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The world will go back to normal when we accept that everyone will get Covid and there's no need to hide from it. People have some kind of mild mental illness

by dham 5y ago

The world will go back to normal when we accept that everyone will get Covid and there's no need to hide from it. People have some kind of mild mental illness from Covid and they haven't even gotten it. > Still better than covid, but damn I mean maybe?

sneak 5y ago
That's what they said about chicken pox when I was a child. Technology advances, fortunately. There is no going back to normal if everyone gets covid: it is a deadly disease that has killed close to five millions of people. This sort of fatalism is not a really useful approach for reasoning about the risk, in my view.
- dham 5y ago
  I mean we went back to normal after Spanish Flu and Hong Kong flu didn't we? Spanish flu killed 50 million (edit). Hong Kong killed 1 - 4 million. People will forget, it's in our nature to push on and survive. > Technology advances, fortunately. If you have the current technology you will get Covid. It's not if, it's when. Eventually we will have good vaccines (in a decade or two?) and maybe people won't get it. By that point it will have mutated into being a cold for most people. > This sort of fatalism is not a really useful approach for reasoning about the risk, in my view. Covid is a serious thing and I'm sad for the people that died from it, before vaccines and the unvaccinated. If someone is carrying even a little extra weight I would plead with them to get the vaccine. Let's just be honest though, the risk is just really really low for anyone in decent health. With the vaccine it's 0.
  - sneak 5y ago
    Yes; we now have a gigantic effort every single year to get out in front of the annual flu, identify the dominant strain via global viral surveillance, and produce and distribute and administer billions of vaccine doses in a few short months, each and every year. It's a huge system that involves thousands of people.
    - dham 5y ago
      Yea you have a point in our futile efforts to develop flu vaccines. If we ever have something that's actually deadly infect the world we're probably just screwed. The governments have used all the clout on Covid. Best just to get the vaccine and move on with life. Let's just be honest, we will probably die of Cancer or Heart Disease. I'm convinced if Covid hit in the 50's we wouldn't have near the deaths. We're such a unhealthy society now. Best just to focus on health going forward.
      - javagram 5y ago
        Easy to say focus on health, hard to do it. We’ve been “focused on health” for decades and people just keep getting fatter.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - Pyramus 5y ago
    > By that point it will have mutated into being a cold for most people. Just to clarify that it's not the virus that will become more benign in an endemic situation - it's the hosts that will adapt to it, similar to how baby's/children's immune systems develop. At birth they are immunologically naive but then their immune systems are being primed by exposure to common pathogens like coronaviruses, influenza etc (which is why young children are ill all the time). > Let's just be honest though, the risk is just really really low for anyone in decent health. With the vaccine it's 0. I agree with your assessment but let's not forget that the IFR of Covid-19 scales exponentially with age. Which is another reason to get the vaccine.
- schmorptron 5y ago
  If everyone gets a vaccine first and then covid we could be fine though, since the risk of dying is near zero for most people after having it
bryan0 5y ago
If you’re suggesting everyone should get Covid without being vaccinated, then that’s a really great way to cause millions of unneeded deaths. Just because you’re ok with that outcome don’t expect everyone else to be. edit: that's not what they were suggesting. I misunderstood!
- dham 5y ago
  > If you’re suggesting everyone should get Covid without being vaccinated Never have I said that. I'm just saying it's time to get vaccinated and move on with life. Everyone will get Covid at some point.
  - bryan0 5y ago
    Ok thanks for clarifying. I misunderstood and agree with your point.
- mensetmanusman 5y ago
  I didn’t read it that way at all. He is repeating what experts have said, which is basically, because Covid is dormant in animals and domestic pets, and because you can spread it while vaccinated, essentially everyone will eventually get Covid. If you are vaccinated, your symptoms will be, on average, less severe.
  - basch 5y ago
    It's probably more than everybody will get it, more like everybody will get it every couple years. Expect it to displace one of the colds, and become a common cold. Will babies be exposed to it enough, to eventually make vaccination a thing of the past? Do we vaccinate for other common colds right now (OC43)? Or maybe the opposite conclusion, that as you age you should be vaccinated against the common colds.

