21 ms·

Viruses that were on hiatus during Covid are back, behaving in unexpected ways

198 points by r721 4y ago

taeric 4y ago
I am amused that folks seem to think we could eradicate so many widespread diseases with just masks. Keeping people away from each other? Sure. His long do we reasonably think we can do that? (Speaking as someone that lives as a hermit with kids.) Edit: it seems the best case scenario in the article is that these outbreaks were always there, and we are better seeing them? Do we expect that to hold up? Or will we start ignoring it again?
- maxerickson 4y ago
  Who are you talking about thinking that diseases were eradicated by masks? Public health people talking about low incidence of diseases being due to pandemic isolation and masking almost certainly weren't implying that they were gone, more commenting that they were suppressed by those changes to behavior. I am kind of fascinated that there is so little call to do things like improve ventilation. There's some, but people haven't seemed to catch on that we could do things to reduce disease that cause ~no individual inconvenience. Or like send people home when they come to work with a cold, change that culture. For outbreaks, I doubt a few hundred cases of monkeypox (outside of the endemic areas) would have been such major news a couple years ago. It's largely an attention phenomenon. It is certainly something to keep an eye on, but it doesn't appear to be spreading uncontrollably. Democratic Republic of the Congo, one of the endemic areas, has more cases this year than the non-endemic areas.
  - rsynnott 4y ago
    > I am kind of fascinated that there is so little call to do things like improve ventilation. There's some, but people haven't seemed to catch on that we could do things to reduce disease that cause ~no individual inconvenience. Some countries are actually putting significant resources into this. But if you're in a country that isn't, well, realistically, who is going to pay for it? Public health experts pretty much everywhere are saying that it should be done (mind you, they were saying that before covid, too; "proper ventilation would be beneficial" is hardly a new idea), but the only way it happens is through state funding.
    - Swizec 4y ago
      > but the only way it happens is through state funding. Is it really that expensive to open a window? I remember even in the dead of winter our school would regularly open windows to let in some fresh air. And in the hot humid summers we would regularly keep open windows, no matter how hot it got outside, 25 kids inside would make it way hotter. And smellier.
      - rsynnott 4y ago
        So in general when people talk about improved ventilation, they're _mostly_ not talking about opening a window (impractical in many places at certain times of year, anyway); they're talking about some sort of mechanical ventilation, particularly for large buildings. Improving that sort of thing is expensive.
    - redisman 4y ago
      In (most?) building this would also mean replacing the HVAC system and ducts which would take months-years and close the building down for the maintenance period. I’m really not sure what the pitch is realistically.
      - maxerickson 4y ago
        How about systematically examining the current performance and likely retrofit cost of existing larger buildings? Then the discussion can be about a more specific cost (and time) estimate and include better information about the changes the updates would bring about. Or we could just assume it is too expensive and inconvenient to be worth looking into.
  - jeromegv 4y ago
    Even at the height of the pandemic, it was quite frustrating to see so little public places taking easy measures like keeping the doors/windows open, but focusing so much energy on arrows on the floor or non-sense like that. Increased ventilation even helps with concentrating in school, as high CO2 is not good for schooling. I used to fall asleep all the time while I was in school, elementary, secondary, university, even staring at a computer. Now that I work from home, I never fall asleep that way. I was clearly just so tired from high CO2.
    - toyg 4y ago
      In my experience, that sleepiness might also be due to forced sleep patterns, commuting, and heavy food - things that you likely experienced in school but not now.
    - fullstop 4y ago
      > I never fall asleep that way. I was clearly just so tired from high CO2. I thought that Mass was just boring in elementary school. Perhaps there was more to it than that!
    - ajmurmann 4y ago
      You put the arrows down once and the signs up once. Opening windows and doors and managing airflow is a constant effort. Installing better ventilation can get costly. Cheaper to just do the theater.
  - taeric 4y ago
    It is more of a local feel, honestly. Many on twitter and around the schools I do go to seem convinced that if the rest of the nation had just been as good at masking as we were, they would have not had it as bad. And that if we are diligent in the future, we wouldn't have as severe of outbreaks. I can't even really say they are wrong. I don't know. My weight would be more on our 90%ish percent vaccination rate, but I could see both having impact. Edit: I'm actually somewhat skeptical that ventilation will work as well as folks hope. Living in a place that largely does rely on outside air, we had just as large of outbreaks as anyone else. (That is, it is common to have open windows here. The kid's schools are even made to take advantage of that, if I understand it correctly.) Again, I am /not/ saying it is wrong. I just doubt it weighs as heavily as portrayed.
    - maxerickson 4y ago
      What is your definition of "work"? Of course better ventilation won't outright stop diseases from spreading, the point is that it will reduce the spread with reasonable cost and little downside (like another commenter mentions, if the existing ventilation isn't keeping up with CO2 concentrations, there can be other benefits).
      - taeric 4y ago
        From what I saw with our schools.... it didn't really cut the spread. Estimates are that the school had just as high of spread as elsewhere. And that is with near 100% vaccination of the kids in said school. I should note I'm not against trying. It seems a low hanging fruit to reach for. Just, evidence has shown that this particular disease goes for saturation fairly effectively.
        jeromegv 4y ago
        Which evidence? You just quoted absolutely zero evidence beside your own personal anecdotes. It's an airborne disease. Better aeration definitely helps with airborne diseases, multiple studies prove it. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17257148/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17257148/ But of course, COVID spreads so easily that this can reach the limit (especially Omicron) and in an environment where kids will interact together in all kind of ways, but this would have definitely helped a lot more in the first few waves (pre-omicron) without needing to shut down schools entirely.
  - ajmurmann 4y ago
    There are also other, novel things we could do to fight infectious diseases that get pretty much no traction. Far-range UVC lights immediately come to mind. These kill viruses and single-celled organisms quickly while not harming humans. Just imagine this installed in all public, closed spaces! Schools, offices, restaurants, public transit all could be heavily reduced in how well any infectious diseases gets spread there. Yet, this is almost entirely absent from public discourse. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-67211-2 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-67211-2
    - nradov 4y ago
      Beware of unintended consequences. Humans evolved with constant exposure to pathogens. Living in overly sterile environments seems to be a risk factor for autoimmune disorders.
      - ajmurmann 4y ago
        I wonder if we could address this by not activating the lights everywhere all the time. Always on in hospitals and other places with vulnerable people. Only on in restaurants and public transit during time of increased thread like a pandemic or maybe flu season, since that in fact kills a lot of people.
  - Izkata 4y ago
    > I am kind of fascinated that there is so little call to do things like improve ventilation. There's some, but people haven't seemed to catch on that we could do things to reduce disease that cause ~no individual inconvenience. People still think SARS-CoV-2 spreads by droplets, so in their minds things like that wouldn't do anything.
