When everyone’s a superspreader, no one is
May 9, 2022 1:32 PM Subscribe
More uniformly infectious, more treatable, more genetically predictable: How coronavirus is getting closer to flu. A recent modeling study led by Lidia Morawska at Queensland University of Technology found that the Delta variant is less reliant on superspreading events, with a k of 0.49. Her team hasn’t yet repeated the work for Omicron, but she expects that its preference for the upper respiratory tract, where it replicates at astonishing rates, probably results not just in more transmission, but more uniformity in who transmits to others.
Also at Stat News: Six Covid mysteries including how it will evolve.
1. How will the virus evolve next? “One of the most persistent myths surrounding pathogen evolution” is that viruses change over time to be less virulent."
2. What will future waves look like? “But it may become a nuisance, rather than a crisis.”
3. If you’ve never had Covid, how worried should you be right now? “I think preservation against the worst consequences of Covid is going to last quite a long time.”
4. How, exactly, does the virus transmit from person to person?: They found that SARS-CoV-2 congregated in the smallest aerosols; particles smaller than 5 microns contained the majority of airborne virus.
5. Will we get a new, better generation of vaccines, therapeutics, and tests? Yes, there will be new technologies, such as the recent SARS-CoV-2 test that can detect the virus on someone’s breath. But the big issues with testing have to do with infrastructure, not technology.
6. How long before we understand long Covid? Blood specimens taken from patients dating back to the spring of 2020 are being queried for inflammatory cytokines and other clues about long Covid, more formally known as post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection, or PASC. At Yale, Akiko Iwasaki has identified specialized biomarkers of T-cell immunity and B-cell immunity that could illuminate immune function and autoantibody production. Yapeng Su of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center has taken a multi-omics approach to look at the development of autoantibodies dating to the initial viral load at the time of the acute infection, taking into account preexisting conditions like diabetes or the reactivation of Epstein-Barr virus.
Also at Stat News: Six Covid mysteries including how it will evolve.
1. How will the virus evolve next? “One of the most persistent myths surrounding pathogen evolution” is that viruses change over time to be less virulent."
2. What will future waves look like? “But it may become a nuisance, rather than a crisis.”
3. If you’ve never had Covid, how worried should you be right now? “I think preservation against the worst consequences of Covid is going to last quite a long time.”
4. How, exactly, does the virus transmit from person to person?: They found that SARS-CoV-2 congregated in the smallest aerosols; particles smaller than 5 microns contained the majority of airborne virus.
5. Will we get a new, better generation of vaccines, therapeutics, and tests? Yes, there will be new technologies, such as the recent SARS-CoV-2 test that can detect the virus on someone’s breath. But the big issues with testing have to do with infrastructure, not technology.
6. How long before we understand long Covid? Blood specimens taken from patients dating back to the spring of 2020 are being queried for inflammatory cytokines and other clues about long Covid, more formally known as post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection, or PASC. At Yale, Akiko Iwasaki has identified specialized biomarkers of T-cell immunity and B-cell immunity that could illuminate immune function and autoantibody production. Yapeng Su of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center has taken a multi-omics approach to look at the development of autoantibodies dating to the initial viral load at the time of the acute infection, taking into account preexisting conditions like diabetes or the reactivation of Epstein-Barr virus.
This article is a premise in search of proof which it never actually produces.
posted by bleep at 1:59 PM on May 9, 2022 [12 favorites]
posted by bleep at 1:59 PM on May 9, 2022 [12 favorites]
Tell me all about "long flu"
I had a pretty brutal flu in spring 2019 from which I was still feeling after effects more than six months later. Strangely, they finally receded right around the time Covid-19 became more than just something that was happening off in the distance somewhere.
posted by philip-random at 2:05 PM on May 9, 2022 [12 favorites]
Just armchair hypothesizing, but I’ve been wondering if mammal biology has already set up to play the long game for this kind of thing.
By having slightly different cell receptors in lower versus upper respiratory, the overall immune system is encouraging viruses to adapt to the tissues where it spreads better- but is also where the host can tolerate it better. It sets up an environment where the less nasty strains are effectively harnessed to outcompete and extinguish the nastier ones.
Omicron wiped out Delta faster and more thoroughly than any human science could.
posted by notoriety public at 2:06 PM on May 9, 2022 [11 favorites]
By having slightly different cell receptors in lower versus upper respiratory, the overall immune system is encouraging viruses to adapt to the tissues where it spreads better- but is also where the host can tolerate it better. It sets up an environment where the less nasty strains are effectively harnessed to outcompete and extinguish the nastier ones.
Omicron wiped out Delta faster and more thoroughly than any human science could.
posted by notoriety public at 2:06 PM on May 9, 2022 [11 favorites]
Four different corona viruses are already responsible for about a fifth of human colds, including at least one (human corona virus NL-63) which also uses the ACE2 membrane protein to get into cells.
posted by jamjam at 2:24 PM on May 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by jamjam at 2:24 PM on May 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
"Like the flu" is obnoxious because it underplays how annoying-to-fatal the flu is, and because it means we're supposed to be fine about having yet another annual virus to look forward to, because we weren't already getting sick often enough. Remember when "curing the common cold" was supposed to be something we should actually try as a society to do?
Anyway, I thought this part was a more interesting takeaway:
Anyway, I thought this part was a more interesting takeaway:
“Even a very short time is sufficient to inhale enough of this virus to be infected,” Morawska said. “Short enough that ventilation may not have had a chance to remove the virus from the air.”posted by trig at 2:27 PM on May 9, 2022 [20 favorites]
That’s why she and others are now pushing for the use of germicidal ultraviolet light, which can zap infectious viral particles in the air, killing them in an instant.
Well that was terrible. As an immunocompromised person, I get tired of people looking for justifications not to be invonvienced by the small measures that make it more likely that I have a chance to survive this.
Also, given that unlike the flu this does a great job (increases of 2x - 10x) of setting off a whole range of severe onset autoimmune disorders in kids and adults people should really consider what "mild" means and whether they want to join me. And keep in mind, onset takes 1 - 10 years for these so people might have some surprises already waiting for them.
The lack of compassion or even self preservation because of a little inconvenience is truly frustrating.
posted by scififan at 2:34 PM on May 9, 2022 [70 favorites]
Also, given that unlike the flu this does a great job (increases of 2x - 10x) of setting off a whole range of severe onset autoimmune disorders in kids and adults people should really consider what "mild" means and whether they want to join me. And keep in mind, onset takes 1 - 10 years for these so people might have some surprises already waiting for them.
The lack of compassion or even self preservation because of a little inconvenience is truly frustrating.
posted by scififan at 2:34 PM on May 9, 2022 [70 favorites]
Relax, COVID is gonna be just like the flu. Which means it's gonna kill about 10,000 to 50,000 Americans every year, forever. Hooray.
posted by Faint of Butt at 2:38 PM on May 9, 2022 [13 favorites]
posted by Faint of Butt at 2:38 PM on May 9, 2022 [13 favorites]
This is incredibly bad journalism. Finding a few ways that Covid is maybe a little more like the flu in how it spreads or evolves has little to do with the severity of outcomes (death, severe disease, Long Covid, increased risk of all kinds of negative health outcomes). We all know that "just like the flu" is an incredibly politically-weighted phrase now and using that phrase to hint at a meaning that isn't supported by the reporting is awful.
Covid is evolving much more rapidly than the flu does — just look at the rapid evolution of BA.2.12.1 from BA.2. BA.2.12.1 is rapidly becoming dominant over BA.2 because it is significantly more transmissible and/or has greater immune escape, even from prior BA.1 infection. Calling that more "stable and predictable" is ridiculous.
And 5-10% of people who get the flu aren't ending up with Long Covid, so there's simply no comparison there. It is irresponsible to suggest that Paxlovid will reduce the risk of disability, as the article does, because we have no data whatsoever to suggest that Paxlovid reduces Long Covid incidence (I really hope it does, but we have no evidence).
posted by ssg at 2:56 PM on May 9, 2022 [27 favorites]
Covid is evolving much more rapidly than the flu does — just look at the rapid evolution of BA.2.12.1 from BA.2. BA.2.12.1 is rapidly becoming dominant over BA.2 because it is significantly more transmissible and/or has greater immune escape, even from prior BA.1 infection. Calling that more "stable and predictable" is ridiculous.
And 5-10% of people who get the flu aren't ending up with Long Covid, so there's simply no comparison there. It is irresponsible to suggest that Paxlovid will reduce the risk of disability, as the article does, because we have no data whatsoever to suggest that Paxlovid reduces Long Covid incidence (I really hope it does, but we have no evidence).
posted by ssg at 2:56 PM on May 9, 2022 [27 favorites]
That’s why she and others are now pushing for the use of germicidal ultraviolet light, which can zap infectious viral particles in the air, killing them in an instant.
Last I checked (so, March 2020 or thereabouts, I guess we may know more now) we don't actually know if it's possible to bathe people in UV in a way that's both safe for people and kills covid. You can do UV sterilization inside HVAC systems, but that still only works for the air that's being pushed around. If you're trying to kill covid that's just floating around, you have to actually bathe everyone in quite a lot of UV all the time. There are different wavelengths of UV and maybe there's a combination of wavelength and intensity that is safe for people and reliably inactivates COVID, but this is actually kind of a hard problem.
posted by BungaDunga at 2:59 PM on May 9, 2022 [2 favorites]
Last I checked (so, March 2020 or thereabouts, I guess we may know more now) we don't actually know if it's possible to bathe people in UV in a way that's both safe for people and kills covid. You can do UV sterilization inside HVAC systems, but that still only works for the air that's being pushed around. If you're trying to kill covid that's just floating around, you have to actually bathe everyone in quite a lot of UV all the time. There are different wavelengths of UV and maybe there's a combination of wavelength and intensity that is safe for people and reliably inactivates COVID, but this is actually kind of a hard problem.
posted by BungaDunga at 2:59 PM on May 9, 2022 [2 favorites]
The new thing in UV seems to be in finding a way to bathe the upper part of a room in UV while not letting any of it down to the level where people are. It remains to be seen if this can practically be done without exposing a lot of people to UV that we don't know is safe or not because of installation mistakes or kids messing with it or whatever other real world problem intrudes on the theory. I can see it might work in large spaces with high ceilings, but it might be pretty hard to do even in a classroom.
posted by ssg at 3:03 PM on May 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by ssg at 3:03 PM on May 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
Well this is a special sort of terrible post. Please tell me more about this flu I'm going to be hiding my family from for the next 3-6 years so several members of it don't just up and die.
Nice to hear about improved vaccines though...
posted by pan at 3:07 PM on May 9, 2022 [4 favorites]
Nice to hear about improved vaccines though...
posted by pan at 3:07 PM on May 9, 2022 [4 favorites]
Man, I apparently follow a lot of medical professionals on Twitter, and their general vibe has been less “relax! It’ll just be a nuance, like influenza, which used to be the no. 3 cause of death behind cancer and heart disease” and more “pulling their hair out in frustration because covid appears to be more like ‘what if HIV were airborne’.”
