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People are sick of Covid. We're at 70% vaccination rate and we have double the number of cases we did at the height of the pandemic. Mask mandates haven't wor

People are sick of Covid. We're at 70% vaccination rate and we have double the number of cases we did at the height of the pandemic. Mask mandates haven't worked, quarantines don't work, locking down entire countries doesn't work. It's time to accept that this is endemic and not make Covid the center of everyone's existence any longer.

notacoward 5y ago
I'm not entirely unsympathetic to this POV, but I think "haven't worked" is an overstatement and going from there to "don't do it at all" is premature. It's what I call Quitter Culture, which I see in many other areas of life nowadays as well. Just because vaccines don't provide perfect protection doesn't mean we should abandon them entirely. Ditto for masks. Ditto for avoiding close prolonged contact indoors. These things all help reduce spread and/or severity, even if they don't eliminate either entirely. The one thing we should do more of is testing, and that's precisely because they allow more targeted action. Identifying and isolating infected individuals avoids the need (or temptation) for broader restrictions on whole classes of places or events. Vaccine and/or testing requirements would create more freedom for a lot of people, not less, but somehow that fact gets lost in the noise from people who are already least affected. "Just give up" is a pretty severe sentence for the people you don't see.
- edmcnulty101 5y ago
  > Vaccine and/or testing requirements would create more freedom for a lot of people More people than EVER are vaccinated and we have higher case loads than ever. I don't understand how you can still justify this line of thinking in 2022. Having it as an option is fine. Mandating people to take something that the experts are not even sure how effective it is?
  - lanstin 5y ago
    i have read much data and analysis that the people going to hospital and dieing are almost all unvaccinated, even tho most people are vaccinated. So it is quite effective at preseving our medical system and our people. qed
    - edmcnulty101 5y ago
      But it still doesn't make sense. Two thirds of the country are vaccinated and that had NO impact on case rates? Instead case rates doubled?
  - notacoward 5y ago
    > I don't understand how you can still justify this line of thinking in 2022. Your understanding (or acceptance) of a statement does not reflect at all on its truth. Immunocompromised people still exist. People with other risk factors (including those that aren't even the result of any choice they made) still exist. Children too young to be vaccinated still exist. Their families and others in constant close contact with them still exist. After the omicron wave has abated, as it has already done in South Africa and is likely to do elsewhere, all those people will still be barred from doing things that they could otherwise do within a reasonable margin of safety if vaccine and testing requirements were in place. It's really not that complicated. Their freedom is being limited by others' intransigence. As for whether experts know if the vaccines are effective: they do. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2119270 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2119270 It's entirely possible to have higher numbers of cases despite vaccines being effective, if the number of exposures and/or infectivity have increased more than the vaccination rate and effectiveness. Again, it's not that complicated. The math is pretty simple, people have done the math (see above), and the only rational conclusion is that vaccines are pretty effective.
    - edmcnulty101 5y ago