  - argonaut 4y ago
    You didn't see many scientists saying this. But early on in the pandemic many people were saying Covid would be completely over if everyone masked for a month, or if we locked down for a month, etc. I saw this a lot within my own network of very liberal, twenty-something peers. Some people still believe this, albeit probably a small minority now.
    - dv_dt 4y ago
      But it was over in multiple nations that did take the precautions seriously ... only to come back when they somehow were convinced to relax the recommendations.
    - scotty79 4y ago
      > But early on in the pandemic many people were saying Covid would be completely over if everyone masked for a month, or if we locked down for a month, It's technically true if every single person on Earth did this at the same time. Which is impossible, so no.
      - taeric 4y ago
        Is it, though? Feels unlikely that we could eliminate any corona virus that way.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- ajross 4y ago
  > I am amused that folks seem to think we could eradicate so many widespread diseases with just masks. Sorry, who "seems to think this?". I haven't seen this claim, or anything like it, anywhere. The point many were making was that the overwhelmingly successful suppression of all these other diseases was clear proof that "masks work" to suppress disease, and by extension that we should wear them to effect the suppression of a much more dangerous pandemic. So when there's a largely uncontrolled pandemic happening, you should wear a mask. Now, general immunity seems to have reached a point where the pandemic is at least reasonably controlled without mitigation strategies. Covid of mid-2022 is now a worrisome endemic disease, comparable to (but yet rather more dangerous than) the worst flu seasons we've seen in the past century (since 1918). So... we can take our masks off now (most of us, admitting that some people have different levels of risk tolerance, etc...). The calculus changes because the facts on the ground have changed. None of that is an argument that you shouldn't have worn a mask in late 2020. You absolutely should have, and it remains horrifying to me that so many of us didn't.
  - taeric 4y ago
    Oddly, you are making the claim I question here. This "proof that masks work" is likely more just proof that not having kids in schools cuts a lot of spread. I really cannot underscore enough how much more sick you will get when you have kids in school than when you don't. And homeschool isn't really an answer here, sadly. It is fairly well documented that kids that come out of homeschool and finally enter a workforce or other social environment are at a heightened risk of sicknesses that the general populace just doesn't notice. Edit: I hasten to add that I agree this is not an argument that masks don't work. And I don't understand why some folks still insist on fighting not to wear them.
    - superkuh 4y ago
      Before we can have a debate about "masks" we have to define what masks are. It's undeniably clear that wearing actual respirator N95 or ffp2 masks that are fit to the face work in preventing infection and spread. That's just physics. But when most are only wearing a partial covering "mask" that just blocks spittle of course it's not going to prevent infecting or infection by an aerosol spread disease. The real problem with "masks" was that our governments' intentionally lied about the need for them at the start of the pandemic. The messaging never recovered from this and I imagine even if government health institutions stated the truth today, that face fit respirators are required, it'd just be ignored. The problem wasn't ever actual masks, it was people lying about them and people not wearing them. Sure, unfit "masks" might have some mitigation potential and it's better than wearing nothing. But masks, in the context of an aerosol spread infection, have to mean fit respirator masks.
- mikhailt 4y ago
  Unfortunately, there is a lot of intentional and unintentional misinformation going around. Mask was not meant to "eradicate" anything, that was not the intent. The same thing with lockdowns, it was not meant to eradicate anything. The original intent back in the very early stage of the pandemic is to slow down the pace of hospitalizations (or as they market it, flatting the curve); the best way to do that is to slow down the number of people getting sick. What were the best solutions? 1. Be vigilant with cleaning up and avoiding contact with sick folks (self) 2. Stay home if you're sick, wear masks and so on. (self) 3. Lock down when it was getting out of control. (community) Also, this can have an impact on reducing the variants by having less hosts to infect and to mutate but this failed, so we're likely to stick with COVID for a very long time like the cold and flu. People should still be masking up if they're sick and can't stay home.
- SkyPuncher 4y ago
  > I am amused that folks seem to think we could eradicate so many widespread diseases with just masks. This is a claim that is novel to me. Masks help limit transmission. The immediate benefit is likely reducing transmission between an interaction of random people. A secondary, less supported benefit, is the reduction of viral load in transmissions - which can help reduce severity of an infection. This is not shocking when you consider the fact that surgeons have worn masks for a long time - with nearly the sole intention of reducing infection in their patients (albeit, not necessarily airborne infections). ----- IMO, people should be more outraged that the gov't did seemingly little to actually increase the healthcare's system to accommodate COVID patients. My understanding is mask mandates were almost always tied to significant capacity restrictions in the healthcare system. The idea of wearing masks was to create a buffer for healthcare to catch up.
  - nradov 4y ago
    Surgeons have primarily worn masks and other PPE to reduce the risk of bacterial infections in open wounds, and protect themselves against bodily fluids. Protecting against respiratory viruses is something quite different. The mask mandates implemented in most places were always pointless pandemic theater. Only a properly fitted (i.e. tightly sealed with no facial hair) N95 or equivalent does much to block transmission of a highly contagious respiratory virus. It was never realistic to get the general public to do that.
carlivar 4y ago
It is RSV immunity debt that worries me. I think it's an example of our poor capability for risk analysis. I talk to so many parents here in California that are terrified of covid for their kids. So they still limit activities. But statistically kids have very, very low risk. RSV, and even flu, on the other hand are more dangerous for kids and any immunity debt may make that worse. It reminds me of how few parents realize the statistical risk of kids in cars versus how rare abduction is (if kid walks alone to school as an alternative to a car, for example). Again it is emotional/anecdotal thinking rather than data.
- choko 4y ago
  Did you know that children in daycare have almost a 100% chance of contracting RSV within the first year of attendance (even pre-pandemic)?
  - carlivar 4y ago
    No, but that doesn't surprise me. So if daycare is inevitable, the child needs to go in "armed" with antibodies (including from the mother during pregnancy). Should pregnant women isolate? Does not seem like it. Our family dog probably does a good job diversifying antibodies as well (I think there are studies showing the immunity advantages certain pets provide).
    - chinathrow 4y ago
      > No, but that doesn't surprise me. So if daycare is inevitable, the child needs to go in "armed" with antibodies (including from the mother during pregnancy). Not sure how this works. Where to you get "armed" with antibodies if not from a vaccination (unavailable for some viruses) or prior infection? Antibodies from the mother vane over time as far as I recall.
      - carlivar 4y ago
        From the article here: "And babies born during the pandemic may have entered the world with few antibodies passed on by their mothers in the womb, because those mothers may have been sheltered from RSV and other respiratory pathogens during their pregnancies, said Hubert Niesters, a professor of clinical virology and molecular diagnostics at the University Medical Center, in Groningen, the Netherlands."
