9 ms·

> I think it's reasonable to be way more cautious about COVID than the "just a flu" and "it'll become endemic" (for some value of 'endemic') crowd seem to think

> I think it's reasonable to be way more cautious about COVID than the "just a flu" and "it'll become endemic" (for some value of 'endemic') crowd seem to think. But unless you want to live like a recluse in a bunker, what are your options? The way I see it, you're bound to catch it no matter how many precautions you take. Case in point: I know a guy with paranoid level of precautions that still got it and while he was confined with his family none of them caught it (this was before we had any vaccines in my country).

BoxOfRain 5y ago
Exactly, at some point the cure will become worse than the disease. The fact this makes people uncomfortable is no reason to push it under the rug!
- treeman79 5y ago
  How many years of lockdown will people put up with? I could see some places where someone’s entire childhood memory is being under lockdown.
  - toss1 5y ago
    If an actual proper hard lockdown is done, it takes only a matter of weeks. COVID-19 has only existed as a problem for less than twenty months - what childhood is that short? And even if that statement had some relation to reality, anyone would take a childhood lockdown vs a lifetime of impairment (&, yes I get that lockdown itself can have some long-term effects, but these are much more easily counteracted vs biological deficits).
    - ipython 5y ago
      Yes, intellectually speaking, 20 months is not an entire childhood. But from a relative perspective- let’s take a five year old- that’s about 40% of his lifetime to date. That feels very significant to him/her. That said, having kids that age, I would say my kids handled this pandemic way better than most adults. They adapt quicker and don’t have the emotional baggage (“masks are an evil plot to control the population” for example) to get through. We have been lucky that they were able to attend school in person though - very strict COVID protocols plus a small population ensured that we never had an outbreak. Things would have been different if we didn’t have that ability.
      - toss1 5y ago
        ok, even if we are talking about a significant part of lifetime to date, it is still a pretty well-spoilt view from any historical perspective. And even new variants and vaccine delays cause us to get to years of lockdown that actually constitutes significant portions of full childhoods, are you arguing that childhoods full of funerals and an adulthood full of diminished mental capacity [1] and COVID sequalae are better? The 'modern' world is not a stable reality, it is a priveliged bubble. In general, and throughout most of history, it is a harsh place with most things trying to kill us. Having to simply take protective measures is as old as humanity, from standing guard through the night watching for other apex predators, to avoiding invaders and plagues, it is a part of what it is to be human (and not even to mention how much easier it is then for other creatures). To view any alteration to our modern routines due to actual biological reality as some injustice is provileged and myopic. Better to turn it into a teaching moment and illustrate how it is a part of history, and in this case, a very mild version of what was previously endured. [1] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(21)00324-2/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5...
- snowwrestler 5y ago
  It’s hard to confidently assert that the cure is worse than the disease if we don’t know the long-term effects of the disease yet. (Which is why we’re discussing the Lancet article.)
glangdale 5y ago
Delta, so far, seems to infect whole households with ease in a way that we didn't see. Sydney, Australia is on severe lockdown at the moment thanks to a delta outbreak (it hasn't helped that, like many countries that handled the lockdown/test-and-trace methodology well, we fucked up the vaccination program). I would imagine that a combination of mass vaccination (which seems to reduce transmission, although not by as much as was hoped) - and continued reasonable measures (mask wearing in crowded indoor places, better ventilation) we could achieve eventual elimination. Alternately, on route to this less-than-comfortable-outcome, we could make strides in treating the long-term illness, improve short-term treatments and improve vaccines. The other option is that maybe we'll work our way through the entire Greek alphabet of variations (and beyond; perhaps the Omega variation is followed by double-Alpha) with a large pool of sick people and vaccine escape whack-a-mole because people decided there was no options between "live in a bunker" and "free for all".
- irq11 5y ago
  > Delta, so far, seems to infect whole households with ease in a way that we didn't see. According to the latest data out of the UK, Delta is approximately as contagious as Alpha: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1005517/Technical_Briefing_19.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/... There is simply no basis for these claims of dramatically increased contagion. It’s a meme that was based on early speculation, and repeated mindlessly by the press.
  - mortehu 5y ago
    > According to the latest data out of the UK, Delta is approximately as contagious as Alpha Are you talking about page 34, which compares secondary attack rate week by week? Can you explain how you read that chart?
LatteLazy 5y ago
On a personal level, get vaccinated. That seems to reduce risks by a factor of at least 1000. On a social level: use the Aus model. Actually lockdown, get case numbers down to the 10s per million. The UK, US etc model is the opposite, it relies on having as many people as possible infected and not really engaging in any full lockdowns. So far that's meant more and longer lockdowns. It's also meant more variants. And it means the maximum number of people with long term effects. It's the worst of all worlds, even the economic one.
machinehermiter 5y ago
There are no options obviously. I am fully vaccinated, if you offer me a booster I will take it. If you offer me whatever, I will take it. At that point I have done all I can do. If someone wants to stay in a bunker because things are beyond their risk preference then they should not be forced out of the bunker. Forcing me back in a bunker though being fully vaccinated is absolute bullshit if anyone can get vaccinated.
graeme 5y ago