There’s this weird widespread notion that the virus will necessarily become milder over time, which is bonkers on its face: the plague was around (and very deadly) for centuries, and, hell, the annual influenza strains that used to be a priority were remnants from a century ago.
I live in Japan, so my current standards are set at “we live in a society” but meant without irony: I go to the supermarket most days, and I can count the number of maskless faces I see there on one hand. Per month. Meanwhile, my family is planning to meet up in the UK this summer, where apparently the strategy is “Stalin had the right idea about how many people it’s a good idea to sacrifice” at this point. Still trying to convince myself it’s not going to be a huge mistake.
posted by DoctorFedora at 3:08 PM on May 9, 2022 [43 favorites]
There’s this weird widespread notion that the virus will necessarily become milder over time, which is bonkers on its face: the plague was around (and very deadly) for centuries, and, hell, the annual influenza strains that used to be a priority were remnants from a century ago.
I live in Japan, so my current standards are set at “we live in a society” but meant without irony: I go to the supermarket most days, and I can count the number of maskless faces I see there on one hand. Per month. Meanwhile, my family is planning to meet up in the UK this summer, where apparently the strategy is “Stalin had the right idea about how many people it’s a good idea to sacrifice” at this point. Still trying to convince myself it’s not going to be a huge mistake.
posted by DoctorFedora at 3:08 PM on May 9, 2022 [43 favorites]
My county is currently trending towards the 2nd highest wave experienced. This time with no mask mandates, no closures of any kind. It's not the flu. It was never the flu. It won't be the flu, not anytime soon.
The schools have to notify us of positive tests for individuals on site. My phone has dinged hourly with these notifications. I'm lucky that my kid likes wearing his mask. All of his peers have had it. He has dodged the bullet so far, and every test (weekly in school, many times at home) have all come back negative. It's not even 'above the fold' on our state's primary newspaper's website.
I am beside myself, daily, with the number of death's we're willing to accept. This goes for everything. Guns, politics, covid. The number of dead we're willing to accept is just too high, and I don't know what to do about it.
posted by furnace.heart at 3:31 PM on May 9, 2022 [39 favorites]
The schools have to notify us of positive tests for individuals on site. My phone has dinged hourly with these notifications. I'm lucky that my kid likes wearing his mask. All of his peers have had it. He has dodged the bullet so far, and every test (weekly in school, many times at home) have all come back negative. It's not even 'above the fold' on our state's primary newspaper's website.
I am beside myself, daily, with the number of death's we're willing to accept. This goes for everything. Guns, politics, covid. The number of dead we're willing to accept is just too high, and I don't know what to do about it.
posted by furnace.heart at 3:31 PM on May 9, 2022 [39 favorites]
I am beside myself, daily, with the number of death's we're willing to accept. This goes for everything. Guns, politics, covid. The number of dead we're willing to accept is just too high, and I don't know what to do about it.
I'm reminded of the research|polling finding that (white) Americans views on what pandemic response measures were acceptable changed in response to findings that Black & Latino subpopulations were more likely to be exposed/harmed by COVID, specifically because of how our class system is structured & who's more likely to be working public-facing roles with inadequate employer-provided mitigations. Party lines amplified this, of course, but the general lesson remains.
For a significant enough portion of the country, it was only something to fight so long as they saw themselves as at risk.
posted by CrystalDave at 3:39 PM on May 9, 2022 [12 favorites]
I'm reminded of the research|polling finding that (white) Americans views on what pandemic response measures were acceptable changed in response to findings that Black & Latino subpopulations were more likely to be exposed/harmed by COVID, specifically because of how our class system is structured & who's more likely to be working public-facing roles with inadequate employer-provided mitigations. Party lines amplified this, of course, but the general lesson remains.
For a significant enough portion of the country, it was only something to fight so long as they saw themselves as at risk.
posted by CrystalDave at 3:39 PM on May 9, 2022 [12 favorites]
Last I checked (so, March 2020 or thereabouts, I guess we may know more now) we don't actually know if it's possible to bathe people in UV in a way that's both safe for people and kills covid.UV combined with full body covering, balaclavas, ski goggles, and gloves is the obvious solution. We can hand out tyvek suits to people who show up unprepared.
I'm no biologist by any means. But, naively, any light that breaks molecules in a virus sure seems like it would break molecules in animal cells in a very similar way, with bad consequences unless it's such low intensity that it's ineffective against the virus. Maybe I'm missing something special about viruses or skin.
posted by eotvos at 3:51 PM on May 9, 2022
I’m a little guilty of contributing to the “viruses evolve to be less virulent” sentiment, but I think I mean something different than the “myth” in the post.
My understanding is that a disease which is contagious during the symptomatic period will have more reproductive success if the symptomatic period is long and virulent but mild. Suppose you and I get sick with slightly different strains of the same virus. I choke to death on my own phlegm after a day, but you spend two weeks with the sniffles shedding virus onto every doorknob and choral concert that you visit. My infection is a dead end; your virus has many more opportunities to infect new people and mutate further. Future generations of the virus are more likely to have come from you than from me.
The problem with this story is that evolution is stochastic and random. If you know about “carcinization,” you know that evolutionary pressure can be inexorable; if you know about the human kneecap, you know that evolution is impossibly stupid. Both of these things are true. When I tell people that I expect Covid to evolve into a milder disease, I mean by 2030 or 2040, after dozens or hundreds of variants. The doesn’t mean anyone can make broad-brush predictions about the progression from Delta to Omicron to Zeta to Psi to Omega to Alpha-prime.
(As for the comparison with plague: plague remains contagious after you’ve died, and so is subject to a different set of evolutionary pressures.)
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 3:54 PM on May 9, 2022 [6 favorites]
My understanding is that a disease which is contagious during the symptomatic period will have more reproductive success if the symptomatic period is long and virulent but mild. Suppose you and I get sick with slightly different strains of the same virus. I choke to death on my own phlegm after a day, but you spend two weeks with the sniffles shedding virus onto every doorknob and choral concert that you visit. My infection is a dead end; your virus has many more opportunities to infect new people and mutate further. Future generations of the virus are more likely to have come from you than from me.
The problem with this story is that evolution is stochastic and random. If you know about “carcinization,” you know that evolutionary pressure can be inexorable; if you know about the human kneecap, you know that evolution is impossibly stupid. Both of these things are true. When I tell people that I expect Covid to evolve into a milder disease, I mean by 2030 or 2040, after dozens or hundreds of variants. The doesn’t mean anyone can make broad-brush predictions about the progression from Delta to Omicron to Zeta to Psi to Omega to Alpha-prime.
(As for the comparison with plague: plague remains contagious after you’ve died, and so is subject to a different set of evolutionary pressures.)
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 3:54 PM on May 9, 2022 [6 favorites]
I choke to death on my own phlegm after a day, but you spend two weeks with the sniffles shedding virus onto every doorknob and choral concert that you visit.
The Spinal Tap thread is over there
posted by soylent00FF00 at 3:59 PM on May 9, 2022 [5 favorites]
The Spinal Tap thread is over there
posted by soylent00FF00 at 3:59 PM on May 9, 2022 [5 favorites]
This is a good post and interesting set of links, and I'm puzzled by the response to it. For scientists and medical professionals, the idea that covid could eventually become "like the flu" was never a good thing, it was a warning. You can't let the stupidest politicians define the terms here.
posted by biogeo at 4:23 PM on May 9, 2022 [17 favorites]
"One of the most persistent myths surrounding pathogen evolution is that viruses change over time to be less virulent."This is interesting, but I'd like to hear more opinions than just one commentary paper by three authors before I accept that this is a "myth". Perhaps the thinking really has changed, but until fairly recently at least, this idea was still often expressed by epidemiologists and evolutionary geneticists, and I don't know whether these authors are representative of the consensus view on the subject. That doesn't mean that every newly-evolved successful variant of covid is going to be less virulent: evolution certainly doesn't work that way. Rather, in the long run, less virulent strains will tend to win out, all else being equal. That doesn't contradict anything the authors of that commentary piece wrote, as far as I can tell.
posted by biogeo at 4:23 PM on May 9, 2022 [17 favorites]
A Google search of "myth viruses become less virulent" turns up lots of credible sources confirming less virulent is not a given.
posted by tiny frying pan at 4:44 PM on May 9, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by tiny frying pan at 4:44 PM on May 9, 2022 [4 favorites]
The only context I've ever seen "like the flu", and I have been focusing on this topic intensely for the whole time, in the context of dismissing any kind of mitigation. We don't wear masks for the flu! We don't keep people home for the flu! We don't worry about catching the flu! Yes and, perhaps it's because this is not the flu. I've never seen it used in the context of supporting mitigation or wanting people not to get it.
posted by bleep at 5:10 PM on May 9, 2022 [11 favorites]
posted by bleep at 5:10 PM on May 9, 2022 [11 favorites]
Rabies is a classic example of a virus that hasn't become less virulent for people. Maybe it's become less virulent for bats.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 5:25 PM on May 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 5:25 PM on May 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
I am beside myself, daily, with the number of death's we're willing to accept. This goes for everything. Guns, politics, covid. The number of dead we're willing to accept is just too high, and I don't know what to do about it.
There's nothing you can do. The entire world is not going to rise up and wear masks forever and get vaccinated to stop this. Nobody's gonna give up their guns. Etc., etc. That's why we "accept" it. We have no choice but to.
posted by jenfullmoon at 5:29 PM on May 9, 2022 [6 favorites]
There's nothing you can do. The entire world is not going to rise up and wear masks forever and get vaccinated to stop this. Nobody's gonna give up their guns. Etc., etc. That's why we "accept" it. We have no choice but to.
posted by jenfullmoon at 5:29 PM on May 9, 2022 [6 favorites]
I plan to continue not accepting it forever.
posted by bleep at 5:34 PM on May 9, 2022 [32 favorites]
posted by bleep at 5:34 PM on May 9, 2022 [32 favorites]
The amount of Covid denial journalism seems to have dropped recently and I wonder if it's because the people bankrolling it know that they won.
Once they hit a tipping point where enough people grudgingly accepted that their government would let their friends and family die to encourage a rebound in office space and airline stocks they no longer needed the useful idiots writing in places like The Atlantic.
posted by zymil at 5:34 PM on May 9, 2022 [5 favorites]
Once they hit a tipping point where enough people grudgingly accepted that their government would let their friends and family die to encourage a rebound in office space and airline stocks they no longer needed the useful idiots writing in places like The Atlantic.
posted by zymil at 5:34 PM on May 9, 2022 [5 favorites]
My understanding is that a disease which is contagious during the symptomatic period will have more reproductive success if the symptomatic period is long and virulent but mild.