Arubis 4y ago
Anecdotally, I have two young kids in daycare, and everyone’s been sick more often than not since January. Frequent Covid swabs all come back negative.
- thatjoeoverthr 4y ago
  Same situation. Child is just short of five. For last half year, she is consistently out sick at least half the time. The whole family is sick constantly. It is an exhausting and challenging time.
- treis 4y ago
  My anecdata is similar. A constant 2 week cycle of getting mildly sick, recovering, and then getting mildly sick again. Dr said there's a ton of it going around.
  - fullstop 4y ago
    I'm well past the elementary school (and younger) age, but this wasn't uncommon when my kids were that age.
    - treis 4y ago
      Like the sibling comment I've also been sick more often these last few months than I have in recent memory. Kiddo has been at daycare/preschool for a couple years now. AFAICT it's a real phenomenon.
  - floppydiskette 4y ago
    Exact same anecdote for me. I’ve been sick every two weeks, then one week recovered, and repeat for the past 3 months or so. I’ve been sick more in 3 months than in 5 years. It’s very odd. Never tested positive.
  - y-c-o-m-b 4y ago
    Yep, we are also on a 2-3 week cycle. My family is currently sick in fact. We've yet to test positive for covid, ever. I'm at this weird place now where I just want to get it over with, but at this point it's like we can't catch covid even if we tried, due to the queue of other crap the kids are coming home with.
cachecrab 4y ago
The hepatitis outbreak seems to be related to strawberries [0] [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/05/30/hepatitis-a-strawberries-outbreak-fda/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/05/30/hepatitis-a...
- graeme 4y ago
  Wrong kind of hepatits
null_object 4y ago
A lot of these articles (seeing many in the same vein) seem to be implying that viruses are all making some vengeful comeback after the caution (some of us) exercised during the pandemic, but I'm not sure what scientific basis they are built on? Some of the patterns we're seeing are surely just a statistical anomaly - the general dip in these infections when people weren't as exposed to each other's germs over the last couple years is now mirrored by a modest increase. And naturally the news organizations want to pump every possible scenario that might lead to more doom-scrolling and eyeballs on ads.
- taeric 4y ago
  No doubt a lot of it is reverting to the mean actions in place. But, that generally portrays as a rebound on low values, so I can see why it is seen as a "vengeance." The article does a decent coverage of the different mechanisms that could be at play, as well.
  - null_object 4y ago
    > The article does a decent coverage of the different mechanisms that could be at play I thought the 'scientific' mechanisms were clutching at straws tbh: "And that increase in susceptibility, experts suggest, means we may experience some wonkiness as we work toward a new post-pandemic equilibrium with the bugs that infect us." In addition I think it'll always be possible to find 'experts' who will supply a handy quote to reinforce the essential nature of their particular area of expertise.
    - taeric 4y ago
      Oh, to be clear, I agree it was clutching at straws. But it did a good job of listing all of the straws that it could, and studies/time will hopefully let us know which ones mattered.
- aaron695 4y ago
- 4y ago
protoman3000 4y ago
What I wish I would have read in an article written by somebody who “covers issues broadly related to infectious diseases, including outbreaks, preparedness, research, and vaccine development”: > Could the worldwide inoculation with fairly new mRNA vaccines be an impacting factor in this development? “No, that is unlikely” says [Renowned authority in immunology], “because [plausible reasons]” What I instead got regarding this direction was: > (null) Don’t get me wrong, I am fully vaccinated and still recommend it to everybody. But I do see the tendency of distrust against the new vaccination techniques rising in my surrounding since everybody is getting sick all the time now. Especially since this development didn’t show in the first opening after the first (or second for some) wave before vaccinations were available for wide audiences. Please, tell them it’s not the vaccines. Discuss it, convince them, give them the truthful impression that their choice to trust in science and the government was not bad. Their doubts are honest and it must be allowed to doubt and to demand to see convincing evidence. Don’t write doubters off as heretics. This must be talked about and refuted.
- frenchy 4y ago
  You're right that this should get talked about, simply because it's the sort of thing that some people will wonder about. That said, I'm pretty sure "everybody getting sick all the time" has basically been the expected outcome of since about winter 2020 or earlier. After the lockdowns where started, rates of non-covid-19 respiratory diseses dropped, and the flu in particular was a lot less common, dispite a poor flu vaccine and uptake. Ever since the winter of 2020, the doctors in my country have been warning us that the flus could be particularly nasty as people stopped social distancing/masking/etc.
- kirykl 4y ago
  > No, that is unlikely” says [Renowned authority in immunology], “because [plausible reasons]” You would like to see your preconceived conclusion in print without any evidence for its proof yourself ? I’d prefer evidence either way regardless of the conclusion
  - wardedVibe 4y ago
graeme 4y ago
Anthony Leondardi has posited that covid reduces naive T cells and leaves people more vulnerable to new infections by aging the immune system He’s been right on a lot of things. Time will tell if this prediction is also right. If the respiratory diseases are this bad next year the immunity debt theory will have to be discarded. Has China got an epidemic of respiratory viruses? Did Taiwan have one before they let covid rip? We have control groups we could investigate
- dehrmann 4y ago
  > Has China got an epidemic of respiratory viruses? Have face masks seen widespread use in China before the current surge? If they have, China isn't a great control.
  - graeme 4y ago
    I’ve seen social media images of chinese kids in masks, but googling now can’t seem to find any official statement or news article past 2020.
jfoster 4y ago
> But some scientists theorize that this virus may have always been responsible for a portion of the small number of unexplained pediatric hepatitis cases that happen every year. This doesn't feel like something that needs to be theorized about. Were the hepatitis instances depressed during covid? If integrating since the start of covid until now, do the current cases push the hepatitis caseload beyond the comparable average in preceding years? Articles like this are frustrating. Obvious questions unanswered. No information as to the identify of "some scientists". I think such unclear reporting triggers conspiracy theories by making people feel as though information is being hidden. I don't doubt that this is incompetence rather than malice, but damn, humanity needs to fix the journalism problem.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
progre 4y ago
Swedish way wins again
- Marazan 4y ago
  Sweden who shut down non-EU flights for 2 years?
  - progre 4y ago
    Who didn't close schools and daycare.
    - giraffe_lady 4y ago
      Who euthanized the elderly to preserve ICU capacity?
      - hn_version_0023 4y ago
        That’s a claim that seems rather deserving of a source?
  - 87982570983 4y ago
    Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think Sweden imposed any restrictions on flights beyond what was required by the EU.
    - Marazan 4y ago
      They restricted flights from outside the EU in March 2020 and only removed those restrictions on the 1st of April this year. https://www.government.se/press-releases/2022/03/sweden-to-lift-ban-on-entry-from-all-countries/#:~:text=To%20prevent%20the%20spread%20of,applies%20until%2031%20March%202022 https://www.government.se/press-releases/2022/03/sweden-to-l....
- null_object 4y ago
