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Even with vaccinations, this virus will be around for another 10 years. It took 185+ years to eradicate smallpox (mostly from a big WHO push in the 60s/70s). It

Even with vaccinations, this virus will be around for another 10 years. It took 185+ years to eradicate smallpox (mostly from a big WHO push in the 60s/70s). It's still not possible to eradicate Polio. Even with a massive push, it's not like a vaccine will make this go away. We have a lot of information now about how to treat and not treat this virus. A bunch of early deaths were due to overuse of high pressure ventilators and the Governess of NY and Michigan putting sick elderly people with healthy elderly people in nursing homes without adequate isolation (most had 2 or more people per room) killed a lot of people in the first three months. We overreacted to the virus, like a social auto-immune response. We also know the fatalities are 95% over 55. This virus has mostly reduced our life expectancy. By 5 years? 1 year? That's difficult to determine at this point. Everyone is going on about "long covid" now, but if you actually read the papers, the whole things starts to break down to a couple of case studies of 40~50 people each. There may be long term effects for heavily exposed people (health care workers) and the elderly, but the "long covid" narrative is another one if abuse and fear; not grounded in hard science and accurate risk analysis. For things to go back to normal, the vaccine is not the solution. The solution is to stop spreading constant fear. The Great Barrington deceleration has been shunned and dismissed by all major media outlets, yet it's signed by many doctors, academics and professionals and it makes a lot of sense. Humanity has a new virus and we need to learn to live with that. The countries who have avoided it can keep shut down, but at some point it's no longer going to be feasible to do so.

IgorPartola 6y ago
The top infectious dresses expert in the country certainly disagrees with a lot of what you are saying. Yes it will stick around. Yes the vaccine will help a great deal. What exactly is your point? That there is no reason to rush? https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/04/us/coronavirus-pandemic-year-two-trnd/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/04/us/coronavirus-pandemic-year-...
- djsumdog 6y ago
  and meanwhile people are losing this businesses, their livelihoods, their mental health and absolutely everything. A women in California invested heavily in outdoor dining equipment, only to be shut down, and then she sees a movie production company setup a full catering set right next to her restaurant. The top infection dresses experts can be wrong. Don't appeal to authority. There are literally thousands of other doctors and scientists who say further lockdowns are not helping. The WHO is saying lockdowns should not be used except as a last resort! Don't listen to just one person. Look at all the options. Lockdowns don't work.
  - IgorPartola 6y ago
    Seatbelts don’t work. Lots of people die in car crashes and lots of them were wearing seatbelts. Stop wearing seatbelts. Some doctors believe this. Don’t believe the experts. Be your own researcher. Your Google Fu is certainly a match for the CDC and its $6.5b yearly budget.
    - djsumdog 6y ago
      It's not remotely comparable. You can test seat belts with crash dummies. It's a clear experiment, and yes, people should have been skeptical of seat belts until they were proven to be effective. Auto companies were pushing against seat-belts and safety. Today big industry is pushing for lockdowns (and we should question those motives). It's a bad argument. There are literally thousands of people in the Great Barrington Declaration, who have sound arguments for ending lockdowns. We can literally look at the numbers across the globe from different policies in different countries and see there is no direct correlational between any government action and fatalities. Correlation isn't causation, but we DO NOT even have correlation! Scientists and doctors are saying we need to end this mass hysteria. We should listen to all the experts, not only the ones we agree with.
      - IgorPartola 6y ago
        > Scientists and doctors are saying we need to end this mass hysteria. We should listen to all the experts, not only the ones we agree with. To quote Wikipedia, citation needed. And please don't like to a YouTube/Facebook/Instagram whatever of someone in a white coat. I have not seen this from anyone with any reasonable credentials.
        djsumdog 6y ago
        The Great Barrington Declaration: https://gbdeclaration.org/ https://gbdeclaration.org/ Signed by literally thousands of experts, doctors and virologists.
        6y ago
wasdfff 6y ago
The reality is that today in southern california, ICUs are at capacity. Most people end up ok. My whole family got it and had basically just congestion for two weeks, including the 90 year old ancients we though were sure goners when they contracted it (we just turned up their oxygen and they were feeling a lot better). That being said, enough people do need medical care, and thats enough people to entirely burden our capacity to treat any sort of medical emergency, and cases are still going up. It’s not good right now.
- djsumdog 6y ago
  California had some of the strongest lockdowns and stay-at-home orders of any state and they're still having ICU issues, meanwhile Florida is not? Tennessee has similar policies to Florida and they have high cases .. Sweden has meanwhile dropped to zero. If you really look across the board at all countries, there is ZERO corroboration between any of these arbitrary measures and the results. It's all complete random superstition nonsense. COVID response is a new religions ideology, and ideology is "doing without knowing." Also, why are ICU beds at capacity? Is it all COVID, or tons of people who didn't get the heart surgery they needed? Your own experiences show that your family survived this and likely has long term immunity (and will continue to do so as long as they get exposed at regular intervals). The alternate reality is that the virus is real, but the way we've reacted to it will kill more people in the long term. I wrote about this back in March, COVID19 is two diseases. The virus and our over-reaction to it: https://battlepenguin.com/philosophy/covid-19-is-two-diseases/ https://battlepenguin.com/philosophy/covid-19-is-two-disease...
  - oblio 6y ago
    Check out newer sources for that Sweden claim. They've both admitted that the strategy failed plus their measures are now at least equivalent to those of their neighbors. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SSkGkmY9FcM https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SSkGkmY9FcM
  - IgorPartola 6y ago
    You are so wrong about this I am not even sure how to start. It’s like trying to explain physics to a goldfish. We just can’t understand this for you.
lm28469 6y ago
I don't think anyone is talking about 100% eradicating the virus. Getting old people and people at risk vaccinated basically means 99% of death would be avoided and hospital would go back to pre covid numbers. Once people over 40-50 are vaccinated it's game over for covid and most of things will go back to normal. Of course the virus won't totally disappear and people will still die of it. > Humanity has a new virus and we need to learn to live with that. The lockdowns / travel restrictions are part of the "learn to live with that", you can't just ignore it and run major hospitals at 110% capacity forever.
- davrosthedalek 6y ago
  Even if 100% of the dead are in the risk/old group (which is not true), it's hard to achieve a 99% reduction with a 95% efficient vaccine. For that to work, you have to assume that the main way of infection is from inside the group. I think this is highly unlikely in a scenario where you say: protect the weak, let everybody else just get it.
- maxerickson 6y ago
  We should 100% eradicate the virus. We have inexpensive vaccines available. Like you say, much of the harm is controlled well short of eradication, but it wouldn't be expensive to do it (it may even be cheaper to eradicate it than to continue to deal with it).
  - standardUser 6y ago
    That may be an unrealistically high bar. Only smallpox has ever been successfully eradicated, which speaks to the difficulty in completely eradicating a disease. And since some animals can carry and spread the virus, eradicating this virus may be impossible with current technology.
    - maxerickson 6y ago
      Let's try it and find out if it is realistic or not.
- 6y ago
standardUser 6y ago
What part of hospital over-crowding are you having difficulty understanding? I am sure someone here can explain it to you.
- djsumdog 6y ago
  Some of these hospitals are being over-crowded because people haven't been able to come in for basic surgeries. People have died because they haven't gotten heart surgeries. If someone comes in for getting their wisdom teeth out, and tests positive for CoV2, they're listed as a COVID case, even if they have zero symptoms (and with 40+ PCR amplifications for each test, the false positives are high). Hospitals are over-crowded ever year in the winter for all kinds of seasonal illnesses including flu, strep and others. The Bakersfield doctors said as much back in March and were censored on all platforms for it. They're also overcrowded because America's health system is just bad as expanding care for bad seasons in general, and we haven't really noticed until this crisis.

