5 ms·

Could someone knowledgeable please explain how it is that we're having _worse_ infection rates than last year given that, by CDC estimates, 160M+ people already

by m0zg 5y ago

Could someone knowledgeable please explain how it is that we're having _worse_ infection rates than last year given that, by CDC estimates, 160M+ people already had covid [1] (and is therefore at least partially immune), and hundreds of millions of people had the vaccine? Nothing seems to make sense anymore, and nobody, as far as I can tell, is willing to offer a coherent explanation. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burden.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burd... - note that the case numbers people typically refer to aren't the right numbers to be referring to - they do not take unreported cases into account. The CDC estimates there are 4.2x as many cases as the "confirmed" ones that everyone is hyperventilating about.

throw0101a 5y ago
The infection rates may be worse than last year because last year, 2020, large swaths of the country were in lock down, and so your chances of actually getting infected may have been lower since you were probably (a) staying at home, and (b) mostly interacting with a small circle of people. Now many areas of the US have lifted restrictions, but many people are not protecting themselves: they are refusing to get vaccines, and they are refusing to wear masks. And then they gather willy-nilly. >95% of the people in ICUs are folks that are not vaccinated. Plus we have a new variant of COVID—Delta—that is both more contagious, and may hit you harder.
- m0zg 5y ago
  > large swaths of the country were in lock down Not in September. There were massive riots and political rallies, remember? > they are refusing to get vaccines A lot of them are already immune due to having had covid. About half, assuming random sampling. And last year _nobody_ had any vaccines. > people are not protecting themselves Protections that are currently deployed are mostly "covid theater" anyway. Nobody even checks your body temperature when you go into a grocery store or board a plane. > Plus we have a new variant of COVID—Delta—that is both more contagious, and may hit you harder. The first part of that is true, but the second is not - Delta seems to be more contagious but less deadly. This is a fairly common progression in viral evolution.
  - mdorazio 5y ago
    > Not in September. There were massive riots and political rallies, remember? Yes, in September. There were riots and protests in some places, but most of the country was very much in lockdown conditions with significantly more restrictions in place than there are today. Also, increased/improved testing may be a factor.
    - m0zg 5y ago
      PCR cycle threshold was reduced in January, so if anything we should be getting a lot fewer false positives now (and a lot more false negatives), even though testing throughput is 1.5x of what it was in Sep 2020. But again, half the people had the disease, and well over a half had the vaccine. We should not be seeing what we're seeing. Remember - 4 times as many people aren't even on the radar, they have mild cases and never go to the hospital. We should be asking questions as to whether multi-trillion dollar bullshit we've been doing to "stop covid" (which can't be stopped) is effective or not, yet there's a very notable lack of journalistic inquisitiveness in that regard. It's becoming a religion, basically, where if you challenge the dogma you're branded an apostate and excommunicated instead of anyone trying to persuade you with facts. FWIW, not a single soul is even asking the obvious question: what scientific justification is there to require vaccination for people with _confirmed_ previous covid infection? Science says they already enjoy immunity superior to any vaccine available on the market. And yet they are considered "unvaccinated", and could lose their livelihood if they live in blue states or work for (or even _with_) the federal government. Especially the medical frontline workers that just last year were "heroes" and had covid in droves: a lot of them have lost their jobs yesterday in NY. If this was about science, it'd focus on vulnerable populations. During the entire duration of this pandemic, only a little over 400 children have died with covid, and less than 1400 people in the 15-24 age range. Yet where is the public discourse focused now? On vaccinating the children and the young adults. Why? I have a thousand such "why"s and the whole situation, to me at least, stinks of corruption, ineptitude, and science denialism, because nobody has a coherent answer, even the people who should know better. And the less educated folks, while they might not understand the subtleties of this debate, can smell the bullshit too.
  - HWR_14 5y ago
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
ipaddr 5y ago
Vaccination reduced the overall attack rate to 4.6% (95% CrI: 4.3% – 5.0%) from 9.0% (95% CrI: 8.4% – 9.4%) without vaccination, over 300 days https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7709178/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7709178/ The vaccine reduces you risk of getting covid by half. Cases will go up if people believe they are fully protected.
- m0zg 5y ago
  Everyone's risk of getting covid is 100%. It's an endemic disease that's never going away. _At best_ the vaccine would only postpone the inevitable. Also, vaccine does not prevent you from getting COVID. It just significantly (about 10x) reduces your chances of dying from it. That is enough of a benefit for most clear thinking people to justify getting it. Yet the government tries to piss in everyone's face and tell them it's raining, with its "mandates", and it's encountering the rather predictable pushback because facts on the ground do not at all align with what the talking heads on TV are saying.
quickthrower2 5y ago
Could be: * increased testing * reduced social distancing * more virulent strains

