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A. It’s not just an endemic sniffle even for vaccinated people. I lost my sense of smell and got it back way after my quarantine ended, like months after. Plus

A. It’s not just an endemic sniffle even for vaccinated people. I lost my sense of smell and got it back way after my quarantine ended, like months after. Plus there’s a mental fog that lifted a long time later. I got Covid after my first shot but before my second. B. In general, being vaxxed keeps you from getting badly sick but you just can’t say. E.g., say you’re in a group of a hundred people with a thousand guns trained at your group. Just one gun out of the thousand has a live round while ten others have blank which don’t kill but can injure. Would you be willing to face those odds? Would you be willing to ask others to face the same odds? These are roughly the odds what you are asking teachers to take on.

nradov 5y ago
Think it through longer term. Over the next couple years the odds that teachers and all the rest of us will be infected is approximately 100%. Where the exposure comes from is irrelevant. I am willing to face those odds, and to ask others to do the same. https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/vinay-prasad/94646 https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/vinay-prasad/94646 Fortunately the vaccines and other therapies are quite effective at preventing deaths.
- light_hue_1 5y ago
  Even if you have a 100% chance of getting COVID eventually (something that we have zero evidence for) it totally matters when you get it. Sometimes ICUs are overloaded, other times they aren't. If you wait long enough we develop drugs that help. We will make vaccines more effective with time. What's worse, is a lot of people have long-haul COVID where they suffer severe symptoms that never seem to go away. We have no idea why. Maybe if you get COVID in 5 years we will have figured out why and you get to avoid ruining your life. Also. COVID is not one and done. You can get it multiple times. People have gotten COVID twice, the first time they were fine, the second time they died. Not only are you totally misinformed for wanting to "face those odds" you are risking the lives and well-being of those around you.
  - nradov 5y ago
    Hospitals have been overwhelmed during bad flu seasons many times before 2019. We didn't use that as an excuse to impose mandates and restrictions on the rest of society. Omicron is so contagious that your odds of avoiding infection for the next 5 years are approximately zero. Fortunately the vaccines and other therapies we already have are quite effective at preventing deaths. The notion of acting based on the hope that something better might appear at some indefinite point in the future is just absurd. While reinfections can occur (just as with any coronavirus), symptoms are typically mild. The number of deaths due to reinfections are so low as to be statistically irrelevant from a public policy standpoint. This panel discussion by several leading physicians provides a good scientific overview of the current situation. It's long, but worth a listen. https://youtu.be/GklHGYY8vN8 https://youtu.be/GklHGYY8vN8
    - cannaceo 5y ago
      I’d like to add that we did wait about a year for the vaccines. That was the treatment that was “good enough” for life to return to normal for me. I don’t need to wait 5 more years. That treatment relieved ~85% of the original risk for me.
sokoloff 5y ago
What’s the alternative in your hypothetical? If it’s “never socialize normally again”, then hell yes I’ll fade the mostly prop guns. Even if the alternative is two years of these measures, I think the .99 nearly no-op and .999 survival is way preferable. This will be endemic, just like the 1968 flu is. The sooner we can get to that point, the better.
- 2muchcoffeeman 5y ago
  This isn’t some sort of binary choice. You could take some basic precautions in crowded spaces or try new lower risk activities to socialise with friends e.g things you do outside. You know, do what humans have done for thousands of years: adapt. But people are so eager to go back to exactly how things were.
- light_hue_1 5y ago
  > What’s the alternative in your hypothetical? If it’s “never socialize normally again”, then hell yes I’ll fade the mostly prop guns. Even if the alternative is two years of these measures, I think the .99 nearly no-op and .999 survival is way preferable. What morbid insanity. In the US 850,000 people are dead. That's more dead people than all US soldiers who have died in combat in all wars in history. Wear a mask, get vaccinated, socially distance, and stop risking your life and that of the people you love.
  - nradov 5y ago
    Real life is full of risks. You can't seriously expect people to continue socially distancing and wearing masks indefinitely. What morbid insanity.
  - dang 5y ago
    Would you please stop posting in the flamewar style to HN? We're trying for something different here. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
gjs278 5y ago
spoonjim 5y ago
The teachers are more essential than pretty much anyone else besides doctors. They just have to show up, that's part of the deal when you take on such a big responsibility. What if doctors just stopped showing up in the middle of a pandemic? Society would be fucked. And a generation of kids is fucked because teachers weren't willing to take their responsibility seriously.
- random314 5y ago
  Teachers compensation does not reflect the dedication and mortality risk their family should accept according to you. You get what you pay for. Your kid is your responsibility, not your teachers. If your kid "is fucked" its because you weren't willing to take their responsibility seriously - not underpaid teachers. Your expectation that teachers should expose their families to a pandemic for 40K pa is absurd.
  - spoonjim 5y ago
    My kid is my responsibility but also we collectively pay the teachers and we don't have to keep doing this. We can just defund the entire system and make it an individual responsibility (of course as most things this would fuck over the poor kids the most). If there is a moment to crush the teachers unions it is now. California parents who normally would nod their heads at whatever garbage the union feeds them are probably primed to go Margaret Thatcher on their ass. I hope someone is organizing this; they have my vote.
    - eropple 5y ago
      > we collectively pay the teachers Poorly, in a normal environment. Laughably, with what you are demanding they do for you. There's a whole lot of "other people should endanger themselves for me" around this topic and it deserves some introspection.
      - nradov 5y ago
        Teacher salaries vary a lot by state. Some states pay quite well relative to the US median income. https://study.com/academy/popular/teacher-salary-by-state.html https://study.com/academy/popular/teacher-salary-by-state.ht...
joshuahughes 5y ago
"I lost my sense of smell and got it back way after my quarantine ended, like months after. Plus there’s a mental fog that lifted a long time later." I've had exactly the same, and still haven't got my taste or smell back 100% yet. It sucks, but I still can't imagine being so selfish as to expect millions to endure endless global restrictions over some minor personal inconvenience.
- saimiam 5y ago
  I’m not a fan of endless global restrictions either. If we don’t like to live with global restrictions at someone else’s say so, why should we expect teachers to go out to teach at our say so? As a group, they have chosen to stay home and that should be that. It’s not war where the price for not wanting to face the enemy is a cowardice charge and a court martial. These teachers don’t want to teach in-person. End of story.
  - joshuahughes 5y ago
    Absolutely. I wouldn't dream of expecting anyone to do anything "at our say so", be that in-person teaching, vaccine-taking, mask-wearing, close proximity in social situations... But this thread started with the observation that many private Catholic schools ARE just getting on with the job, and as a result parents are voting with their feet and heading there in droves. These are not teachers being forced; it's just their ideology leads them to make a different risk/benefit calculation to others. And yet this thread is full of comments arguing that the system of endless global restrictions "works for the vast majority of people". To me and many others, that just seems like wilfully ignoring the harm to our children rather than seeking a way out. I'm sure I don't need to link to the many MANY studies that have shown how damaging lockdowns have been to our kids' outcomes, and these negative effects hit the poorest kids the hardest. We should be doing everything within our power to undo the damage, and yet so many are willing to stick with restrictions for the foreseeable future with no exit strategy. THIS is why parents are looking for a way out for their kids, and why private schools like those mentioned above are seeing enquiries sky-rocket. Why the hate for those who seek a return to normality? I don't understand it.