IgorPartola 6y ago

The top infectious dresses expert in the country certainly disagrees with a lot of what you are saying. Yes it will stick around. Yes the vaccine will help a great deal. What exactly is your point? That there is no reason to rush? https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/04/us/coronavirus-pandemic-year-two-trnd/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/04/us/coronavirus-pandemic-year-...

djsumdog 6y ago
and meanwhile people are losing this businesses, their livelihoods, their mental health and absolutely everything. A women in California invested heavily in outdoor dining equipment, only to be shut down, and then she sees a movie production company setup a full catering set right next to her restaurant. The top infection dresses experts can be wrong. Don't appeal to authority. There are literally thousands of other doctors and scientists who say further lockdowns are not helping. The WHO is saying lockdowns should not be used except as a last resort! Don't listen to just one person. Look at all the options. Lockdowns don't work.
- IgorPartola 6y ago
  Seatbelts don’t work. Lots of people die in car crashes and lots of them were wearing seatbelts. Stop wearing seatbelts. Some doctors believe this. Don’t believe the experts. Be your own researcher. Your Google Fu is certainly a match for the CDC and its $6.5b yearly budget.
  - djsumdog 6y ago
    It's not remotely comparable. You can test seat belts with crash dummies. It's a clear experiment, and yes, people should have been skeptical of seat belts until they were proven to be effective. Auto companies were pushing against seat-belts and safety. Today big industry is pushing for lockdowns (and we should question those motives). It's a bad argument. There are literally thousands of people in the Great Barrington Declaration, who have sound arguments for ending lockdowns. We can literally look at the numbers across the globe from different policies in different countries and see there is no direct correlational between any government action and fatalities. Correlation isn't causation, but we DO NOT even have correlation! Scientists and doctors are saying we need to end this mass hysteria. We should listen to all the experts, not only the ones we agree with.
    - IgorPartola 6y ago
      > Scientists and doctors are saying we need to end this mass hysteria. We should listen to all the experts, not only the ones we agree with. To quote Wikipedia, citation needed. And please don't like to a YouTube/Facebook/Instagram whatever of someone in a white coat. I have not seen this from anyone with any reasonable credentials.
      - djsumdog 6y ago
        The Great Barrington Declaration: https://gbdeclaration.org/ https://gbdeclaration.org/ Signed by literally thousands of experts, doctors and virologists.
        6y ago

