5 ms·

Covid-19: endemic doesn’t mean harmless

Pr0GrasTiNati0n 5y ago
PraetorianGourd 5y ago
Harmless is a pipe dream of a goal. Very few endemic viruses are harmless, the common cold kills many people a year so even that isn’t harmless. Let’s really cement the goalposts where they are so this endless march of “well vaccine doesn’t mean harmless” and “well antivirals aren’t perfect” to “well endemic doesn’t mean we can relax”… it is insane.
- csdvrx 5y ago
  Yes, the goalposts keep moving: first it was smoothing the curve, now it is???
- fivea 5y ago
  > Let’s really cement the goalposts where they are so this endless march of (...) I really don't understand what point you tried to make. There is no goalpost being moved. We have a disease that so far, according to official statistics that are chronically underreported and in some cases blatantly whitewashed, has killed over 5 million people throughout the world. For the past year we benefitted from a better-than-nothing set of vaccines that took the edge out of the disease, but whose effectiveness was further reduced by subsequent variants combined with militant opposition even to basic higiene. Hell, each and every single time I took a jab, I received a flier informing me if the need to wash hands frequently, practice social distancing, wear facemasks in public, and avoid gatherings. What exactly do you believe has changed, exactly? If anything, only vaccine uptake has changed, and thankly for the better in spite of this moronic militant opposition. Yet, even if that resulted in a lower death rate, we still have health services completely overwhelmed and unable to cope. Even the US has been breaking death count records. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases.html Please do tell me, what exactly do you believe has changed?
  - PraetorianGourd 5y ago
    The message from governments and public health officials have morphed constantly over the past 2 years. I know that dynamic situations require a dynamic response and I also know that people are demanding certainty from officials in an uncertain situation so I don’t really blame anyone. But with that said and since you asked: - March 2020: Flatten the curve, stay-home orders until we can get enough PPE to medical staff. Don’t worry about masks doctors need them and y’all wear them wrong probably. - April 2020: Keep hunkering down as we get contact tracing and those contract tracing apps - May 2020: Lol jk masks work you should all wear masks. Once there is a vaccine we can go back to normal. - Summer 2020: lots of hedging, students are probably doing fine with remote. Kids like social media anyway so they will be alright Fall 2020: The curve was flat all summer but not flat enough and now it’s going up again. Lockdown! Winter 21: Vaccines are here! Ticket to normality! Spring 21: seriously we promise the vaccines are so good, cdc even said so. Mask off. Here comes herd immunity Summer 21: actually jk. Vaccines are good but delta! Mask on, Future. Fall 21: Omicron time! Back to fear, and maybe a booster? We will see the CDC can’t decide. Winter 21: Oh yeah, should have gotten that booster. Also the cloth masks don’t really work, gotta wear N95! But it’s fine, this variant will make the disease endemic Now: Endemic doesn’t mean safe dude, get your mask on, live in fear. We might need to close schools again. Oh you are right, nothing has changed really between today and two years ago, except for all the things they said between those two points!
    - fivea 5y ago
