. I'm much more likely fatalities will drop to zero per week before the end of the year in countries with high spread and we'll have herd immunity (which is where Sweden is at now).
  • 0x1A567BBF 6y ago
    Sweden is nowhere close to achieving herd immunity (as everyone knows).
    • logicchains 6y ago
      Then home come their case rate just keeps falling? And their death rate. And unlike the countries that locked down, they're not experiencing a second wave of cases.
      • tasogare 6y ago
        Even in countries where a second wave is happening, it’s a wave of infection only, not deaths. There is not reason to be scared of a disease that don’t kill. International travel restrictions should be lifted. We don’t need to wait for a vaccine that might be more a dangerous than to virus it’s supposed to fight. Current practices in East-Asia have shown to be enough to handle the thing.
        • kuhewa 6y ago
          There is not reason to be scared of a disease that don’t kill. What about one that causes permanent lung and/or heart damage?
          • lbeltrame 6y ago
            You mean like other viral infections, or bacterial pneumonia? As grave as the effects are, they are absolutely not unique to SARS-CoV-2.
            • kuhewa 6y ago
              Sure, and those grave effects are a 'reason'
              • lbeltrame 6y ago
                The incidence of these effects can be a reason. Unfortunately there are no reliable data on how they are prevalent.
                • kuhewa 6y ago
                  My point is insofar as one would/should fear death, they would/should fear a decent probability long term nonfatal consequences to some degree. Incomplete information doesn't obviate that. Nonfatal=/=nothing to fear
        • maerF0x0 6y ago
          This is not universally true. In parts of California there was a jump in death rate reasonably close to a partial reopening. And has very slowly been trending downwards since they re-closed everything. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/california/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/california/
  • thehappypm 6y ago
    This community refuses to acknowledge that Sweden’s strategy has merit.
    • vkou 6y ago
      Ten times the cases, and ten times the deaths of its neighbors, and a 8.6% drop in GDP in Q2. Meanwhile, Norway lost 5.3% of its GDP, and Finland lost 4.9%. Exactly which part of this strategy has merit?
      • anoncareer0212 6y ago
        Not to mention Sweden is more locked down than the US - _0_ gatherings over 50 people allowed. 0. I'm astounded there's still people doing the 'debate me!' act about it, most gave up by July in the US, we had already clearly chose a more intense version of the Swedish 'strategy'
        • puranjay 6y ago
          I'm amazed that smart people have been advocating Sweden's strategy. Sweden has a population of 10 million. New York alone has more people than that. It's as if population size, distribution and density aren't even a consideration, let alone local practices.
          • logicchains 6y ago
            It was also the strategy of South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Wyoming and Utah, and they seem to be doing a lot better in terms of both GDP hit and caseload than places like California and New York with heavy lockdowns.
            • vkou 6y ago
              Iowa has a projected 9.5% GDP hit. New York has a projected ~14% GDP hit, and due to its density and reliance on elevators and public transit, will of course have a higher case load, and require harsher measures to control the spread. Half of the population of Iowa can fit in the 22 square miles of Manhattan. Oh, and infection rates in Iowa are climbing, whereas infection rates in New York peaked five months ago... And they are currently neck-and-neck in per-capita cases. So, how did a mostly rural state get a case rate that's as bad as a state that packs half of its population into a single sardine-can of a city? Is their strategy actually working, if they are getting the same outcome, despite having a much easier set of starting conditions to deal with? Meanwhile, in Canada, BC is projected to take a ~6% GDP hit... While having 1/10th the per-capita case load of Iowa, and higher population densities.
  • jessaustin 6y ago
    Herd immunity isn't possible when antibodies are as transient as those seen for COVID-19. Only a massive public push with an actually effective vaccine will control this pandemic.
    • anoncake 6y ago
      There have been what, three cases of people being infected twice? And they barely got sick?
      • deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      • kjaftaedi 6y ago
        The antibodies from infected people are being shown to last somewhere on an average of 3 months. Kinda hard to be immune if you have nothing to protect you. How sick you get from the disease is irrelevant in this context.
        • anonuser123456 6y ago
          Your understanding of the immune system is not quite correct. Just because you can't detect antibodies doesn't mean you lack immunity. B-cells can stop producing antibodies and reactivate production in response to an antigen. T-cell memory appears to be quite robust for coronaviruses (and this one in particular) To establish a lack of durable antibody response, challenge trials would need to be done, where the host is challenged by the virus (or something that looks like the virus like it's spike protein). These trials have not been run.
