Should I Just Get Omicron Over With?
January 5, 2022 9:20 PM Subscribe
If you’re vaccinated, an infection might not make you super sick, but don’t count on it making you super immune, either. “The amount of heterogeneity in people’s immune responses is just incredible,” Taia Wang, an immunologist at Stanford, told me. Some recently infected people might experience only a modest bump in protection—which might not be enough to meaningfully stave off another infection in the not-so-distant future. Alex Sigal, a virologist at the Africa Health Research Institute, in South Africa, told me that he suspects the post-breakthrough luster may dissipate within weeks, as antibody levels naturally fall. There’s also no telling how well Omicron-specific protection—should it show up, and persist—would shield us against the next variant, or the next. The arithmetic of vaccine + vaccine + vaccine + infection just isn’t very satisfying. That last component is always essentially an unknown quantity, with an unknown shelf life, and no equation we’ve come up with—no combo of primary vaccines, booster shots, and variants—adds up to being done with COVID forever.
I don't know how you can write an article like this and only include on throw-away line about long Covid. An estimated 1.2 million people are reporting long Covid in the UK, nearly a quarter million with long Covid that limits their day-to-day activities "a lot". A recent meta-analysis found one third of those infected experiencing fatigue and one in five with cognitive impairment, twelve or more weeks after infection.
Studies are mixed on whether vaccination reduces the risk of long Covid somewhat for those who are infected, but it's clear that a significant number of people do get long Covid even if they are vaccinated.
posted by ssg at 10:03 PM on January 5, 2022 [54 favorites]
Studies are mixed on whether vaccination reduces the risk of long Covid somewhat for those who are infected, but it's clear that a significant number of people do get long Covid even if they are vaccinated.
posted by ssg at 10:03 PM on January 5, 2022 [54 favorites]
Silentgoldfish: I thought it was a given that COVID was going to become endemic rather than be eradicated?
Yes, 89% of those surveyed by Nature in Jan 2021 thought so.
posted by daksya at 10:57 PM on January 5, 2022
Yes, 89% of those surveyed by Nature in Jan 2021 thought so.
posted by daksya at 10:57 PM on January 5, 2022
s.e smith had some great replies on the way diminishing long covid is super offensive to disabled people.
posted by ellieBOA at 11:19 PM on January 5, 2022 [19 favorites]
posted by ellieBOA at 11:19 PM on January 5, 2022 [19 favorites]
Beyond long Covid there’s also the question of what else might come back to bite us in the ass later. Think shingles, which comes after chicken pox hangs out in the brain stem for 40 years.
"Further, we detected persistent SARS-CoV-2 RNA in multiple anatomic sites, including regions throughout the brain, for up to 230 days following symptom onset."
It will be interesting to see how much/long Covid remains in the body for break-through cases.
In any case, I believe I will continue to skip the Covid experience.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 11:27 PM on January 5, 2022 [45 favorites]
"Further, we detected persistent SARS-CoV-2 RNA in multiple anatomic sites, including regions throughout the brain, for up to 230 days following symptom onset."
It will be interesting to see how much/long Covid remains in the body for break-through cases.
In any case, I believe I will continue to skip the Covid experience.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 11:27 PM on January 5, 2022 [45 favorites]
Silentgoldfish, can you help me understand what your question is pointing at? I get the sense that you may be saying, “Well, if we’re all going to get it at some point, we might as well live our lives without trying to stem the tide.” Am I getting you right, or did I misunderstand?
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 11:43 PM on January 5, 2022
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 11:43 PM on January 5, 2022
There’s a fair amount of research supporting longer and stronger protection from “hybrid immunity” - one thing I’m not clear on there, though, is whether the order of infection and vaccination matters, since I think a lot of the data on this is from people who were infected pre-vaccination.
Other than that this seems like a complex scientific topic with a pretty simple takeaway. In the short term, you are probably pretty well protected from another infection - even without vaccination the rate of reinfection isn’t massive, though it’s certainly non-zero. In the long term, not so much, not just because immunity fades but because the virus evolves. Don’t we all know that already? Aren’t we watching that happen right now?
posted by atoxyl at 11:49 PM on January 5, 2022 [2 favorites]
Other than that this seems like a complex scientific topic with a pretty simple takeaway. In the short term, you are probably pretty well protected from another infection - even without vaccination the rate of reinfection isn’t massive, though it’s certainly non-zero. In the long term, not so much, not just because immunity fades but because the virus evolves. Don’t we all know that already? Aren’t we watching that happen right now?
posted by atoxyl at 11:49 PM on January 5, 2022 [2 favorites]
In any case, I believe I will continue to skip the Covid experience.
I mean, I’d prefer to, but given the above I wouldn’t bet money on it, certainly not over the course of a few years.
posted by atoxyl at 11:50 PM on January 5, 2022 [8 favorites]
I mean, I’d prefer to, but given the above I wouldn’t bet money on it, certainly not over the course of a few years.
posted by atoxyl at 11:50 PM on January 5, 2022 [8 favorites]
even without vaccination the rate of reinfection isn’t massive, though it’s certainly non-zero
I should say, pre-Omicron it wasn’t massive, because the before is one side of my point and the after is the other.
posted by atoxyl at 11:56 PM on January 5, 2022
I should say, pre-Omicron it wasn’t massive, because the before is one side of my point and the after is the other.
posted by atoxyl at 11:56 PM on January 5, 2022
A meteor is going to hit Earth one day, should I just hit myself on the head with a rock and get it over with?
posted by fairmettle at 12:48 AM on January 6, 2022 [59 favorites]
posted by fairmettle at 12:48 AM on January 6, 2022 [59 favorites]
Well, it is a given.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 12:49 AM on January 6, 2022
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 12:49 AM on January 6, 2022
I have no doubt that I will get it at some point. Ideally that will be in another few years when we have even better vaccines, and therapeutics and health care systems are not so overtaxed. I will note that influenza is endemic and I have had it only twice in my 30 something years so its not like "eventually" means "soon and often".
posted by atrazine at 2:22 AM on January 6, 2022 [43 favorites]
posted by atrazine at 2:22 AM on January 6, 2022 [43 favorites]
I am so frustrated by this mindset. Between parents pushing for their kids to return to school, which in a significant portion of cases I suspect is parents being sick of their kids being around all the time. Then the "Welp let's just get used to it" normalizers and para-self-harmers. I am baffled by humanity on this topic even more than I am with the popularity of Trump and the success of white terrorism. "Have you all gone insane?" I postitively just want to scream, and I am not a person who says things like "I just want to scream!" about the things that dipshits do. The inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men, indeed.
posted by rhizome at 3:00 AM on January 6, 2022 [40 favorites]
posted by rhizome at 3:00 AM on January 6, 2022 [40 favorites]
I don't find it baffling. Most people aren't leftists, the only vision of normalcy they have is pre-COVID capitalism as it existed. It is an exploitive way of life that preys on the working class. Nuclear-family parents who need to work, yet can't, or won't, break out of that prepandemic paradigm can now only insist on the narrative of society needing to move on, and letting SARS-CoV-2 spread. Vaccination as collective action failed, and if it hadn't these attitudes wouldn't be as prevalent. So people's decisions are largely situational, situational of their political conditioning, not people being particularly more selfish than you or I. It makes perfect sense to me. Even the elites are pivoting towards a "reopening" of society.
posted by polymodus at 3:09 AM on January 6, 2022 [19 favorites]
posted by polymodus at 3:09 AM on January 6, 2022 [19 favorites]
Oh definitely not. Avoid it at all costs. While there is reason to believe based on current research that the lungs are less affected during acute illness, the change in cell entry mechanism is resulting in a higher rate of viral replication in the bronchus and (this is where I start being less sure I understand what's happening) that increased viral replication may also apply to other tissue types, possibly kidney cells or vascular ones based on anecdotal reports. There have been studies done to map where the cells in the body express the cathepsin B and L proteins that enable the new cell entry mechanism, but it's obviously very complicated. It is well within the realm of possibility that the risk of long COVID will go up with Omicron, but nobody really knows yet. It's not worth the risk in my opinion - even just from a personal risk management perspective.
The fact that healthcare is reaching limits and nurses and doctors are quitting in droves and burnt out and people are waiting a long time in ERs in a lot of places right now means we are right back to "flattening the curve" now unfortunately...
posted by Toba at 3:14 AM on January 6, 2022 [18 favorites]
The fact that healthcare is reaching limits and nurses and doctors are quitting in droves and burnt out and people are waiting a long time in ERs in a lot of places right now means we are right back to "flattening the curve" now unfortunately...
posted by Toba at 3:14 AM on January 6, 2022 [18 favorites]
I will note that influenza is endemic and I have had it only twice in my 30 something years so its not like "eventually" means "soon and often".
Your data set for flu doesn't imply the same result for covid. It might mean soon and often, it might not.
posted by biffa at 3:45 AM on January 6, 2022 [6 favorites]
Your data set for flu doesn't imply the same result for covid. It might mean soon and often, it might not.
posted by biffa at 3:45 AM on January 6, 2022 [6 favorites]
Fuck no
posted by bootlegpop at 3:56 AM on January 6, 2022 [8 favorites]
posted by bootlegpop at 3:56 AM on January 6, 2022 [8 favorites]
"Just get it and get it over with" is the mindset that anti-vaxxers use when it comes to their kids and things like chicken pox. So my take is "well, I mean, that's what vaccines are for, so you don't HAVE to do that."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 3:59 AM on January 6, 2022 [20 favorites]
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 3:59 AM on January 6, 2022 [20 favorites]
I have literally wept over obituaries of strangers who were unvaccinated, thought it would be no big deal, and died. I have also been so infuriated, I've just wanted to scream. (My dear sister remains unvaccinated, though she follows all other precautions, and I'm so worried about her and angry at the same time.) I'm also immunocompromised, so these people are literally hurting me.
It's like they don't understand that death is permanent.
posted by FencingGal at 4:43 AM on January 6, 2022 [33 favorites]
It's like they don't understand that death is permanent.
posted by FencingGal at 4:43 AM on January 6, 2022 [33 favorites]
"Get it and over with" is basically surrendermonkey mentality. It's basically "please don't kill me COVID". And given that even infection may not protect you for long, it's also a useless attitude.