      First of all...the supreme court is about to rule on this next week so we'll see if they believe your view reflects the truth or if they believe your view to be off base. Second of all, If you're born without an immune system...that sucks...but no one's problem but yours. Get a bubble suit, be creative. That's what America's all about. Concerts and arena sports are still going on daily dispute highest caseloads ever. People as a whole, have moved past your way of thinking with the manipulative: "what about immunocompromised children and granny" heartstring stuff. People want to see Coachella or the Lakers and live their lives... despite an immunocompromised child or granny dying. They aren't going to stand for questionable vaccines and questionable Covid restrictions any longer. Society wide, for all intents and purposes, Covid is over being the center of people life anymore.
      - notacoward 5y ago
        > the supreme court is about to rule on this next week What the supreme court will rule on is not whether the facts I've laid out are correct. What they will rule on is whether it is permissible under the constitution to take action that will weigh one small group's major freedoms for another larger group's minor ones. That's quite a different thing. Some might even argue that what the court will decide, given its current makeup, is whether they can find an excuse to do what one political faction wants, and that's different again. > If you're born without an immune system...that sucks...but no one's problem but yours That is an extremely callow position, supported by neither the law nor the popular will. The US constitution, among others, was written as part of a philosophical tradition in which protection of society's most vulnerable was a high moral value. Its content and subsequent interpretation reflect that, as do vast numbers of statutes passed under it. What you're arguing for is nothing less than eugenics, and that's not just a "manipulating heartstrings" issue. It's almost universally reviled, for good reason. > People as a whole, have moved past Appeal to popularity, fallacious and false. > They aren't going to stand for questionable vaccines You haven't provided one shred of evidence calling those vaccines' efficacy (or safety) into question. Haven't even tried. On the other hand, evidence proving that efficacy has been provided. Any good-faith interlocutor would be able to make better arguments.
vanusa 5y ago
It's time to accept that this is endemic and not make Covid the center of everyone's existence any longer. I agree that we're all pretty fed up but you aren't offering any constructive guidance whatsoever. Not even "repeal all mandates, let people do whatever the fuck they want everywhere unvaccinated and unmasked", for example.
- edmcnulty101 5y ago
  Voluntary everything. If you want to wear a mask wear one if you want to get a vaccine get one if you want to quarantine quarantine. There's nothing humans can do to make this virus go away and all of these measures clearly aren't as effective as sold to us and the data is not as clear as people are led to believe. The CDC continuously changes it's policies, the vaccine continuously changes it's effectiveness and durability, none of the data of anything justifying these restrictions is as clear as we're led to believe. But if it's something that you want to do go for it!
  - vanusa 5y ago
    Hmm - by and large this seems like FUD-based reasoning (an in my view, deeply flawed). E.g. "the measures aren't as effective as we hoped" doesn't mean they're completely ineffective. "The data aren't as clear" doesn't mean the data are completely useless. "The virus mutates and is more complex than we thought" doesn't mean its nature is beyond our understanding and we'll never be able to get the upper hand. One thing we agree on is that the CDC has dropped the ball far too many times, and has largely forfeited the trust that many people had in its guidance. Ironically (for your argument) is that this is precisely because it has acted against basic logic and against measures which (though imperfect) do largely work. But it simply doesn't follow that, just because one agency in the U.S. has become unreliable in its pronouncements -- that we can't rely on any basic science at all; that there's no hope of slowing this thing down or of staunching the tide of death and misery; and at land there's no point in attempting to get any kind of social consensus on basic measures (which while imperfect, are still largely effective) to do so.
    - 5y ago