          • kuhewa 6y ago
            We can only guess without data specific to SARS-COV-2, but for seasonal coronaviruses, antibodies disappear after ~6 months and reinfection with the same strain can occur after 1 year.
        • 6y ago
  • kjaftaedi 6y ago
    Even most 'high spread' countries have less than 10% of the population that have contracted the virus. To get to herd immunity levels, millions of people would likely die.
    • djsumdog 6y ago
      Are you talking about antibodies? There are papers on T-cell immunity and clicks who've tested staff a month apart with no increase in antibody positive tests. It's probably WELL over 10%. There are more ways our immune system can develop memory than just antibodies and a number of studies are showing that.
  • kuhewa 6y ago
    > we'll have herd immunity (which is where Sweden is at now). No, even Sweden's epidemiologists say that up to 30% of their population could be immune.[1] They tried to shoot the moon but missed. They are in a similar place to nearby countries now but got there with a much higher death toll [1] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/uk-abandoned-herd-immunity-while-sweden-embraced-it-how-possible-is-it-to-achieve-herd-immunity-without-a-vaccine-2020-08-26 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/uk-abandoned-herd-immunity...
• cblconfederate 6y ago
  maybe we re more likely to find a cure rather than vaccine. most epidemiologists think a vaccine won't even be possible considering past experience with coronaviruses
  • stirlo 6y ago
    > most epidemiologists think a vaccine won't even be possible Unsourced statements like this are unhelpful. The language I've heard is "there is no guarantee of a vaccine" which is very different to thinking it won't be possible at all. I'd suggest with the 200+ plus vaccine candidates being developed that many believe it is possible.
    • cblconfederate 6y ago
      There are many different concerns. I havent done a rigorous meta-analysis but they also come from very respectable scientists. > https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-vaccine-may-be-impossible-to-produce-scientists-covid-2020-4 https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-vaccine-may-be-i... https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/funds-will-vaccine-coronavirus-really-possible/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-diseas... And notice that there haven't been very exciting news from the vaccine developmnent trials. If anything there were more setbacks than pleasant surprises.
    • ummonk 6y ago
      There were concerns because SARS vaccine attempts hadn't been further developed due to apparent cytokine storm problems. I think we're far enough along to be confident that that isn't an issue with vaccines for this virus. Some people also make a comparison to the common cold coronaviruses which have a lot of strains and might be rapidly mutating. Honestly, it's a bad comparison because it's clear this coronavirus isn't mutating rapidly, and besides we haven't really tried to target common cold coronaviruses - why would we when rhinoviruses are the most frequent cause of the common cold?
      • kuhewa 6y ago
• tuna-piano 6y ago
  At a certain point, the choice between: "Do I want to lose a few days of my life to a disease with a tiny chance of a bad outcome?" vs "Do I want to lose a year+ of my life not doing what I enjoy?" becomes overwhelmingly obvious. In March/April - I didn't leave my apartment for a month (besides tossing trash across the hall). I still avoid most any indoor spaces, wear n95 masks and am not planning any plane travel (one of my biggest enjoyments) or visiting friends/family indoors this winter... But I'm starting to seriously debate licking every door knob I pass just to get it over with already.
  • sergiomattei 6y ago
    Getting sick puts not just you at risk, but your family, friends, coworkers, and anyone you come in contact with after and during the fact. It also could generate unnecessary strain on our health system that is already over capacity. There's no need. Stay at home, stay protected, and don't take an unnecessary risk because you can't be mildly inconvenienced to save someone else's life.
    • dehrmann 6y ago
      > you can't be mildly inconvenienced to save someone else's life. A major disruption for a year isn't a "mild inconvenience." The longer this goes on, expect more and more people to feel like GP.
      • sergiomattei 6y ago
        > "Do I want to lose a year+ of my life not doing what I enjoy?" Sounds like a mild inconvenience to me. Any other reason wouldn't be.
        • dehrmann 6y ago
          And of not doing what you want. At a year, you start going through math around the likelihood you'd die from the virus and realizing that even with a 1% mortality rate, for someone with the whole life ahead of them, the time/opportunity EV is negative. There are people who set a monetary value on human life, and we have good estimates on that. What we don't have a good number for is what's the value of different degrees of freedom. Is a life where traveling is impractical, meeting people is challenging, you can't go to Disneyland, all that stuff, is it worth 75% of a life at 2019 levels? I don't mean this economically, I mean this as living life.