Sure, but the reality is that Covid has a very wide range of severity in different people. Many are asymptomatic and able to transmit the virus to others, others somewhat sick, a few somewhat sick then significantly sicker later (giving lots of opportunity for transmission before they become very ill), and a very few die, usually after quite some time. A coherent story about evolutionary pressure and severity needs to address the distribution of severity, not the average severity.
posted by ssg at 5:49 PM on May 9, 2022 [6 favorites]
Sure, but the reality is that Covid has a very wide range of severity in different people. Many are asymptomatic and able to transmit the virus to others, others somewhat sick, a few somewhat sick then significantly sicker later (giving lots of opportunity for transmission before they become very ill), and a very few die, usually after quite some time. A coherent story about evolutionary pressure and severity needs to address the distribution of severity, not the average severity.
posted by ssg at 5:49 PM on May 9, 2022 [6 favorites]
The fully vaccinated and boosted can reduce their risk of death and serious illness by as much as 90%, not to mention the other advances in treatment. It's not 2020 anymore, and the vast majority of people are ready to move on. I'm still wearing a mask in public but I'm in the minority.
Everyone should get vaccinated. Beyond that... it's all but impossible to stop the spread of a something as contagious as Omicron. Many countries took much more extreme measures than the US and barely slowed it down. In a country like the US, where close to half of the country outright refuse to wear masks, and many states have banned local mask laws, and the supreme court is doing everything in their power to chip away at masking ordinances... stopping the spread is a lost cause.
Omicron fatality rates for the fully vaccinated and boosted are relatively low. The vast majority of the people who care about being protected are relatively safe, and the unvaccinated are going to refuse any and all safety measures in the name of freedom. If there's another stain like Delta, ordinances can and should
come back, but short of that... at least we have good vaccines.
posted by Green Winnebago at 6:03 PM on May 9, 2022 [8 favorites]
Everyone should get vaccinated. Beyond that... it's all but impossible to stop the spread of a something as contagious as Omicron. Many countries took much more extreme measures than the US and barely slowed it down. In a country like the US, where close to half of the country outright refuse to wear masks, and many states have banned local mask laws, and the supreme court is doing everything in their power to chip away at masking ordinances... stopping the spread is a lost cause.
Omicron fatality rates for the fully vaccinated and boosted are relatively low. The vast majority of the people who care about being protected are relatively safe, and the unvaccinated are going to refuse any and all safety measures in the name of freedom. If there's another stain like Delta, ordinances can and should
come back, but short of that... at least we have good vaccines.
posted by Green Winnebago at 6:03 PM on May 9, 2022 [8 favorites]
it's frustrating not only because vaccines aren't the panacea that we were sold (they're more airbags than seat belts), but also because, like… masks do seemingly work pretty well! Looking at Japan's situation, where the overall feel is "what if the only thing done right was, most people wear masks, most of the time," the infection numbers seem to be in a completely different league from white people countries. The worst single-day peak of this last (highest) wave was around 104,000 new cases in a single day, in a population of about 125 million. Meanwhile, in my home state of Pennsylvania, the latest wave peaked at around 34,000 new cases in a single day, in a population one tenth the size.
The shift to "you can wear a mask if you want to" feels 100% identical, to me, to the idea of decriminalizing drunk driving, with constant reassurances that, if you don't feel comfortable on the road, you can choose not to drink a beer behind the wheel.
posted by DoctorFedora at 6:10 PM on May 9, 2022 [32 favorites]
The shift to "you can wear a mask if you want to" feels 100% identical, to me, to the idea of decriminalizing drunk driving, with constant reassurances that, if you don't feel comfortable on the road, you can choose not to drink a beer behind the wheel.
posted by DoctorFedora at 6:10 PM on May 9, 2022 [32 favorites]
The fully vaccinated and boosted can reduce their risk of death and serious illness by as much as 90%, not to mention the other advances in treatment. It's not 2020 anymore, and the vast majority of people are ready to move on. I'm still wearing a mask in public but I'm in the minority.
I still wear a mask in public too. And even though I followed all the guidelines and I was double vaxxed and boosted--I still got covid and it sucked. And even though it was a "mild" case, I'm still somewhat short of breath, feeling lethargic, and getting into coughing fits a whole month later. Maybe I'd be in a better position if I had sought out some additional treatment when I had it, but I'm relatively young, healthy, and I was up to date on my shots, so why did I have anything to worry about?
Screw moving on. After everything we've been though, just getting back to normal isn't enough. There has to be real change. There has to be concrete steps taken to ensure that this kind of public health emergency won't happen again--and that includes better logistics, a stronger social safety net, and a promise that people who spread misinformation about the virus or the vaccine will face legal consequences for their actions.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 6:22 PM on May 9, 2022 [12 favorites]
I still wear a mask in public too. And even though I followed all the guidelines and I was double vaxxed and boosted--I still got covid and it sucked. And even though it was a "mild" case, I'm still somewhat short of breath, feeling lethargic, and getting into coughing fits a whole month later. Maybe I'd be in a better position if I had sought out some additional treatment when I had it, but I'm relatively young, healthy, and I was up to date on my shots, so why did I have anything to worry about?
Screw moving on. After everything we've been though, just getting back to normal isn't enough. There has to be real change. There has to be concrete steps taken to ensure that this kind of public health emergency won't happen again--and that includes better logistics, a stronger social safety net, and a promise that people who spread misinformation about the virus or the vaccine will face legal consequences for their actions.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 6:22 PM on May 9, 2022 [12 favorites]
This episode of the NPR show 1A from back in March is one of the only US mainstream journalistic acknowledgements of what it's like to be immunocompromised right now. While y'all talk about "relatively low" and "relatively safe", I walk my quadruple vaccinated, N95 masked, and immunocompromised ass into my classroom full of unmasked, unvaccinated students and just have to hope that today isn't the day one of them kills me.
Ed Yong is one of the featured panelists, also the author of The Millions of People Stuck in Pandemic Limbo: What does society owe immunocompromised people?
(No, I am not interested in you telling me that you owe me nothing, so just fuck off if you were about to)
posted by hydropsyche at 6:27 PM on May 9, 2022 [48 favorites]
Ed Yong is one of the featured panelists, also the author of The Millions of People Stuck in Pandemic Limbo: What does society owe immunocompromised people?
(No, I am not interested in you telling me that you owe me nothing, so just fuck off if you were about to)
posted by hydropsyche at 6:27 PM on May 9, 2022 [48 favorites]
Beyond that... it's all but impossible to stop the spread of a something as contagious as Omicron.
If you look at any map or any chart of this pandemic you will see the numbers go up and then down again. When they go down it's because at that point people are scared and wearing masks. Then people see the numbers going down & take the masks off. Then the numbers go up again. A few weeks ago I was watching the cdc transmission maps frequently and there were big blue patches all over the country and then I watched them shrivel up. They didn't HAVE to shrivel up. It was the result of people allowing the disease to spread without mitigation. We are not trying. How can you say something isn't possible when we are barely trying. It doesn't make logical sense.
posted by bleep at 6:29 PM on May 9, 2022 [22 favorites]
If you look at any map or any chart of this pandemic you will see the numbers go up and then down again. When they go down it's because at that point people are scared and wearing masks. Then people see the numbers going down & take the masks off. Then the numbers go up again. A few weeks ago I was watching the cdc transmission maps frequently and there were big blue patches all over the country and then I watched them shrivel up. They didn't HAVE to shrivel up. It was the result of people allowing the disease to spread without mitigation. We are not trying. How can you say something isn't possible when we are barely trying. It doesn't make logical sense.
posted by bleep at 6:29 PM on May 9, 2022 [22 favorites]
Beyond the headline, the article details some ways COVID is becoming more flu-like (more variants than were originally predicted, decreasing virulence [with a caveat that this may change], different ways that it spreads) and also cautions that there are many unknowns and that COVID remains significantly more deadly that any recent influenza strain.
Tell me all about "long flu"
posted by MrJM at 1:58 PM on May 9 [15 favorites +] [!]
Long COVID is not well understood but also not clearly defined. But we already knew about post-viral syndromes before COVID and we are learning much more about them now as a post-viral syndrome may explain many cases of long COVID. That is detailed in the second set of links.
I found these articles to be factual, accessible, not overly-reassuring, not overly alarmist.
posted by latkes at 6:37 PM on May 9, 2022 [13 favorites]
Tell me all about "long flu"
posted by MrJM at 1:58 PM on May 9 [15 favorites +] [!]
Long COVID is not well understood but also not clearly defined. But we already knew about post-viral syndromes before COVID and we are learning much more about them now as a post-viral syndrome may explain many cases of long COVID. That is detailed in the second set of links.
I found these articles to be factual, accessible, not overly-reassuring, not overly alarmist.
posted by latkes at 6:37 PM on May 9, 2022 [13 favorites]
it's frustrating not only because vaccines aren't the panacea that we were sold (they're more airbags than seat belts)
This is a very succinct analogy and it immediately reminded me of that brief period in the early 1990s when there were people who stopped wearing seatbelts because they had a car with airbags and no longer thought they should be burdened with the inconvenience.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 6:37 PM on May 9, 2022 [6 favorites]
This is a very succinct analogy and it immediately reminded me of that brief period in the early 1990s when there were people who stopped wearing seatbelts because they had a car with airbags and no longer thought they should be burdened with the inconvenience.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 6:37 PM on May 9, 2022 [6 favorites]
The hypothesis that pathogens always evolve toward lower virulence has been under criticism for at least thirty years. Transmissibility is not inevitably inversely proportional to virulence — it often is, but it can be largely decoupled.
The most obvious counterexamples to the virulence hypothesis are the pathogens that don't rely upon their primary hosts as their vectors, such as malaria or cholera. The more a pathogen does rely upon its primary host to be its vector — that is, to be alive and mobile and in contact with other hosts — the more virulence will be selected against, as expected. But if it doesn't rely upon that, then it only needs the primary host alive enough long enough to be available to whatever its primary vector is (such as mosquitoes or even health care practioners).
Similarly, as the linked commentary mentions, pathogens with delayed virulence like HIV are not as subject to selection against that virulence, as the pre-symptomatic-but-infectious period is sufficient for transmission.
The point is that, sure, it's obviously the case that a pathogen can't immediately kill its host and be evolutionary successful . . . but that there are a wide variety of ways where that relationship can be largely decoupled — at least insofar as we, the primary hosts, will continue to experience infection as severe or deadly.
That said, given the examples of the other coronaviruses, in my opinion it's most likely that SARS-CoV-2 will eventually become as mild and endemic as those we already live with. But that's not guaranteed to happen rapidly and it's not even guaranteed to happen at all.
As for the linked article, I am not surprised at the criticism here. I think the sentiment is understandable, given the irresponsibility and wishful thinking that has been so pernicious. But, really, TFA isn't saying anything controversial or even irresponsible — the headline is a bit hyperbolic relative to the article itself.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 6:50 PM on May 9, 2022 [8 favorites]
The most obvious counterexamples to the virulence hypothesis are the pathogens that don't rely upon their primary hosts as their vectors, such as malaria or cholera. The more a pathogen does rely upon its primary host to be its vector — that is, to be alive and mobile and in contact with other hosts — the more virulence will be selected against, as expected. But if it doesn't rely upon that, then it only needs the primary host alive enough long enough to be available to whatever its primary vector is (such as mosquitoes or even health care practioners).