      > The message from governments and public health officials have morphed constantly over the past 2 years (...) It really hasn't, and it boggles the mind how anyone could even attempt to gaslight about this well-documented topic. The only charitable interpretation I have of this blatantly unrealistic assertion is whether, for some reason, people intentionally ignore the correlation between how waves start and how they motivate decisive but politically risky moves to reign them back in, the increase in vaccine uptake and it's impact on hospital admittances and death rate, and the impact of new strains. Also, it boggles the mind how anyone can try to spin scientific progresses, such as the quantification of the impact of adopting makeshift solutions of cloth masks, as somehow things changing. I mean, is it really surprising that cloth masks aren't as efficient as N95 masks? Where exactly comes this blatant attempt to gaslight everyone around topics that are so easy to corroborate ad verify?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
mrkramer 5y ago
Vecr 5y ago
Scientists need to start working much more on determining mechanistic collaborates of protection that can be used to make better vaccines and determine risk on an individual level. It's hard, but vaccine development can't just be plugging someone else's sequence into your mRNA vaccine and calling it good.
- brokenmachine 5y ago
  I wish you good luck on your project to design a better vaccine.
legerdemain 5y ago
This is the laziest article imaginable. "Endemic doesn't mean harmless"... how is that anything informative? We are seeing a wave of scaremongering propaganda from the scientist/government establishment that just makes it screamingly clear that science is in the pocket of governments with their agendas, and does its bidding instead of doing, you know, science.
- peakaboo 5y ago
  Some of us see it, some of us don't. I think the world is mad now personally but the majority seems happy with it. Lol
- fivea 5y ago
  > This is the laziest article imaginable. "Endemic doesn't mean harmless"... how is that anything informative? We have started to see a political push of this idea that the same disease that killed well over 5million people is now something totally harmless that poses no danger whatsoever. Some countries, like Spain, now have their government's propaganda machine forcing this absurd concept that reads something like "cold-ification of COVID", where it's danger is downplayed against the advice and best judgement of health officials and experts, just to suit their political agenda.
  - Mountain_Skies 5y ago
    Continuing this "you're either with us or against us" false dichotomy is only going to result with one day soon finding out that almost everyone is against you while wondering how that happened seemingly overnight. There's lots of middle ground to be had but forcing everyone into your camp or "the other" camp is going to result in you being in an rapidly shrinking camp.
    - fivea 5y ago
      > Continuing this "you're either with us or against us" false dichotomy (...) There is no "false dichotomy". There are only basic higiene and public health guidelines which are designed to curtail and mitigate the spread of a viral disease, specially when the spread is unsustainable and causing the colapse of health services. You may very well prefer to opt out of even ever washing your hands, but you cannot force anyone around you to accept the risk your militant and contrarian attitude poses to them and your loved ones, specially when we're dealing with cases based on pathetic and utterly outlandish conspiracy theories. I mean, are we now expected to respect those idiots who were pushing the idea that covid was spread by 5G celular networks? Or are we claiming that rejecting 5G-causes-covid conspiracy theories and the like to be "continuing false dichotomies"?
jdlyga 5y ago
I predict that people will continue to wear masks during covid and flu spikes like they've done for decades in countries like Japan. At least when you're in urban areas or taking a subway packed with people.

