Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[alfred russel]

For my part, I'm pretty comfortable believing that our public health officials did a reasonable job balancing all the different factors involved and made acceptable decisions.

Indeed.

In a pandemic that has seen the deaths of over 6 million people worldwide, it seems a tough argument to make that the most noteworthy errors made where all around trying too hard to contain its spread.

First, no one has made that argument.

Second,

https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/learning-losses-covid-19-could-cost-generation-students-close-17-trillion-lifetime

[alfred russel]

This might come as a surprise to you, but most of our population is not 70+

The other thing that you might not be aware of is the vaccine was not available to people under that age until later.

That does not come as a surprise to me. As the link shows, every age group 12+ was over 50% vaccinated by this time last year...and by August of last year doses administered were plunging as the non vaccine resistant were getting fully vaccinated.

By this time last year, nobody under the age of 70 (except indigenous communities and those with critical medical conditions) had access to their second shot. My access did not come until the end of December.  I am not sure what you are now arguing.

I'm just stating what the website says: that most people were fully vaccinated in August. if it was December or January then that is cool, I guess that is when you removed restrictions? Not sure why that would be, i got my second shot in April 2021.

[crazy canuck]

This might come as a surprise to you, but most of our population is not 70+

The other thing that you might not be aware of is the vaccine was not available to people under that age until later.

That does not come as a surprise to me. As the link shows, every age group 12+ was over 50% vaccinated by this time last year...and by August of last year doses administered were plunging as the non vaccine resistant were getting fully vaccinated.

By this time last year, nobody under the age of 70 (except indigenous communities and those with critical medical conditions) had access to their second shot. My access did not come until the end of December.  I am not sure what you are now arguing.

I'm just stating what the website says: that most people were fully vaccinated in August. if it was December or January then that is cool, I guess that is when you removed restrictions? Not sure why that would be, i got my second shot in April 2021.

 

I made the mistake of engaging.  I am sorry.

[alfred russel]

What is madness is the idea that I was somehow against a covid response from governments. The solution is and has always been the highly effective vaccines we got ahead of schedule. Once those came into play, I thought the government should have been far more forceful in pushing people to get vaccines. I seem to remember posting more than a year ago that if you want to use public spaces, receive public benefits, have government employment, etc. you should have to demonstrate that you are vaccinated. That imo is far less intrusive than the zillion other requirements and restrictions in place the past few years, and would be more effective.

At the same time, it makes sense to make testing widely available so people that have covid can self identify and isolate. This is a US topic, it may not be universal, but we've been out of pocket a decent chunk of change buying testing kits when we get a cough or cold. We always tested negative, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that without free testing people are avoiding the expense of tests, and positive cases aren't being identified or isolating.

For bizarre reasons the focus seems to be on masks, and non medical grade masks are cool. Canada apparently still requires masks on planes. It is a bit random when masks aren't worn elsewhere, but if masking is the critical factor why not make N95 masks available to everyone? It has been 2.5 years now: we could have scaled production to do so. The social distancing thing is totally forgotten--it was well before vaccines that airlines gave up on keeping the middle seats free. That was probably the golden age of flying in our lifetimes.

[Josquius]

I believe its something like you get 75% of the full n95 benefit from a basic cloth mask so in terms of cost to benefits it just makes sense.
Number totally pulled out of my arse there but the main thing with masks is basically about stopping fluids spraying about so it could well be higher.
As in most things its important not to fall into the nirvana fallacy here and question why any rules around covid exist(Ed) if they're not 100% effective. It misses the point.

[alfred russel]

I believe its something like you get 75% of the full n95 benefit from a basic cloth mask so in terms of cost to benefits it just makes sense.
Number totally pulled out of my arse there but the main thing with masks is basically about stopping fluids spraying about so it could well be higher.
As in most things its important not to fall into the nirvana fallacy here and question why any rules around covid exist(Ed) if they're not 100% effective. It misses the point.

For the record I never questioned why any rules exist(ed). I questioned why obviously stupid rules such as prohibiting outdoor recreation existed, or home confinement rules in places without medical systems being overwhelmed. Or schools going remote when so many kids were not in a position to learn remotely and kids were not at significant risk.

Ron DeSantis burst onto the national scene as the covid "reckless" governor by opening the beaches in the early days. He is an attention whore, a culture warrior, and opportunist. But on that issue he was right, and if he becomes president that is going to be part of the legacy of the early covid response.

[mongers]

This was once a thing?

Was thinking to myself on a crowded train out of Cardiff the other day, 'we really need to give thanks for the scientific miracle of these covid vaccines; maybe national prayers of thanks or a national holiday for scientists only'.

[Barrister]

Wow - no one has posted in this thread for months!

Vaccine story for y'all.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/unvaccinated-woman-takes-transplant-fight-to-alberta-court-of-appeal-1.6624042

Woman refuses to take Covid-19 vaccine, and is therefore taken off the organ transplant list.  She takes it to court, loses, now takes it to the Court of Appeal.

Docs state that prior to the availability of vaccines, 40% of organ transplant patients who caught Covid-19 died.


The lawyer in me wonders though what will happen once our new Premiere amends the Human Rights Act to include Covid-19 vaccine status?  But then again the HRA already prohibits discrimination based on "physical disability", and doctors routinely discriminate based on physical health in determining organ wait list priority.

[DGuller]

I think the relevant disability here is the mental one.

[Barrister]

So not Covid-19 specifically, but there has been a nasty RSV (respiratory virus) going around Edmonton right now.

Apparently about 10% of all kids are missing school on any given day due to some kind of respiratory infection.  And that doesn't include the sick kids who are sent to school anyways.  My own kids report a bunch of kids with coughs and sniffles, with one kid flat out being sent home due to being too sick to be in school.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/with-outbreaks-on-the-rise-in-alberta-schools-some-parents-want-health-measures-back-1.6643938

It went through our family, though not too bad.  Each of my kids had it, running a fever with cough and sniffles, and had to miss a day or two.  And it's probably going to get worse as we've just this weekend had the truly cold temperatures hit where no one wants to go outside.

It doesn't appear to be Covid though, as everyone who gets it is testing negative for Covid-19.

Anywhere else experiencing a particularly bad cough and cold season?

[Grey Fox]

Yeah, it went thru my family in early october. A repeat of covid was pretty unlikely 6-8 weeks out of our August infection so I assume it was this RSV. My daughter told me everyone at school had sniffles in her class. No fever tho, pretty rare for me or my kids to have a fever.

[mongers]

Apparently there's a new UK variant or two that are going to kill us stone dead, well at least according to the tabloid spin.

[Zoupa]

[Valmy]

People have been wearing masks to stop the spread of disease for a very long time. They do it in hospital operating rooms. Maybe she should pick up a book from the 1890s to learn about this new innovative idea.

Granted the mask doesn't protect you from Covid, it protects others from your Covid.

[Valmy]

Anywhere else experiencing a particularly bad cough and cold season?

Well my family has been spared but Covid and Strep are running wild over here. Tons of kids (and teachers and parents) seem to be getting them right now.