Similarly, as the linked commentary mentions, pathogens with delayed virulence like HIV are not as subject to selection against that virulence, as the pre-symptomatic-but-infectious period is sufficient for transmission.
The point is that, sure, it's obviously the case that a pathogen can't immediately kill its host and be evolutionary successful . . . but that there are a wide variety of ways where that relationship can be largely decoupled — at least insofar as we, the primary hosts, will continue to experience infection as severe or deadly.
That said, given the examples of the other coronaviruses, in my opinion it's most likely that SARS-CoV-2 will eventually become as mild and endemic as those we already live with. But that's not guaranteed to happen rapidly and it's not even guaranteed to happen at all.
As for the linked article, I am not surprised at the criticism here. I think the sentiment is understandable, given the irresponsibility and wishful thinking that has been so pernicious. But, really, TFA isn't saying anything controversial or even irresponsible — the headline is a bit hyperbolic relative to the article itself.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 6:50 PM on May 9, 2022 [8 favorites]
“One of the most persistent myths surrounding pathogen evolution” is that viruses change over time to be less virulent."
It's a myth in the sense that Omicron turns out to be no milder than any other strain, and the evolutionary theory is mixed; so any personal or policy decision based on the assumption of it getting milder is just wishful thinking.
it's all but impossible to stop the spread of a something as contagious as Omicron
Omicron is at most a factor of 2 more contagious than Delta, and just as stoppable with masks, ventilation, and distancing, each of which can reduce transmission by a factor of 2 or more. Infection is still highly correlated with protective behaviors, which is why conservatives have been getting it at much higher rates.
How coronavirus is getting closer to flu.
Even putting long covid aside, Covid is ~5x as contagious as the flu, and at the current (all time low) death rate it would still kill ~5x as many people a year. Almost there!
posted by chortly at 6:52 PM on May 9, 2022 [4 favorites]
It's a myth in the sense that Omicron turns out to be no milder than any other strain, and the evolutionary theory is mixed; so any personal or policy decision based on the assumption of it getting milder is just wishful thinking.
it's all but impossible to stop the spread of a something as contagious as Omicron
Omicron is at most a factor of 2 more contagious than Delta, and just as stoppable with masks, ventilation, and distancing, each of which can reduce transmission by a factor of 2 or more. Infection is still highly correlated with protective behaviors, which is why conservatives have been getting it at much higher rates.
How coronavirus is getting closer to flu.
Even putting long covid aside, Covid is ~5x as contagious as the flu, and at the current (all time low) death rate it would still kill ~5x as many people a year. Almost there!
posted by chortly at 6:52 PM on May 9, 2022 [4 favorites]
" it's all but impossible to stop the spread of a something as contagious as Omicron"
My observation from my country is it can be substantially slowed by rules on masking, venue limits and restrictions on food and entertainment business operation. At a practical level it's quite possible. What's difficult is maintaining those restrictions when the business lobby and a bored news media decide that it's all over and start working on public opinion. Add in active misinfo/disinfo efforts from conspiracy theorists and their backers, and now we have something closer to impossible.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 7:13 PM on May 9, 2022 [14 favorites]
My observation from my country is it can be substantially slowed by rules on masking, venue limits and restrictions on food and entertainment business operation. At a practical level it's quite possible. What's difficult is maintaining those restrictions when the business lobby and a bored news media decide that it's all over and start working on public opinion. Add in active misinfo/disinfo efforts from conspiracy theorists and their backers, and now we have something closer to impossible.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 7:13 PM on May 9, 2022 [14 favorites]
(oh and a publicly funded vaccination campaign supported by vaccine pass requirements that gets the 18+ population to >95% double vaccinated, a substantial number boosted, and some eligible young people.)
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 7:14 PM on May 9, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 7:14 PM on May 9, 2022 [4 favorites]
My full apologies for not snipping off the "flu" part of the article headline when I posted this, it definitely is a profoundly problematic frame for U.S. public health as people have used "like the flu" to dismiss completely reasonable measures like masking in public spaces, vaccination mandates at schools etc.
I should have put the second article (6 covid mysteries) first!
That said (in the first article) I was worried by how transmission of covid to others is now way more likely since the virus is just saturating the upper respiratory.
posted by spamandkimchi at 7:16 PM on May 9, 2022 [8 favorites]
I should have put the second article (6 covid mysteries) first!
That said (in the first article) I was worried by how transmission of covid to others is now way more likely since the virus is just saturating the upper respiratory.
posted by spamandkimchi at 7:16 PM on May 9, 2022 [8 favorites]
Very conservative (in the non-political sense) put the recent strains of covid in the teens for R0. It is contagious as measles, or more. It is contagious as fuck. You can improve your odds with masks and behaviors (and you can bet that I do both), but even with perfect play, you are still likely to get it. And in this crap-ass timeline we're in, you're likely to get it multiple times. It might slowly get a little less nasty, over decades. But in the meanwhile, it's going to stay the #3 killer for a while. Unless we come up with something even nastier to displace it.
And you know the damndest thing? Some people won't get it, or will just shake it off without even noticing. I almost certainly did- my housemate was laid out for weeks with it in the middle of the Omicron wave, and many weeks more recovering from it, and despite cohabiting, and wfh here the whole time, with no special precautions in the house, I never got any symptoms. Not a sniffle. Which is utter SHIT for assholes who want to validate their shitty behavior. I figured my number was up after two years of fighting the good fight, and then nothing. How do you convince people to be cautious when stuff like that happens? SMDH.
posted by notoriety public at 7:20 PM on May 9, 2022 [13 favorites]
And you know the damndest thing? Some people won't get it, or will just shake it off without even noticing. I almost certainly did- my housemate was laid out for weeks with it in the middle of the Omicron wave, and many weeks more recovering from it, and despite cohabiting, and wfh here the whole time, with no special precautions in the house, I never got any symptoms. Not a sniffle. Which is utter SHIT for assholes who want to validate their shitty behavior. I figured my number was up after two years of fighting the good fight, and then nothing. How do you convince people to be cautious when stuff like that happens? SMDH.
posted by notoriety public at 7:20 PM on May 9, 2022 [13 favorites]
I was really hoping, after seeing BA.2 take off in Denmark around January but not in the US, that we were over the hump of heard immunity by way of 1-1.2 million dead and 100m infected alongside the immunized.
Nope!
posted by Slackermagee at 8:02 PM on May 9, 2022
Nope!
posted by Slackermagee at 8:02 PM on May 9, 2022
WaPo article: The lucky few to never get coronavirus could teach us more about it
Nobody really knows how some people just don't get it despite tons of exposure. Is it genetics? Is it masks? All of the above? Nobody knows yet.... I mean, I HOPE I am one of these people because so far so good and I only got 3 major illnesses in the last 20 years and maybe I'm not prone to catching stuff, but who knows?
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:19 PM on May 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
Nobody really knows how some people just don't get it despite tons of exposure. Is it genetics? Is it masks? All of the above? Nobody knows yet.... I mean, I HOPE I am one of these people because so far so good and I only got 3 major illnesses in the last 20 years and maybe I'm not prone to catching stuff, but who knows?
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:19 PM on May 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
We knew in the middle of December that Omicron wasn’t less virulent than Delta. The very first previously at the bottom of this post even links the metafilter post from December 17. In fact, given how highly immune evasive it is even for people who have been vaccinated and had it before, I think it’s fantastical thinking to suggest that we’re moving anywhere positive. Omicron tore through Hong Kong with absolutely devastating results.
People have long not taken viral illness seriously. Look up the linkage between mono and an enormous swath of long term illnesses. And yet, everyone accepts that high schoolers will get it. The assumption that a milder initial illness means milder long term consequences is madness. It’s not supported by anything except wishful thinking.
posted by Bottlecap at 8:22 PM on May 9, 2022 [9 favorites]
People have long not taken viral illness seriously. Look up the linkage between mono and an enormous swath of long term illnesses. And yet, everyone accepts that high schoolers will get it. The assumption that a milder initial illness means milder long term consequences is madness. It’s not supported by anything except wishful thinking.
posted by Bottlecap at 8:22 PM on May 9, 2022 [9 favorites]
Tell me all about "long flu"
I have no way to know if it was a flu virus or some other infection, but in middle school I had a bad week-long bout of flu-like symptoms, and spent the next five years with GI problems and chronic fatigue syndrome, which wound up with me spending 6 years to get through high school. I am not at all convinced that COVID is in any way special for its long term side effects; I suspect a lot of people's chronic health problems may be sequelae from infections, and it's only because so many people got COVID at the same time that we're finally really noticing it and talking about it now.
posted by aubilenon at 8:24 PM on May 9, 2022 [40 favorites]
I have no way to know if it was a flu virus or some other infection, but in middle school I had a bad week-long bout of flu-like symptoms, and spent the next five years with GI problems and chronic fatigue syndrome, which wound up with me spending 6 years to get through high school. I am not at all convinced that COVID is in any way special for its long term side effects; I suspect a lot of people's chronic health problems may be sequelae from infections, and it's only because so many people got COVID at the same time that we're finally really noticing it and talking about it now.
posted by aubilenon at 8:24 PM on May 9, 2022 [40 favorites]
The problem with "like the flu" is that many (most?) people use "flu" when they mean "a bad cold."
Please, do your part and don't say "the flu" unless you actually mean it.
posted by The corpse in the library at 8:38 PM on May 9, 2022 [19 favorites]
Please, do your part and don't say "the flu" unless you actually mean it.
posted by The corpse in the library at 8:38 PM on May 9, 2022 [19 favorites]
A few folks upthread expressed some worries and mockery of UV for controlling coronavirus transmission. This is understandable given decades of lectures about wearing sunscreen. However, Upper-room UV germicidal radiation is a safe technology that we've been using for nearly 100 years and you may have even (unknowingly) encountered it in a hospital.
Regarding safety - not only is UV-C is much safer than A and B, the lights are generally both high up and directed sideways and up, not down at people. Newer technologies using far UV are even safer.
The CDC includes it in its list of things you can do to limit covid transmission and folks involved in TB control have been *begging* for widespread deployment of this technology for like 80 years.
For more (excellent) info on the technology, here's a nice recent paper and a thorough guide from the Harvard Medical School Center for Global Health Delivery.
It works better and is generally more economical than ventilation and filtration, and I'd be *thrilled* to see this made mandatory in basically all public spaces.
> SARS-CoV-2 is highly susceptible to GUV, an 80-year-old technology that has been shown to safely, quietly, effectively and economically produce the equivalent of 10 to 20 or more air changes per hour under real life conditions.
Just imagine how many airborne illnesses we'd quash with widespread use of this, especially if we combined it with a bit more ventilation and filtration (both for extra virus protection but also lower CO2, VOC, and particulate levels)!
posted by congen at 8:42 PM on May 9, 2022 [20 favorites]
Regarding safety - not only is UV-C is much safer than A and B, the lights are generally both high up and directed sideways and up, not down at people. Newer technologies using far UV are even safer.