> But unless you want to live like a recluse in a bunker, what are your options? It depends on work and family circumstances. But, stuff that works: * Be outdoors, and socialize outdoors * If in indoor unventilated spaces, wear a mask. Ideally N95 if lots of people and they aren’t mask * Exercise more caution during local waves * If socializing with others indoors, open a window. This can be done even during heat waves or winter: the greater the temp differential the more the air circulation for a given amount of window opening. Doesn’t raise costs too much, yet people treat it as impossible * Buy a hepa filter for your home. Humidifiers can also help in winter * Avoid indoor restaurants and bars and unmasked venues * In risky venues, choose glasses over contacts. Eye protection is another layer * Don’t hang out with symptomatic or unvaccinated people * Get vaccinated Whether you should choose to do this is another thing, but that’s what to do if you don’t want to catch a respiratory virus. This above is consistent with: seeing friends, small indoor gatherings, travel (wear n95 + glasses!), etc. It certainly isn’t living in a bunker. It does present problems during winter though, and it is also quite inconvenient in places with frequent large waves. Small ventilated indoor gatherings with vaccinated friends should be ok in low prevalence, but are risky in a big wave, for example.
- blindmute 5y ago
  I would quite literally rather contract covid than live like that for any period of time.
  - graeme 5y ago
    Apart from the masks, it’s how much of Canada lives for four months of the year (summer). We hardly do any indoors socializing. It’s what I based the above on. Both pandemic summers Canada has had collapsing cases even while there were surged in parts of the world with winter or that use AC more than us. Go to any restaurant with a patio and you’ll hardly see anyone inside. Everyone goes to the patios in summertime. And people tend to open windows rather than use AC on anything but the hottest days. Backyard dinners or rooftop drinks are one of the main ways people socialize privately.
    - 5y ago
AnthonBerg 5y ago
> But unless you want to live like a recluse in a bunker, what are your options? We can: • Try not to get infected • If inevitable: Get as little of it as we can • Help the body clear the illness and after-effects • Contract the illness as late as possible, as medicine advances faster than mutations • Seek to support the science of figuring this thing out • Do this together • Seek to reduce the amount of contagious people in our local and global environment Practically, we can: • Wear masks. Better masks are better • Use air conditioning, advocate for air conditioning and fresh air • Exercise. Eat well. Go outside. • Get vaccinated • Read papers • Discuss the science • Participate in studies • Fund science • Explain to people what the scientific process is and how we know what we know • Should we arrive at the opinion that certain substances, drugs, or supplements may have a protective effect, we might take those • We can be the living scientific process: When we choose to experiment, seek to carefully note down the results and publish them • Help others • Fund healthcare for those who are less well off than we are • Establish robust social immunity by discussing the options we do have to reduce infection
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- jmnicolas 5y ago
  > Seek to support the science of figuring this thing out It's "funny" because a few months ago, I read that it was definitely an airborne virus, so hands contagion was absolutely not a concern. Then yesterday I read the complete opposite. In both case, they were reputable scientists. Thanks for the advises anyway.
  - AnthonBerg 5y ago
    Exactly! And which leads us to asking: How do we know???
- SquibblesRedux 5y ago
  I think we need to put considerably more effort into discussing existing and new scientific endeavors before we consider funding. I am not saying we should pause or reduce funding, but rather the reach of our public coffers has increasingly exceeded our understanding of what we are or are not accomplishing with that funding. The amount of noise, publicity, and politicization of scientific research makes it very difficult to wisely set public policy at both the national and local levels.
caeril 5y ago
> what are your options? We're a year and a half into it. We have the data. Aside from vaccination and some degree of proper ventilation, you need to: 1. Not be old. 2. Not be fat. We talk a lot about #1, but #2 is taboo. We, as a society, prefers that you die unnecessarily young from COVID than feel a little bit of shame. Not to mention #2 was already murdering nearly half a million Americans annually on its own prior to COVID. This needs to be fixed. Sugar/corn industry lobbyists and fast food advertisers should have been publicly hanged decades ago. Now we have even more incentive to address the issue, but I suppose slowly dying at the age of 37, gasping for breath, is a small price to pay to avoid feeling slightly negative about being 300lbs or impact the dividends of the Coca Cola Corporation.
- tester756 5y ago
  >but #2 is taboo. where?
- sharken 5y ago
  You are absolutely right. Number 2 is hard to fix as lobbyists and fast food companies have a lot of influence. But it is concerning that of US women from age 20 and up, 60% or more are considered overweight. A woman 50 years old has an average weight of 80 kg, using the Miller ideal weight formula and a height of 170 cm, the weight should be 62.5 kg. https://www.healthline.com/health/womens-health/average-weight-for-women https://www.healthline.com/health/womens-health/average-weig... There should be some kind of reward or benefit for those that can keep to the ideal weight for a longer period of say 1 year.
snowwrestler 5y ago
There’s no reason to believe catching COVID-19 is inevitable. Consider that the best estimates about the Spanish flu of 1918 are that about a third of the world caught it before that pandemic ended. Today we have much better knowledge and hygiene, and extremely effective vaccines. Most people in the world have not contracted COVID-19. Personal precautions are well understood and vaccine distribution is well underway. I’m sorry that your friend contracted it. In contrast I would characterize my family’s precautions as normal, and none of us have contracted it. Two of us are now vaccinated as well.
- nickthemagicman 5y ago
  The Spanish Flu never went away, it just became "The Flu™".
rualca 5y ago
> But unless you want to live like a recluse in a bunker, what are your options? You mean like social distancing, wear respiratory masks in closed spaces, revise public spaces to improve air filtering and forced congregations, improve public transportation to avoid high concentration of passengers, and don't force returns to office in industries that do not require them? You're talking about bunkers and recluses as if you are totally unaware that a) working from home means neither and b) people overwhelmingly prefer it.