The only way to come out of COVID properly is for a vaccine that targets almost all variants, and it's distributed to as many people as quickly as possible. And that means countries like China will likely beat us to it and come out ahead of us, because people even now, such as Florida and Texas, are FIGHTING public health measures at their highest levels. Even if we are to invent this in 2022, you can be sure that a good portion of people won't believe it and won't take it, keeping a reservoir of infection hanging around like an albatross around our necks.
posted by kschang at 5:05 AM on January 6, 2022 [9 favorites]
The only way to come out of COVID properly is for a vaccine that targets almost all variants, and it's distributed to as many people as quickly as possible. And that means countries like China will likely beat us to it and come out ahead of us, because people even now, such as Florida and Texas, are FIGHTING public health measures at their highest levels. Even if we are to invent this in 2022, you can be sure that a good portion of people won't believe it and won't take it, keeping a reservoir of infection hanging around like an albatross around our necks.
posted by kschang at 5:05 AM on January 6, 2022 [9 favorites]
We've seen several (4+) families in our circles get covid in the past couple of months. Some were vaccinated; some not - the vaccine didn't seem to be a perfect barrier. Everyone was ultimately fine, though sometimes it took a couple of weeks.
Prior to this, I was of the mindset "everybody will probably get this sooner or later." This wasn't meant to be pessimistic and fatalistic - it was more about being mentally and physically prepared and avoiding being caught off guard.
Even so, it was a bit of a surprise when it actually started happening. Given the rapid spread of omicron, I see no reason to change that prediction, though I also see no reason to help it along either. I'd prefer not to have to drag through a case of covid, even as the prospect of hybrid immunity is appealing.
posted by theorique at 5:16 AM on January 6, 2022 [3 favorites]
Prior to this, I was of the mindset "everybody will probably get this sooner or later." This wasn't meant to be pessimistic and fatalistic - it was more about being mentally and physically prepared and avoiding being caught off guard.
Even so, it was a bit of a surprise when it actually started happening. Given the rapid spread of omicron, I see no reason to change that prediction, though I also see no reason to help it along either. I'd prefer not to have to drag through a case of covid, even as the prospect of hybrid immunity is appealing.
posted by theorique at 5:16 AM on January 6, 2022 [3 favorites]
My friend's father died if covid. My friend's mother died of covid. My aunt's husband died of covid.
Sometimes I wonder about the person who passed it on to them. Were they wearing a mask? Were they careful, or reckless? Did they know, when they woke up that morning, that they were the last link in a long chain that would kill someone?
Of course there's no way for them to have known, but here's the really interesting question: would they have cared if they had?
Because no where in this 1,400 word article does the author say, "Try not to get covid. You could pass it on to someone else and kill them or give them lifelong health problems."
The people I could infect don't cross the author's mind at all. The author only talks about how it could affect me.
posted by AlSweigart at 5:16 AM on January 6, 2022 [162 favorites]
Sometimes I wonder about the person who passed it on to them. Were they wearing a mask? Were they careful, or reckless? Did they know, when they woke up that morning, that they were the last link in a long chain that would kill someone?
Of course there's no way for them to have known, but here's the really interesting question: would they have cared if they had?
Because no where in this 1,400 word article does the author say, "Try not to get covid. You could pass it on to someone else and kill them or give them lifelong health problems."
The people I could infect don't cross the author's mind at all. The author only talks about how it could affect me.
posted by AlSweigart at 5:16 AM on January 6, 2022 [162 favorites]
I have a coworker with a relative who he describes as "young and healthy" who was double-vaxxed before she got omicron, and spent "a few days" in the hospital with it. She's recovering now, and as far as my coworker knows, the doctors think she'll be fine.
Even if you are too selfish to care how your actions might affect anybody else, "it doesn't hospitalize young, healthy, vaccinated people often" and "it doesn't hospitalize young, health, vaccinated people ever" are quite different things.
posted by All Might Be Well at 5:31 AM on January 6, 2022 [10 favorites]
Even if you are too selfish to care how your actions might affect anybody else, "it doesn't hospitalize young, healthy, vaccinated people often" and "it doesn't hospitalize young, health, vaccinated people ever" are quite different things.
posted by All Might Be Well at 5:31 AM on January 6, 2022 [10 favorites]
I don't know how much I can blame the author for that. I've watched almost no one around me care about protecting me, my family, themselves, their families, etc., for two years now, and I'm kind of past caring about them now too.
I wear a KN95 any time I leave my apartment. I buy them by the literal gross lot. I wear them to protect myself, my wife, and my 10 month old who has never in his life been to a grocery store or a restaurant or interacted with another child and hell, maybe never will.
I used to care about more than three people, but two years of red state pandemic life have crushed it out of me.
posted by The Monster at the End of this Thread at 5:33 AM on January 6, 2022 [42 favorites]
I wear a KN95 any time I leave my apartment. I buy them by the literal gross lot. I wear them to protect myself, my wife, and my 10 month old who has never in his life been to a grocery store or a restaurant or interacted with another child and hell, maybe never will.
I used to care about more than three people, but two years of red state pandemic life have crushed it out of me.
posted by The Monster at the End of this Thread at 5:33 AM on January 6, 2022 [42 favorites]
Between parents pushing for their kids to return to school, which in a significant portion of cases I suspect is parents being sick of their kids being around all the time.
This is a very American point of view. Much of the world has had very few school closures and prioritised getting and keeping schools open above all other uses of their cumulative transmission budgets. I don't know if your schools are just really bad that you think that?
I don't find it baffling. Most people aren't leftists, the only vision of normalcy they have is pre-COVID capitalism as it existed.
This reality comes up again and again. In a society with completely alienated labour, how can we possibly have a conversation about balancing health risks (and their distribution which is far from even) and the output reduction from restrictive measures? We can't, really, since nobody is going to put themselves at risk even a little to protect economic output in which they have barely any stake. I really don't think that liberalism, as a sort of velvet glove over the gauntlet of economic power has any real answers that aren't just adjusting the depth of the padding of the glove here and there until normal capitalism with a smile service is restored.
I also think that "everyone will get it eventually" gets translated into two *very* different things:
Some people see that and think, fuck it then I'm going to stop taking any precautionary measure whatsoever heedless of the consequences for myself and others. Some might even not bother getting vaccinated. This is lunacy. I am going to die eventually, that doesn't mean I should just shoot myself and get it over with.
The rational response to what appears to be the fact that, given its transmissibility and the challenges in getting sterilising immunity to a respiratory pathogen, it will be circulating probably forever i.e. become endemic is not just say, "oh well, I guess so" but to think about what that actually means in terms of limiting morbidity and mortality. That will mean maintaining testing perimeters around the most vulnerable, especially in concentrated institutions, it will mean rapid response access to antivirals and monoclonals for the vulnerable including post exposure prophylaxis and potential pre exposure prophylactic use of long last monoclonal cocktails for the immunosuppressed, it probably means repeated re-vaccination to maintain antibody titres.
It also means coming to a societal conclusion on what kind of social distancing measures need to be taken, when, and for how long and what are reasonable trigger conditions for applying and disapplying them for the long term. Closing schools for a short period in an acute emergency is one thing but it seems quite clear that we cannot simply do away with in person schooling for years at a time.
Likewise, sharing food with other people is a pretty big part of our society but it's also a pretty good way of spreading diseases so what are we going to do with restaurants? The point above about alienation of labour makes this an even harder thing to do. It's hard enough balancing societal level aggregate output vs aggregate morbidity and mortality but what we are actually doing is balancing very unequal shares of output with very unequal shares of risk. It is certainly true that society needs the aggregate output and has historically made witting or unwitting compromises to get it but this situation makes concrete through its novelty something that has always been true which is that these things are not equally distributed. Yes, someone who works as a waiter has some stake in restaurants opening but not in the same way as the owner of the restaurant. Simultaneously, we have to clear that we are loading risk in an unequal way as well. I actually have a lot less trouble with this from an age point of view than from a non-age disability point of view. The old, which we all hope to join over the alternative, have themselves been young and have themselves been the beneficiaries of the sacrifices of their own elders in turn. I'm rather fond of my own older relatives and am glad they are being cautious but for some reason that I can't quite articulate fully it seems much more monstrous to accept the death of the disabled than the old as some kind of macabre cost of doing business. Maybe it's just numerical? They're being robbed of more years.
Anyway, it's clear that we've not really thought very long and hard as a society about how we even go about making those decisions, we just restricted as much as we could bear until people got bored of it and then decided not to restrict barely at all anymore because... we couldn't be bothered?
In the longer term, it would be nice to have a vaccine regime (potentially including an inhaled component) that triggers sufficient long lasting mucosal immunity to eliminate this disease. However its not clear whether that is possible.
Also in the longer term, I think it also means thinking about how casually we accept other serious respiratory pathogens. Even if we are able to risk-reduce this to "just a flu", influenza kills elderly and immunosuppressed people all the time and if I had to guess, I would guess that basically all of the chronic fatigue cluster of maladies are actually post-viral fatigue syndromes as are consequences of currently known or unknown pathogens. We have learned so much about how respiratory pathogens transmit over the course of the last two years. Retrofits are expensive and hard but for new buildings, we really need to think about ventilation design. It may well be that we can design buildings which radically decrease the transmissibility of airborne pathogens. There is some really exciting research here on far-UVC light as well as on air filtration and number of air changes.
Your data set for flu doesn't imply the same result for covid. It might mean soon and often, it might not.
Indeed, we don't really know. Just making the point that even long term endemic respiratory pathogens don't translate into necessarily frequent infections.
posted by atrazine at 5:47 AM on January 6, 2022 [27 favorites]
This is a very American point of view. Much of the world has had very few school closures and prioritised getting and keeping schools open above all other uses of their cumulative transmission budgets. I don't know if your schools are just really bad that you think that?
I don't find it baffling. Most people aren't leftists, the only vision of normalcy they have is pre-COVID capitalism as it existed.
This reality comes up again and again. In a society with completely alienated labour, how can we possibly have a conversation about balancing health risks (and their distribution which is far from even) and the output reduction from restrictive measures? We can't, really, since nobody is going to put themselves at risk even a little to protect economic output in which they have barely any stake. I really don't think that liberalism, as a sort of velvet glove over the gauntlet of economic power has any real answers that aren't just adjusting the depth of the padding of the glove here and there until normal capitalism with a smile service is restored.
I also think that "everyone will get it eventually" gets translated into two *very* different things:
Some people see that and think, fuck it then I'm going to stop taking any precautionary measure whatsoever heedless of the consequences for myself and others. Some might even not bother getting vaccinated. This is lunacy. I am going to die eventually, that doesn't mean I should just shoot myself and get it over with.
The rational response to what appears to be the fact that, given its transmissibility and the challenges in getting sterilising immunity to a respiratory pathogen, it will be circulating probably forever i.e. become endemic is not just say, "oh well, I guess so" but to think about what that actually means in terms of limiting morbidity and mortality. That will mean maintaining testing perimeters around the most vulnerable, especially in concentrated institutions, it will mean rapid response access to antivirals and monoclonals for the vulnerable including post exposure prophylaxis and potential pre exposure prophylactic use of long last monoclonal cocktails for the immunosuppressed, it probably means repeated re-vaccination to maintain antibody titres.
