4 ms·

We are weeks into Omicron obsession and I’ve yet to see panic about the death rates. So you have reason to be optimistic, although I know plenty of people stil

We are weeks into Omicron obsession and I’ve yet to see panic about the death rates. So you have reason to be optimistic, although I know plenty of people still yearning for this to be another round of horrors.

spurgu 5y ago
Yeah it's so weird. Once we had the vaccines the actual dangers vastly dropped but people still cling to their fears. I suppose the media drum desperately beating for clicks/views is not helping much with that.
- conk 5y ago
  Maybe because not everyone has the option to get vaccinated yet.
- SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago
  My understanding is that there are still plenty of folks children that aren’t old enough to be vaccinated yet, and also millions of people are immunocompromised so I would expect they and all their relatives to make a ton of noise when it comes to the notion of living as normal, especially if there’s a variant that dodges vaccination effects to some degree… (To be clear I also wonder when it is time to return “to normal” but I disagree this is some kind of media propaganda. I think it’s too dismissive to assume there aren’t significant populations that have reasonable desires to continue to aim for mitigating policies like masking.)
  - nradov 5y ago
    The data has always been clear that there is no serious risk to healthy children. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burden.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burd...
    - SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago
      That doesn’t necessarily mean any new parent is comfortable rolling the dice on being the exception. Parents often can and will do whatever they can to protect their child, even from low chances of danger (for example, screwing furniture to the wall because falling bookcases/dressers/etc have a low but easily preventable chance of tipping over and killing a child), especially if the thing is preventable.
      - spurgu 5y ago
        Hmm. If someone came over to my house with their toddler and asked me to attach all of my furniture I'd think they're being way overprotective of their child. I'd try to talk them out of it, through their irrational fears and remind them that life is full of dangers and trying to shield their children from all of them will be an impossible task which would only be detrimental to the child's development. If they insisted I might go for it (temporarily taping, not screwing), reluctantly, if they were close friends (I'd accept their neuroticism). For every stranger? Never. I don't have the morals and empathy of Jesus. Then again there was some stories about leprocy, some story about not being afraid, accepting them, hmm...
        SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago
        But it’s so common that a ton of furniture explicitly comes with screw-into-wall equipment explicitly for this edge case. There has been enough public pressure from a few number of tragic and very preventable deaths that now lots of furniture comes with this or instructs that it’s recommended to do so. I consider wanting your child to be vaccinated to protect against the edge case of severe disease to be within the same category: society broadly allows for great protectiveness for children in the case of easily preventable death.
        spurgu 5y ago
        Ha, yes! We seem to be on the same line here. Supplying furniture with optional attachments seems like a good middle way. I would never make it mandatory to do so though but it's great to have the public discourse leading to producers giving consumers the option. Once kids go from toddlers to starting walking and understanding the world around them though I think it's very important to teach them to be careful about - but actively use - things like knives, scissors, hot stoves etc. Then you don't have to constantly worry about them and they'll grow up to be capable and responsible individuals. So yeah, I suppose my initial reaction was more towards the latter point of helicopter parenting, not the first one of protecting toddlers.
  - spurgu 5y ago
    First of all, if you look at healthy children - especially boys - it looks like risks of myocarditis is actually larger than complications from contracting the virus. For older people that's not a concern, but for children I'd listen to those hesitant about vaccinating their kids. Finland for example won't vaccinate people <12 until there have been proper studies made about the safety and already stopped giving Moderna to people <30. Second, the immunocompromised have always had problems navigating society. It sucks, but the best we can (reasonably) do long term is to stay home when sick, and practice good hygiene in public places. Third, I think the media and the "desires to continue mitigation" go hand in hand. The fact that you keep being worried about kids indicate that you tend to follow mainstream media, or particular people on Twitter, where you're fed the same narrative. It's a powerful tool. Finally, if the media stopped reporting on Covid tomorrow, or even started calling it "seasonal flu" instead while reporting 10% of the amount they do now, the fears in people would subside and things would go back to normal. It's a negative feedback loop.
    - SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago
      > The fact that you keep being worried I think you’re projecting. I don’t really care about Covid; I’m not in a risk category. But I’m not so blind to my own bias that I can’t acknowledge that other people who feel more worried than I do might have reasonable arguments to be more worried! I’m merely arguing against vague dismissals as if there are no reasonably worried people who are taking their own personal evaluation of the danger they and their loved ones are in during a pandemic. Additionally, please note you have no argument towards the fact that there are millions of immunocompromised individuals except to shrug and go “oh well”. This is not an adequate reason to dismiss that millions of individuals and their loved ones might advocate very reasonably for their benefit and safety so that they’re not shut in/excluded from society for multiple years due to everyone else refusing to practice basic mitigation like masking and vaccination during a pandemic.
      - spurgu 5y ago
        Well not really "projecting". Maybe imposing my view of others who are afraid of Covid onto you, but if so I apologize. You seem to have your head in the right place. I'm mainly trying to define/understand the fear, because I'm still not getting it and think it's irrational and overblown. Moreso now with Omicron. > I’m not so blind to my own bias that I can’t acknowledge that other people who feel more worried than I do I live under the same roof with an 83 year old. I've had two jabs, because I was under the false impression that vaccination would prevent transmission. I am sick and tired of having people call me selfish (I know you didn't!). Immunocompromised people are, as I acknowledged before, a problem in this equation. But we as a society have always had to accept a certain level of risk, and inconvenience to minorities. We could have every document/sign/book ever produced done in braille as well, but that would be considered an enormous waste of energy and resources. Are blind people worth any less than people with vision? Most would argue no (aside from economists). Blind (or otherwise impaired) people will inherently have inconveniences compared to their healthy counterparts. We should strive to remove their suffering, but we cannot go about our lives engineering everything tailored to every handicapped group. We've simply gotten another coronavirus in circulation and it's nastier than the ones we had before. Naturally, as I see it, this should lead us to accept a higher level of risk in our daily lives (like when we started using cars instead of horses for transportation) instead of trying to irrationally cling to the previous one. Overall mortality raised by some 0.1-0.3% or whatever percentage and we need to accept it. Of course everyone in a risk group should go get vaccinated ASAP. I assume many also overestimate their own health. But I still think it's wrong to shun and shame them and lock them out from society. Instead we should be able to have reasonable discussions about things, like we're having here right now (I think), but instead I see ideas like vaccine mandates for everyone in the US, including all children and those with previous infections, which is just insane, and there is no open debate allowed about this. And this censorship only leads to stronger echo chambers, exacerbating the problem to begin with. If we could be open and honest we might come to a conclusion together that there's no point in mandating vaccines for young men or children and we should instead focus on the elderly and the risk groups. Point out to people that there are risks of myocarditis but they're small in comparison to the risks of Covid, for most people. Now you can barely say anything negative about anything without getting "canceled" or "deplatformed". That's what I'm mainly worried about. And also why I the mainstream view is so skewed. Anyone who has any kind of skepticism/criticism is an "anti-vaxxer", which is countered by more censoring, shaming, whatnot. Creating a world of division where we have two people, the ones who are compassionate, and the ones who don't give a fuck about the rest of the world and only themselves. The truth is more nuanced than that. Sorry about the rant. :D