  > Swedish way wins again I have no idea what you're talking about. The facts totally contradict your comment, which is unfortunately typical of the way Swedes and the Swedish authorities have tried to rewrite the actual outcomes at every stage of the pandemic. Sweden was hit by a historically severe RS-virus wave in the autumn of 2021[0]. Here's a deepL translation of one section of the citation below: "In the 2021-2022 season, Sweden has been hit by a historically severe epidemic. Paediatric care in several parts of the country has reported a strained situation. The peak of the spread of infection usually reaches its highest levels in March, but already in the summer of 2021 many cases were reported to the Public Health Agency." [0]https://www.sanofi.se/sv/om-oss/rs-rapporten https://www.sanofi.se/sv/om-oss/rs-rapporten
ODILON_SATER 4y ago
Also keep an eye on the rise of auto-immune diseases in the following years. Two years of lockdown will give rise to a lot more children developing peanut allergies, asthma, hay fever, diabetes type 1, etc.
- null_object 4y ago
  > Two years of lockdown will give rise to a lot more children developing peanut allergies, asthma, hay fever, diabetes type 1, etc What would be the mechanism of lockdown leading to peanut allergy?
  - IX-103 4y ago
    That would be the hygiene hypothesis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hygiene_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hygiene_hypothesis), which says that early exposure to certain microorganisms helps prevent allergies.
    - rpmisms 4y ago
      It's common country knowledge that chewing on a little dirt is good for toddlers.
  - ODILON_SATER 4y ago
    Kids staying at home, in overly sanitized environments, and socializing much less with other children. Their immune systems don't get "trained" as much. Not saying that you should let your child lick public restrooms knobs. But there is a balance. It is called the "Hygiene Hypothesis". I think it was niche idea a while ago but I think it is pretty much accepted now.
TheGigaChad 4y ago
lampshades 4y ago
I’ve been sick 5 times this year so far with colds, each one seemingly worse than the previous. I’m not convinced that COVID wasn’t a biological attack on our immune systems.
- halfjoking 4y ago
  I had longcovid 14 months until June 2021. Over the last year I haven’t been sick once. I’m not convinced the VACCINE wasn’t a biological attack on your immune system. All my family who took it get sick repeatedly, I’m exposed to the viruses they have and don’t get sick. All that is anecdotal, but it also jives with what Kirsch and others have been saying about the mRNA shots: https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/the-pfizer-vaccine-reprograms-both?s=r https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/the-pfizer-vaccine-reprog...
  - rossdavidh 4y ago
    Well, the vaccines (plural) were of course going to have an impact on your immune system, that was the point, but I wouldn't call it an "attack". It's more like a wargame, preparing for an enemy you expect to attack in the future; there is risk, but it's a lot less than going into the eventual war without having done any wargames. We all get exposed to viruses frequently, all the time. If your immune system suppresses them without much effort required, you don't feel sick. If your immune system overreacts, it suppresses them even better, but you will feel sick (from the fact that your immune system is going into overdrive). If your family's vaccination is causing their immune systems to give a stronger reaction to normal viruses, that is annoying, but it doesn't mean the vaccination wasn't a good idea. It's taking on an increased risk of an immune system making you feel sick for a couple days because it overreacted to a normal virus, in order to get a reduced risk of getting hospitalized because your immune system did not take a virus (covid-19, in this case) seriously enough, soon enough. The immune system is a tricky beast, no question, and unexpected results can happen. But just because your family gets sick, and you don't feel sick, from a normally circulating virus (e.g. perhaps one of the four non-covid coronaviruses that cause 'colds'), that doesn't mean the vaccine isn't working correctly. It just means they're trading a higher risk of a small problem for a lower risk of a much bigger problem.
mrtri 4y ago
99_00 4y ago
COVID-19 continues to impact us. Has there been any progress on determining the origin of the virus and how to prevent a future outbreak? Are efforts underway? I don't see any, but maybe the media isn't highlighting them. Seems like an important thing to look into. SARS outbreak was in 2003. SARS 2 20019. Given the increase in travel and environmental encroachment is there any reason to believe the next one will be in fewer than 15 years?
- nradov 4y ago
  There has been no substantial progress on determining the origin of the virus. It could have been a natural zoonotic transmission, or could have originated in a lab. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a declassified report in 2021 and it remains accurate as far as we know https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/reports-publications/reports-publications-2021/item/2263-declassified-assessment-on-covid-19-origins https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/reports-publications/...
  - 99_00 4y ago
    And that's fine. Assume both are true and come up with a plan to mitigate the next pandemic. Here's my bad idea: If China doesn't allow international monitoring of it's wet markets every person entering your country from China must quarantine for 14 days. Any person traveling form a country that doesn't follow the above policy must quarantine for 14 days.
    - nradov 4y ago
      That's just pointless and unrealistic. While China should be encouraged to improve food hygiene practices, and end trade in endangered wildlife species, most zoonotic viral transmission events never had anything to do with Chinese wet markets. While we'll never know for sure, there is some circumstantial evidence that the 1918 influenza pandemic might have started in a US pig farm. And quarantine policies are ineffective without secure borders. Human trafficking gangs bring people from China to Mexico, then smuggle them over the US land border. All it takes is one index case to start spreading a virus in a new area.
everyone 4y ago
"during Covid" Is Covid over now?
- rossdavidh 4y ago
  As 'over' as it's ever going to get.
- Sargos 4y ago
  Where do you live? Everywhere I've been this year have all been post-Covid. The only places that still seem to be having problems are places with authoritarian governments.
  - scotty79 4y ago
    I think it will be back in the Autumn.
    - Sargos 4y ago
      Well yeah that seems to be the consensus that it'll be seasonal like the flu. And like the flu it moderates over time and isn't that big of a deal, even less of a deal if you get your flu shot.
      - scotty79 4y ago
        Even omicron variant is still significantly more deadly than a flu. And there's really nothing that guarantees bext variant will be less deadly not more.
- alar44 4y ago
  Uh, yeah. Where do you live?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
scotty79 4y ago
Can we please start making mRNA vaccines for all those stupid "harmless" seasonal diseases? I'm really sick of getting anti-bodies to them by undergoing full fledged illness.
- jimmaswell 4y ago
  Virtually nobody dies from the "harmless" diseases, so any very small chance of myocarditis etc. would make it a bad decision. Waste of resources when we have better things to go after.
  - scotty79 4y ago
    Apparently harmless diseases are not that harmless as the example of strange previously unnoticeable hepatitis shows. We have no idea what chance of myocarditis (and other things) those harmless diseases cause because additional risk from them is counted towards our baseline estimate. It might be that all of spontaneous cases of myocarditis are caused by viruses we nowadays consider harmless, because we can't shield ourselves from them so we don't know what would health look like without them.
thenerdhead 4y ago
Sounds about right. I had Covid in January 2021. Had long Covid for what felt like a year. Everytime I’m sick(because of kids), I can’t test positive for Covid but the flus feel a bit stronger than they did previously. Usually to the point of knocking me out for a week. Used to be only a couple days. Hopefully my immune system is getting stronger each day.
blindmute 4y ago
I never masked, socially distanced, or got vaccinated. I have been going to regular social events and businesses since summer 2020, and have not taken ill. In the last month, four of my friends, who are vaccinated and followed recommendations, are sick. Strange anecdata