It also means coming to a societal conclusion on what kind of social distancing measures need to be taken, when, and for how long and what are reasonable trigger conditions for applying and disapplying them for the long term. Closing schools for a short period in an acute emergency is one thing but it seems quite clear that we cannot simply do away with in person schooling for years at a time.
Likewise, sharing food with other people is a pretty big part of our society but it's also a pretty good way of spreading diseases so what are we going to do with restaurants? The point above about alienation of labour makes this an even harder thing to do. It's hard enough balancing societal level aggregate output vs aggregate morbidity and mortality but what we are actually doing is balancing very unequal shares of output with very unequal shares of risk. It is certainly true that society needs the aggregate output and has historically made witting or unwitting compromises to get it but this situation makes concrete through its novelty something that has always been true which is that these things are not equally distributed. Yes, someone who works as a waiter has some stake in restaurants opening but not in the same way as the owner of the restaurant. Simultaneously, we have to clear that we are loading risk in an unequal way as well. I actually have a lot less trouble with this from an age point of view than from a non-age disability point of view. The old, which we all hope to join over the alternative, have themselves been young and have themselves been the beneficiaries of the sacrifices of their own elders in turn. I'm rather fond of my own older relatives and am glad they are being cautious but for some reason that I can't quite articulate fully it seems much more monstrous to accept the death of the disabled than the old as some kind of macabre cost of doing business. Maybe it's just numerical? They're being robbed of more years.
Anyway, it's clear that we've not really thought very long and hard as a society about how we even go about making those decisions, we just restricted as much as we could bear until people got bored of it and then decided not to restrict barely at all anymore because... we couldn't be bothered?
In the longer term, it would be nice to have a vaccine regime (potentially including an inhaled component) that triggers sufficient long lasting mucosal immunity to eliminate this disease. However its not clear whether that is possible.
Also in the longer term, I think it also means thinking about how casually we accept other serious respiratory pathogens. Even if we are able to risk-reduce this to "just a flu", influenza kills elderly and immunosuppressed people all the time and if I had to guess, I would guess that basically all of the chronic fatigue cluster of maladies are actually post-viral fatigue syndromes as are consequences of currently known or unknown pathogens. We have learned so much about how respiratory pathogens transmit over the course of the last two years. Retrofits are expensive and hard but for new buildings, we really need to think about ventilation design. It may well be that we can design buildings which radically decrease the transmissibility of airborne pathogens. There is some really exciting research here on far-UVC light as well as on air filtration and number of air changes.
Your data set for flu doesn't imply the same result for covid. It might mean soon and often, it might not.
Indeed, we don't really know. Just making the point that even long term endemic respiratory pathogens don't translate into necessarily frequent infections.
posted by atrazine at 5:47 AM on January 6, 2022 [27 favorites]
I am so frustrated by this mindset. Between parents pushing for their kids to return to school, which in a significant portion of cases I suspect is parents being sick of their kids being around all the time.
Sorry, this is a pretty unfair statement. First, women (and men, but women disproportionately) have taken huge losses and efforts to care for their kids when schools and daycares have been virtual/shut down. Most mothers with kids who are "lucky" enough to work from home have schedules that look something like this:
6 am work until 8am while throwing cereal on the table for the kids and giving them kisses
8:15 am - the battle to get the kids in front of the Zoom begins, or if you have kids that aren't school aged, by now they are trashing your house
8:30-3:30 - a constant juggling act of
-keeping your toddler alive
-making sure your child understands the instructions the teacher gave him on a screen while his friend was making faces and he can't figure out what he missed by watching the kids around him take out their workbooks or whatever/answering email
- ZOOM MEETING, must try for this on mute
- oops, the teacher's wifi just went out
- oops, someone spilled juice down the back of the couch
- toddler is screaming because you gave them the RED CUP what were you thinking???
- child got frustrated in math and is lying on the floor kicking the wall yelling
- LUNCHTIME, it's SO IMPORTANT for parents to help their kids exercise and eat healthy! Put boots on. Kid has to pee. Go outside for ten minutes. Phone rings with a work emergency, drag kid back screaming so you can forward a document.
- boss calls. Hey you seemed distracted in that meeting! Are you sure you're committed to the deadline? Of course you are. Well remember, the COMPANY IS HERE FOR YOU
- 3:10 the teacher understandably gives up. Now you have a toddler who barely napped and is screaming, a child who's been confined to a screen all day. They start beating on each other.
- meanwhile everyone at work is downloading their day to you sending you emails
- you put on Favourite Show in desperation
6:00 - oh right, kids require dinner. Dinner leads to bedtime. Since toddler has been confined all day, they are wired-tired. School aged child also didn't get enough exercise and is having anxiety which they say is because you NEVER LISTEN to them but is probably because one of their friends said their grandmother is in hospital with Covid
- 8:15, all children are asleep. You work until 11:30 and then lie awake worrying that you can't sleep and that you can't get up tomorrow.
11:45 - your sister texts you about her 12 year old niece, who just came in and confessed to suicidal thoughts. Should they go to hospital? Who can they call?
(I have received this text from *4* mums (friends not siblings) about their kids ages 14-17, since July 2021)
So...yeah.
My comment about going out with people in Covid from the Ask linked above stands, although we are now shut down. We are running a small virtual school camp for parents who need us, including nurses, long-term care administrators, a single-mom teacher whose kids are autistic which makes it hard on Zoom, and assorted other situations. Please think before you call parents the selfish ones.
posted by warriorqueen at 6:06 AM on January 6, 2022 [105 favorites]
Sorry, this is a pretty unfair statement. First, women (and men, but women disproportionately) have taken huge losses and efforts to care for their kids when schools and daycares have been virtual/shut down. Most mothers with kids who are "lucky" enough to work from home have schedules that look something like this:
6 am work until 8am while throwing cereal on the table for the kids and giving them kisses
8:15 am - the battle to get the kids in front of the Zoom begins, or if you have kids that aren't school aged, by now they are trashing your house
8:30-3:30 - a constant juggling act of
-keeping your toddler alive
-making sure your child understands the instructions the teacher gave him on a screen while his friend was making faces and he can't figure out what he missed by watching the kids around him take out their workbooks or whatever/answering email
- ZOOM MEETING, must try for this on mute
- oops, the teacher's wifi just went out
- oops, someone spilled juice down the back of the couch
- toddler is screaming because you gave them the RED CUP what were you thinking???
- child got frustrated in math and is lying on the floor kicking the wall yelling
- LUNCHTIME, it's SO IMPORTANT for parents to help their kids exercise and eat healthy! Put boots on. Kid has to pee. Go outside for ten minutes. Phone rings with a work emergency, drag kid back screaming so you can forward a document.
- boss calls. Hey you seemed distracted in that meeting! Are you sure you're committed to the deadline? Of course you are. Well remember, the COMPANY IS HERE FOR YOU
- 3:10 the teacher understandably gives up. Now you have a toddler who barely napped and is screaming, a child who's been confined to a screen all day. They start beating on each other.
- meanwhile everyone at work is downloading their day to you sending you emails
- you put on Favourite Show in desperation
6:00 - oh right, kids require dinner. Dinner leads to bedtime. Since toddler has been confined all day, they are wired-tired. School aged child also didn't get enough exercise and is having anxiety which they say is because you NEVER LISTEN to them but is probably because one of their friends said their grandmother is in hospital with Covid
- 8:15, all children are asleep. You work until 11:30 and then lie awake worrying that you can't sleep and that you can't get up tomorrow.
11:45 - your sister texts you about her 12 year old niece, who just came in and confessed to suicidal thoughts. Should they go to hospital? Who can they call?
(I have received this text from *4* mums (friends not siblings) about their kids ages 14-17, since July 2021)
So...yeah.
My comment about going out with people in Covid from the Ask linked above stands, although we are now shut down. We are running a small virtual school camp for parents who need us, including nurses, long-term care administrators, a single-mom teacher whose kids are autistic which makes it hard on Zoom, and assorted other situations. Please think before you call parents the selfish ones.
posted by warriorqueen at 6:06 AM on January 6, 2022 [105 favorites]
Between parents pushing for their kids to return to school, which in a significant portion of cases I suspect is parents being sick of their kids being around all the time.
On the one hand, you could notice the crushing economic impact (felt most acutely by women) of having to "balance" paying work with being a full time nanny, personal chef, substitute teacher, and child psychologist. You could notice the mental and physical impact of multiple years of that labor, with no breaks, and with most normal mechanisms of relief removed, while simultaneously managing the meaningful personal stress and chaos of a global pandemic. You could notice the mental health impact felt by kids and adolescents who are socially deprived by virtual school.
Or, on the other hand, you could drip with contempt and just LOL that these asshole parents probs just don't even like their shitty kids. They're just sick of their kids. Sick of their kids. Sick of their kids. Sick of their kids. Sick of their kids. Sick of their kids. Sick of their kids. Sick of their kids.
posted by prefpara at 6:09 AM on January 6, 2022 [63 favorites]
On the one hand, you could notice the crushing economic impact (felt most acutely by women) of having to "balance" paying work with being a full time nanny, personal chef, substitute teacher, and child psychologist. You could notice the mental and physical impact of multiple years of that labor, with no breaks, and with most normal mechanisms of relief removed, while simultaneously managing the meaningful personal stress and chaos of a global pandemic. You could notice the mental health impact felt by kids and adolescents who are socially deprived by virtual school.
Or, on the other hand, you could drip with contempt and just LOL that these asshole parents probs just don't even like their shitty kids. They're just sick of their kids. Sick of their kids. Sick of their kids. Sick of their kids. Sick of their kids. Sick of their kids. Sick of their kids. Sick of their kids.
posted by prefpara at 6:09 AM on January 6, 2022 [63 favorites]
We've got it. I assume it's Omicron. My husband and I are double vaxxed and boosted and wear masks everywhere in the outside world. I have no idea where it came from--maybe from the unmasked jerks at the supermarket? It's like a bad cold, or a sinus infection, and I don't like it and I worry if there will be long-term effects. I feel guilty, like I've done something wrong. But aside from never leaving the house for any reason, I don't know what more I could have done. We don't go anywhere, except where we absolutely need to go. I haven't seen the inside of a restaurant or a movie theater in ages. But I still feel guilty.
posted by ceejaytee at 6:14 AM on January 6, 2022 [19 favorites]
posted by ceejaytee at 6:14 AM on January 6, 2022 [19 favorites]
Mod note: Hey folks, one comment deleted and a gentle nudge here. Wishing violence on people isn't ok. I know the pandemic is a horribly stressful ongoing situation but please let's not take it out on each other.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 6:29 AM on January 6, 2022 [8 favorites]
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 6:29 AM on January 6, 2022 [8 favorites]
In further anecdotal reporting about "everybody will probably get it":
Last week our church canceled the 09:00 service because too many people were out sick and kept only the 10:30 service. This doesn't happen very often (usually only if a Sunday is right after Christmas or something like that).