wasdfff 6y ago

The reality is that today in southern california, ICUs are at capacity. Most people end up ok. My whole family got it and had basically just congestion for two weeks, including the 90 year old ancients we though were sure goners when they contracted it (we just turned up their oxygen and they were feeling a lot better). That being said, enough people do need medical care, and thats enough people to entirely burden our capacity to treat any sort of medical emergency, and cases are still going up. It’s not good right now.

djsumdog 6y ago
California had some of the strongest lockdowns and stay-at-home orders of any state and they're still having ICU issues, meanwhile Florida is not? Tennessee has similar policies to Florida and they have high cases .. Sweden has meanwhile dropped to zero. If you really look across the board at all countries, there is ZERO corroboration between any of these arbitrary measures and the results. It's all complete random superstition nonsense. COVID response is a new religions ideology, and ideology is "doing without knowing." Also, why are ICU beds at capacity? Is it all COVID, or tons of people who didn't get the heart surgery they needed? Your own experiences show that your family survived this and likely has long term immunity (and will continue to do so as long as they get exposed at regular intervals). The alternate reality is that the virus is real, but the way we've reacted to it will kill more people in the long term. I wrote about this back in March, COVID19 is two diseases. The virus and our over-reaction to it: https://battlepenguin.com/philosophy/covid-19-is-two-diseases/ https://battlepenguin.com/philosophy/covid-19-is-two-disease...
- oblio 6y ago
  Check out newer sources for that Sweden claim. They've both admitted that the strategy failed plus their measures are now at least equivalent to those of their neighbors. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SSkGkmY9FcM https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SSkGkmY9FcM
- IgorPartola 6y ago
  You are so wrong about this I am not even sure how to start. It’s like trying to explain physics to a goldfish. We just can’t understand this for you.

lm28469 6y ago

I don't think anyone is talking about 100% eradicating the virus. Getting old people and people at risk vaccinated basically means 99% of death would be avoided and hospital would go back to pre covid numbers. Once people over 40-50 are vaccinated it's game over for covid and most of things will go back to normal. Of course the virus won't totally disappear and people will still die of it. > Humanity has a new virus and we need to learn to live with that. The lockdowns / travel restrictions are part of the "learn to live with that", you can't just ignore it and run major hospitals at 110% capacity forever.

davrosthedalek 6y ago
Even if 100% of the dead are in the risk/old group (which is not true), it's hard to achieve a 99% reduction with a 95% efficient vaccine. For that to work, you have to assume that the main way of infection is from inside the group. I think this is highly unlikely in a scenario where you say: protect the weak, let everybody else just get it.
maxerickson 6y ago
We should 100% eradicate the virus. We have inexpensive vaccines available. Like you say, much of the harm is controlled well short of eradication, but it wouldn't be expensive to do it (it may even be cheaper to eradicate it than to continue to deal with it).
- standardUser 6y ago
  That may be an unrealistically high bar. Only smallpox has ever been successfully eradicated, which speaks to the difficulty in completely eradicating a disease. And since some animals can carry and spread the virus, eradicating this virus may be impossible with current technology.
  - maxerickson 6y ago
    Let's try it and find out if it is realistic or not.
6y ago

standardUser 6y ago

What part of hospital over-crowding are you having difficulty understanding? I am sure someone here can explain it to you.

djsumdog 6y ago
Some of these hospitals are being over-crowded because people haven't been able to come in for basic surgeries. People have died because they haven't gotten heart surgeries. If someone comes in for getting their wisdom teeth out, and tests positive for CoV2, they're listed as a COVID case, even if they have zero symptoms (and with 40+ PCR amplifications for each test, the false positives are high). Hospitals are over-crowded ever year in the winter for all kinds of seasonal illnesses including flu, strep and others. The Bakersfield doctors said as much back in March and were censored on all platforms for it. They're also overcrowded because America's health system is just bad as expanding care for bad seasons in general, and we haven't really noticed until this crisis.