The CDC includes it in its list of things you can do to limit covid transmission and folks involved in TB control have been *begging* for widespread deployment of this technology for like 80 years.
For more (excellent) info on the technology, here's a nice recent paper and a thorough guide from the Harvard Medical School Center for Global Health Delivery.
It works better and is generally more economical than ventilation and filtration, and I'd be *thrilled* to see this made mandatory in basically all public spaces.
> SARS-CoV-2 is highly susceptible to GUV, an 80-year-old technology that has been shown to safely, quietly, effectively and economically produce the equivalent of 10 to 20 or more air changes per hour under real life conditions.
Just imagine how many airborne illnesses we'd quash with widespread use of this, especially if we combined it with a bit more ventilation and filtration (both for extra virus protection but also lower CO2, VOC, and particulate levels)!
posted by congen at 8:42 PM on May 9, 2022 [20 favorites]
We knew in the middle of December that Omicron wasn’t less virulent than Delta.
We certainly didn’t “know” that in December and I’m not at all sure that we know it now, for that matter. We knew the potential confounding factors but there have been studies supporting one side or the other of this question for months. Not to mention that “Omicron” now has been replaced by a succession of subvariants. We can only hope to know anything in retrospect, unfortunately.
posted by atoxyl at 8:52 PM on May 9, 2022 [7 favorites]
We certainly didn’t “know” that in December and I’m not at all sure that we know it now, for that matter. We knew the potential confounding factors but there have been studies supporting one side or the other of this question for months. Not to mention that “Omicron” now has been replaced by a succession of subvariants. We can only hope to know anything in retrospect, unfortunately.
posted by atoxyl at 8:52 PM on May 9, 2022 [7 favorites]
I thought it was a good article. It is unfortunate that the press often loves highlighting predictions; I get why people care about that but (even coming from scientists) it's basically speculation. I've worked for decades with antiviral researchers and there are lots of different opinions, all supported by in-depth understanding of the damn thing, but emphasizing different parts.
Pre-pandemic people could insist on science news that had been filtered through peer review and it was still lousy. In field it could take years to sort out what early reports were right vs. needed refinement vs. plain wrong. With Covid we want news we can act on faster, but there are limits. No matter how many twitter accounts are followed.
We knew in the middle of December that Omicron wasn’t less virulent than Delta. The very first previously at the bottom of this post even links the metafilter post from December 17
A case in point. That post referred to an article based on basically crap UK data that was one of the first out there, but not great. There was a lot of deserved skepticism and within a couple weeks more studies were showing less severe effects. So even if that was right, it wasn't "known;" it was just one claim among many.
I'm not 100% sure on the consensus and how it will hold up, entangled as it is in behavior and vaccination rates, but I think the recent thought is that it was indeed less virulent. See this Lancet piece for example.
posted by mark k at 9:14 PM on May 9, 2022 [9 favorites]
Pre-pandemic people could insist on science news that had been filtered through peer review and it was still lousy. In field it could take years to sort out what early reports were right vs. needed refinement vs. plain wrong. With Covid we want news we can act on faster, but there are limits. No matter how many twitter accounts are followed.
We knew in the middle of December that Omicron wasn’t less virulent than Delta. The very first previously at the bottom of this post even links the metafilter post from December 17
A case in point. That post referred to an article based on basically crap UK data that was one of the first out there, but not great. There was a lot of deserved skepticism and within a couple weeks more studies were showing less severe effects. So even if that was right, it wasn't "known;" it was just one claim among many.
I'm not 100% sure on the consensus and how it will hold up, entangled as it is in behavior and vaccination rates, but I think the recent thought is that it was indeed less virulent. See this Lancet piece for example.
posted by mark k at 9:14 PM on May 9, 2022 [9 favorites]
Omicron tore through Hong Kong with absolutely devastating results.
HK, bafflingly, had low rates of vaccination among its senior population.
I still wear a mask in indoor public spaces, but the yearning for vindicating catastrophe underlying some of these comments makes me uneasy. I'm in NYC. Positivity rate yesterday in Manhattan was about 5%. That is surely an underestimate given how many home tests are taken now. But it is not like it was in the spring of Alpha, which I was also present for. The average number of people hospitalized per day over the past week in all of NYC is around 50; the number of deaths, 3. Obviously, zero deaths is what we all want, but you cannot tell me the sky is falling when it already fell on my head just two years ago and I still remember how it felt.
When I say "like the flu," I mean "a respiratory illness that is unpleasant even for the healthy and dangerous for certain vulnerable groups and that requires regularly recurring community efforts to boost immunity." It would have been lovely if society had managed such that this outcome was not probably the best we could look forward to, but it didn't, so here we are, and other risks and costs inevitably begin to weigh more heavily in the calculus. I'm not just talking about lost profits. I deferred a cancer screening because of the pandemic. I finally got it done last month, and got all the way through biopsy (ow) before they decided it wasn't cancer. My lay understanding is that from what they observed on the scan it was roughly 50/50 either way. If it had been malignant, too bad for me, I guess. Now that's a gamble I took deliberately, but it doesn't mean losing wouldn't have been devastating, especially as I'm not of an age or in a health condition where I'm likely to die or even be hospitalized from the virus. It's not just the ability to drink freely in East Village bars that's at stake here.
posted by praemunire at 9:16 PM on May 9, 2022 [20 favorites]
HK, bafflingly, had low rates of vaccination among its senior population.
I still wear a mask in indoor public spaces, but the yearning for vindicating catastrophe underlying some of these comments makes me uneasy. I'm in NYC. Positivity rate yesterday in Manhattan was about 5%. That is surely an underestimate given how many home tests are taken now. But it is not like it was in the spring of Alpha, which I was also present for. The average number of people hospitalized per day over the past week in all of NYC is around 50; the number of deaths, 3. Obviously, zero deaths is what we all want, but you cannot tell me the sky is falling when it already fell on my head just two years ago and I still remember how it felt.
When I say "like the flu," I mean "a respiratory illness that is unpleasant even for the healthy and dangerous for certain vulnerable groups and that requires regularly recurring community efforts to boost immunity." It would have been lovely if society had managed such that this outcome was not probably the best we could look forward to, but it didn't, so here we are, and other risks and costs inevitably begin to weigh more heavily in the calculus. I'm not just talking about lost profits. I deferred a cancer screening because of the pandemic. I finally got it done last month, and got all the way through biopsy (ow) before they decided it wasn't cancer. My lay understanding is that from what they observed on the scan it was roughly 50/50 either way. If it had been malignant, too bad for me, I guess. Now that's a gamble I took deliberately, but it doesn't mean losing wouldn't have been devastating, especially as I'm not of an age or in a health condition where I'm likely to die or even be hospitalized from the virus. It's not just the ability to drink freely in East Village bars that's at stake here.
posted by praemunire at 9:16 PM on May 9, 2022 [20 favorites]
The “viruses evolve to be less virulent” thing also seems to be a misunderstanding of the idea that viruses tend to get less severe because at some point everybody (everybody left alive, anyway) has at least partial immunity. That doesn’t come with any long-term guarantee either - see pandemic flu strains - but from what I’ve seen, in those parts of the world that are now 3+ shots and N waves in, mortality per case is now far below what it was in the first couple of waves. Of course, that’s offset by the number of cases being far higher.
posted by atoxyl at 9:19 PM on May 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by atoxyl at 9:19 PM on May 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
Tell me all about "long flu"
Okay. Because there is increasing evidence to suggest that it is a thing. More generally, it is part of a family of conditions sometimes called post viral fatigue which can be devastating in some cases. It seems to be a little more common with covid than the flu, and while neither has a prevalence like e.g. lyme, both are significant.
posted by Dysk at 10:20 PM on May 9, 2022 [7 favorites]
Okay. Because there is increasing evidence to suggest that it is a thing. More generally, it is part of a family of conditions sometimes called post viral fatigue which can be devastating in some cases. It seems to be a little more common with covid than the flu, and while neither has a prevalence like e.g. lyme, both are significant.
posted by Dysk at 10:20 PM on May 9, 2022 [7 favorites]
Just one more person checking in who definitely experienced something like long flu after having H1N1 in 2015. I wish I'd known that was a thing back then, I just thought I needed to sleep and eat better.
posted by lunasol at 10:49 PM on May 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by lunasol at 10:49 PM on May 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
If you look at any map or any chart of this pandemic you will see the numbers go up and then down again. When they go down it's because at that point people are scared and wearing masks. Then people see the numbers going down & take the masks off
Scotland was masking until a week or so ago. We still had a second big wave of Omicron. I'm not saying don't wear masks, I'm sure as hell still wearing mine, I'm saying mask mandates were *not sufficient* to make numbers go down here (and I didn't see any variation in mask wearing relative to the numbers. People were, generally, good at wearing them here. But now the mandate is gone all bets are off and I'm frequently the only one. And we've stopped testing. Yaaaaaay wtf)
posted by stillnocturnal at 3:32 AM on May 10, 2022 [2 favorites]
Scotland was masking until a week or so ago. We still had a second big wave of Omicron. I'm not saying don't wear masks, I'm sure as hell still wearing mine, I'm saying mask mandates were *not sufficient* to make numbers go down here (and I didn't see any variation in mask wearing relative to the numbers. People were, generally, good at wearing them here. But now the mandate is gone all bets are off and I'm frequently the only one. And we've stopped testing. Yaaaaaay wtf)
posted by stillnocturnal at 3:32 AM on May 10, 2022 [2 favorites]
The Covid CFR in Australia for the 2020 calendar year was 3%. For 2022 to date it’s 0.03%.
My city (population 460k) has had no mask mandates or other restrictions to speak of since the new year. Since that time we have had just over 110,000 confirmed Covid cases and 41 deaths.
The double-dosed vaccination rate for people aged 5+ here is 97.1%.
posted by the duck by the oboe at 4:17 AM on May 10, 2022 [5 favorites]
My city (population 460k) has had no mask mandates or other restrictions to speak of since the new year. Since that time we have had just over 110,000 confirmed Covid cases and 41 deaths.
The double-dosed vaccination rate for people aged 5+ here is 97.1%.
posted by the duck by the oboe at 4:17 AM on May 10, 2022 [5 favorites]
This is interesting, but I'd like to hear more opinions than just one commentary paper by three authors before I accept that this is a "myth". Perhaps the thinking really has changed, but until fairly recently at least, this idea was still often expressed by epidemiologists and evolutionary geneticists, and I don't know whether these authors are representative of the consensus view on the subject.
Those who demand empirical proof that a virus may evolve to be worse make it more and more likely that proof will be provided.
posted by srboisvert at 5:04 AM on May 10, 2022 [4 favorites]
Those who demand empirical proof that a virus may evolve to be worse make it more and more likely that proof will be provided.
posted by srboisvert at 5:04 AM on May 10, 2022 [4 favorites]
My dad definitely had long mono about 10 years ago. Took about 4 years to resolve his CFS.
posted by hwyengr at 5:36 AM on May 10, 2022
posted by hwyengr at 5:36 AM on May 10, 2022
hwyengr, I've haven't heard about anything working for CFS. What helped?