Our small group has gone virtual this week because the leaders and their family contracted covid a couple of weeks back and are still all recovering from it.
Prior to Christmas, I was concerned that my wife had omicron since she was showing a lot of symptoms - fatigue, cough, etc. The kids had various cold symptoms as well. But apparently not covid. My wife took two tests separated by a couple of days and were both negative. (Our last box - right as antigen tests were becoming very hard to get across the US.) Our older son went to the doctor and was diagnosed with a sinus infection for which he got amoxicillin. A couple of weeks later our daughter went to the doctor and was diagnosed with an idiopathic respiratory infection for which she also got amoxicillin. I don't think the kids got covid-tested (at least, my wife didn't mention it). I started showing general respiratory symptoms a week or two back that have since mostly resolved (congestion, sore throat, post-nasal-drip, etc). The typical winter cold-and-flu season thing seems to introduce a lot of noise into the "is this covid / omicron or something else?" signal. I'm still not 100% convinced that we didn't have it ... but we have never had any tests confirm that we did, either.
The problem seems to be that the symptoms are so generic, the tests are so hard to get, and the incentive to make a big deal out of it has disappeared for so many people ("is it now just ... a cold?") We still need to be vigilant because some fraction of omicron patients will still be extreme risk, but I definitely see many people around me growing more and more casual about it.
posted by theorique at 6:29 AM on January 6, 2022 [5 favorites]
Last week our church canceled the 09:00 service because too many people were out sick and kept only the 10:30 service. This doesn't happen very often (usually only if a Sunday is right after Christmas or something like that).
Our small group has gone virtual this week because the leaders and their family contracted covid a couple of weeks back and are still all recovering from it.
Prior to Christmas, I was concerned that my wife had omicron since she was showing a lot of symptoms - fatigue, cough, etc. The kids had various cold symptoms as well. But apparently not covid. My wife took two tests separated by a couple of days and were both negative. (Our last box - right as antigen tests were becoming very hard to get across the US.) Our older son went to the doctor and was diagnosed with a sinus infection for which he got amoxicillin. A couple of weeks later our daughter went to the doctor and was diagnosed with an idiopathic respiratory infection for which she also got amoxicillin. I don't think the kids got covid-tested (at least, my wife didn't mention it). I started showing general respiratory symptoms a week or two back that have since mostly resolved (congestion, sore throat, post-nasal-drip, etc). The typical winter cold-and-flu season thing seems to introduce a lot of noise into the "is this covid / omicron or something else?" signal. I'm still not 100% convinced that we didn't have it ... but we have never had any tests confirm that we did, either.
The problem seems to be that the symptoms are so generic, the tests are so hard to get, and the incentive to make a big deal out of it has disappeared for so many people ("is it now just ... a cold?") We still need to be vigilant because some fraction of omicron patients will still be extreme risk, but I definitely see many people around me growing more and more casual about it.
posted by theorique at 6:29 AM on January 6, 2022 [5 favorites]
atrazine: I will note that influenza is endemic and I have had it only twice in my 30 something years so its not like "eventually" means "soon and often".
Three quarters of influenza infections are asymptomatic, so one wouldn't know without regular testing.
posted by daksya at 6:32 AM on January 6, 2022 [9 favorites]
Three quarters of influenza infections are asymptomatic, so one wouldn't know without regular testing.
posted by daksya at 6:32 AM on January 6, 2022 [9 favorites]
I read a great book about the co-evolution of diseases and their hosts (“Why We Get Sick,” by Nesse and Williams). It’s been twenty years since I read it, so I am a little muddy on the details, but the gist is that selection pressures on diseases depend on the timing of contagiousness relative to symptoms and morbidity. For a survivable respiratory disease like Covid, I think the prediction is that variants which cause milder symptoms will eventually out-compete variants which cause more severe symptoms.
I think that Omicron is still too early in the arc of the pandemic for this prediction to be relevant. Evolution is stochastic, after all, and omicron is only the middle of the alphabet. But I have some confidence that the endemic Covid which everyone will catch in 2030 or 2040 will be much less dangerous than the epidemic Covid we are dealing with this year.
As another commenter said upthread: just because you’re going to die someday doesn’t mean you should get that unpleasantness out of the way now. You, personally, are definitely going to have Covid in your life if you survive to 2030. But it is to your advantage to wait for those milder strains to evolve in other people’s bodies.
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 6:37 AM on January 6, 2022 [2 favorites]
I think that Omicron is still too early in the arc of the pandemic for this prediction to be relevant. Evolution is stochastic, after all, and omicron is only the middle of the alphabet. But I have some confidence that the endemic Covid which everyone will catch in 2030 or 2040 will be much less dangerous than the epidemic Covid we are dealing with this year.
As another commenter said upthread: just because you’re going to die someday doesn’t mean you should get that unpleasantness out of the way now. You, personally, are definitely going to have Covid in your life if you survive to 2030. But it is to your advantage to wait for those milder strains to evolve in other people’s bodies.
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 6:37 AM on January 6, 2022 [2 favorites]
Three quarters of influenza infections are asymptomatic, so one wouldn't know without regular testing.
That's fascinating, I had no idea it was so low. I get the flu vaccine every year so I imagine I am even more likely than than the general population to have an asymptomatic infection.
posted by atrazine at 6:41 AM on January 6, 2022
That's fascinating, I had no idea it was so low. I get the flu vaccine every year so I imagine I am even more likely than than the general population to have an asymptomatic infection.
posted by atrazine at 6:41 AM on January 6, 2022
fantabulous timewaster: You, personally, are definitely going to have Covid in your life if you survive to 2030. But it is to your advantage to wait for those milder strains to evolve in other people’s bodies.
So, the irony is that 'you' have to tolerate steady spread and endemicity for that to happen.
posted by daksya at 6:44 AM on January 6, 2022
So, the irony is that 'you' have to tolerate steady spread and endemicity for that to happen.
posted by daksya at 6:44 AM on January 6, 2022
prefpara: Or, on the other hand, you could drip with contempt and just LOL that these asshole parents probs just don't even like their shitty kids
Thank you. Please make this an FPP, including the links.
I love my children and will take as many mental health bullets as I need to.
But I'm not a good teacher, as hard as I've tried. And my kids respond to my efforts with resentment and despair. And Zoom school is actively harmful for all but a few kids.
It's deeply weird that American liberals so gladly jump on the "shut down in-person schooling forever" train, when no other countries have taken this tack. I think it shows both alienation from family life and contempt for the value of our schools.
posted by xthlc at 6:53 AM on January 6, 2022 [28 favorites]
Thank you. Please make this an FPP, including the links.
I love my children and will take as many mental health bullets as I need to.
But I'm not a good teacher, as hard as I've tried. And my kids respond to my efforts with resentment and despair. And Zoom school is actively harmful for all but a few kids.
It's deeply weird that American liberals so gladly jump on the "shut down in-person schooling forever" train, when no other countries have taken this tack. I think it shows both alienation from family life and contempt for the value of our schools.
posted by xthlc at 6:53 AM on January 6, 2022 [28 favorites]
If folks are going to draw the analogy between CoV and flu, it might as well be pointed out that influenza mutates rapidly, like CoV appears to, and that prior infection isn't a prophylaxis against future infection.
Getting the flu (even "a mild one") is something that you just want to avoid; it doesn't confer future immunity, it can only fuck up your lungs (or other parts of your body) and make you more susceptible to later infections.
Yes, there is such a thing as living too carefully. We don't wrap our children in bubble wrap, we do have to live our lives. But we also don't intentionally smack our children into trees and pavement to "get it out of the way," because that, too, is not how life works.
Anyone who says "get Omicron and get it over with" is somewhere between horribly misinformed and actively malicious, because there are 9 more Greek letters after Omicron, and there's nothing to indicate that CoV cares to respect that the Greek alphabet has only 24 letters.
posted by explosion at 6:53 AM on January 6, 2022 [22 favorites]
Getting the flu (even "a mild one") is something that you just want to avoid; it doesn't confer future immunity, it can only fuck up your lungs (or other parts of your body) and make you more susceptible to later infections.
Yes, there is such a thing as living too carefully. We don't wrap our children in bubble wrap, we do have to live our lives. But we also don't intentionally smack our children into trees and pavement to "get it out of the way," because that, too, is not how life works.
Anyone who says "get Omicron and get it over with" is somewhere between horribly misinformed and actively malicious, because there are 9 more Greek letters after Omicron, and there's nothing to indicate that CoV cares to respect that the Greek alphabet has only 24 letters.
posted by explosion at 6:53 AM on January 6, 2022 [22 favorites]
It's deeply weird that American liberals so gladly jump on the "shut down in-person schooling forever" train, when no other countries have taken this tack.
No other countries have made the public space so hostile. The American public response has been uniquely horrible, we have quite possibly the highest case load in the world. Furthermore, American public schools are their own underfunded hell. Overpacked classrooms, lack of ventilation, a force multiplier for the spread of an epidemic.
You can't compare the aversion to sending kids to schools without acknowledging that schools in other nations are much less of a hotbed of potential infection. Without acknowledging that other nations' hospital systems have more capacity to admit a child who may tragically become infected. Without acknowledging that a hospitalization in another nation will not bankrupt the family.
posted by explosion at 6:59 AM on January 6, 2022 [42 favorites]
No other countries have made the public space so hostile. The American public response has been uniquely horrible, we have quite possibly the highest case load in the world. Furthermore, American public schools are their own underfunded hell. Overpacked classrooms, lack of ventilation, a force multiplier for the spread of an epidemic.
You can't compare the aversion to sending kids to schools without acknowledging that schools in other nations are much less of a hotbed of potential infection. Without acknowledging that other nations' hospital systems have more capacity to admit a child who may tragically become infected. Without acknowledging that a hospitalization in another nation will not bankrupt the family.
posted by explosion at 6:59 AM on January 6, 2022 [42 favorites]
when no other countries have taken this tack
Solidarity! But because I am having a Factual Moment I must note that Ontario is with the US in this regard. I am typing this while listening in on a grade 4 math class on volume where everything is on the screen.
posted by warriorqueen at 7:07 AM on January 6, 2022 [6 favorites]
Solidarity! But because I am having a Factual Moment I must note that Ontario is with the US in this regard. I am typing this while listening in on a grade 4 math class on volume where everything is on the screen.
posted by warriorqueen at 7:07 AM on January 6, 2022 [6 favorites]
If all of the teachers are out sick then how can you keep a school open.
posted by bleep at 7:09 AM on January 6, 2022 [16 favorites]
posted by bleep at 7:09 AM on January 6, 2022 [16 favorites]
My first preference is that Covid is eradicated or otherwise harmless. I don't think we are capable of making that happen, and I'm not sure that I'm willing to just hope that it will.
