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> The great lie still [...] is that Covid is going to go away courtesy of vaccinations. The authorities have pitched that to the public from the early days of t

> The great lie still [...] is that Covid is going to go away courtesy of vaccinations. The authorities have pitched that to the public from the early days of the vaccines That is (1) outrageously hyperbolized and (2) completely wrong. Delta wasn't known to have this level of transmissibility until the last three weeks. People, experts, doctors, "authorities", whatever, you want to label them 100% believed sincerely that we were on a path to the elimination of the outbreak. Cut the bullshit, basically. Yeah, yeah, I know it's HN and everyone wants to think they're smarter than everyone else. But you aren't. You're retconning brand new science to make prior understanding into a "big lie". That's really awful.

SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
The relevant experts - virologists, epidemiologists, etc. - neither believed nor claimed that we were on a path to the elimination of the outbreak. They've consistently stated that the virus will be around for at least years, probably decades, possibly forever.
- christophilus 5y ago
  Yeah. This has been my impression, too. I’m not aware of anyone who thought vaccines were a path to total elimination. But then, my only news source is HN and some science YouTube channels.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
    The vaccines are/were a path out of a pandemic. That's something to strive for, but extremely different from "elimination"
- newacct583 5y ago
  To be clear, I meant "elimination of the outbreak" in the sense of an endemic virus that produces a steady case rate. Clearly no, no one expected this disease to be eradicated.
  - SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
    Well, you and I didn't. I know quite a few people who've been talking since June about how they're comfortable doing suchandsuch "as soon as Covid is gone", and I'm not sure what they could mean by that other than eradication. It would seem to me that by an endemic standard, the Covid outbreak was gone from the US between May and July and has only just recently made a resurgence.
    - newacct583 5y ago
      That seems nitpicky. There are lots of non-eradicated endemic diseases (ebola, malaria...) that are objectively much scarier than covid. But we don't freak out about them because they are well-controlled and rare. A covid mitigation regime that keeps its R0 under 1 and its outbreaks local and non-spreading would be very much the goal here. > It would seem to me that by an endemic standard, the Covid outbreak was gone from the US between May and July and has only just recently made a resurgence. Pffft. Yeah, not even close. At its lowest, the covid death rate was 5x higher than average deaths from influenza over the past decade.
      - SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
        At what specific death rate would you be comfortable saying "okay cool" and treating Covid the same way as other diseases? I don't mean for this to be a trick question. 5x the flu is within my comfort zone, but 2x or 1x or even 0.5x could all be reasonable answers. The answer that's not reasonable, but is by far the most common answer I've gotten, is that no Covid deaths are acceptable and we should never stop taking extreme measures to suppress them.
        newacct583 5y ago
        Gah. Influenza kills more people in the US than any other infectious disease, and frankly it isn't even close. You aren't making any sense here. I cited that number, clearly, as an UPPER bound beyond which we couldn't possibly view an outbreak as acceptable. I don't view a statement that puts 100k deaths/year as within your "comfort zone" as a serious attempt to engage, sorry.
- kcplate 5y ago
  Yeah, but a politician can’t say that…so the experts close to the politicians tend to follow the political narrative instead. The ugly result is a lack of trust in the experts, the science, and the politicians when there are setbacks to that political narrative.
moistly 5y ago
IMO users who push flat-out lies like that should be banned. HN should not be a source of disinformation.
Izkata 5y ago
> Delta wasn't known to have this level of transmissibility until the last three weeks. Delta was formerly known as the India(n) variant. We've known it had high transmissibility since April or May.

SpicyLemonZest 5y ago

The relevant experts - virologists, epidemiologists, etc. - neither believed nor claimed that we were on a path to the elimination of the outbreak. They've consistently stated that the virus will be around for at least years, probably decades, possibly forever.

christophilus 5y ago
Yeah. This has been my impression, too. I’m not aware of anyone who thought vaccines were a path to total elimination. But then, my only news source is HN and some science YouTube channels.
- PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
  The vaccines are/were a path out of a pandemic. That's something to strive for, but extremely different from "elimination"
newacct583 5y ago
To be clear, I meant "elimination of the outbreak" in the sense of an endemic virus that produces a steady case rate. Clearly no, no one expected this disease to be eradicated.
- SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
  Well, you and I didn't. I know quite a few people who've been talking since June about how they're comfortable doing suchandsuch "as soon as Covid is gone", and I'm not sure what they could mean by that other than eradication. It would seem to me that by an endemic standard, the Covid outbreak was gone from the US between May and July and has only just recently made a resurgence.
  - newacct583 5y ago
    That seems nitpicky. There are lots of non-eradicated endemic diseases (ebola, malaria...) that are objectively much scarier than covid. But we don't freak out about them because they are well-controlled and rare. A covid mitigation regime that keeps its R0 under 1 and its outbreaks local and non-spreading would be very much the goal here. > It would seem to me that by an endemic standard, the Covid outbreak was gone from the US between May and July and has only just recently made a resurgence. Pffft. Yeah, not even close. At its lowest, the covid death rate was 5x higher than average deaths from influenza over the past decade.
    - SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
      At what specific death rate would you be comfortable saying "okay cool" and treating Covid the same way as other diseases? I don't mean for this to be a trick question. 5x the flu is within my comfort zone, but 2x or 1x or even 0.5x could all be reasonable answers. The answer that's not reasonable, but is by far the most common answer I've gotten, is that no Covid deaths are acceptable and we should never stop taking extreme measures to suppress them.
      - newacct583 5y ago
        Gah. Influenza kills more people in the US than any other infectious disease, and frankly it isn't even close. You aren't making any sense here. I cited that number, clearly, as an UPPER bound beyond which we couldn't possibly view an outbreak as acceptable. I don't view a statement that puts 100k deaths/year as within your "comfort zone" as a serious attempt to engage, sorry.
kcplate 5y ago
Yeah, but a politician can’t say that…so the experts close to the politicians tend to follow the political narrative instead. The ugly result is a lack of trust in the experts, the science, and the politicians when there are setbacks to that political narrative.

moistly 5y ago

IMO users who push flat-out lies like that should be banned. HN should not be a source of disinformation.

Izkata 5y ago

> Delta wasn't known to have this level of transmissibility until the last three weeks. Delta was formerly known as the India(n) variant. We've known it had high transmissibility since April or May.