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For every person that dies (an agonizing death akin to medieval torture), a few more are in intensive care fighting for their lives. For every one of those, oth

by jquery 6y ago

For every person that dies (an agonizing death akin to medieval torture), a few more are in intensive care fighting for their lives. For every one of those, others end up in the hospital, spread the disease to others, suffer from “long covid”, or merely suffer greatly. Every person that gets covid adds to the likelihood the disease will become uncontrollable in the long term and endemic. Keep wearing your masks and social distancing people. It’s hard, it’s a sacrifice, but together we can conquer this disease and return to life “as normal”.

idoubtit 6y ago
> For every person that dies (an agonizing death akin to medieval torture) I think this is wrong, at least in rich countries, at least those that are sane enough to cure their ill citizens. A friend of mine died of covid last year. Then a family member this year. They were both sedated, and did not suffer at all on their last days in hospitals.
- jquery 6y ago
  Sedation is death with a respiratory illness like this. How were they feeling before they were sedated? Probably like they’d been drowning for hours. For all intents and purposes, that was the end of their life as far as their experience of it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great that we can provide palliative comfort for those final hours/days. But it doesn’t tell the full story.
  - mlyle 6y ago
    Just for clarity/augmentation/pedantic detail: you might be sedated and end up an a ventilator. But ventilators are really bad for COVID survival and really a last ditch, long-shot chance try to salvage your life. Practitioners hold off on the sedation and associated required ventilation as long as possible to try and spare your life.
mrfusion 6y ago
I don’t see any reason new variants would ever stop coming. What are you proposing is the end point of all of this?
- jonplackett 6y ago
  Regular vaccinations, just like the flu
  - raducu 6y ago
    Plus widely available monoclonal antibodies to be administered as soon as a positive test. Plus the development of other antivirals.
- inglor_cz 6y ago
  New variants are going to come, but vaccinated people may have some protection against them, or they may recieve a booster tailored to new variants, if they are extra vulnerable. Also, treatments are being developed. If we can turn future variants of Covid into something like a common cold, we are going to be fine living with it. We just need to prevent bilateral pneumonia with a cytokine storm that threatens to kill the patient.
- acdha 6y ago
  Think about what leads to new variants: every time someone is infected, the virus replicates and has 10e9 chances to come up with something which is advantageous for it. If, like the U.K variant, it lucks into someone with a compromised immune system it might get even more chances to evolve an effective combination. The way we get it to stop winning is to stop buying it lottery tickets. Masks, vaccines, and other measures like paid sick leave cut into that number enormously.
- evgen 6y ago
  Here is something for you to consider: this is the new 'normal'. That world you lived in 18 months ago? Gone. Not coming back. There is no 'end point', it just goes on and we learn to adapt. Eventually we get better at it, learn more about what is and is not a risk, and a few things start to look like the 2019, but most things don't go back. This is the reality you need to adjust to.
GekkePrutser 6y ago
> Keep wearing your masks and social distancing people. It’s hard, it’s a sacrifice, but together we can conquer this disease and return to life “as normal”. This ghost is not going back into the bottle. It's way too widespread for that now. Even the WHO has determined that. Even if one country manages it, some tourist will bring it in. The vaccines don't stop the spread enough either to kill it completely. People will still get sick and spread it, they just don't get as sick in large numbers. The simple fact that even a country that has the ability to rigidly control all outside sources like New Zealand is unable to avoid the occasional outbreak. However they do seem to reduce the risk of severe illness enough to bring it to a level comparable to other endemic diseases. PS: Don't get me wrong, I'm totally pro-vaccine and will get at as soon as I finally can. I really hope that politics will deem the resulting levels sufficient to drop the other measures like the masks and distancing. Once the danger level is comparable to other endemic diseases I think we should. And I really hope that SARS-CoV-2 mutates to a variant that isn't as deadly. Most diseases have, after all as evolution favours it (not as deadly means we won't fight it as hard). But I doubt we'll ever be COVID free. That point was passed once we didn't strictly quarantine China back in Feb 2020. But anyway that's water under the bridge.
- maxerickson 6y ago
  The vaccines appear to be plenty effective enough to stop the spread, if enough people get them. We don't have great information about the variants, but the big improvements in Israel and England are encouraging, even with vaccination still ongoing.
  - timmytokyo 6y ago
    Not sure why the GP is being downvoted. SARS-CoV-2 will most likely become endemic. [1] https://science.sciencemag.org/content/370/6516/527.full https://science.sciencemag.org/content/370/6516/527.full
    - MAGZine 6y ago
      > Should reinfection prove commonplace, and barring a highly effective vaccine delivered to most of the world's population, SARS-CoV-2 will likely become endemic. The thing is, we don't know if reinfection will prove commonplace. We don't know how long immunity will last given a two-shot regimen—though the strong immune response that people are having on the second shot might be cause for hope. We don't know how the virus will mutate on it's point/spike, the main infection vector that the RNA vax target. We just don't know. Research is emerging, time will tell. In the meantime, it's fear mongering.