spurgu 5y ago

Yeah it's so weird. Once we had the vaccines the actual dangers vastly dropped but people still cling to their fears. I suppose the media drum desperately beating for clicks/views is not helping much with that.

conk 5y ago
Maybe because not everyone has the option to get vaccinated yet.
SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago
My understanding is that there are still plenty of folks children that aren’t old enough to be vaccinated yet, and also millions of people are immunocompromised so I would expect they and all their relatives to make a ton of noise when it comes to the notion of living as normal, especially if there’s a variant that dodges vaccination effects to some degree… (To be clear I also wonder when it is time to return “to normal” but I disagree this is some kind of media propaganda. I think it’s too dismissive to assume there aren’t significant populations that have reasonable desires to continue to aim for mitigating policies like masking.)
- nradov 5y ago
  The data has always been clear that there is no serious risk to healthy children. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burden.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burd...
  - SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago
    That doesn’t necessarily mean any new parent is comfortable rolling the dice on being the exception. Parents often can and will do whatever they can to protect their child, even from low chances of danger (for example, screwing furniture to the wall because falling bookcases/dressers/etc have a low but easily preventable chance of tipping over and killing a child), especially if the thing is preventable.
    - spurgu 5y ago
      Hmm. If someone came over to my house with their toddler and asked me to attach all of my furniture I'd think they're being way overprotective of their child. I'd try to talk them out of it, through their irrational fears and remind them that life is full of dangers and trying to shield their children from all of them will be an impossible task which would only be detrimental to the child's development. If they insisted I might go for it (temporarily taping, not screwing), reluctantly, if they were close friends (I'd accept their neuroticism). For every stranger? Never. I don't have the morals and empathy of Jesus. Then again there was some stories about leprocy, some story about not being afraid, accepting them, hmm...
      - SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago
        But it’s so common that a ton of furniture explicitly comes with screw-into-wall equipment explicitly for this edge case. There has been enough public pressure from a few number of tragic and very preventable deaths that now lots of furniture comes with this or instructs that it’s recommended to do so. I consider wanting your child to be vaccinated to protect against the edge case of severe disease to be within the same category: society broadly allows for great protectiveness for children in the case of easily preventable death.
        spurgu 5y ago
        Ha, yes! We seem to be on the same line here. Supplying furniture with optional attachments seems like a good middle way. I would never make it mandatory to do so though but it's great to have the public discourse leading to producers giving consumers the option. Once kids go from toddlers to starting walking and understanding the world around them though I think it's very important to teach them to be careful about - but actively use - things like knives, scissors, hot stoves etc. Then you don't have to constantly worry about them and they'll grow up to be capable and responsible individuals. So yeah, I suppose my initial reaction was more towards the latter point of helicopter parenting, not the first one of protecting toddlers.
- spurgu 5y ago
  First of all, if you look at healthy children - especially boys - it looks like risks of myocarditis is actually larger than complications from contracting the virus. For older people that's not a concern, but for children I'd listen to those hesitant about vaccinating their kids. Finland for example won't vaccinate people <12 until there have been proper studies made about the safety and already stopped giving Moderna to people <30. Second, the immunocompromised have always had problems navigating society. It sucks, but the best we can (reasonably) do long term is to stay home when sick, and practice good hygiene in public places. Third, I think the media and the "desires to continue mitigation" go hand in hand. The fact that you keep being worried about kids indicate that you tend to follow mainstream media, or particular people on Twitter, where you're fed the same narrative. It's a powerful tool. Finally, if the media stopped reporting on Covid tomorrow, or even started calling it "seasonal flu" instead while reporting 10% of the amount they do now, the fears in people would subside and things would go back to normal. It's a negative feedback loop.
  - SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago
    > The fact that you keep being worried I think you’re projecting. I don’t really care about Covid; I’m not in a risk category. But I’m not so blind to my own bias that I can’t acknowledge that other people who feel more worried than I do might have reasonable arguments to be more worried! I’m merely arguing against vague dismissals as if there are no reasonably worried people who are taking their own personal evaluation of the danger they and their loved ones are in during a pandemic. Additionally, please note you have no argument towards the fact that there are millions of immunocompromised individuals except to shrug and go “oh well”. This is not an adequate reason to dismiss that millions of individuals and their loved ones might advocate very reasonably for their benefit and safety so that they’re not shut in/excluded from society for multiple years due to everyone else refusing to practice basic mitigation like masking and vaccination during a pandemic.
    - spurgu 5y ago
      Well not really "projecting". Maybe imposing my view of others who are afraid of Covid onto you, but if so I apologize. You seem to have your head in the right place. I'm mainly trying to define/understand the fear, because I'm still not getting it and think it's irrational and overblown. Moreso now with Omicron. > I’m not so blind to my own bias that I can’t acknowledge that other people who feel more worried than I do I live under the same roof with an 83 year old. I've had two jabs, because I was under the false impression that vaccination would prevent transmission. I am sick and tired of having people call me selfish (I know you didn't!). Immunocompromised people are, as I acknowledged before, a problem in this equation. But we as a society have always had to accept a certain level of risk, and inconvenience to minorities. We could have every document/sign/book ever produced done in braille as well, but that would be considered an enormous waste of energy and resources. Are blind people worth any less than people with vision? Most would argue no (aside from economists). Blind (or otherwise impaired) people will inherently have inconveniences compared to their healthy counterparts. We should strive to remove their suffering, but we cannot go about our lives engineering everything tailored to every handicapped group. We've simply gotten another coronavirus in circulation and it's nastier than the ones we had before. Naturally, as I see it, this should lead us to accept a higher level of risk in our daily lives (like when we started using cars instead of horses for transportation) instead of trying to irrationally cling to the previous one. Overall mortality raised by some 0.1-0.3% or whatever percentage and we need to accept it. Of course everyone in a risk group should go get vaccinated ASAP. I assume many also overestimate their own health. But I still think it's wrong to shun and shame them and lock them out from society. Instead we should be able to have reasonable discussions about things, like we're having here right now (I think), but instead I see ideas like vaccine mandates for everyone in the US, including all children and those with previous infections, which is just insane, and there is no open debate allowed about this. And this censorship only leads to stronger echo chambers, exacerbating the problem to begin with. If we could be open and honest we might come to a conclusion together that there's no point in mandating vaccines for young men or children and we should instead focus on the elderly and the risk groups. Point out to people that there are risks of myocarditis but they're small in comparison to the risks of Covid, for most people. Now you can barely say anything negative about anything without getting "canceled" or "deplatformed". That's what I'm mainly worried about. And also why I the mainstream view is so skewed. Anyone who has any kind of skepticism/criticism is an "anti-vaxxer", which is countered by more censoring, shaming, whatnot. Creating a world of division where we have two people, the ones who are compassionate, and the ones who don't give a fuck about the rest of the world and only themselves. The truth is more nuanced than that. Sorry about the rant. :D