by dham 5y ago

sneak 5y ago

That's what they said about chicken pox when I was a child. Technology advances, fortunately. There is no going back to normal if everyone gets covid: it is a deadly disease that has killed close to five millions of people. This sort of fatalism is not a really useful approach for reasoning about the risk, in my view.

dham 5y ago
I mean we went back to normal after Spanish Flu and Hong Kong flu didn't we? Spanish flu killed 50 million (edit). Hong Kong killed 1 - 4 million. People will forget, it's in our nature to push on and survive. > Technology advances, fortunately. If you have the current technology you will get Covid. It's not if, it's when. Eventually we will have good vaccines (in a decade or two?) and maybe people won't get it. By that point it will have mutated into being a cold for most people. > This sort of fatalism is not a really useful approach for reasoning about the risk, in my view. Covid is a serious thing and I'm sad for the people that died from it, before vaccines and the unvaccinated. If someone is carrying even a little extra weight I would plead with them to get the vaccine. Let's just be honest though, the risk is just really really low for anyone in decent health. With the vaccine it's 0.
- sneak 5y ago
  Yes; we now have a gigantic effort every single year to get out in front of the annual flu, identify the dominant strain via global viral surveillance, and produce and distribute and administer billions of vaccine doses in a few short months, each and every year. It's a huge system that involves thousands of people.
  - dham 5y ago
    Yea you have a point in our futile efforts to develop flu vaccines. If we ever have something that's actually deadly infect the world we're probably just screwed. The governments have used all the clout on Covid. Best just to get the vaccine and move on with life. Let's just be honest, we will probably die of Cancer or Heart Disease. I'm convinced if Covid hit in the 50's we wouldn't have near the deaths. We're such a unhealthy society now. Best just to focus on health going forward.
    - javagram 5y ago
      Easy to say focus on health, hard to do it. We’ve been “focused on health” for decades and people just keep getting fatter.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Pyramus 5y ago
  > By that point it will have mutated into being a cold for most people. Just to clarify that it's not the virus that will become more benign in an endemic situation - it's the hosts that will adapt to it, similar to how baby's/children's immune systems develop. At birth they are immunologically naive but then their immune systems are being primed by exposure to common pathogens like coronaviruses, influenza etc (which is why young children are ill all the time). > Let's just be honest though, the risk is just really really low for anyone in decent health. With the vaccine it's 0. I agree with your assessment but let's not forget that the IFR of Covid-19 scales exponentially with age. Which is another reason to get the vaccine.
schmorptron 5y ago
If everyone gets a vaccine first and then covid we could be fine though, since the risk of dying is near zero for most people after having it

bryan0 5y ago

If you’re suggesting everyone should get Covid without being vaccinated, then that’s a really great way to cause millions of unneeded deaths. Just because you’re ok with that outcome don’t expect everyone else to be. edit: that's not what they were suggesting. I misunderstood!

dham 5y ago
> If you’re suggesting everyone should get Covid without being vaccinated Never have I said that. I'm just saying it's time to get vaccinated and move on with life. Everyone will get Covid at some point.
- bryan0 5y ago
  Ok thanks for clarifying. I misunderstood and agree with your point.
mensetmanusman 5y ago
I didn’t read it that way at all. He is repeating what experts have said, which is basically, because Covid is dormant in animals and domestic pets, and because you can spread it while vaccinated, essentially everyone will eventually get Covid. If you are vaccinated, your symptoms will be, on average, less severe.
- basch 5y ago
  It's probably more than everybody will get it, more like everybody will get it every couple years. Expect it to displace one of the colds, and become a common cold. Will babies be exposed to it enough, to eventually make vaccination a thing of the past? Do we vaccinate for other common colds right now (OC43)? Or maybe the opposite conclusion, that as you age you should be vaccinated against the common colds.