5 ms·

It's also the level of absurdity I'm seeing in the response to Covid itself.

by ppf 6y ago

shockeychap 6y ago
I won't argue that. I'm quite concerned about the power-grab taking place. Elected administrators clearly see themselves as rulers who can issue dictates almost arbitrarily with little regard for their effectiveness or necessity. The emergency powers that most, including myself, supported last year have been turned into open-ended excuses for unchecked power. However, the anti-vaxers and COVID-is-a-hoax folks aren't helping either. I've lost one friend personally and known several people who lost friends or relatives. The virus is real, and the vaccine is a huge tool for stopping the suffering and loss. (And no, I do NOT support mandated vaccine passports either.)
- NoPie 6y ago
  Sadly, I have lost more people I knew from drug overdose than from virus during last year. Most people won't care about to understand the damage that lockdowns have done to vulnerable people. The difference is that covid deaths are direct and lockdown effect are nebulous so harder to prove and understand. Now the same people are so worried for some vaccine side-effects. It doesn't make sense to me but that's how people think.
llampx 6y ago
Yup, I feel like we are sacrificing our young to add a few more years to the average old person's life. Sounds a bit heartless, but so does ruining years of development of children and youth so that the old have a longer life.
- scotty79 6y ago
  If by sacrificing young you mean that we let virus run rampant so it evolves into a version that more successfully infects young and with more disastrous effects .. then yes, we did exactly that. Some new mutants cause way more harm in younger people than the original version did.
  - ppf 6y ago
    Will it definitely evolve into such a version? What's to stop any other virus doing the same? How do you intend to stop this, without continuous vaccination and social control? What new piece of information do we have, that justifies the apparent change in policy from "flatten the curve for a few weeks" to "global control and vaccinations until...(?)"?
    - scotty79 6y ago
      > Will it definitely evolve into such a version? It already did evolve this way and will continue to do so. Any novel virus evolves in ways that helps its spread into popularions previously unavailable for infection. And only after it is at risk of wiping populations it infects it evolves milder variants that are careful no to kill too many hosts to quick. > What's to stop any other virus doing the same? Other viruses don't evolve further in this direction because they are with us long enough that they already reached that state. All other common human viruses and bacteria exceedingly easily infect young and can be a major cause of death and disability in young. And before we had vaxcines against most dangerous of them, it was horrible. > How do you intend to stop this, without continuous vaccination and social control? We are going to stop this with continous vaccinations, exactly the same way we stopped other very infectious and dangerous viruses that were spread in human population. > What new piece of information do we have, that justifies the apparent change in policy from "flatten the curve for a few weeks" to "global control and vaccinations until...(?)"? That new piece of information might be the knowledge of other variants of this coronavirus. This gives us an idea of how fast this virus is evolving (when it is allowed to infect this many people). It has the potential to cause great harm to younger generation which we tend to care more about and also outpace our ability to prepare new vaccines which is already probably close to the best we can do. So it became more crucial to rob this virus of opportunities to evolve. There are already variants that infect more easily, infect younger, happily reinfect people who got sick from original variant.
      - ppf 6y ago
        >It already did evolve this way and will continue to do so. I'll need a soruce for that, as all reports I've read indicate that Covid has mutated the typical direction - that is, to be less deadly. >Any novel virus evolves in ways that helps its spread into popularions previously unavailable for infection. And only after it is at risk of wiping populations it infects it evolves milder variants that are careful no to kill too many hosts to quick. Also a source for that, as this is an idea I have never heard of before. I haven't even seen any definitive answer whether younger people are just less affected by Covid, or really do not become infected. The whole "asymptomatic carrier" idea really makes it hard to prove anything. Saying that, how will we stop a virus mutating with a vaccine that is between 60% and 90% effective at preventing symptoms, and with a currently unknown effect on transmission? If we are just delaying the inevitable, then why wait? If it's about the young (which would be quite the reversal, as to date, it's all been about "not killing granny"), then we need to consider the effects of on-going lockdown and destruction of opportunity for young people (which is very real). If I had been told at the start that we would be under effective house arrest until researchers had developed a series of vaccines with the intention of stopping Covid from mutating into hypothetical potentially worse variants, I would have called BS right then. Edit: Also, interesting that you point out that "it became known that Covid mutates rapidly". That's not at all surprising, it's long been known that coronaviruses mutate fairly rapidly. In fact, whenever I pointed out this fact, and that it makes vaccine development difficult and pointless unless we are going for continual vaccination, the "online Covid expert" crowd gave me a lot of flak for it.