So otherwise, a good version of the future for me looks like being able to go back to the office to work whenever I want to, going to the occasional residential conference or other large scale event, going out for dinner, drinks and coffee from time to time, using public transport on a daily basis, taking a pilates or yoga class every week, having a health system functioning at 'normal to stretched' rather than 'stretched to collapsing' levels.
To get to this version of the future - and compared to pre-pandemic times - I'm willing to wear masks on public transport and in other places, to get booster vaccinations as advised, to be cautious and stay home when sick. I don't think I can make my likelihood of getting Covid to be zero, but I want it to be about the same as my likelihood of getting symptomatic flu. If it kills me, I want that to be in 30-40 years time when I'm closer to the end of my natural lifespan.
posted by plonkee at 7:15 AM on January 6, 2022 [10 favorites]
So otherwise, a good version of the future for me looks like being able to go back to the office to work whenever I want to, going to the occasional residential conference or other large scale event, going out for dinner, drinks and coffee from time to time, using public transport on a daily basis, taking a pilates or yoga class every week, having a health system functioning at 'normal to stretched' rather than 'stretched to collapsing' levels.
To get to this version of the future - and compared to pre-pandemic times - I'm willing to wear masks on public transport and in other places, to get booster vaccinations as advised, to be cautious and stay home when sick. I don't think I can make my likelihood of getting Covid to be zero, but I want it to be about the same as my likelihood of getting symptomatic flu. If it kills me, I want that to be in 30-40 years time when I'm closer to the end of my natural lifespan.
posted by plonkee at 7:15 AM on January 6, 2022 [10 favorites]
About half a dozen people in my office, something like 20% of the staff, are out with COVID. I think all of them were vaccinated, and they're all still working from home, and I have to say: when I hear them on the phone, they sound sicker than I've ever been in my life.
My mother-in-law is youngish and reasonably healthy, but has an autoimmune disorder. My mother is older and is on chemotherapy for a cancer she's had for 20+ years. They're both vaccinated, but who knows what the outcome will be if they catch this. So yeah, for them and all the other people I come into contact with every day, I'm going to try to avoid infection for as long as possible, even if it's sort of depressing and inconvenient.
It's deeply weird that American liberals so gladly jump on the "shut down in-person schooling forever" train
I don't think anybody is saying this. Certainly not "forever." But when there's no political will to make schools safer by upgrading ventilation, etc., and local testing is like 25%-30% positive, not shutting down schools, temporarily, is malfeasance. The problem is that there's absolutely no will at any level to actually make this economically possible so we have to just shrug and send our kids to school and tell teachers to come in sick and say, oh well, what can we do?
posted by uncleozzy at 7:16 AM on January 6, 2022 [22 favorites]
My mother-in-law is youngish and reasonably healthy, but has an autoimmune disorder. My mother is older and is on chemotherapy for a cancer she's had for 20+ years. They're both vaccinated, but who knows what the outcome will be if they catch this. So yeah, for them and all the other people I come into contact with every day, I'm going to try to avoid infection for as long as possible, even if it's sort of depressing and inconvenient.
It's deeply weird that American liberals so gladly jump on the "shut down in-person schooling forever" train
I don't think anybody is saying this. Certainly not "forever." But when there's no political will to make schools safer by upgrading ventilation, etc., and local testing is like 25%-30% positive, not shutting down schools, temporarily, is malfeasance. The problem is that there's absolutely no will at any level to actually make this economically possible so we have to just shrug and send our kids to school and tell teachers to come in sick and say, oh well, what can we do?
posted by uncleozzy at 7:16 AM on January 6, 2022 [22 favorites]
It's deeply weird that American liberals so gladly jump on the "shut down in-person schooling forever" train, when no other countries have taken this tack
We've had basically no real response to covid in the US since the start, nothing we've done has been reasonable, coordinated or timely except develop the vaccines. For everything else it's look out for yourself, we're not going to do shit for you. So if the teachers unions say: we don't feel safe, I'm not going to tell them to get fucked. We could have had coordinated lockdowns where we reinstate schooling when caseloads fall and stop it when they rise, instead we have the confluence of the worst wave yet and the start of the school year and nothing resembling a plan, so of course it all seems chaotic and irrational. What are the parents supposed to do? What are the teachers supposed to do? The purpose of the government is to resolve an issue like this but we continue to have a failed government. We're a failed state, and we're just lucky this isn't an even worse crisis
posted by dis_integration at 7:17 AM on January 6, 2022 [31 favorites]
We've had basically no real response to covid in the US since the start, nothing we've done has been reasonable, coordinated or timely except develop the vaccines. For everything else it's look out for yourself, we're not going to do shit for you. So if the teachers unions say: we don't feel safe, I'm not going to tell them to get fucked. We could have had coordinated lockdowns where we reinstate schooling when caseloads fall and stop it when they rise, instead we have the confluence of the worst wave yet and the start of the school year and nothing resembling a plan, so of course it all seems chaotic and irrational. What are the parents supposed to do? What are the teachers supposed to do? The purpose of the government is to resolve an issue like this but we continue to have a failed government. We're a failed state, and we're just lucky this isn't an even worse crisis
posted by dis_integration at 7:17 AM on January 6, 2022 [31 favorites]
So otherwise, a good version of the future for me looks like being able to go back to the office to work whenever I want to, going to the occasional residential conference or other large scale event, going out for dinner, drinks and coffee from time to time, using public transport on a daily basis, taking a pilates or yoga class every week, having a health system functioning at 'normal to stretched' rather than 'stretched to collapsing' levels.
So....regular life from the Before Times?
posted by tiny frying pan at 7:17 AM on January 6, 2022
So....regular life from the Before Times?
posted by tiny frying pan at 7:17 AM on January 6, 2022
It's deeply weird that American liberals so gladly jump on the "shut down in-person schooling forever" train, when no other countries have taken this tack. I think it shows both alienation from family life and contempt for the value of our schools.
In NYC, they're forcing symptomatic staff and teachers to come to work. In Chicago, the mayor went back on an agreement on the threshold of sick staff members (5% threshold, currently ~25% of staff have tested positive), and retailiated by cutting off all remote access for both staff AND students, even those with existing medical issues. The centrist and "moderate" liberal commentariat are calling on Biden to break teacher's union locals, an idea that is both monumentally sociopathic and depressingly possible given our current political situation.
And those are supposed to be the good guys.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 7:22 AM on January 6, 2022 [42 favorites]
In NYC, they're forcing symptomatic staff and teachers to come to work. In Chicago, the mayor went back on an agreement on the threshold of sick staff members (5% threshold, currently ~25% of staff have tested positive), and retailiated by cutting off all remote access for both staff AND students, even those with existing medical issues. The centrist and "moderate" liberal commentariat are calling on Biden to break teacher's union locals, an idea that is both monumentally sociopathic and depressingly possible given our current political situation.
And those are supposed to be the good guys.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 7:22 AM on January 6, 2022 [42 favorites]
It's never been easier to organize and carry out a general strike.
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:24 AM on January 6, 2022 [7 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:24 AM on January 6, 2022 [7 favorites]
My boss just had Omicron and keeps going on about how "It's better actually, because I'm superimmune now."
The company cancelled our Xmas party because of Omicron, saying it seemed unsafe to have us together for three hours and sharing a meal. Then my boss scheduled a required half day meeting with lunch. He's actually a mostly nice, sane person, but I feel like having mild Omicron emboldened him and I don't like it.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:25 AM on January 6, 2022 [12 favorites]
The company cancelled our Xmas party because of Omicron, saying it seemed unsafe to have us together for three hours and sharing a meal. Then my boss scheduled a required half day meeting with lunch. He's actually a mostly nice, sane person, but I feel like having mild Omicron emboldened him and I don't like it.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:25 AM on January 6, 2022 [12 favorites]
My boss just had Omicron and keeps going on about how "It's better actually, because I'm superimmune now."
I know a lot of people who had COVID last year and then got vaccinated who considered themselves "superimmune." They all have omicron. To a one.
posted by uncleozzy at 7:30 AM on January 6, 2022 [23 favorites]
I know a lot of people who had COVID last year and then got vaccinated who considered themselves "superimmune." They all have omicron. To a one.
posted by uncleozzy at 7:30 AM on January 6, 2022 [23 favorites]
As a person who didn't have any response to the vaccines, because I don't have a working immune system, "everyone's just going to get it" is one of the most terrifying things to hear or read. That means I'm going to get it. I probably contracted it two days ago when I had to go to the emergency room for an unrelated reason. It was an emergency, and I didn't have a choice. Now I'm just waiting to see whether it's really inevitable for me, too, and what that will look like. My doctor said she would try to get me monoclonal antibodies if I need them, but she couldn't make any promises because she said there were "shortages." Paxlovid is likely out of the question because of supply issues.
And yeah, the amount of people I know who got Omicron who are now calling themselves super immune is so terrifying and sad. It really has emboldened people. But we don't know how this virus works long-term. It is such a shame that we have been tasked with becoming experts in microbiology, public health, and epidemiology in order to live our lives. It's an impossible task, and those of us who care are all just floating around, waving in the wind, and trying to do our best. Stay safe out there, folks.
posted by twelve cent archie at 7:31 AM on January 6, 2022 [27 favorites]
And yeah, the amount of people I know who got Omicron who are now calling themselves super immune is so terrifying and sad. It really has emboldened people. But we don't know how this virus works long-term. It is such a shame that we have been tasked with becoming experts in microbiology, public health, and epidemiology in order to live our lives. It's an impossible task, and those of us who care are all just floating around, waving in the wind, and trying to do our best. Stay safe out there, folks.
posted by twelve cent archie at 7:31 AM on January 6, 2022 [27 favorites]
Didn't we already go through this in 2020? Getting covid to "get it over with" is polite covid-denialism. It's a selfish way to hold on to pre-pandemic normalcy by playing the odds at the expense of everyone else. Just don't do it. The world has changed. Going out to restaurants with friends and hanging out in large groups of people was fun in the before times, but now it's just not possible. Get used to it.