Harmless is a pipe dream of a goal. Very few endemic viruses are harmless, the common cold kills many people a year so even that isn’t harmless. Let’s really cement the goalposts where they are so this endless march of “well vaccine doesn’t mean harmless” and “well antivirals aren’t perfect” to “well endemic doesn’t mean we can relax”… it is insane.

csdvrx 5y ago
Yes, the goalposts keep moving: first it was smoothing the curve, now it is???
fivea 5y ago
> Let’s really cement the goalposts where they are so this endless march of (...) I really don't understand what point you tried to make. There is no goalpost being moved. We have a disease that so far, according to official statistics that are chronically underreported and in some cases blatantly whitewashed, has killed over 5 million people throughout the world. For the past year we benefitted from a better-than-nothing set of vaccines that took the edge out of the disease, but whose effectiveness was further reduced by subsequent variants combined with militant opposition even to basic higiene. Hell, each and every single time I took a jab, I received a flier informing me if the need to wash hands frequently, practice social distancing, wear facemasks in public, and avoid gatherings. What exactly do you believe has changed, exactly? If anything, only vaccine uptake has changed, and thankly for the better in spite of this moronic militant opposition. Yet, even if that resulted in a lower death rate, we still have health services completely overwhelmed and unable to cope. Even the US has been breaking death count records. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases.html Please do tell me, what exactly do you believe has changed?
- PraetorianGourd 5y ago
  The message from governments and public health officials have morphed constantly over the past 2 years. I know that dynamic situations require a dynamic response and I also know that people are demanding certainty from officials in an uncertain situation so I don’t really blame anyone. But with that said and since you asked: - March 2020: Flatten the curve, stay-home orders until we can get enough PPE to medical staff. Don’t worry about masks doctors need them and y’all wear them wrong probably. - April 2020: Keep hunkering down as we get contact tracing and those contract tracing apps - May 2020: Lol jk masks work you should all wear masks. Once there is a vaccine we can go back to normal. - Summer 2020: lots of hedging, students are probably doing fine with remote. Kids like social media anyway so they will be alright Fall 2020: The curve was flat all summer but not flat enough and now it’s going up again. Lockdown! Winter 21: Vaccines are here! Ticket to normality! Spring 21: seriously we promise the vaccines are so good, cdc even said so. Mask off. Here comes herd immunity Summer 21: actually jk. Vaccines are good but delta! Mask on, Future. Fall 21: Omicron time! Back to fear, and maybe a booster? We will see the CDC can’t decide. Winter 21: Oh yeah, should have gotten that booster. Also the cloth masks don’t really work, gotta wear N95! But it’s fine, this variant will make the disease endemic Now: Endemic doesn’t mean safe dude, get your mask on, live in fear. We might need to close schools again. Oh you are right, nothing has changed really between today and two years ago, except for all the things they said between those two points!
  - fivea 5y ago
    > The message from governments and public health officials have morphed constantly over the past 2 years (...) It really hasn't, and it boggles the mind how anyone could even attempt to gaslight about this well-documented topic. The only charitable interpretation I have of this blatantly unrealistic assertion is whether, for some reason, people intentionally ignore the correlation between how waves start and how they motivate decisive but politically risky moves to reign them back in, the increase in vaccine uptake and it's impact on hospital admittances and death rate, and the impact of new strains. Also, it boggles the mind how anyone can try to spin scientific progresses, such as the quantification of the impact of adopting makeshift solutions of cloth masks, as somehow things changing. I mean, is it really surprising that cloth masks aren't as efficient as N95 masks? Where exactly comes this blatant attempt to gaslight everyone around topics that are so easy to corroborate ad verify?

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

mrkramer 5y ago

Vecr 5y ago

Scientists need to start working much more on determining mechanistic collaborates of protection that can be used to make better vaccines and determine risk on an individual level. It's hard, but vaccine development can't just be plugging someone else's sequence into your mRNA vaccine and calling it good.

brokenmachine 5y ago
I wish you good luck on your project to design a better vaccine.

legerdemain 5y ago

This is the laziest article imaginable. "Endemic doesn't mean harmless"... how is that anything informative? We are seeing a wave of scaremongering propaganda from the scientist/government establishment that just makes it screamingly clear that science is in the pocket of governments with their agendas, and does its bidding instead of doing, you know, science.

peakaboo 5y ago
Some of us see it, some of us don't. I think the world is mad now personally but the majority seems happy with it. Lol
fivea 5y ago
> This is the laziest article imaginable. "Endemic doesn't mean harmless"... how is that anything informative? We have started to see a political push of this idea that the same disease that killed well over 5million people is now something totally harmless that poses no danger whatsoever. Some countries, like Spain, now have their government's propaganda machine forcing this absurd concept that reads something like "cold-ification of COVID", where it's danger is downplayed against the advice and best judgement of health officials and experts, just to suit their political agenda.
- Mountain_Skies 5y ago
  Continuing this "you're either with us or against us" false dichotomy is only going to result with one day soon finding out that almost everyone is against you while wondering how that happened seemingly overnight. There's lots of middle ground to be had but forcing everyone into your camp or "the other" camp is going to result in you being in an rapidly shrinking camp.
  - fivea 5y ago
    > Continuing this "you're either with us or against us" false dichotomy (...) There is no "false dichotomy". There are only basic higiene and public health guidelines which are designed to curtail and mitigate the spread of a viral disease, specially when the spread is unsustainable and causing the colapse of health services. You may very well prefer to opt out of even ever washing your hands, but you cannot force anyone around you to accept the risk your militant and contrarian attitude poses to them and your loved ones, specially when we're dealing with cases based on pathetic and utterly outlandish conspiracy theories. I mean, are we now expected to respect those idiots who were pushing the idea that covid was spread by 5G celular networks? Or are we claiming that rejecting 5G-causes-covid conspiracy theories and the like to be "continuing false dichotomies"?

jdlyga 5y ago

I predict that people will continue to wear masks during covid and flu spikes like they've done for decades in countries like Japan. At least when you're in urban areas or taking a subway packed with people.