198 points by r721 4y ago

I am amused that folks seem to think we could eradicate so many widespread diseases with just masks. Keeping people away from each other? Sure. His long do we reasonably think we can do that? (Speaking as someone that lives as a hermit with kids.) Edit: it seems the best case scenario in the article is that these outbreaks were always there, and we are better seeing them? Do we expect that to hold up? Or will we start ignoring it again?

maxerickson 4y ago
Who are you talking about thinking that diseases were eradicated by masks? Public health people talking about low incidence of diseases being due to pandemic isolation and masking almost certainly weren't implying that they were gone, more commenting that they were suppressed by those changes to behavior. I am kind of fascinated that there is so little call to do things like improve ventilation. There's some, but people haven't seemed to catch on that we could do things to reduce disease that cause ~no individual inconvenience. Or like send people home when they come to work with a cold, change that culture. For outbreaks, I doubt a few hundred cases of monkeypox (outside of the endemic areas) would have been such major news a couple years ago. It's largely an attention phenomenon. It is certainly something to keep an eye on, but it doesn't appear to be spreading uncontrollably. Democratic Republic of the Congo, one of the endemic areas, has more cases this year than the non-endemic areas.
- rsynnott 4y ago
  > I am kind of fascinated that there is so little call to do things like improve ventilation. There's some, but people haven't seemed to catch on that we could do things to reduce disease that cause ~no individual inconvenience. Some countries are actually putting significant resources into this. But if you're in a country that isn't, well, realistically, who is going to pay for it? Public health experts pretty much everywhere are saying that it should be done (mind you, they were saying that before covid, too; "proper ventilation would be beneficial" is hardly a new idea), but the only way it happens is through state funding.
  - Swizec 4y ago
    > but the only way it happens is through state funding. Is it really that expensive to open a window? I remember even in the dead of winter our school would regularly open windows to let in some fresh air. And in the hot humid summers we would regularly keep open windows, no matter how hot it got outside, 25 kids inside would make it way hotter. And smellier.
    - rsynnott 4y ago
      So in general when people talk about improved ventilation, they're _mostly_ not talking about opening a window (impractical in many places at certain times of year, anyway); they're talking about some sort of mechanical ventilation, particularly for large buildings. Improving that sort of thing is expensive.
  - redisman 4y ago
    In (most?) building this would also mean replacing the HVAC system and ducts which would take months-years and close the building down for the maintenance period. I’m really not sure what the pitch is realistically.
    - maxerickson 4y ago
      How about systematically examining the current performance and likely retrofit cost of existing larger buildings? Then the discussion can be about a more specific cost (and time) estimate and include better information about the changes the updates would bring about. Or we could just assume it is too expensive and inconvenient to be worth looking into.
- jeromegv 4y ago
  Even at the height of the pandemic, it was quite frustrating to see so little public places taking easy measures like keeping the doors/windows open, but focusing so much energy on arrows on the floor or non-sense like that. Increased ventilation even helps with concentrating in school, as high CO2 is not good for schooling. I used to fall asleep all the time while I was in school, elementary, secondary, university, even staring at a computer. Now that I work from home, I never fall asleep that way. I was clearly just so tired from high CO2.
  - toyg 4y ago
    In my experience, that sleepiness might also be due to forced sleep patterns, commuting, and heavy food - things that you likely experienced in school but not now.
  - fullstop 4y ago
    > I never fall asleep that way. I was clearly just so tired from high CO2. I thought that Mass was just boring in elementary school. Perhaps there was more to it than that!
  - ajmurmann 4y ago
    You put the arrows down once and the signs up once. Opening windows and doors and managing airflow is a constant effort. Installing better ventilation can get costly. Cheaper to just do the theater.
- taeric 4y ago
  It is more of a local feel, honestly. Many on twitter and around the schools I do go to seem convinced that if the rest of the nation had just been as good at masking as we were, they would have not had it as bad. And that if we are diligent in the future, we wouldn't have as severe of outbreaks. I can't even really say they are wrong. I don't know. My weight would be more on our 90%ish percent vaccination rate, but I could see both having impact. Edit: I'm actually somewhat skeptical that ventilation will work as well as folks hope. Living in a place that largely does rely on outside air, we had just as large of outbreaks as anyone else. (That is, it is common to have open windows here. The kid's schools are even made to take advantage of that, if I understand it correctly.) Again, I am /not/ saying it is wrong. I just doubt it weighs as heavily as portrayed.
  - maxerickson 4y ago
    What is your definition of "work"? Of course better ventilation won't outright stop diseases from spreading, the point is that it will reduce the spread with reasonable cost and little downside (like another commenter mentions, if the existing ventilation isn't keeping up with CO2 concentrations, there can be other benefits).
    - taeric 4y ago
      From what I saw with our schools.... it didn't really cut the spread. Estimates are that the school had just as high of spread as elsewhere. And that is with near 100% vaccination of the kids in said school. I should note I'm not against trying. It seems a low hanging fruit to reach for. Just, evidence has shown that this particular disease goes for saturation fairly effectively.
      - jeromegv 4y ago
        Which evidence? You just quoted absolutely zero evidence beside your own personal anecdotes. It's an airborne disease. Better aeration definitely helps with airborne diseases, multiple studies prove it. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17257148/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17257148/ But of course, COVID spreads so easily that this can reach the limit (especially Omicron) and in an environment where kids will interact together in all kind of ways, but this would have definitely helped a lot more in the first few waves (pre-omicron) without needing to shut down schools entirely.
- ajmurmann 4y ago
  There are also other, novel things we could do to fight infectious diseases that get pretty much no traction. Far-range UVC lights immediately come to mind. These kill viruses and single-celled organisms quickly while not harming humans. Just imagine this installed in all public, closed spaces! Schools, offices, restaurants, public transit all could be heavily reduced in how well any infectious diseases gets spread there. Yet, this is almost entirely absent from public discourse. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-67211-2 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-67211-2
  - nradov 4y ago
    Beware of unintended consequences. Humans evolved with constant exposure to pathogens. Living in overly sterile environments seems to be a risk factor for autoimmune disorders.
    - ajmurmann 4y ago
      I wonder if we could address this by not activating the lights everywhere all the time. Always on in hospitals and other places with vulnerable people. Only on in restaurants and public transit during time of increased thread like a pandemic or maybe flu season, since that in fact kills a lot of people.
- Izkata 4y ago
  > I am kind of fascinated that there is so little call to do things like improve ventilation. There's some, but people haven't seemed to catch on that we could do things to reduce disease that cause ~no individual inconvenience. People still think SARS-CoV-2 spreads by droplets, so in their minds things like that wouldn't do anything.
- argonaut 4y ago
  You didn't see many scientists saying this. But early on in the pandemic many people were saying Covid would be completely over if everyone masked for a month, or if we locked down for a month, etc. I saw this a lot within my own network of very liberal, twenty-something peers. Some people still believe this, albeit probably a small minority now.
  - dv_dt 4y ago
    But it was over in multiple nations that did take the precautions seriously ... only to come back when they somehow were convinced to relax the recommendations.
  - scotty79 4y ago
    > But early on in the pandemic many people were saying Covid would be completely over if everyone masked for a month, or if we locked down for a month, It's technically true if every single person on Earth did this at the same time. Which is impossible, so no.
    - taeric 4y ago
      Is it, though? Feels unlikely that we could eliminate any corona virus that way.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
ajross 4y ago
> I am amused that folks seem to think we could eradicate so many widespread diseases with just masks. Sorry, who "seems to think this?". I haven't seen this claim, or anything like it, anywhere. The point many were making was that the overwhelmingly successful suppression of all these other diseases was clear proof that "masks work" to suppress disease, and by extension that we should wear them to effect the suppression of a much more dangerous pandemic. So when there's a largely uncontrolled pandemic happening, you should wear a mask. Now, general immunity seems to have reached a point where the pandemic is at least reasonably controlled without mitigation strategies. Covid of mid-2022 is now a worrisome endemic disease, comparable to (but yet rather more dangerous than) the worst flu seasons we've seen in the past century (since 1918). So... we can take our masks off now (most of us, admitting that some people have different levels of risk tolerance, etc...). The calculus changes because the facts on the ground have changed. None of that is an argument that you shouldn't have worn a mask in late 2020. You absolutely should have, and it remains horrifying to me that so many of us didn't.
- taeric 4y ago
  Oddly, you are making the claim I question here. This "proof that masks work" is likely more just proof that not having kids in schools cuts a lot of spread. I really cannot underscore enough how much more sick you will get when you have kids in school than when you don't. And homeschool isn't really an answer here, sadly. It is fairly well documented that kids that come out of homeschool and finally enter a workforce or other social environment are at a heightened risk of sicknesses that the general populace just doesn't notice. Edit: I hasten to add that I agree this is not an argument that masks don't work. And I don't understand why some folks still insist on fighting not to wear them.
  - superkuh 4y ago
    Before we can have a debate about "masks" we have to define what masks are. It's undeniably clear that wearing actual respirator N95 or ffp2 masks that are fit to the face work in preventing infection and spread. That's just physics. But when most are only wearing a partial covering "mask" that just blocks spittle of course it's not going to prevent infecting or infection by an aerosol spread disease. The real problem with "masks" was that our governments' intentionally lied about the need for them at the start of the pandemic. The messaging never recovered from this and I imagine even if government health institutions stated the truth today, that face fit respirators are required, it'd just be ignored. The problem wasn't ever actual masks, it was people lying about them and people not wearing them. Sure, unfit "masks" might have some mitigation potential and it's better than wearing nothing. But masks, in the context of an aerosol spread infection, have to mean fit respirator masks.
mikhailt 4y ago
Unfortunately, there is a lot of intentional and unintentional misinformation going around. Mask was not meant to "eradicate" anything, that was not the intent. The same thing with lockdowns, it was not meant to eradicate anything. The original intent back in the very early stage of the pandemic is to slow down the pace of hospitalizations (or as they market it, flatting the curve); the best way to do that is to slow down the number of people getting sick. What were the best solutions? 1. Be vigilant with cleaning up and avoiding contact with sick folks (self) 2. Stay home if you're sick, wear masks and so on. (self) 3. Lock down when it was getting out of control. (community) Also, this can have an impact on reducing the variants by having less hosts to infect and to mutate but this failed, so we're likely to stick with COVID for a very long time like the cold and flu. People should still be masking up if they're sick and can't stay home.
SkyPuncher 4y ago
> I am amused that folks seem to think we could eradicate so many widespread diseases with just masks. This is a claim that is novel to me. Masks help limit transmission. The immediate benefit is likely reducing transmission between an interaction of random people. A secondary, less supported benefit, is the reduction of viral load in transmissions - which can help reduce severity of an infection. This is not shocking when you consider the fact that surgeons have worn masks for a long time - with nearly the sole intention of reducing infection in their patients (albeit, not necessarily airborne infections). ----- IMO, people should be more outraged that the gov't did seemingly little to actually increase the healthcare's system to accommodate COVID patients. My understanding is mask mandates were almost always tied to significant capacity restrictions in the healthcare system. The idea of wearing masks was to create a buffer for healthcare to catch up.
- nradov 4y ago
  Surgeons have primarily worn masks and other PPE to reduce the risk of bacterial infections in open wounds, and protect themselves against bodily fluids. Protecting against respiratory viruses is something quite different. The mask mandates implemented in most places were always pointless pandemic theater. Only a properly fitted (i.e. tightly sealed with no facial hair) N95 or equivalent does much to block transmission of a highly contagious respiratory virus. It was never realistic to get the general public to do that.