It sucks that we can't be bothered to think of what a post-pandemic world should be like. That our impulse is to just keep doubling down on the pre-pandemic status quo. Restaurants and schools have to stay open simply because not doing so is too much of a burden. Instead of providing alternative employment, increased child support (OMFG, WHY ON EARTH HASN'T THE CHILD TAX CREDIT BEEN EXTENDED) more school infrastructure (new buildings, more technology for remote options) we're just going to let things go on and externalize the risks.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 7:31 AM on January 6, 2022 [17 favorites]
It sucks that we can't be bothered to think of what a post-pandemic world should be like. That our impulse is to just keep doubling down on the pre-pandemic status quo. Restaurants and schools have to stay open simply because not doing so is too much of a burden. Instead of providing alternative employment, increased child support (OMFG, WHY ON EARTH HASN'T THE CHILD TAX CREDIT BEEN EXTENDED) more school infrastructure (new buildings, more technology for remote options) we're just going to let things go on and externalize the risks.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 7:31 AM on January 6, 2022 [17 favorites]
It sucks that we can't be bothered to think of what a post-pandemic world should be like. That our impulse is to just keep doubling down on the pre-pandemic status quo.
I mean...what's your vision then? If you're angry that "we" can't be bothered, surely YOU have bothered, no? Like, if the future plonkee describes above is never going to be possible, what is the future that doesn't seem utterly bereft of anything actually good or fun or like, essentially human?
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 7:38 AM on January 6, 2022 [5 favorites]
I mean...what's your vision then? If you're angry that "we" can't be bothered, surely YOU have bothered, no? Like, if the future plonkee describes above is never going to be possible, what is the future that doesn't seem utterly bereft of anything actually good or fun or like, essentially human?
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 7:38 AM on January 6, 2022 [5 favorites]
My issue with the lockdown measures is that we're taking on a lot of debt that appears to have no clear end goal. Deferring regular surgeries and structuring workforce operations around COVID is creating major deficits and inflationary issues that the next generation inherits. Canada and the United States experienced 5% inflation because our supply chains were slowed down because of COVID. 5% inflation over 20 years is going to be difficult to absorb for most incomes considering nominal wage growth is nowhere near that level. Schools, technical colleges and universities have had their lab components significantly altered, so we're impacting the training of the next generation of our workforce. What exactly is supposed to be the exit strategy to the isolation policies? We're saddling our next generation with costs that they didn't receive the majority of benefit from. Omnicron appears to be a virus that is super transmissible even with mask wearing, so what exactly is supposed to be the isolation solution to Omnicron?
posted by DetriusXii at 7:40 AM on January 6, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by DetriusXii at 7:40 AM on January 6, 2022 [3 favorites]
The exit strategy is that people live??????? And are healthy? The alternative to isolation is everyone gets sick, many become disabled and many die. So many people have suffered and died already. What part of "getting sick is bad" is hard to understand? I really don't get it.
posted by bleep at 7:45 AM on January 6, 2022 [20 favorites]
posted by bleep at 7:45 AM on January 6, 2022 [20 favorites]
I just realized this morning that each and every one of the people who shook their heads at me for being overly cautious have since gotten COVID. All of them.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:49 AM on January 6, 2022 [16 favorites]
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:49 AM on January 6, 2022 [16 favorites]
I think much of plokee's future is possible. I'm happy with wearing a mask on public transit, for things like yoga classes and small gatherings. But I do think we need to have mandated sick time across the board to ensure that everyone who feels sick can stay home. I think we need to have better childcare options so schools aren't the providers of last resort and so kids aren't being sent to school sick. And we need to have way more hospital medical resources. Like a lot.
I also think we'll need to be much more conscientious about how we gather. Not as much eating out for the sake of eating out and an end to table service in favor of more fast casual. Hanging out with people is great, but we need to be aware that we all have a responsibility and our weekly bar hopping may not be worth the burden placed on public health.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 7:52 AM on January 6, 2022 [4 favorites]
I also think we'll need to be much more conscientious about how we gather. Not as much eating out for the sake of eating out and an end to table service in favor of more fast casual. Hanging out with people is great, but we need to be aware that we all have a responsibility and our weekly bar hopping may not be worth the burden placed on public health.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 7:52 AM on January 6, 2022 [4 favorites]
As of last week, the most likely place people were exposed to COVID in Illinois was schools, by a margin of almost 35% over the next most likely location ("Other", for those that are interested).
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 7:52 AM on January 6, 2022 [12 favorites]
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 7:52 AM on January 6, 2022 [12 favorites]
I just realized this morning that each and every one of the people who shook their heads at me for being overly cautious have since gotten COVID. All of them.
Well, DirtyOldTown, the friends who scolded me for being so careless as to purchase groceries in person, the friends who would not even gather outdoors, post-vax, pre-Delta, ALSO have COVID. There's really just no point in making it a moral judgment anymore.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 7:52 AM on January 6, 2022 [61 favorites]
Well, DirtyOldTown, the friends who scolded me for being so careless as to purchase groceries in person, the friends who would not even gather outdoors, post-vax, pre-Delta, ALSO have COVID. There's really just no point in making it a moral judgment anymore.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 7:52 AM on January 6, 2022 [61 favorites]
Just prior to omicron we had a family gathering. We're all vaccinated and we all missed each other, so we took that risk and had ~20 people in the same room with several small kids.
One my cousins had the sniffles and decided not to come. I cannot even begin to describe how much respect I have for him because two days later he tested positive. If he had dismissed his symptoms and come anyway, all of us probably would have gotten it.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 7:56 AM on January 6, 2022 [19 favorites]
One my cousins had the sniffles and decided not to come. I cannot even begin to describe how much respect I have for him because two days later he tested positive. If he had dismissed his symptoms and come anyway, all of us probably would have gotten it.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 7:56 AM on January 6, 2022 [19 favorites]
But it is to your advantage to wait for those milder strains to evolve in other people’s bodies.
Except there is no particular reason to believe milder strains will take over. People have been sold this story about how Covid evolves to be milder, how it will inevitably become just like a cold and so on, which there just isn't really any solid evidence for. We are gaining immunity through past infection and vaccination, which makes cases milder for those who have that immunity, but the virus isn't necessarily becoming milder. Omicron does appear to be milder than Delta, but Delta was significantly more virulent than the Wuhan strain or Alpha (and Omicron most likely evolved from the Wuhan strain and definitely not from Delta). So far, Covid has generally evolved to be more virulent, not less.
We don't know what will happen this year or next year or in 2030. Maybe Covid becomes a disease that we can live with easily, like a cold. Maybe it becomes something like a flu, which is not great for us. Maybe it stays significantly worse than a flu — even two or three times as bad as the flu would be a huge number of deaths every year without mitigations. Maybe we develop better vaccines or better treatments (and maybe paxlovid is a game changer) and we manage to distribute them to everyone on the planet.
We definitely don't know what will happen with long Covid. Will it become less common as people gain immunity? More common with repeated infections? Some will recover relatively quickly, others may never recover — how many will there be of each?
There are a lot of unknowns. It feels like we're trying to jump ahead to some endemic state that we don't really know the shape of. It's clear at this point that getting infected doesn't provide long lasting immunity against repeated infection. We need to invest in ventilation, in testing, in good masks for everyone, in getting everyone vaccinated, not just in rich countries, but around the world. Instead it seems like we've decided just to let it rip and hope whatever is on the other side is better.
posted by ssg at 8:01 AM on January 6, 2022 [24 favorites]
Except there is no particular reason to believe milder strains will take over. People have been sold this story about how Covid evolves to be milder, how it will inevitably become just like a cold and so on, which there just isn't really any solid evidence for. We are gaining immunity through past infection and vaccination, which makes cases milder for those who have that immunity, but the virus isn't necessarily becoming milder. Omicron does appear to be milder than Delta, but Delta was significantly more virulent than the Wuhan strain or Alpha (and Omicron most likely evolved from the Wuhan strain and definitely not from Delta). So far, Covid has generally evolved to be more virulent, not less.
We don't know what will happen this year or next year or in 2030. Maybe Covid becomes a disease that we can live with easily, like a cold. Maybe it becomes something like a flu, which is not great for us. Maybe it stays significantly worse than a flu — even two or three times as bad as the flu would be a huge number of deaths every year without mitigations. Maybe we develop better vaccines or better treatments (and maybe paxlovid is a game changer) and we manage to distribute them to everyone on the planet.
We definitely don't know what will happen with long Covid. Will it become less common as people gain immunity? More common with repeated infections? Some will recover relatively quickly, others may never recover — how many will there be of each?
There are a lot of unknowns. It feels like we're trying to jump ahead to some endemic state that we don't really know the shape of. It's clear at this point that getting infected doesn't provide long lasting immunity against repeated infection. We need to invest in ventilation, in testing, in good masks for everyone, in getting everyone vaccinated, not just in rich countries, but around the world. Instead it seems like we've decided just to let it rip and hope whatever is on the other side is better.
posted by ssg at 8:01 AM on January 6, 2022 [24 favorites]
I traveled abroad over the holiday and got hit by severe cold/sinus infection w/headache. Thought I had it and wouldn’t be able to travel around between countries (England, Ireland) but I actually never tested positive the whole time. I had been boostered. Which makes me wonder if COVID rides around on other viruses (cold, flu, etc) and is opportunistic - but sometimes hits boostered folk and can’t get a foothold, even if the thing it is riding around on can?
posted by hrpomrx at 8:11 AM on January 6, 2022
posted by hrpomrx at 8:11 AM on January 6, 2022
The challenge with the schools closed/open question fundamentally is that we're looking to a system (public education) to save us (again), and it's a system that we've underfunded and underpaid and starved for resources for decades. My whole career in education so far--25+ years--I've been told that I'm working in a collapsing system, and that's been true! School facilities are mostly horrible, teachers and staff have been poorly compensated, etc. etc. for the whole time I've been working in education.
And then we look to this system, and the people working in it, to be the safety net to make our whole society functional? And then treat it as a "school problem" when it's not the easy solution we wish for it to be? Teachers and staff are BEING MADE TO RISK THEIR LIVES FOR NEAR-POVERTY WAGES and we wonder why schools can't better help us solve this pandemic.
It's like they don't understand that death is permanent.
I think this is a more important element to this whole deal than we generally credit. Reading the first-person accounts from nurses and other health care providers, many patients and their families do not understand the real mortal risk of this illness until they are actively dying, and only then do their imaginations admit the reality of death as a possibility in these scenarios, when it is already far far too late.
posted by LooseFilter at 8:15 AM on January 6, 2022 [42 favorites]
And then we look to this system, and the people working in it, to be the safety net to make our whole society functional? And then treat it as a "school problem" when it's not the easy solution we wish for it to be? Teachers and staff are BEING MADE TO RISK THEIR LIVES FOR NEAR-POVERTY WAGES and we wonder why schools can't better help us solve this pandemic.
It's like they don't understand that death is permanent.
I think this is a more important element to this whole deal than we generally credit. Reading the first-person accounts from nurses and other health care providers, many patients and their families do not understand the real mortal risk of this illness until they are actively dying, and only then do their imaginations admit the reality of death as a possibility in these scenarios, when it is already far far too late.
posted by LooseFilter at 8:15 AM on January 6, 2022 [42 favorites]
We're saddling our next generation with costs that they didn't receive the majority of benefit from.