notacoward 5y ago

I'm not entirely unsympathetic to this POV, but I think "haven't worked" is an overstatement and going from there to "don't do it at all" is premature. It's what I call Quitter Culture, which I see in many other areas of life nowadays as well. Just because vaccines don't provide perfect protection doesn't mean we should abandon them entirely. Ditto for masks. Ditto for avoiding close prolonged contact indoors. These things all help reduce spread and/or severity, even if they don't eliminate either entirely. The one thing we should do more of is testing, and that's precisely because they allow more targeted action. Identifying and isolating infected individuals avoids the need (or temptation) for broader restrictions on whole classes of places or events. Vaccine and/or testing requirements would create more freedom for a lot of people, not less, but somehow that fact gets lost in the noise from people who are already least affected. "Just give up" is a pretty severe sentence for the people you don't see.

edmcnulty101 5y ago
> Vaccine and/or testing requirements would create more freedom for a lot of people More people than EVER are vaccinated and we have higher case loads than ever. I don't understand how you can still justify this line of thinking in 2022. Having it as an option is fine. Mandating people to take something that the experts are not even sure how effective it is?
- lanstin 5y ago
  i have read much data and analysis that the people going to hospital and dieing are almost all unvaccinated, even tho most people are vaccinated. So it is quite effective at preseving our medical system and our people. qed
  - edmcnulty101 5y ago
    But it still doesn't make sense. Two thirds of the country are vaccinated and that had NO impact on case rates? Instead case rates doubled?
- notacoward 5y ago
  > I don't understand how you can still justify this line of thinking in 2022. Your understanding (or acceptance) of a statement does not reflect at all on its truth. Immunocompromised people still exist. People with other risk factors (including those that aren't even the result of any choice they made) still exist. Children too young to be vaccinated still exist. Their families and others in constant close contact with them still exist. After the omicron wave has abated, as it has already done in South Africa and is likely to do elsewhere, all those people will still be barred from doing things that they could otherwise do within a reasonable margin of safety if vaccine and testing requirements were in place. It's really not that complicated. Their freedom is being limited by others' intransigence. As for whether experts know if the vaccines are effective: they do. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2119270 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2119270 It's entirely possible to have higher numbers of cases despite vaccines being effective, if the number of exposures and/or infectivity have increased more than the vaccination rate and effectiveness. Again, it's not that complicated. The math is pretty simple, people have done the math (see above), and the only rational conclusion is that vaccines are pretty effective.
  - edmcnulty101 5y ago
    First of all...the supreme court is about to rule on this next week so we'll see if they believe your view reflects the truth or if they believe your view to be off base. Second of all, If you're born without an immune system...that sucks...but no one's problem but yours. Get a bubble suit, be creative. That's what America's all about. Concerts and arena sports are still going on daily dispute highest caseloads ever. People as a whole, have moved past your way of thinking with the manipulative: "what about immunocompromised children and granny" heartstring stuff. People want to see Coachella or the Lakers and live their lives... despite an immunocompromised child or granny dying. They aren't going to stand for questionable vaccines and questionable Covid restrictions any longer. Society wide, for all intents and purposes, Covid is over being the center of people life anymore.
    - notacoward 5y ago
      > the supreme court is about to rule on this next week What the supreme court will rule on is not whether the facts I've laid out are correct. What they will rule on is whether it is permissible under the constitution to take action that will weigh one small group's major freedoms for another larger group's minor ones. That's quite a different thing. Some might even argue that what the court will decide, given its current makeup, is whether they can find an excuse to do what one political faction wants, and that's different again. > If you're born without an immune system...that sucks...but no one's problem but yours That is an extremely callow position, supported by neither the law nor the popular will. The US constitution, among others, was written as part of a philosophical tradition in which protection of society's most vulnerable was a high moral value. Its content and subsequent interpretation reflect that, as do vast numbers of statutes passed under it. What you're arguing for is nothing less than eugenics, and that's not just a "manipulating heartstrings" issue. It's almost universally reviled, for good reason. > People as a whole, have moved past Appeal to popularity, fallacious and false. > They aren't going to stand for questionable vaccines You haven't provided one shred of evidence calling those vaccines' efficacy (or safety) into question. Haven't even tried. On the other hand, evidence proving that efficacy has been provided. Any good-faith interlocutor would be able to make better arguments.

vanusa 5y ago

It's time to accept that this is endemic and not make Covid the center of everyone's existence any longer. I agree that we're all pretty fed up but you aren't offering any constructive guidance whatsoever. Not even "repeal all mandates, let people do whatever the fuck they want everywhere unvaccinated and unmasked", for example.

edmcnulty101 5y ago
Voluntary everything. If you want to wear a mask wear one if you want to get a vaccine get one if you want to quarantine quarantine. There's nothing humans can do to make this virus go away and all of these measures clearly aren't as effective as sold to us and the data is not as clear as people are led to believe. The CDC continuously changes it's policies, the vaccine continuously changes it's effectiveness and durability, none of the data of anything justifying these restrictions is as clear as we're led to believe. But if it's something that you want to do go for it!
- vanusa 5y ago
  Hmm - by and large this seems like FUD-based reasoning (an in my view, deeply flawed). E.g. "the measures aren't as effective as we hoped" doesn't mean they're completely ineffective. "The data aren't as clear" doesn't mean the data are completely useless. "The virus mutates and is more complex than we thought" doesn't mean its nature is beyond our understanding and we'll never be able to get the upper hand. One thing we agree on is that the CDC has dropped the ball far too many times, and has largely forfeited the trust that many people had in its guidance. Ironically (for your argument) is that this is precisely because it has acted against basic logic and against measures which (though imperfect) do largely work. But it simply doesn't follow that, just because one agency in the U.S. has become unreliable in its pronouncements -- that we can't rely on any basic science at all; that there's no hope of slowing this thing down or of staunching the tide of death and misery; and at land there's no point in attempting to get any kind of social consensus on basic measures (which while imperfect, are still largely effective) to do so.
  - 5y ago