It's also the level of absurdity I'm seeing in the response to Covid itself.

by ppf 6y ago

It's also the level of absurdity I'm seeing in the response to Covid itself.

I won't argue that. I'm quite concerned about the power-grab taking place. Elected administrators clearly see themselves as rulers who can issue dictates almost arbitrarily with little regard for their effectiveness or necessity. The emergency powers that most, including myself, supported last year have been turned into open-ended excuses for unchecked power. However, the anti-vaxers and COVID-is-a-hoax folks aren't helping either. I've lost one friend personally and known several people who lost friends or relatives. The virus is real, and the vaccine is a huge tool for stopping the suffering and loss. (And no, I do NOT support mandated vaccine passports either.)

NoPie 6y ago
Sadly, I have lost more people I knew from drug overdose than from virus during last year. Most people won't care about to understand the damage that lockdowns have done to vulnerable people. The difference is that covid deaths are direct and lockdown effect are nebulous so harder to prove and understand. Now the same people are so worried for some vaccine side-effects. It doesn't make sense to me but that's how people think.

llampx 6y ago

Yup, I feel like we are sacrificing our young to add a few more years to the average old person's life. Sounds a bit heartless, but so does ruining years of development of children and youth so that the old have a longer life.

scotty79 6y ago
If by sacrificing young you mean that we let virus run rampant so it evolves into a version that more successfully infects young and with more disastrous effects .. then yes, we did exactly that. Some new mutants cause way more harm in younger people than the original version did.
- ppf 6y ago
  Will it definitely evolve into such a version? What's to stop any other virus doing the same? How do you intend to stop this, without continuous vaccination and social control? What new piece of information do we have, that justifies the apparent change in policy from "flatten the curve for a few weeks" to "global control and vaccinations until...(?)"?
  - scotty79 6y ago
    > Will it definitely evolve into such a version? It already did evolve this way and will continue to do so. Any novel virus evolves in ways that helps its spread into popularions previously unavailable for infection. And only after it is at risk of wiping populations it infects it evolves milder variants that are careful no to kill too many hosts to quick. > What's to stop any other virus doing the same? Other viruses don't evolve further in this direction because they are with us long enough that they already reached that state. All other common human viruses and bacteria exceedingly easily infect young and can be a major cause of death and disability in young. And before we had vaxcines against most dangerous of them, it was horrible. > How do you intend to stop this, without continuous vaccination and social control? We are going to stop this with continous vaccinations, exactly the same way we stopped other very infectious and dangerous viruses that were spread in human population. > What new piece of information do we have, that justifies the apparent change in policy from "flatten the curve for a few weeks" to "global control and vaccinations until...(?)"? That new piece of information might be the knowledge of other variants of this coronavirus. This gives us an idea of how fast this virus is evolving (when it is allowed to infect this many people). It has the potential to cause great harm to younger generation which we tend to care more about and also outpace our ability to prepare new vaccines which is already probably close to the best we can do. So it became more crucial to rob this virus of opportunities to evolve. There are already variants that infect more easily, infect younger, happily reinfect people who got sick from original variant.
    - ppf 6y ago
      >It already did evolve this way and will continue to do so. I'll need a soruce for that, as all reports I've read indicate that Covid has mutated the typical direction - that is, to be less deadly. >Any novel virus evolves in ways that helps its spread into popularions previously unavailable for infection. And only after it is at risk of wiping populations it infects it evolves milder variants that are careful no to kill too many hosts to quick. Also a source for that, as this is an idea I have never heard of before. I haven't even seen any definitive answer whether younger people are just less affected by Covid, or really do not become infected. The whole "asymptomatic carrier" idea really makes it hard to prove anything. Saying that, how will we stop a virus mutating with a vaccine that is between 60% and 90% effective at preventing symptoms, and with a currently unknown effect on transmission? If we are just delaying the inevitable, then why wait? If it's about the young (which would be quite the reversal, as to date, it's all been about "not killing granny"), then we need to consider the effects of on-going lockdown and destruction of opportunity for young people (which is very real). If I had been told at the start that we would be under effective house arrest until researchers had developed a series of vaccines with the intention of stopping Covid from mutating into hypothetical potentially worse variants, I would have called BS right then. Edit: Also, interesting that you point out that "it became known that Covid mutates rapidly". That's not at all surprising, it's long been known that coronaviruses mutate fairly rapidly. In fact, whenever I pointed out this fact, and that it makes vaccine development difficult and pointless unless we are going for continual vaccination, the "online Covid expert" crowd gave me a lot of flak for it.