BoxOfRain 5y ago

Exactly, at some point the cure will become worse than the disease. The fact this makes people uncomfortable is no reason to push it under the rug!

treeman79 5y ago
How many years of lockdown will people put up with? I could see some places where someone’s entire childhood memory is being under lockdown.
- toss1 5y ago
  If an actual proper hard lockdown is done, it takes only a matter of weeks. COVID-19 has only existed as a problem for less than twenty months - what childhood is that short? And even if that statement had some relation to reality, anyone would take a childhood lockdown vs a lifetime of impairment (&, yes I get that lockdown itself can have some long-term effects, but these are much more easily counteracted vs biological deficits).
  - ipython 5y ago
    Yes, intellectually speaking, 20 months is not an entire childhood. But from a relative perspective- let’s take a five year old- that’s about 40% of his lifetime to date. That feels very significant to him/her. That said, having kids that age, I would say my kids handled this pandemic way better than most adults. They adapt quicker and don’t have the emotional baggage (“masks are an evil plot to control the population” for example) to get through. We have been lucky that they were able to attend school in person though - very strict COVID protocols plus a small population ensured that we never had an outbreak. Things would have been different if we didn’t have that ability.
    - toss1 5y ago
      ok, even if we are talking about a significant part of lifetime to date, it is still a pretty well-spoilt view from any historical perspective. And even new variants and vaccine delays cause us to get to years of lockdown that actually constitutes significant portions of full childhoods, are you arguing that childhoods full of funerals and an adulthood full of diminished mental capacity [1] and COVID sequalae are better? The 'modern' world is not a stable reality, it is a priveliged bubble. In general, and throughout most of history, it is a harsh place with most things trying to kill us. Having to simply take protective measures is as old as humanity, from standing guard through the night watching for other apex predators, to avoiding invaders and plagues, it is a part of what it is to be human (and not even to mention how much easier it is then for other creatures). To view any alteration to our modern routines due to actual biological reality as some injustice is provileged and myopic. Better to turn it into a teaching moment and illustrate how it is a part of history, and in this case, a very mild version of what was previously endured. [1] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(21)00324-2/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5...
snowwrestler 5y ago
It’s hard to confidently assert that the cure is worse than the disease if we don’t know the long-term effects of the disease yet. (Which is why we’re discussing the Lancet article.)