by jquery 6y ago

idoubtit 6y ago

> For every person that dies (an agonizing death akin to medieval torture) I think this is wrong, at least in rich countries, at least those that are sane enough to cure their ill citizens. A friend of mine died of covid last year. Then a family member this year. They were both sedated, and did not suffer at all on their last days in hospitals.

jquery 6y ago
Sedation is death with a respiratory illness like this. How were they feeling before they were sedated? Probably like they’d been drowning for hours. For all intents and purposes, that was the end of their life as far as their experience of it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great that we can provide palliative comfort for those final hours/days. But it doesn’t tell the full story.
- mlyle 6y ago
  Just for clarity/augmentation/pedantic detail: you might be sedated and end up an a ventilator. But ventilators are really bad for COVID survival and really a last ditch, long-shot chance try to salvage your life. Practitioners hold off on the sedation and associated required ventilation as long as possible to try and spare your life.

mrfusion 6y ago

I don’t see any reason new variants would ever stop coming. What are you proposing is the end point of all of this?

jonplackett 6y ago
Regular vaccinations, just like the flu
- raducu 6y ago
  Plus widely available monoclonal antibodies to be administered as soon as a positive test. Plus the development of other antivirals.
inglor_cz 6y ago
New variants are going to come, but vaccinated people may have some protection against them, or they may recieve a booster tailored to new variants, if they are extra vulnerable. Also, treatments are being developed. If we can turn future variants of Covid into something like a common cold, we are going to be fine living with it. We just need to prevent bilateral pneumonia with a cytokine storm that threatens to kill the patient.
acdha 6y ago
Think about what leads to new variants: every time someone is infected, the virus replicates and has 10e9 chances to come up with something which is advantageous for it. If, like the U.K variant, it lucks into someone with a compromised immune system it might get even more chances to evolve an effective combination. The way we get it to stop winning is to stop buying it lottery tickets. Masks, vaccines, and other measures like paid sick leave cut into that number enormously.
evgen 6y ago
Here is something for you to consider: this is the new 'normal'. That world you lived in 18 months ago? Gone. Not coming back. There is no 'end point', it just goes on and we learn to adapt. Eventually we get better at it, learn more about what is and is not a risk, and a few things start to look like the 2019, but most things don't go back. This is the reality you need to adjust to.

GekkePrutser 6y ago

> Keep wearing your masks and social distancing people. It’s hard, it’s a sacrifice, but together we can conquer this disease and return to life “as normal”. This ghost is not going back into the bottle. It's way too widespread for that now. Even the WHO has determined that. Even if one country manages it, some tourist will bring it in. The vaccines don't stop the spread enough either to kill it completely. People will still get sick and spread it, they just don't get as sick in large numbers. The simple fact that even a country that has the ability to rigidly control all outside sources like New Zealand is unable to avoid the occasional outbreak. However they do seem to reduce the risk of severe illness enough to bring it to a level comparable to other endemic diseases. PS: Don't get me wrong, I'm totally pro-vaccine and will get at as soon as I finally can. I really hope that politics will deem the resulting levels sufficient to drop the other measures like the masks and distancing. Once the danger level is comparable to other endemic diseases I think we should. And I really hope that SARS-CoV-2 mutates to a variant that isn't as deadly. Most diseases have, after all as evolution favours it (not as deadly means we won't fight it as hard). But I doubt we'll ever be COVID free. That point was passed once we didn't strictly quarantine China back in Feb 2020. But anyway that's water under the bridge.

maxerickson 6y ago
The vaccines appear to be plenty effective enough to stop the spread, if enough people get them. We don't have great information about the variants, but the big improvements in Israel and England are encouraging, even with vaccination still ongoing.
- timmytokyo 6y ago
  Not sure why the GP is being downvoted. SARS-CoV-2 will most likely become endemic. [1] https://science.sciencemag.org/content/370/6516/527.full https://science.sciencemag.org/content/370/6516/527.full
  - MAGZine 6y ago
    > Should reinfection prove commonplace, and barring a highly effective vaccine delivered to most of the world's population, SARS-CoV-2 will likely become endemic. The thing is, we don't know if reinfection will prove commonplace. We don't know how long immunity will last given a two-shot regimen—though the strong immune response that people are having on the second shot might be cause for hope. We don't know how the virus will mutate on it's point/spike, the main infection vector that the RNA vax target. We just don't know. Research is emerging, time will tell. In the meantime, it's fear mongering.