carlivar 4y ago

It is RSV immunity debt that worries me. I think it's an example of our poor capability for risk analysis. I talk to so many parents here in California that are terrified of covid for their kids. So they still limit activities. But statistically kids have very, very low risk. RSV, and even flu, on the other hand are more dangerous for kids and any immunity debt may make that worse. It reminds me of how few parents realize the statistical risk of kids in cars versus how rare abduction is (if kid walks alone to school as an alternative to a car, for example). Again it is emotional/anecdotal thinking rather than data.

choko 4y ago
Did you know that children in daycare have almost a 100% chance of contracting RSV within the first year of attendance (even pre-pandemic)?
- carlivar 4y ago
  No, but that doesn't surprise me. So if daycare is inevitable, the child needs to go in "armed" with antibodies (including from the mother during pregnancy). Should pregnant women isolate? Does not seem like it. Our family dog probably does a good job diversifying antibodies as well (I think there are studies showing the immunity advantages certain pets provide).
  - chinathrow 4y ago
    > No, but that doesn't surprise me. So if daycare is inevitable, the child needs to go in "armed" with antibodies (including from the mother during pregnancy). Not sure how this works. Where to you get "armed" with antibodies if not from a vaccination (unavailable for some viruses) or prior infection? Antibodies from the mother vane over time as far as I recall.
    - carlivar 4y ago
      From the article here: "And babies born during the pandemic may have entered the world with few antibodies passed on by their mothers in the womb, because those mothers may have been sheltered from RSV and other respiratory pathogens during their pregnancies, said Hubert Niesters, a professor of clinical virology and molecular diagnostics at the University Medical Center, in Groningen, the Netherlands."