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 5:56 AM on May 10, 2022
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 5:56 AM on May 10, 2022
If people were using the flu comparisons to create supports for post viral syndromes in general, we wouldn't be complaining about the flu comparisons. Instead, its almost always a dismissal of bothering with any sort of safety measures whatsoever.
posted by pan at 5:58 AM on May 10, 2022 [8 favorites]
posted by pan at 5:58 AM on May 10, 2022 [8 favorites]
I don’t know what got him over the first hump, but he went from years of looking like he was near death after coming home from an office job to walking 2 miles per day, and now he cycles daily for at least 10.
posted by hwyengr at 6:29 AM on May 10, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by hwyengr at 6:29 AM on May 10, 2022 [1 favorite]
When I say "like the flu," I mean "a respiratory illness that is unpleasant even for the healthy and dangerous for certain vulnerable groups and that requires regularly recurring community efforts to boost immunity."
That's close to what I think of for that term, but also why this is not the best analogy, since it is imprecise and people bring different interpretations to the table.
What's difficult is maintaining those restrictions when the business lobby and a bored news media decide that it's all over and start working on public opinion. Add in active misinfo/disinfo efforts from conspiracy theorists and their backers, and now we have something closer to impossible.
At least here, there is a lot of "organic" (ie, not driven by right wing media, disinformation, etc) exhaustion and loss of patience with the restrictions -- it wasn't just pushed by media, business, and activists. I keep masks in the car and will happily wear them anywhere that there is either a requirement (currently, that is mostly just medical facilities plus random small businesses that still require them) plus if there is a social setting where someone would be more comfortable if masks were worn, or if there is a setting that is higher than my personal risk tolerance. Otherwise, I have come to really hate them. Just to pick a single reason, I have a tinge of hearing loss and had no idea before how much I clearly rely on seeing people's mouths to be able to understand them. Expecting masks to be used on a widespread level here into the future just isn't realistic, regardless of what good it might do.
But in this household we are still living a fairly restricted life, because I live with a vulnerable person and therefore I have to adjust my own behavior to their risk level. It is incredibly frustrating how the immunocompromised and otherwise at-risk have just been left hanging on their own. There are starting to be additional medications (like Evoshield) but good luck actually accessing them -- we keep getting told that they are being reserved for the highest risk people (which if true is an allocation I support) but all the trackers show widespread availability -- they largely just aren't reaching people, it appears.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:50 AM on May 10, 2022 [3 favorites]
That's close to what I think of for that term, but also why this is not the best analogy, since it is imprecise and people bring different interpretations to the table.
What's difficult is maintaining those restrictions when the business lobby and a bored news media decide that it's all over and start working on public opinion. Add in active misinfo/disinfo efforts from conspiracy theorists and their backers, and now we have something closer to impossible.
At least here, there is a lot of "organic" (ie, not driven by right wing media, disinformation, etc) exhaustion and loss of patience with the restrictions -- it wasn't just pushed by media, business, and activists. I keep masks in the car and will happily wear them anywhere that there is either a requirement (currently, that is mostly just medical facilities plus random small businesses that still require them) plus if there is a social setting where someone would be more comfortable if masks were worn, or if there is a setting that is higher than my personal risk tolerance. Otherwise, I have come to really hate them. Just to pick a single reason, I have a tinge of hearing loss and had no idea before how much I clearly rely on seeing people's mouths to be able to understand them. Expecting masks to be used on a widespread level here into the future just isn't realistic, regardless of what good it might do.
But in this household we are still living a fairly restricted life, because I live with a vulnerable person and therefore I have to adjust my own behavior to their risk level. It is incredibly frustrating how the immunocompromised and otherwise at-risk have just been left hanging on their own. There are starting to be additional medications (like Evoshield) but good luck actually accessing them -- we keep getting told that they are being reserved for the highest risk people (which if true is an allocation I support) but all the trackers show widespread availability -- they largely just aren't reaching people, it appears.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:50 AM on May 10, 2022 [3 favorites]
Nobody really knows how some people just don't get it despite tons of exposure. Is it genetics? Is it masks? All of the above? Nobody knows yet.... I mean, I HOPE I am one of these people because so far so good and I only got 3 major illnesses in the last 20 years and maybe I'm not prone to catching stuff, but who knows?
Same here. I've never been one to get sick a lot, had the flu maybe twice in the past 10 years, get a cold maybe once a year. I haven't gotten sick at all in the past two years, nothing. Obviously that was greatly assisted by mask wearing. Then again, I was in Europe in March-April during the bad Covid surge there, ate inside in restaurants 2-3 times a day for 2.5 weeks, and didn't get sick. I went to the movies without a mask on Sunday for the first time in 2 years. We'll see if I get Covid this week.
If I continue to not get Covid, then should I be volunteering for a study or something?
posted by rhymedirective at 6:55 AM on May 10, 2022
Same here. I've never been one to get sick a lot, had the flu maybe twice in the past 10 years, get a cold maybe once a year. I haven't gotten sick at all in the past two years, nothing. Obviously that was greatly assisted by mask wearing. Then again, I was in Europe in March-April during the bad Covid surge there, ate inside in restaurants 2-3 times a day for 2.5 weeks, and didn't get sick. I went to the movies without a mask on Sunday for the first time in 2 years. We'll see if I get Covid this week.
If I continue to not get Covid, then should I be volunteering for a study or something?
posted by rhymedirective at 6:55 AM on May 10, 2022
Can I be honest about something? I have so much social anxiety and want to fit in that I find it very hard to mask up when literally no one in my area has been for 6+ months. Actually, more like a year now.
I don't think looking at me you'd know that I'm wracked by the most incredible anxiety, but I am! And the pandemic has made it so much worse in every way. I don't want to stand out in any way, I don't want to be viewed, I hide in plain sight.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 7:03 AM on May 10, 2022 [19 favorites]
I don't think looking at me you'd know that I'm wracked by the most incredible anxiety, but I am! And the pandemic has made it so much worse in every way. I don't want to stand out in any way, I don't want to be viewed, I hide in plain sight.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 7:03 AM on May 10, 2022 [19 favorites]
The amount of Covid denial journalism seems to have dropped recently and I wonder if it's because the people bankrolling it know that they won.
I think the war in Ukraine and resulting shutdown of a lot of Russian bots etc mean that those articles no longer get artificially boosted and so the media reacts by producing fewer of them. Just a theory though, I have no evidence of this.
posted by joannemerriam at 7:03 AM on May 10, 2022 [7 favorites]
I think the war in Ukraine and resulting shutdown of a lot of Russian bots etc mean that those articles no longer get artificially boosted and so the media reacts by producing fewer of them. Just a theory though, I have no evidence of this.
posted by joannemerriam at 7:03 AM on May 10, 2022 [7 favorites]
I find it very hard to mask up when literally no one in my area has been for 6+ months
... me too. It's really stressful keeping on with masks when everyone else has abandoned them. Feeling so conspicuous makes me shrivel up inside.
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 7:55 AM on May 10, 2022 [10 favorites]
... me too. It's really stressful keeping on with masks when everyone else has abandoned them. Feeling so conspicuous makes me shrivel up inside.
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 7:55 AM on May 10, 2022 [10 favorites]
The thing I like about the mask is that while you're wearing it, no one can see you.
posted by bleep at 8:14 AM on May 10, 2022 [11 favorites]
posted by bleep at 8:14 AM on May 10, 2022 [11 favorites]
At least here, there is a lot of "organic" (ie, not driven by right wing media, disinformation, etc) exhaustion and loss of patience with the restrictions -- it wasn't just pushed by media, business, and activists.
I'd believe this if the media wasn't running with pandemic fatigue stories before there was even any lockdowns. Seeds were planted, watered, germinated and flowering well before any "organic" fatigue was even logically possible. The only people who could have developed independent organic fatigue without the whispers in their ears would have to have been so hermetically isolated before the lockdown that they probably wouldn't have even noticed the lockdown.
It honestly felt like there was an Anti-Pandemic-Response Playbook already out and being implemented in February 2020 (maybe it was just the do the opposite of the Obama Pandemic Playbook reflex of the Trump Republicans). It definitely struck me as weird how quickly, as in pre-emptively, the punditocracy was abandoning the "indomitable spirit of the American People" mythos. I suspect it was inner reflection on their own weakness and the speed at which they routinely capitulate for dollars rather than any real assessment of the strengths of ordinary people struggling to survive in a genuinely bad situation rather than an intellectual kerfuffle. But who knows, maybe they were bombarded by PR reps from the business world which correctly sussed some of the threats to the existing order that would come out of proper pandemic response such as the things we are seeing glimmers of like working class solidarity even amongst blue collar workers.
posted by srboisvert at 9:02 AM on May 10, 2022 [17 favorites]
I'd believe this if the media wasn't running with pandemic fatigue stories before there was even any lockdowns. Seeds were planted, watered, germinated and flowering well before any "organic" fatigue was even logically possible. The only people who could have developed independent organic fatigue without the whispers in their ears would have to have been so hermetically isolated before the lockdown that they probably wouldn't have even noticed the lockdown.
It honestly felt like there was an Anti-Pandemic-Response Playbook already out and being implemented in February 2020 (maybe it was just the do the opposite of the Obama Pandemic Playbook reflex of the Trump Republicans). It definitely struck me as weird how quickly, as in pre-emptively, the punditocracy was abandoning the "indomitable spirit of the American People" mythos. I suspect it was inner reflection on their own weakness and the speed at which they routinely capitulate for dollars rather than any real assessment of the strengths of ordinary people struggling to survive in a genuinely bad situation rather than an intellectual kerfuffle. But who knows, maybe they were bombarded by PR reps from the business world which correctly sussed some of the threats to the existing order that would come out of proper pandemic response such as the things we are seeing glimmers of like working class solidarity even amongst blue collar workers.
posted by srboisvert at 9:02 AM on May 10, 2022 [17 favorites]
I second ManyLeggedCreature and bleep. I like people not seeing my fatassed face so much. I don't like showing it. And also, I already have enough "weirdo fatigue" (yes, I made that term up) from being the lone obvious weirdo in life usually anyway, but then adding mask shaming on top of it? Nobody's yelled at me yet for wearing one in public except one guy in a bar circa fall 2021, but that day will certainly come now. It's why I'm performing in public without one so the theater doesn't get complaint calls about me. I'm sure the co-director guy would happily tell someone off on my account, but I don't want to be the cause of complaints. Wearing a mask in public in 2022 is reminding people of what they categorically want to forget about, and thus the anger comes out.