glangdale 5y ago

Delta, so far, seems to infect whole households with ease in a way that we didn't see. Sydney, Australia is on severe lockdown at the moment thanks to a delta outbreak (it hasn't helped that, like many countries that handled the lockdown/test-and-trace methodology well, we fucked up the vaccination program). I would imagine that a combination of mass vaccination (which seems to reduce transmission, although not by as much as was hoped) - and continued reasonable measures (mask wearing in crowded indoor places, better ventilation) we could achieve eventual elimination. Alternately, on route to this less-than-comfortable-outcome, we could make strides in treating the long-term illness, improve short-term treatments and improve vaccines. The other option is that maybe we'll work our way through the entire Greek alphabet of variations (and beyond; perhaps the Omega variation is followed by double-Alpha) with a large pool of sick people and vaccine escape whack-a-mole because people decided there was no options between "live in a bunker" and "free for all".

irq11 5y ago
> Delta, so far, seems to infect whole households with ease in a way that we didn't see. According to the latest data out of the UK, Delta is approximately as contagious as Alpha: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1005517/Technical_Briefing_19.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/... There is simply no basis for these claims of dramatically increased contagion. It’s a meme that was based on early speculation, and repeated mindlessly by the press.
- mortehu 5y ago
  > According to the latest data out of the UK, Delta is approximately as contagious as Alpha Are you talking about page 34, which compares secondary attack rate week by week? Can you explain how you read that chart?

LatteLazy 5y ago

On a personal level, get vaccinated. That seems to reduce risks by a factor of at least 1000. On a social level: use the Aus model. Actually lockdown, get case numbers down to the 10s per million. The UK, US etc model is the opposite, it relies on having as many people as possible infected and not really engaging in any full lockdowns. So far that's meant more and longer lockdowns. It's also meant more variants. And it means the maximum number of people with long term effects. It's the worst of all worlds, even the economic one.

machinehermiter 5y ago

There are no options obviously. I am fully vaccinated, if you offer me a booster I will take it. If you offer me whatever, I will take it. At that point I have done all I can do. If someone wants to stay in a bunker because things are beyond their risk preference then they should not be forced out of the bunker. Forcing me back in a bunker though being fully vaccinated is absolute bullshit if anyone can get vaccinated.

graeme 5y ago

> But unless you want to live like a recluse in a bunker, what are your options? It depends on work and family circumstances. But, stuff that works: * Be outdoors, and socialize outdoors * If in indoor unventilated spaces, wear a mask. Ideally N95 if lots of people and they aren’t mask * Exercise more caution during local waves * If socializing with others indoors, open a window. This can be done even during heat waves or winter: the greater the temp differential the more the air circulation for a given amount of window opening. Doesn’t raise costs too much, yet people treat it as impossible * Buy a hepa filter for your home. Humidifiers can also help in winter * Avoid indoor restaurants and bars and unmasked venues * In risky venues, choose glasses over contacts. Eye protection is another layer * Don’t hang out with symptomatic or unvaccinated people * Get vaccinated Whether you should choose to do this is another thing, but that’s what to do if you don’t want to catch a respiratory virus. This above is consistent with: seeing friends, small indoor gatherings, travel (wear n95 + glasses!), etc. It certainly isn’t living in a bunker. It does present problems during winter though, and it is also quite inconvenient in places with frequent large waves. Small ventilated indoor gatherings with vaccinated friends should be ok in low prevalence, but are risky in a big wave, for example.

blindmute 5y ago
I would quite literally rather contract covid than live like that for any period of time.
- graeme 5y ago
  Apart from the masks, it’s how much of Canada lives for four months of the year (summer). We hardly do any indoors socializing. It’s what I based the above on. Both pandemic summers Canada has had collapsing cases even while there were surged in parts of the world with winter or that use AC more than us. Go to any restaurant with a patio and you’ll hardly see anyone inside. Everyone goes to the patios in summertime. And people tend to open windows rather than use AC on anything but the hottest days. Backyard dinners or rooftop drinks are one of the main ways people socialize privately.
  - 5y ago