Arubis 4y ago

Anecdotally, I have two young kids in daycare, and everyone’s been sick more often than not since January. Frequent Covid swabs all come back negative.

thatjoeoverthr 4y ago
Same situation. Child is just short of five. For last half year, she is consistently out sick at least half the time. The whole family is sick constantly. It is an exhausting and challenging time.
treis 4y ago
My anecdata is similar. A constant 2 week cycle of getting mildly sick, recovering, and then getting mildly sick again. Dr said there's a ton of it going around.
- fullstop 4y ago
  I'm well past the elementary school (and younger) age, but this wasn't uncommon when my kids were that age.
  - treis 4y ago
    Like the sibling comment I've also been sick more often these last few months than I have in recent memory. Kiddo has been at daycare/preschool for a couple years now. AFAICT it's a real phenomenon.
- floppydiskette 4y ago
  Exact same anecdote for me. I’ve been sick every two weeks, then one week recovered, and repeat for the past 3 months or so. I’ve been sick more in 3 months than in 5 years. It’s very odd. Never tested positive.
- y-c-o-m-b 4y ago
  Yep, we are also on a 2-3 week cycle. My family is currently sick in fact. We've yet to test positive for covid, ever. I'm at this weird place now where I just want to get it over with, but at this point it's like we can't catch covid even if we tried, due to the queue of other crap the kids are coming home with.

cachecrab 4y ago

The hepatitis outbreak seems to be related to strawberries [0] [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/05/30/hepatitis-a-strawberries-outbreak-fda/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/05/30/hepatitis-a...

graeme 4y ago
Wrong kind of hepatits

null_object 4y ago

A lot of these articles (seeing many in the same vein) seem to be implying that viruses are all making some vengeful comeback after the caution (some of us) exercised during the pandemic, but I'm not sure what scientific basis they are built on? Some of the patterns we're seeing are surely just a statistical anomaly - the general dip in these infections when people weren't as exposed to each other's germs over the last couple years is now mirrored by a modest increase. And naturally the news organizations want to pump every possible scenario that might lead to more doom-scrolling and eyeballs on ads.

taeric 4y ago
No doubt a lot of it is reverting to the mean actions in place. But, that generally portrays as a rebound on low values, so I can see why it is seen as a "vengeance." The article does a decent coverage of the different mechanisms that could be at play, as well.
- null_object 4y ago
  > The article does a decent coverage of the different mechanisms that could be at play I thought the 'scientific' mechanisms were clutching at straws tbh: "And that increase in susceptibility, experts suggest, means we may experience some wonkiness as we work toward a new post-pandemic equilibrium with the bugs that infect us." In addition I think it'll always be possible to find 'experts' who will supply a handy quote to reinforce the essential nature of their particular area of expertise.
  - taeric 4y ago
    Oh, to be clear, I agree it was clutching at straws. But it did a good job of listing all of the straws that it could, and studies/time will hopefully let us know which ones mattered.
aaron695 4y ago
4y ago

protoman3000 4y ago

What I wish I would have read in an article written by somebody who “covers issues broadly related to infectious diseases, including outbreaks, preparedness, research, and vaccine development”: > Could the worldwide inoculation with fairly new mRNA vaccines be an impacting factor in this development? “No, that is unlikely” says [Renowned authority in immunology], “because [plausible reasons]” What I instead got regarding this direction was: > (null) Don’t get me wrong, I am fully vaccinated and still recommend it to everybody. But I do see the tendency of distrust against the new vaccination techniques rising in my surrounding since everybody is getting sick all the time now. Especially since this development didn’t show in the first opening after the first (or second for some) wave before vaccinations were available for wide audiences. Please, tell them it’s not the vaccines. Discuss it, convince them, give them the truthful impression that their choice to trust in science and the government was not bad. Their doubts are honest and it must be allowed to doubt and to demand to see convincing evidence. Don’t write doubters off as heretics. This must be talked about and refuted.

frenchy 4y ago
You're right that this should get talked about, simply because it's the sort of thing that some people will wonder about. That said, I'm pretty sure "everybody getting sick all the time" has basically been the expected outcome of since about winter 2020 or earlier. After the lockdowns where started, rates of non-covid-19 respiratory diseses dropped, and the flu in particular was a lot less common, dispite a poor flu vaccine and uptake. Ever since the winter of 2020, the doctors in my country have been warning us that the flus could be particularly nasty as people stopped social distancing/masking/etc.
kirykl 4y ago
> No, that is unlikely” says [Renowned authority in immunology], “because [plausible reasons]” You would like to see your preconceived conclusion in print without any evidence for its proof yourself ? I’d prefer evidence either way regardless of the conclusion
- wardedVibe 4y ago

graeme 4y ago

Anthony Leondardi has posited that covid reduces naive T cells and leaves people more vulnerable to new infections by aging the immune system He’s been right on a lot of things. Time will tell if this prediction is also right. If the respiratory diseases are this bad next year the immunity debt theory will have to be discarded. Has China got an epidemic of respiratory viruses? Did Taiwan have one before they let covid rip? We have control groups we could investigate

dehrmann 4y ago
> Has China got an epidemic of respiratory viruses? Have face masks seen widespread use in China before the current surge? If they have, China isn't a great control.
- graeme 4y ago
  I’ve seen social media images of chinese kids in masks, but googling now can’t seem to find any official statement or news article past 2020.

jfoster 4y ago

> But some scientists theorize that this virus may have always been responsible for a portion of the small number of unexplained pediatric hepatitis cases that happen every year. This doesn't feel like something that needs to be theorized about. Were the hepatitis instances depressed during covid? If integrating since the start of covid until now, do the current cases push the hepatitis caseload beyond the comparable average in preceding years? Articles like this are frustrating. Obvious questions unanswered. No information as to the identify of "some scientists". I think such unclear reporting triggers conspiracy theories by making people feel as though information is being hidden. I don't doubt that this is incompetence rather than malice, but damn, humanity needs to fix the journalism problem.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

progre 4y ago

Swedish way wins again

Marazan 4y ago
Sweden who shut down non-EU flights for 2 years?
- progre 4y ago
  Who didn't close schools and daycare.
  - giraffe_lady 4y ago
    Who euthanized the elderly to preserve ICU capacity?
    - hn_version_0023 4y ago
      That’s a claim that seems rather deserving of a source?
- 87982570983 4y ago
  Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think Sweden imposed any restrictions on flights beyond what was required by the EU.
  - Marazan 4y ago
    They restricted flights from outside the EU in March 2020 and only removed those restrictions on the 1st of April this year. https://www.government.se/press-releases/2022/03/sweden-to-lift-ban-on-entry-from-all-countries/#:~:text=To%20prevent%20the%20spread%20of,applies%20until%2031%20March%202022 https://www.government.se/press-releases/2022/03/sweden-to-l....
null_object 4y ago
> Swedish way wins again I have no idea what you're talking about. The facts totally contradict your comment, which is unfortunately typical of the way Swedes and the Swedish authorities have tried to rewrite the actual outcomes at every stage of the pandemic. Sweden was hit by a historically severe RS-virus wave in the autumn of 2021[0]. Here's a deepL translation of one section of the citation below: "In the 2021-2022 season, Sweden has been hit by a historically severe epidemic. Paediatric care in several parts of the country has reported a strained situation. The peak of the spread of infection usually reaches its highest levels in March, but already in the summer of 2021 many cases were reported to the Public Health Agency." [0]https://www.sanofi.se/sv/om-oss/rs-rapporten https://www.sanofi.se/sv/om-oss/rs-rapporten