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:05 AM on May 10, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:05 AM on May 10, 2022 [3 favorites]
Working in a grocery store through the pandemic really brought out the best in people. /s
After being physically assaulted, verbally assaulted, and spit on with some regularity; many of us just stopped giving a shit. No one wears a mask at work anymore because we're tired of people and we don't care. Maybe it's an irresponsible response to that behavior. I know it sucks for the immunocompromised and many others and I hope they've found viable alternatives, but we're over it. The shitty few ruined it for everyone else.
posted by schyler523 at 10:15 AM on May 10, 2022 [5 favorites]
After being physically assaulted, verbally assaulted, and spit on with some regularity; many of us just stopped giving a shit. No one wears a mask at work anymore because we're tired of people and we don't care. Maybe it's an irresponsible response to that behavior. I know it sucks for the immunocompromised and many others and I hope they've found viable alternatives, but we're over it. The shitty few ruined it for everyone else.
posted by schyler523 at 10:15 AM on May 10, 2022 [5 favorites]
I'm considering getting a T-shirt for the rare occasions that I go out in the world, that would say
IMMUNO-
COMPRO-
MISED
But that feels really wrong and bad for reasons I can't quite explain. I mean, I shouldn't have to declare my immune system's status in order to be treated with basic respect. But if I get Covid, it'll be really, really bad, and I do have to go out in public on occasion, and there are assholes out there who take a mask as a personal affront, and if the T-shirt might disarm them before they give me crap about it it could save my life. But holy crap does it feel wrong.
I think what pisses me off about all this these days is that the argument is framed as having only two positions; either we do away with masks altogether and throw all our immunocompromised people to the wolves, or we all mask up and isolate completely forever. There's a ton of stuff that could be done to help immuncompromised people cope with this new reality, that doesn't involve everyone masking up in perpetuity (make it easier for us to get online jobs or disability; bring back those early-morning mask-only hours in stores, make masks mandatory in medical facilities, that sort of thing) but it seems like even proposing having any mercy at all on vulnerable people results in a screeching horde of anti-maskers losing their shit.
There are seven million people in America facing Covid with no immune systems and no support. This fucking sucks.
posted by MrVisible at 10:36 AM on May 10, 2022 [29 favorites]
IMMUNO-
COMPRO-
MISED
But that feels really wrong and bad for reasons I can't quite explain. I mean, I shouldn't have to declare my immune system's status in order to be treated with basic respect. But if I get Covid, it'll be really, really bad, and I do have to go out in public on occasion, and there are assholes out there who take a mask as a personal affront, and if the T-shirt might disarm them before they give me crap about it it could save my life. But holy crap does it feel wrong.
I think what pisses me off about all this these days is that the argument is framed as having only two positions; either we do away with masks altogether and throw all our immunocompromised people to the wolves, or we all mask up and isolate completely forever. There's a ton of stuff that could be done to help immuncompromised people cope with this new reality, that doesn't involve everyone masking up in perpetuity (make it easier for us to get online jobs or disability; bring back those early-morning mask-only hours in stores, make masks mandatory in medical facilities, that sort of thing) but it seems like even proposing having any mercy at all on vulnerable people results in a screeching horde of anti-maskers losing their shit.
There are seven million people in America facing Covid with no immune systems and no support. This fucking sucks.
posted by MrVisible at 10:36 AM on May 10, 2022 [29 favorites]
If I continue to not get Covid, then should I be volunteering for a study or something?
Yes
posted by eviemath at 12:20 PM on May 10, 2022 [1 favorite]
Yes
posted by eviemath at 12:20 PM on May 10, 2022 [1 favorite]
The up-side of continuing to wear a mask (important note: I haven’t been to any areas where literally no one else is masked, or where violence against mask-wearers or over mask requirements has been more prevalent; I imagine my experience won’t necessarily translate to all regions, especially of the US): I’ve now had a number of interactions where service industry workers or just random other people wearing masks (often folks who are very clearly over 70, though not always) have been exceptionally pleasant to me. Students in my university classes were also quite grateful to have the continued option of online attendance. It’s definitely stressful walking into some places where I’m not sure what people’s mask-related behavior will be, and it’s hard sometimes to notice all the people still wearing masks in my grocery store (the un-masked ones stand out more in my mind, for obvious reasons), but the positive reinforcement I get for continuing pro-social pandemic measures has been reassuring.
posted by eviemath at 12:45 PM on May 10, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by eviemath at 12:45 PM on May 10, 2022 [6 favorites]
You can't ruin a disease.
One can absolutely ruin a disease response, which is clearly what that poster meant.
People with compromised immune systems are currently enraged, and correctly so, that they are being asked to take on a superhuman burden to keep themselves safe. Perhaps they might use that to put themselves in the shoes of the essential workers who were also asked to take on a superhuman burden to keep everyone ELSE safe, and have received extraordinary abuse and like 12 rounds of COVID infection for their pains.
Blaming a traumatized and generally underpaid workforce for giving up after relentless abuse, instead of the people who assaulted that workforce continually seems...not great. We have got to keep the blame where it belongs.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 12:51 PM on May 10, 2022 [10 favorites]
One can absolutely ruin a disease response, which is clearly what that poster meant.
People with compromised immune systems are currently enraged, and correctly so, that they are being asked to take on a superhuman burden to keep themselves safe. Perhaps they might use that to put themselves in the shoes of the essential workers who were also asked to take on a superhuman burden to keep everyone ELSE safe, and have received extraordinary abuse and like 12 rounds of COVID infection for their pains.
Blaming a traumatized and generally underpaid workforce for giving up after relentless abuse, instead of the people who assaulted that workforce continually seems...not great. We have got to keep the blame where it belongs.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 12:51 PM on May 10, 2022 [10 favorites]
It goes both ways. None of us can afford to give up. I'm a worker too. Becoming disabled and unable to work in this country is no joke.
posted by bleep at 1:47 PM on May 10, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by bleep at 1:47 PM on May 10, 2022 [1 favorite]
It goes both ways. None of us can afford to give up.
People are forced by circumstances into doing things they can't "afford" all the time. When you are broken you are broken. It would be great if every last frontline worker, healthcare worker, transit worker and food service worker was in fact a pure saint with infinite internal resources, capable of indefinitely taking abuse For the Greater Good. It's unfair to ask that of anyone.
Again, the blame belongs on the people who never even for a single minute tried, the people who actively worked, on purpose, out of sheer spite and greed, to make things worse, more dangerous, more awful.
The only way anything gets better is to stop asking some people (whether immune compromised people, or workers, or parents--especially moms, or teachers) to be superhuman while others (champion slime fucksticks) get to be overgrown toddlers with credit cards. We have to put the overgrown toddlers into a decades-long time out, throw em in the stocks and pelt em with tomatoes for all I care. Then everyone else can just be human.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 2:22 PM on May 10, 2022 [12 favorites]
People are forced by circumstances into doing things they can't "afford" all the time. When you are broken you are broken. It would be great if every last frontline worker, healthcare worker, transit worker and food service worker was in fact a pure saint with infinite internal resources, capable of indefinitely taking abuse For the Greater Good. It's unfair to ask that of anyone.
Again, the blame belongs on the people who never even for a single minute tried, the people who actively worked, on purpose, out of sheer spite and greed, to make things worse, more dangerous, more awful.
The only way anything gets better is to stop asking some people (whether immune compromised people, or workers, or parents--especially moms, or teachers) to be superhuman while others (champion slime fucksticks) get to be overgrown toddlers with credit cards. We have to put the overgrown toddlers into a decades-long time out, throw em in the stocks and pelt em with tomatoes for all I care. Then everyone else can just be human.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 2:22 PM on May 10, 2022 [12 favorites]
I'm not immunocompromised so let's get that out of the way. In the past couple of years, in addition to the pandemic I've seen Russia invade Ukraine and the US continue to spiral into fascism. Whatever passes for conservatism in Canada is looking southward for cues.
I see no reason to hold out hope and live cautiously, there is no time. If there's a chance to be with friends, I take it. There is no time.
posted by elkevelvet at 3:34 PM on May 10, 2022 [3 favorites]
I see no reason to hold out hope and live cautiously, there is no time. If there's a chance to be with friends, I take it. There is no time.
posted by elkevelvet at 3:34 PM on May 10, 2022 [3 favorites]
I do understand the feeling that it’s imperative to seize what we have left. And I try to be understanding, as we’ve all been traumatized by this pandemic and, in the U.S., by our government’s response to it. But it is really hard to read about people choosing not to mask in public places. Is it really that hard to wear a mask in the grocery store, in the subway, at the library? No one is calling for lockdowns. In the U.S., we never had them. I have a child who STILL can’t be vaccinated — thank you to the FDA and the CDC — and my world and his has been so small these last few years, with no end in sight really. Go ahead and go to restaurants and bars, fine, but know that we are still delaying medical care and visits to family because people refuse to take the most basic steps to protect others.
posted by Il etait une fois at 3:59 PM on May 10, 2022 [15 favorites]
posted by Il etait une fois at 3:59 PM on May 10, 2022 [15 favorites]
I should add that this is absolutely an institutional problem and that things like mask wearing and vaccination should not be left to the individual, who at least in my country is deluged with misinformation. Still, it’s hard not to see the lack of care for others situated in horrific trends toward the devaluing of existing human life.
posted by Il etait une fois at 4:21 PM on May 10, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Il etait une fois at 4:21 PM on May 10, 2022 [1 favorite]
my sister nearly died, these past 2 years.. I've seen two friends lose sons to suicide, these past 2 years.. my partner's chronic knee issues are nearly debilitating, and the past 2 years have resulted in delays for anyone--pick any situation in healthcare--with surgeries, treatments, whatever. Not even touching on the existential issues of our lifetime, I'm saying: I do not live as cautiously as reason would suggest, during a pandemic. There is nothing reasonable about this situation. I'm not forcing this on anyone, I do take care in public spaces where I don't know your story. But I'm not wasting a goddamn day and if I can spend time with my loved ones I do it. "Lack of care for others.. devaluing of existing human life" it's a thing, and if that is how we can describe my behaviour then that's what it is.
posted by elkevelvet at 5:58 PM on May 10, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by elkevelvet at 5:58 PM on May 10, 2022 [6 favorites]
To be sure, I was not referring to you! I should have phrased my comment better, and I apologize.
posted by Il etait une fois at 6:11 PM on May 10, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by Il etait une fois at 6:11 PM on May 10, 2022 [2 favorites]
Mono (Epstein-Barr) is linked to the development of many autoimmune diseases and appears to raise your risk of multiple sclerosis in particular almost 30x. Covid for sure isn’t unique in having post-infectious consequences.
posted by en forme de poire at 8:42 PM on May 10, 2022 [11 favorites]
posted by en forme de poire at 8:42 PM on May 10, 2022 [11 favorites]
Omicron wiped out Delta faster and more thoroughly than any human science could.
Well, not really. Omicron was much more transmissive than Delta, and avoided a big enough proportion of common immune responses produced by the HLA distribution of the population.
It just out competed Delta in transmissibility.
posted by porpoise at 10:11 PM on May 10, 2022 [1 favorite]
Well, not really. Omicron was much more transmissive than Delta, and avoided a big enough proportion of common immune responses produced by the HLA distribution of the population.