AnthonBerg 5y ago

> But unless you want to live like a recluse in a bunker, what are your options? We can: • Try not to get infected • If inevitable: Get as little of it as we can • Help the body clear the illness and after-effects • Contract the illness as late as possible, as medicine advances faster than mutations • Seek to support the science of figuring this thing out • Do this together • Seek to reduce the amount of contagious people in our local and global environment Practically, we can: • Wear masks. Better masks are better • Use air conditioning, advocate for air conditioning and fresh air • Exercise. Eat well. Go outside. • Get vaccinated • Read papers • Discuss the science • Participate in studies • Fund science • Explain to people what the scientific process is and how we know what we know • Should we arrive at the opinion that certain substances, drugs, or supplements may have a protective effect, we might take those • We can be the living scientific process: When we choose to experiment, seek to carefully note down the results and publish them • Help others • Fund healthcare for those who are less well off than we are • Establish robust social immunity by discussing the options we do have to reduce infection

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
jmnicolas 5y ago
> Seek to support the science of figuring this thing out It's "funny" because a few months ago, I read that it was definitely an airborne virus, so hands contagion was absolutely not a concern. Then yesterday I read the complete opposite. In both case, they were reputable scientists. Thanks for the advises anyway.
- AnthonBerg 5y ago
  Exactly! And which leads us to asking: How do we know???
SquibblesRedux 5y ago
I think we need to put considerably more effort into discussing existing and new scientific endeavors before we consider funding. I am not saying we should pause or reduce funding, but rather the reach of our public coffers has increasingly exceeded our understanding of what we are or are not accomplishing with that funding. The amount of noise, publicity, and politicization of scientific research makes it very difficult to wisely set public policy at both the national and local levels.

caeril 5y ago

> what are your options? We're a year and a half into it. We have the data. Aside from vaccination and some degree of proper ventilation, you need to: 1. Not be old. 2. Not be fat. We talk a lot about #1, but #2 is taboo. We, as a society, prefers that you die unnecessarily young from COVID than feel a little bit of shame. Not to mention #2 was already murdering nearly half a million Americans annually on its own prior to COVID. This needs to be fixed. Sugar/corn industry lobbyists and fast food advertisers should have been publicly hanged decades ago. Now we have even more incentive to address the issue, but I suppose slowly dying at the age of 37, gasping for breath, is a small price to pay to avoid feeling slightly negative about being 300lbs or impact the dividends of the Coca Cola Corporation.

tester756 5y ago
>but #2 is taboo. where?
sharken 5y ago
You are absolutely right. Number 2 is hard to fix as lobbyists and fast food companies have a lot of influence. But it is concerning that of US women from age 20 and up, 60% or more are considered overweight. A woman 50 years old has an average weight of 80 kg, using the Miller ideal weight formula and a height of 170 cm, the weight should be 62.5 kg. https://www.healthline.com/health/womens-health/average-weight-for-women https://www.healthline.com/health/womens-health/average-weig... There should be some kind of reward or benefit for those that can keep to the ideal weight for a longer period of say 1 year.

snowwrestler 5y ago

There’s no reason to believe catching COVID-19 is inevitable. Consider that the best estimates about the Spanish flu of 1918 are that about a third of the world caught it before that pandemic ended. Today we have much better knowledge and hygiene, and extremely effective vaccines. Most people in the world have not contracted COVID-19. Personal precautions are well understood and vaccine distribution is well underway. I’m sorry that your friend contracted it. In contrast I would characterize my family’s precautions as normal, and none of us have contracted it. Two of us are now vaccinated as well.

nickthemagicman 5y ago
The Spanish Flu never went away, it just became "The Flu™".

rualca 5y ago

> But unless you want to live like a recluse in a bunker, what are your options? You mean like social distancing, wear respiratory masks in closed spaces, revise public spaces to improve air filtering and forced congregations, improve public transportation to avoid high concentration of passengers, and don't force returns to office in industries that do not require them? You're talking about bunkers and recluses as if you are totally unaware that a) working from home means neither and b) people overwhelmingly prefer it.