nradov 5y ago

Think it through longer term. Over the next couple years the odds that teachers and all the rest of us will be infected is approximately 100%. Where the exposure comes from is irrelevant. I am willing to face those odds, and to ask others to do the same. https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/vinay-prasad/94646 https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/vinay-prasad/94646 Fortunately the vaccines and other therapies are quite effective at preventing deaths.

light_hue_1 5y ago
Even if you have a 100% chance of getting COVID eventually (something that we have zero evidence for) it totally matters when you get it. Sometimes ICUs are overloaded, other times they aren't. If you wait long enough we develop drugs that help. We will make vaccines more effective with time. What's worse, is a lot of people have long-haul COVID where they suffer severe symptoms that never seem to go away. We have no idea why. Maybe if you get COVID in 5 years we will have figured out why and you get to avoid ruining your life. Also. COVID is not one and done. You can get it multiple times. People have gotten COVID twice, the first time they were fine, the second time they died. Not only are you totally misinformed for wanting to "face those odds" you are risking the lives and well-being of those around you.
- nradov 5y ago
  Hospitals have been overwhelmed during bad flu seasons many times before 2019. We didn't use that as an excuse to impose mandates and restrictions on the rest of society. Omicron is so contagious that your odds of avoiding infection for the next 5 years are approximately zero. Fortunately the vaccines and other therapies we already have are quite effective at preventing deaths. The notion of acting based on the hope that something better might appear at some indefinite point in the future is just absurd. While reinfections can occur (just as with any coronavirus), symptoms are typically mild. The number of deaths due to reinfections are so low as to be statistically irrelevant from a public policy standpoint. This panel discussion by several leading physicians provides a good scientific overview of the current situation. It's long, but worth a listen. https://youtu.be/GklHGYY8vN8 https://youtu.be/GklHGYY8vN8
  - cannaceo 5y ago
    I’d like to add that we did wait about a year for the vaccines. That was the treatment that was “good enough” for life to return to normal for me. I don’t need to wait 5 more years. That treatment relieved ~85% of the original risk for me.

sokoloff 5y ago

What’s the alternative in your hypothetical? If it’s “never socialize normally again”, then hell yes I’ll fade the mostly prop guns. Even if the alternative is two years of these measures, I think the .99 nearly no-op and .999 survival is way preferable. This will be endemic, just like the 1968 flu is. The sooner we can get to that point, the better.