It just out competed Delta in transmissibility.
posted by porpoise at 10:11 PM on May 10, 2022 [1 favorite]
We’ve got an election this summer in Ontario, and the conservative provincial government has been pandering to the populists who usually vote for them. Trucker supporters. Anti-choice types. Masks off, no matter what. The people have spoken,?and they don’t care about science or any person not themselves. They’re the majority. Downtown, where I live, you do still see people wearing masks. In the suburbs and any other place, nope. You can’t even get a test outside of a hospital anymore, only the positivity rate of PCRs done for admissions and wastewater testing offer any information. Covid isn’t done, but the electorate is. They don’t care about long COVID, they don’t care about anything at all that’s unrelated to their immediate good time. I don’t have to say how disappointing humanity has shown itself to be.
I don’t see the point in handwringing anymore, they’ve won.
Those of us still concerned can only hide. I’m just as sick of it as anyone. The QOL of the people I love (literally all of whom have had major health issues this year) is in the toilet. Mine isn’t much better, I am just the sum of a series of tasks keeping everyone going (but not really at all). Eight (?) seasons have changed, and so what, it’s all the same.
That virus is just going to bounce between species indefinitely, isn’t it. There’s not going to be an end to it.
Long Covid, sure, don’t some cancers also have their beginnings in viral infections? What’s next.
posted by cotton dress sock at 12:52 AM on May 11, 2022 [5 favorites]
I don’t see the point in handwringing anymore, they’ve won.
Those of us still concerned can only hide. I’m just as sick of it as anyone. The QOL of the people I love (literally all of whom have had major health issues this year) is in the toilet. Mine isn’t much better, I am just the sum of a series of tasks keeping everyone going (but not really at all). Eight (?) seasons have changed, and so what, it’s all the same.
That virus is just going to bounce between species indefinitely, isn’t it. There’s not going to be an end to it.
Long Covid, sure, don’t some cancers also have their beginnings in viral infections? What’s next.
posted by cotton dress sock at 12:52 AM on May 11, 2022 [5 favorites]
Il etait une fois, as you direct your comments to the situation, so do I
there do not appear to be good choices anymore, only choices that individuals can live with. mostly I have tried to put it from my mind, I am viewing things in terms of last chances, and taking those last chances.
take care, all. I think we do our best with what we have
posted by elkevelvet at 7:16 AM on May 11, 2022 [4 favorites]
there do not appear to be good choices anymore, only choices that individuals can live with. mostly I have tried to put it from my mind, I am viewing things in terms of last chances, and taking those last chances.
take care, all. I think we do our best with what we have
posted by elkevelvet at 7:16 AM on May 11, 2022 [4 favorites]
Omicron wiped out Delta faster and more thoroughly than any human science could.
Well, not really. Omicron was much more transmissive than Delta, and avoided a big enough proportion of common immune responses produced by the HLA distribution of the population.
It just out competed Delta in transmissibility.
Delta is still out there and circulating. All the stats you see on variant prevalence see are variant's percentages of total infections. A virus can stay circulating at exactly the same level and have its percentage of total infections drop because there are just a lot more infections of a new variant (like Omicron).
I'd wager that all the variants are still in circulation somewhere.
posted by srboisvert at 11:03 AM on May 12, 2022 [2 favorites]
Well, not really. Omicron was much more transmissive than Delta, and avoided a big enough proportion of common immune responses produced by the HLA distribution of the population.
It just out competed Delta in transmissibility.
Delta is still out there and circulating. All the stats you see on variant prevalence see are variant's percentages of total infections. A virus can stay circulating at exactly the same level and have its percentage of total infections drop because there are just a lot more infections of a new variant (like Omicron).
I'd wager that all the variants are still in circulation somewhere.
posted by srboisvert at 11:03 AM on May 12, 2022 [2 favorites]
Delta is still out there and circulating.
Is it? At least in the US, the CDC variant proportions page has Delta at 0.0%. Even “all other” is at 0.2%. It’s 99.8% Omicron variants now.
posted by notoriety public at 8:36 AM on May 13, 2022 [3 favorites]
Is it? At least in the US, the CDC variant proportions page has Delta at 0.0%. Even “all other” is at 0.2%. It’s 99.8% Omicron variants now.
posted by notoriety public at 8:36 AM on May 13, 2022 [3 favorites]
80 widgets of type A out of 100 total would be a prevalence of 80%. 80 of type A out of 100,000 total would be a prevalence of 0.08%, which would round to 0.1% using one decimal place. Raise the total number of widgets to 200,000 and you now have a prevalence of 0.04%, which rounds to 0.0% if only using one decimal place. Even though the number of widgets of type A has remained exactly the same in this entirely made up example whose sole purpose is to demonstrate the general mathematical principle behind srboisvert‘s comment. If the number of widgets of type A dropped to 40 out of 100,000 total, that would also be 0.04% which would also be a nonzero number of widgets of type A that would still round down to 0.0% of total widget production.
I have no idea off the top of my head what the actual numbers are of delta versus omicron cases in the US, or whether the above accurately describes the situation or not. This comment is just to note that the situation srboisbert suggested is mathematically possible. The 2-10x (depending on sub-variant and which article I read) higher transmissibility rate of omicron and its sub-variants is the exponent in exponential growth, not the multiplicative factor, so a 1000- or 2000-fold increase in total widgets aka COVID cases is also feasible, though I wouldn’t want to hazard a guess about whether or not it is correct (or whether it is an over-estimate or an under-estimate, if incorrect) absent having the actual data on hand to reference.
posted by eviemath at 11:56 AM on May 13, 2022 [1 favorite]
I have no idea off the top of my head what the actual numbers are of delta versus omicron cases in the US, or whether the above accurately describes the situation or not. This comment is just to note that the situation srboisbert suggested is mathematically possible. The 2-10x (depending on sub-variant and which article I read) higher transmissibility rate of omicron and its sub-variants is the exponent in exponential growth, not the multiplicative factor, so a 1000- or 2000-fold increase in total widgets aka COVID cases is also feasible, though I wouldn’t want to hazard a guess about whether or not it is correct (or whether it is an over-estimate or an under-estimate, if incorrect) absent having the actual data on hand to reference.
posted by eviemath at 11:56 AM on May 13, 2022 [1 favorite]
Many things are possible mathematically, but the data shows that Delta (and previous variants) are basically gone. For instance, out of the more than 50,000 samples tested in the UK in April, exactly one Delta variant was found at the start of the month. None since then. Even BA.1 is down to very low numbers (less than 1% of cases since mid-April, while cases overall have been declining).
These are definitely very large declines in absolute numbers of Delta and BA.1 cases. None of the previous variants are circulating at the same level as previously — they have been outcompeted by more transmissible variants. They probably aren't extinct (as they can persist in some people for a long time), but they aren't circulating at any kind of significant level, if they are in fact circulating at all.
posted by ssg at 2:47 PM on May 13, 2022 [5 favorites]
These are definitely very large declines in absolute numbers of Delta and BA.1 cases. None of the previous variants are circulating at the same level as previously — they have been outcompeted by more transmissible variants. They probably aren't extinct (as they can persist in some people for a long time), but they aren't circulating at any kind of significant level, if they are in fact circulating at all.
posted by ssg at 2:47 PM on May 13, 2022 [5 favorites]
They are highly unlikely to be extinct, no. But the data about absolute numbers does clarify the picture. The last Canadian data I saw earlier this winter (during the omicron wave, but pre- sub-variants) still showed quite a bit of delta in the mix.
posted by eviemath at 3:05 PM on May 13, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by eviemath at 3:05 PM on May 13, 2022 [1 favorite]
From Jenna Carlesso at the Connecticut Mirror:
As COVID hangs on, the ‘new normal’ is leaving many behindposted by MrVisible at 7:02 PM on May 16, 2022 [6 favorites]
With fewer and fewer people masking and refusing to take other precautions, Gonsalves said, society is demonstrating “the crudest utilitarianism.”
“It’s basically saying that one baby, that one woman with breast cancer, compared to the rest of us at that convention or at that art opening or in that train station – they’re expendable, right?” he said. “We want normal so badly that we pretend they don’t exist. It’s survival of the fittest. … We’re willing to throw certain people into the volcano in order to appease the gods of normalcy.”
In this year's NBA playoffs, there have been collapses by great teams unlike anything I can remember seeing before, and these collapses look to me like hitting a wall of utter exhaustion.
Could that be related to unvaccinated and perhaps even vaccinated COVID exposures? That would be my guess.
This particular volcano is casting a pall over all of us.
posted by jamjam at 8:55 PM on May 16, 2022 [2 favorites]
Could that be related to unvaccinated and perhaps even vaccinated COVID exposures? That would be my guess.
This particular volcano is casting a pall over all of us.
posted by jamjam at 8:55 PM on May 16, 2022 [2 favorites]
A frightening, but not surprising, stat from the Bank of England:
Since before the pandemic, there has been an increase of 0.8% of the UK working age population who aren't working because of long term illness.
"The share of the 16-64 population who are outside the workforce and do not want a job because of long-term sickness is a record high, with an especially sharp rise among women. I suspect much of this rise in inactivity due to long-term sickness reflects side effects of the pandemic, for example Long Covid and the rise in NHS waiting lists."
So an increase of nearly 1 in 100 who can't work because of long term illness (and this is from January, before Omicron's long term effects). That's only going to increase. It breaks my heart that we're allowing this level of long term disability instead of taking basic measures to protect ourselves together.
posted by ssg at 8:24 AM on May 17, 2022 [1 favorite]
Since before the pandemic, there has been an increase of 0.8% of the UK working age population who aren't working because of long term illness.
"The share of the 16-64 population who are outside the workforce and do not want a job because of long-term sickness is a record high, with an especially sharp rise among women. I suspect much of this rise in inactivity due to long-term sickness reflects side effects of the pandemic, for example Long Covid and the rise in NHS waiting lists."
So an increase of nearly 1 in 100 who can't work because of long term illness (and this is from January, before Omicron's long term effects). That's only going to increase. It breaks my heart that we're allowing this level of long term disability instead of taking basic measures to protect ourselves together.
posted by ssg at 8:24 AM on May 17, 2022 [1 favorite]
Well, my luck ran out today. Must have gotten infected in the hospital where Mr. Peach was staying and where staff stood chatting at stations with their (sucky hospital) masks pulled down below their chins.. I thought it was allergies, because tree pollen is up, and that's what it feels like, like one of my bad allergy weeks. I'm double-boosted but I'm 70, Mr. Peach is very ill, and the grandchild is unvaccinated. Luckily I haven't seen the grandchild since Tuesday before last. I wear an N95 mask eveyrwhere, even in places where I git the fish-eye for it, and all I can say is I held it off as long as I could. Boy, did it take a lot of work. The only setting where I've been unmasked for two years was with our little pod, even aftrr everyone kept saying they were so glad they didn't have to be masked any more and going to concerts and restaurants.
posted by Peach at 6:22 AM on May 18, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by Peach at 6:22 AM on May 18, 2022 [4 favorites]
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Tell me all about "long flu"
posted by MrJM at 1:58 PM on May 9, 2022 [44 favorites]