In Canada I actually have a back-of-the-envelope solution for this, which is an estate tax to be phased in over the next decade. In the US I know there are already a lot of estate taxes but I also understand there are a lot of loopholes. I think those of us who receive or build generational wealth (over a cap) and who survive the next ten years could contribute to lowering the Covid debt that way.
Also, speaking on behalf of my future hopefully tax-paying and gainfully employed children, my survival and their own is a benefit to them.
I also think that on the sale of houses worth more than the bottom 33% of homes in a particular area should be taxed on sale (from the selling owner) for 2% of their value and that should go into a fund for Indigenous peoples to manage however they like, not that this evens things out, but it just seems like the benefit of the rise in real estate value should be going there in part.
posted by warriorqueen at 8:18 AM on January 6, 2022 [10 favorites]
In Canada I actually have a back-of-the-envelope solution for this, which is an estate tax to be phased in over the next decade. In the US I know there are already a lot of estate taxes but I also understand there are a lot of loopholes. I think those of us who receive or build generational wealth (over a cap) and who survive the next ten years could contribute to lowering the Covid debt that way.
Also, speaking on behalf of my future hopefully tax-paying and gainfully employed children, my survival and their own is a benefit to them.
I also think that on the sale of houses worth more than the bottom 33% of homes in a particular area should be taxed on sale (from the selling owner) for 2% of their value and that should go into a fund for Indigenous peoples to manage however they like, not that this evens things out, but it just seems like the benefit of the rise in real estate value should be going there in part.
posted by warriorqueen at 8:18 AM on January 6, 2022 [10 favorites]
Also, in terms of costs in Canada, I note that the government (provincial, transfer funds from the Feds) pays for health care, so loads of sick people also bears costs.
posted by warriorqueen at 8:19 AM on January 6, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by warriorqueen at 8:19 AM on January 6, 2022 [3 favorites]
and our weekly bar hopping may not be worth the burden placed on public health.
The language we use to characterize choices is important. I realize this is a bit chiding in tone, but I really don't know anyone who barhops and this period of our lives has resulted in choices to not be with family due to their compromised systems (open heart surgery for a sister, just as the outbreak started); this period has contributed to two suicides of teenagers in my close circle; mental health issues with nieces. I could go on, you are all struggling in your own way. Many of us are well past fatigued and for me, the health impact is receding in the face of all the damage this is causing in ways that promise to ripple into our future. "Young people are resilient" I'm sure the two years of f&&ked up schooling and lack of socialization will be fine, right? The weaponizing of this crisis by bad actors: that's going to dissipate and we'll all be good.
I don't know.. the barhopping characterization just got to me.. that's where I'm at now, I'm just trying to do my best but I cannot afford some compromises while this surge happens and it has nothing to do with getting out to the bar, just so we're clear.
posted by elkevelvet at 8:20 AM on January 6, 2022 [13 favorites]
The language we use to characterize choices is important. I realize this is a bit chiding in tone, but I really don't know anyone who barhops and this period of our lives has resulted in choices to not be with family due to their compromised systems (open heart surgery for a sister, just as the outbreak started); this period has contributed to two suicides of teenagers in my close circle; mental health issues with nieces. I could go on, you are all struggling in your own way. Many of us are well past fatigued and for me, the health impact is receding in the face of all the damage this is causing in ways that promise to ripple into our future. "Young people are resilient" I'm sure the two years of f&&ked up schooling and lack of socialization will be fine, right? The weaponizing of this crisis by bad actors: that's going to dissipate and we'll all be good.
I don't know.. the barhopping characterization just got to me.. that's where I'm at now, I'm just trying to do my best but I cannot afford some compromises while this surge happens and it has nothing to do with getting out to the bar, just so we're clear.
posted by elkevelvet at 8:20 AM on January 6, 2022 [13 favorites]
Didn't we already go through this in 2020? Getting covid to "get it over with" is polite covid-denialism.
At least acknowledge that a lot has changed since then. Like vaccines.
posted by eagles123 at 8:22 AM on January 6, 2022 [4 favorites]
At least acknowledge that a lot has changed since then. Like vaccines.
posted by eagles123 at 8:22 AM on January 6, 2022 [4 favorites]
If Moderna's vaccine was designed in two days, couldn't they have been working on a better one all this time? Like one that targets other parts of the virus that don't mutate as much as the spike proteins.
posted by 445supermag at 8:22 AM on January 6, 2022
posted by 445supermag at 8:22 AM on January 6, 2022
I mean, I do know people who are bar hopping/travelling to Cancun to party/whatever bad actions you want to imagine. They're basically immune to scolding at this point, the only thing that will stop them is if governments force bars to shut down or require proof that your travel is for an emergency purpose. It seems governments aren't willing to do this anymore, though. These two years I have been thinking a lot about this passage from Robert Caro's first book about LBJ:
BUT WHAT, really, had the People’s Party—the farmers who called themselves “Alliancemen”—asked for? Only that when men found themselves at the mercy of forces too big for them to fight alone, government—their government—help them fight. What were the demands for railroad and bank regulation, for government loans, for public-works projects, but an expression of a belief that after men have banded together and formed a government, they have a right, when they are being crushed by conditions over which they have no control, to ask that government to extend a helping hand to them—if necessary, to fight for them, to be their champion?
I really do feel crushed by conditions over which I have no control, I have to tell you. And yet it seems we have no champion.
posted by threementholsandafuneral at 8:24 AM on January 6, 2022 [17 favorites]
BUT WHAT, really, had the People’s Party—the farmers who called themselves “Alliancemen”—asked for? Only that when men found themselves at the mercy of forces too big for them to fight alone, government—their government—help them fight. What were the demands for railroad and bank regulation, for government loans, for public-works projects, but an expression of a belief that after men have banded together and formed a government, they have a right, when they are being crushed by conditions over which they have no control, to ask that government to extend a helping hand to them—if necessary, to fight for them, to be their champion?
I really do feel crushed by conditions over which I have no control, I have to tell you. And yet it seems we have no champion.
posted by threementholsandafuneral at 8:24 AM on January 6, 2022 [17 favorites]
"Young people are resilient" I'm sure the two years of f&&ked up schooling and lack of socialization will be fine, right?
"Children are resilient" is a pet peeve phrase of mine. I think adults use it to feel better about being shitty to kids. If children were all that resilient, most therapists would be out of a job.
posted by FencingGal at 8:26 AM on January 6, 2022 [34 favorites]
"Children are resilient" is a pet peeve phrase of mine. I think adults use it to feel better about being shitty to kids. If children were all that resilient, most therapists would be out of a job.
posted by FencingGal at 8:26 AM on January 6, 2022 [34 favorites]
(Also, while barhopping in a pandemic is obviously unwise, it's also how a lot of people in normal times meet their partners, build their social groups, and become parts of their communities. MeFi's population leans very anti-booze, introvert, homebodyish and it seems easy for folks to dismiss whole swaths of socializing when they personally don't value or enjoy them. If you're wondering why people get upset when someone says "eh we don't need bars or restaurants" imagine they have said "eh, cooking and libraries aren't important, we can just do without them.")
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 8:26 AM on January 6, 2022 [67 favorites]
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 8:26 AM on January 6, 2022 [67 favorites]
445supermag: one that targets other parts of the virus that don't mutate as much as the spike proteins.
If the aim is to prevent infection, then humoral immunity i.e. antibodies have to bind to elements on the outer surface of the virus, notably the spike, before the virus enters cells.
posted by daksya at 8:28 AM on January 6, 2022 [2 favorites]
If the aim is to prevent infection, then humoral immunity i.e. antibodies have to bind to elements on the outer surface of the virus, notably the spike, before the virus enters cells.
posted by daksya at 8:28 AM on January 6, 2022 [2 favorites]
Matthew Cortland, disability and health policy advocate (edited from Twitter format):
I've heard an argument from some Dem electeds that schools ought to be the last thing we close – that restaurants, bars, stadiums, etc. should all be shutdown before schools. And that's true enough, but here's the problem: it's too late.posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 8:29 AM on January 6, 2022 [66 favorites]
Omicron is here now – we didn't shut everything else down so that schools and hospitals could continue to function. We allowed widespread community transmission. We didn't give everyone N95s, we didn't send out test kits via USPS. POTUS tweeted "get vaccinated and boosted". States didn't use their authority (under [Jacobson v Massachusetts] to issue general vaccine mandates. Education authorities, for the most part, didn't upgrade their physical plant (e.g. HVAC, windows, etc) to even account for the transmissibility of delta, never-mind omicron. And we didn't seriously undertake a project to vaccinate the world starting on 1/20/21, forcing technology transfer & waiving pharma's IP monopoly over life saving vaccines - steps which would have dramatically lowered the odds of bad variants.
And so now that the epidemiological die is cast, now that this highly transmissible variant is here and we've done nothing to control it, to leave teachers and students holding the bag? That's profoundly unfair. And I think a large part of what's happening here? It's a result of incredibly bad messaging that has called all [COVID] that doesn't hospitalize or kill someone "mild" – i.e. if the teachers only have mild covid, why can't they still teach anyway?
Classroom teaching is actually really difficult – and asking people to do that while they're sick with an incredibly serious pathogen, a virus that has already killed more than 800k Americans, is beyond absurd. Most of the teachers I know – not all, but most – want to teach. They want to teach well. They understand, all too well, the pitfalls of zoom school. But they don't want to risk their own lives, the lives of their own families, and the lives of their students to teach. We expect classroom teachers to somehow fix the clusterfucks our broken and dysfunctional society causes – even when those classroom teachers are working in poor school districts. We're doing it yet again – this time with the entire fucking global pandemic.
We have poor school districts
We have wealthy school districts.
Do you know how fucked up that is?
We start with a flawed, inequitable, violent funding mechanism of local property taxes. And on that slanted foundation we build and build and build.
Also, while barhopping in a pandemic is obviously unwise, it's also how a lot of people in normal times meet their partners, build their social groups, and become parts of their communities.
I think about this a lot. The long-departed club called Neo was my place for that, but it shut down ages ago and I stopped going out nearly as much. So when the pandemic shutdown happened, I recall saying "Now all clubs are Neo". But I had had Neo for 19 years of clubgoing, and my social network is now well-developed at this point in my life.
And in addition to already having the built-up benefit, the loss of club and the loss of gestures wildly at everything else were separated in time, and I had time to get used to the club loss before getting hit with everything else. I can only hypothesize how I would have handled it if I'd had to lose that center of my social life at the same time. My heart recoils in horror at the prospect.
posted by notoriety public at 8:34 AM on January 6, 2022 [7 favorites]
I think about this a lot. The long-departed club called Neo was my place for that, but it shut down ages ago and I stopped going out nearly as much. So when the pandemic shutdown happened, I recall saying "Now all clubs are Neo". But I had had Neo for 19 years of clubgoing, and my social network is now well-developed at this point in my life.