by m0zg 5y ago

throw0101a 5y ago

The infection rates may be worse than last year because last year, 2020, large swaths of the country were in lock down, and so your chances of actually getting infected may have been lower since you were probably (a) staying at home, and (b) mostly interacting with a small circle of people. Now many areas of the US have lifted restrictions, but many people are not protecting themselves: they are refusing to get vaccines, and they are refusing to wear masks. And then they gather willy-nilly. >95% of the people in ICUs are folks that are not vaccinated. Plus we have a new variant of COVID—Delta—that is both more contagious, and may hit you harder.

m0zg 5y ago
> large swaths of the country were in lock down Not in September. There were massive riots and political rallies, remember? > they are refusing to get vaccines A lot of them are already immune due to having had covid. About half, assuming random sampling. And last year _nobody_ had any vaccines. > people are not protecting themselves Protections that are currently deployed are mostly "covid theater" anyway. Nobody even checks your body temperature when you go into a grocery store or board a plane. > Plus we have a new variant of COVID—Delta—that is both more contagious, and may hit you harder. The first part of that is true, but the second is not - Delta seems to be more contagious but less deadly. This is a fairly common progression in viral evolution.
- mdorazio 5y ago
  > Not in September. There were massive riots and political rallies, remember? Yes, in September. There were riots and protests in some places, but most of the country was very much in lockdown conditions with significantly more restrictions in place than there are today. Also, increased/improved testing may be a factor.
  - m0zg 5y ago
    PCR cycle threshold was reduced in January, so if anything we should be getting a lot fewer false positives now (and a lot more false negatives), even though testing throughput is 1.5x of what it was in Sep 2020. But again, half the people had the disease, and well over a half had the vaccine. We should not be seeing what we're seeing. Remember - 4 times as many people aren't even on the radar, they have mild cases and never go to the hospital. We should be asking questions as to whether multi-trillion dollar bullshit we've been doing to "stop covid" (which can't be stopped) is effective or not, yet there's a very notable lack of journalistic inquisitiveness in that regard. It's becoming a religion, basically, where if you challenge the dogma you're branded an apostate and excommunicated instead of anyone trying to persuade you with facts. FWIW, not a single soul is even asking the obvious question: what scientific justification is there to require vaccination for people with _confirmed_ previous covid infection? Science says they already enjoy immunity superior to any vaccine available on the market. And yet they are considered "unvaccinated", and could lose their livelihood if they live in blue states or work for (or even _with_) the federal government. Especially the medical frontline workers that just last year were "heroes" and had covid in droves: a lot of them have lost their jobs yesterday in NY. If this was about science, it'd focus on vulnerable populations. During the entire duration of this pandemic, only a little over 400 children have died with covid, and less than 1400 people in the 15-24 age range. Yet where is the public discourse focused now? On vaccinating the children and the young adults. Why? I have a thousand such "why"s and the whole situation, to me at least, stinks of corruption, ineptitude, and science denialism, because nobody has a coherent answer, even the people who should know better. And the less educated folks, while they might not understand the subtleties of this debate, can smell the bullshit too.
- HWR_14 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

ipaddr 5y ago

Vaccination reduced the overall attack rate to 4.6% (95% CrI: 4.3% – 5.0%) from 9.0% (95% CrI: 8.4% – 9.4%) without vaccination, over 300 days https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7709178/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7709178/ The vaccine reduces you risk of getting covid by half. Cases will go up if people believe they are fully protected.

m0zg 5y ago
Everyone's risk of getting covid is 100%. It's an endemic disease that's never going away. _At best_ the vaccine would only postpone the inevitable. Also, vaccine does not prevent you from getting COVID. It just significantly (about 10x) reduces your chances of dying from it. That is enough of a benefit for most clear thinking people to justify getting it. Yet the government tries to piss in everyone's face and tell them it's raining, with its "mandates", and it's encountering the rather predictable pushback because facts on the ground do not at all align with what the talking heads on TV are saying.

quickthrower2 5y ago

Could be: * increased testing * reduced social distancing * more virulent strains