ODILON_SATER 4y ago

Also keep an eye on the rise of auto-immune diseases in the following years. Two years of lockdown will give rise to a lot more children developing peanut allergies, asthma, hay fever, diabetes type 1, etc.

null_object 4y ago
> Two years of lockdown will give rise to a lot more children developing peanut allergies, asthma, hay fever, diabetes type 1, etc What would be the mechanism of lockdown leading to peanut allergy?
- IX-103 4y ago
  That would be the hygiene hypothesis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hygiene_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hygiene_hypothesis), which says that early exposure to certain microorganisms helps prevent allergies.
  - rpmisms 4y ago
    It's common country knowledge that chewing on a little dirt is good for toddlers.
- ODILON_SATER 4y ago
  Kids staying at home, in overly sanitized environments, and socializing much less with other children. Their immune systems don't get "trained" as much. Not saying that you should let your child lick public restrooms knobs. But there is a balance. It is called the "Hygiene Hypothesis". I think it was niche idea a while ago but I think it is pretty much accepted now.

TheGigaChad 4y ago

lampshades 4y ago

I’ve been sick 5 times this year so far with colds, each one seemingly worse than the previous. I’m not convinced that COVID wasn’t a biological attack on our immune systems.

halfjoking 4y ago
I had longcovid 14 months until June 2021. Over the last year I haven’t been sick once. I’m not convinced the VACCINE wasn’t a biological attack on your immune system. All my family who took it get sick repeatedly, I’m exposed to the viruses they have and don’t get sick. All that is anecdotal, but it also jives with what Kirsch and others have been saying about the mRNA shots: https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/the-pfizer-vaccine-reprograms-both?s=r https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/the-pfizer-vaccine-reprog...
- rossdavidh 4y ago
  Well, the vaccines (plural) were of course going to have an impact on your immune system, that was the point, but I wouldn't call it an "attack". It's more like a wargame, preparing for an enemy you expect to attack in the future; there is risk, but it's a lot less than going into the eventual war without having done any wargames. We all get exposed to viruses frequently, all the time. If your immune system suppresses them without much effort required, you don't feel sick. If your immune system overreacts, it suppresses them even better, but you will feel sick (from the fact that your immune system is going into overdrive). If your family's vaccination is causing their immune systems to give a stronger reaction to normal viruses, that is annoying, but it doesn't mean the vaccination wasn't a good idea. It's taking on an increased risk of an immune system making you feel sick for a couple days because it overreacted to a normal virus, in order to get a reduced risk of getting hospitalized because your immune system did not take a virus (covid-19, in this case) seriously enough, soon enough. The immune system is a tricky beast, no question, and unexpected results can happen. But just because your family gets sick, and you don't feel sick, from a normally circulating virus (e.g. perhaps one of the four non-covid coronaviruses that cause 'colds'), that doesn't mean the vaccine isn't working correctly. It just means they're trading a higher risk of a small problem for a lower risk of a much bigger problem.

mrtri 4y ago

99_00 4y ago

COVID-19 continues to impact us. Has there been any progress on determining the origin of the virus and how to prevent a future outbreak? Are efforts underway? I don't see any, but maybe the media isn't highlighting them. Seems like an important thing to look into. SARS outbreak was in 2003. SARS 2 20019. Given the increase in travel and environmental encroachment is there any reason to believe the next one will be in fewer than 15 years?

nradov 4y ago
There has been no substantial progress on determining the origin of the virus. It could have been a natural zoonotic transmission, or could have originated in a lab. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a declassified report in 2021 and it remains accurate as far as we know https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/reports-publications/reports-publications-2021/item/2263-declassified-assessment-on-covid-19-origins https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/reports-publications/...
- 99_00 4y ago
  And that's fine. Assume both are true and come up with a plan to mitigate the next pandemic. Here's my bad idea: If China doesn't allow international monitoring of it's wet markets every person entering your country from China must quarantine for 14 days. Any person traveling form a country that doesn't follow the above policy must quarantine for 14 days.
  - nradov 4y ago
    That's just pointless and unrealistic. While China should be encouraged to improve food hygiene practices, and end trade in endangered wildlife species, most zoonotic viral transmission events never had anything to do with Chinese wet markets. While we'll never know for sure, there is some circumstantial evidence that the 1918 influenza pandemic might have started in a US pig farm. And quarantine policies are ineffective without secure borders. Human trafficking gangs bring people from China to Mexico, then smuggle them over the US land border. All it takes is one index case to start spreading a virus in a new area.

everyone 4y ago

"during Covid" Is Covid over now?

rossdavidh 4y ago
As 'over' as it's ever going to get.
Sargos 4y ago
Where do you live? Everywhere I've been this year have all been post-Covid. The only places that still seem to be having problems are places with authoritarian governments.
- scotty79 4y ago
  I think it will be back in the Autumn.
  - Sargos 4y ago
    Well yeah that seems to be the consensus that it'll be seasonal like the flu. And like the flu it moderates over time and isn't that big of a deal, even less of a deal if you get your flu shot.
    - scotty79 4y ago
      Even omicron variant is still significantly more deadly than a flu. And there's really nothing that guarantees bext variant will be less deadly not more.
alar44 4y ago
Uh, yeah. Where do you live?

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

scotty79 4y ago

Can we please start making mRNA vaccines for all those stupid "harmless" seasonal diseases? I'm really sick of getting anti-bodies to them by undergoing full fledged illness.

jimmaswell 4y ago
Virtually nobody dies from the "harmless" diseases, so any very small chance of myocarditis etc. would make it a bad decision. Waste of resources when we have better things to go after.
- scotty79 4y ago
  Apparently harmless diseases are not that harmless as the example of strange previously unnoticeable hepatitis shows. We have no idea what chance of myocarditis (and other things) those harmless diseases cause because additional risk from them is counted towards our baseline estimate. It might be that all of spontaneous cases of myocarditis are caused by viruses we nowadays consider harmless, because we can't shield ourselves from them so we don't know what would health look like without them.

thenerdhead 4y ago

Sounds about right. I had Covid in January 2021. Had long Covid for what felt like a year. Everytime I’m sick(because of kids), I can’t test positive for Covid but the flus feel a bit stronger than they did previously. Usually to the point of knocking me out for a week. Used to be only a couple days. Hopefully my immune system is getting stronger each day.

blindmute 4y ago

I never masked, socially distanced, or got vaccinated. I have been going to regular social events and businesses since summer 2020, and have not taken ill. In the last month, four of my friends, who are vaccinated and followed recommendations, are sick. Strange anecdata