2muchcoffeeman 5y ago
This isn’t some sort of binary choice. You could take some basic precautions in crowded spaces or try new lower risk activities to socialise with friends e.g things you do outside. You know, do what humans have done for thousands of years: adapt. But people are so eager to go back to exactly how things were.
light_hue_1 5y ago
> What’s the alternative in your hypothetical? If it’s “never socialize normally again”, then hell yes I’ll fade the mostly prop guns. Even if the alternative is two years of these measures, I think the .99 nearly no-op and .999 survival is way preferable. What morbid insanity. In the US 850,000 people are dead. That's more dead people than all US soldiers who have died in combat in all wars in history. Wear a mask, get vaccinated, socially distance, and stop risking your life and that of the people you love.
- nradov 5y ago
  Real life is full of risks. You can't seriously expect people to continue socially distancing and wearing masks indefinitely. What morbid insanity.
- dang 5y ago
  Would you please stop posting in the flamewar style to HN? We're trying for something different here. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

gjs278 5y ago

spoonjim 5y ago

The teachers are more essential than pretty much anyone else besides doctors. They just have to show up, that's part of the deal when you take on such a big responsibility. What if doctors just stopped showing up in the middle of a pandemic? Society would be fucked. And a generation of kids is fucked because teachers weren't willing to take their responsibility seriously.

random314 5y ago
Teachers compensation does not reflect the dedication and mortality risk their family should accept according to you. You get what you pay for. Your kid is your responsibility, not your teachers. If your kid "is fucked" its because you weren't willing to take their responsibility seriously - not underpaid teachers. Your expectation that teachers should expose their families to a pandemic for 40K pa is absurd.
- spoonjim 5y ago
  My kid is my responsibility but also we collectively pay the teachers and we don't have to keep doing this. We can just defund the entire system and make it an individual responsibility (of course as most things this would fuck over the poor kids the most). If there is a moment to crush the teachers unions it is now. California parents who normally would nod their heads at whatever garbage the union feeds them are probably primed to go Margaret Thatcher on their ass. I hope someone is organizing this; they have my vote.
  - eropple 5y ago
    > we collectively pay the teachers Poorly, in a normal environment. Laughably, with what you are demanding they do for you. There's a whole lot of "other people should endanger themselves for me" around this topic and it deserves some introspection.
    - nradov 5y ago
      Teacher salaries vary a lot by state. Some states pay quite well relative to the US median income. https://study.com/academy/popular/teacher-salary-by-state.html https://study.com/academy/popular/teacher-salary-by-state.ht...

joshuahughes 5y ago

"I lost my sense of smell and got it back way after my quarantine ended, like months after. Plus there’s a mental fog that lifted a long time later." I've had exactly the same, and still haven't got my taste or smell back 100% yet. It sucks, but I still can't imagine being so selfish as to expect millions to endure endless global restrictions over some minor personal inconvenience.

saimiam 5y ago
I’m not a fan of endless global restrictions either. If we don’t like to live with global restrictions at someone else’s say so, why should we expect teachers to go out to teach at our say so? As a group, they have chosen to stay home and that should be that. It’s not war where the price for not wanting to face the enemy is a cowardice charge and a court martial. These teachers don’t want to teach in-person. End of story.
- joshuahughes 5y ago
  Absolutely. I wouldn't dream of expecting anyone to do anything "at our say so", be that in-person teaching, vaccine-taking, mask-wearing, close proximity in social situations... But this thread started with the observation that many private Catholic schools ARE just getting on with the job, and as a result parents are voting with their feet and heading there in droves. These are not teachers being forced; it's just their ideology leads them to make a different risk/benefit calculation to others. And yet this thread is full of comments arguing that the system of endless global restrictions "works for the vast majority of people". To me and many others, that just seems like wilfully ignoring the harm to our children rather than seeking a way out. I'm sure I don't need to link to the many MANY studies that have shown how damaging lockdowns have been to our kids' outcomes, and these negative effects hit the poorest kids the hardest. We should be doing everything within our power to undo the damage, and yet so many are willing to stick with restrictions for the foreseeable future with no exit strategy. THIS is why parents are looking for a way out for their kids, and why private schools like those mentioned above are seeing enquiries sky-rocket. Why the hate for those who seek a return to normality? I don't understand it.