And in addition to already having the built-up benefit, the loss of club and the loss of gestures wildly at everything else were separated in time, and I had time to get used to the club loss before getting hit with everything else. I can only hypothesize how I would have handled it if I'd had to lose that center of my social life at the same time. My heart recoils in horror at the prospect.
posted by notoriety public at 8:34 AM on January 6, 2022 [7 favorites]
If Moderna's vaccine was designed in two days, couldn't they have been working on a better one all this time? Like one that targets other parts of the virus that don't mutate as much as the spike proteins.
The answer, like much of science, is "maybe." The key thing is spike proteins are on the surface; targeting other parts that can't mutate may be totally ineffective. It's definitely a reason that flu doesn't have just one vaccine; the parts that are hard to mutate are well hidden.
Incidentally, that "designed in two days" claim is a bit of joke in my workplace. It's always presented as fast, and is is a bit of puffery, but as a colleague points out, the step they are describing in that anecdote is more like 20 minutes. What took them so long?! Didn't they know this is a crisis? So yeah, they've certainly designed lots more. We just won't know if it'll work.
OTOH, the drugs we have target essential parts of the viral machinery and the barrier to mutation on those should be much higher. My hope for feeling comfortable again involve annual vaccines and a nice arsenal of effective drugs to treat breakthrough cases, and aggressively clamp down on future outbreaks that escape the current vaccine.
posted by mark k at 8:35 AM on January 6, 2022 [4 favorites]
The answer, like much of science, is "maybe." The key thing is spike proteins are on the surface; targeting other parts that can't mutate may be totally ineffective. It's definitely a reason that flu doesn't have just one vaccine; the parts that are hard to mutate are well hidden.
Incidentally, that "designed in two days" claim is a bit of joke in my workplace. It's always presented as fast, and is is a bit of puffery, but as a colleague points out, the step they are describing in that anecdote is more like 20 minutes. What took them so long?! Didn't they know this is a crisis? So yeah, they've certainly designed lots more. We just won't know if it'll work.
OTOH, the drugs we have target essential parts of the viral machinery and the barrier to mutation on those should be much higher. My hope for feeling comfortable again involve annual vaccines and a nice arsenal of effective drugs to treat breakthrough cases, and aggressively clamp down on future outbreaks that escape the current vaccine.
posted by mark k at 8:35 AM on January 6, 2022 [4 favorites]
I can only hypothesize how I would have handled it if I'd had to lose that center of my social life at the same time. My heart recoils in horror at the prospect.
I can only tell you: It's as shitty as you think, if not shittier.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 8:36 AM on January 6, 2022 [10 favorites]
I can only tell you: It's as shitty as you think, if not shittier.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 8:36 AM on January 6, 2022 [10 favorites]
As of today, I am working from home again by choice to attempt to minimize my exposure, but I feel like it's almost an exercise in futility at this point. Which is not the same as "let's get it over with". My wife and I both are high-risk due to our various infirmities, so I do not want to get infected, but I just don't see how we prevent it in the long run. Focus needs to be put on treatment and on developing resources to adequately provide for those who require hospitalization and/or long-term care for enduring after-effect. Fuck the anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers who have made this necessary.
posted by briank at 8:37 AM on January 6, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by briank at 8:37 AM on January 6, 2022 [4 favorites]
A recent meta-analysis found one third of those infected experiencing fatigue and one in five with cognitive impairment, twelve or more weeks after infection.
The authors of the meta-analysis concluded that a third and a fifth of those included in the studies experienced those symptoms. They acknowledge as a limitation that the included studies were mostly made up of those previously hospitalized, which threatens the validity of generalizations to the larger population of those infected.
posted by eagles123 at 8:40 AM on January 6, 2022 [3 favorites]
The authors of the meta-analysis concluded that a third and a fifth of those included in the studies experienced those symptoms. They acknowledge as a limitation that the included studies were mostly made up of those previously hospitalized, which threatens the validity of generalizations to the larger population of those infected.
posted by eagles123 at 8:40 AM on January 6, 2022 [3 favorites]
Between parents pushing for their kids to return to school, which in a significant portion of cases I suspect is parents being sick of their kids being around all the time
How about we stop blaming parents and each other and focus on the garbage job our governments are doing. Being a parent right now is hard. There are little to no supports available to help. People have to work, and many people do not have the luxury of working from home (Christ I am so tired of Metafilter's class bias). Child care is expensive or not available. Kids are missing out on critical socialization, their mental health is tanking, and some are stuck at home with abusive parents. My province's government made exactly zero plans in advance of this wave wrt schooling. They gave out 3000 more HEPA filters in the new year - there are almost 5000 schools in Ontario. Most of those buildings don't even have air conditioning, so forget decent ventilation systems.
Also not receiving any support ever: teachers.
Meanwhile our health care system is crumbling, nurses are quitting in droves, we don't have enough masks, there are no rapid tests to be found, and pcr testing is limited to certain groups. Ontario was given billions of dollars by the federal government and the premier is still sitting on it, for... reasons. So now we have to close schools, because if we don't our hospitals will overload and people will be dying left and right from car accidents and infected appendices. This decision is necessary - thanks to incompetence, greed, and years of inaction - but it doesn't means kids and parents aren't suffering.
posted by Stoof at 8:45 AM on January 6, 2022 [31 favorites]
How about we stop blaming parents and each other and focus on the garbage job our governments are doing. Being a parent right now is hard. There are little to no supports available to help. People have to work, and many people do not have the luxury of working from home (Christ I am so tired of Metafilter's class bias). Child care is expensive or not available. Kids are missing out on critical socialization, their mental health is tanking, and some are stuck at home with abusive parents. My province's government made exactly zero plans in advance of this wave wrt schooling. They gave out 3000 more HEPA filters in the new year - there are almost 5000 schools in Ontario. Most of those buildings don't even have air conditioning, so forget decent ventilation systems.
Also not receiving any support ever: teachers.
Meanwhile our health care system is crumbling, nurses are quitting in droves, we don't have enough masks, there are no rapid tests to be found, and pcr testing is limited to certain groups. Ontario was given billions of dollars by the federal government and the premier is still sitting on it, for... reasons. So now we have to close schools, because if we don't our hospitals will overload and people will be dying left and right from car accidents and infected appendices. This decision is necessary - thanks to incompetence, greed, and years of inaction - but it doesn't means kids and parents aren't suffering.
posted by Stoof at 8:45 AM on January 6, 2022 [31 favorites]
The Oxford study, the subsequent meta-analsyis, and a similar preprint from Penn State yesterday were all missing a control group. They’re not just bad science – they fail to meet the basic definition of science altogether.
We should take long-COVID very seriously, but those studies are just counting the percentage of [a non-representative sample of] people who had COVID who later reported having a headache.
This is not hyperbole – that’s literally the measurement being reported.
Take their numbers with the largest grain of salt imaginable.
posted by schmod at 8:49 AM on January 6, 2022 [9 favorites]
We should take long-COVID very seriously, but those studies are just counting the percentage of [a non-representative sample of] people who had COVID who later reported having a headache.
This is not hyperbole – that’s literally the measurement being reported.
Take their numbers with the largest grain of salt imaginable.
posted by schmod at 8:49 AM on January 6, 2022 [9 favorites]
Hospital emergency rooms filling up and doctors having to stack patients in the hallways was a thing long before the pandemic. That we've gone through the past year and not universally decided that we need way more hospital beds is maddening. Same with schools. And basically every other aspect of human-facing public infrastructure we've let crumble over the past several decades.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 8:51 AM on January 6, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by RonButNotStupid at 8:51 AM on January 6, 2022 [6 favorites]
If Moderna's vaccine was designed in two days, couldn't they have been working on a better one all this time? Like one that targets other parts of the virus that don't mutate as much as the spike proteins.
Because tooling takes time we don't have and repeated mRNA shots continually broaden the immune response even to variants. There's an Omicron specific variant in the pipe because the immune evasion has been statistically greater on two shots whereas with Delta the two shots still held up quite well. It's one thing to have repeated shots if you're already on the immune train, another entirely if you're catching up.
If the aim is to prevent infection, then humoral immunity i.e. antibodies have to bind to elements on the outer surface of the virus, notably the spike, before the virus enters cells.
That would be mucosal immunity. There are some vaccines in development that are live attenuated nasal sprays designed to generate more mucosal immunity that would be a better shield against COVID's initial infection. Povidone Iodine nasal sprays may also help with transmission but nothing is proven yet.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 8:52 AM on January 6, 2022 [5 favorites]
Because tooling takes time we don't have and repeated mRNA shots continually broaden the immune response even to variants. There's an Omicron specific variant in the pipe because the immune evasion has been statistically greater on two shots whereas with Delta the two shots still held up quite well. It's one thing to have repeated shots if you're already on the immune train, another entirely if you're catching up.
If the aim is to prevent infection, then humoral immunity i.e. antibodies have to bind to elements on the outer surface of the virus, notably the spike, before the virus enters cells.
That would be mucosal immunity. There are some vaccines in development that are live attenuated nasal sprays designed to generate more mucosal immunity that would be a better shield against COVID's initial infection. Povidone Iodine nasal sprays may also help with transmission but nothing is proven yet.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 8:52 AM on January 6, 2022 [5 favorites]
For a survivable respiratory disease like Covid, I think the prediction is that variants which cause milder symptoms will eventually out-compete variants which cause more severe symptoms.
Because severe outcomes happen much later in the course of the disease than the peak of transmission, this evolutionary story doesn’t really make sense. More plausibly, it will reach an equilibrium that is generally milder than it originally was because everybody has had it in some form (or recently been vaccinated, or both). And there may be outlier strains that are more or less serious.
posted by atoxyl at 8:53 AM on January 6, 2022 [6 favorites]
Because severe outcomes happen much later in the course of the disease than the peak of transmission, this evolutionary story doesn’t really make sense. More plausibly, it will reach an equilibrium that is generally milder than it originally was because everybody has had it in some form (or recently been vaccinated, or both). And there may be outlier strains that are more or less serious.
posted by atoxyl at 8:53 AM on January 6, 2022 [6 favorites]
Tyler Cowen has periodic discussion of the inter-temporal substitution and cost. If you assume that getting covid is at some point inevitable, it still made a LOT of sense to pay a high price to avoid covid until after vaccines and effective anti-virals. The shorter you have to endure the costs of avoiding infection, the more sense it made. It also depends on the cost of getting re-infected. If prior infection doesn't spare you severity / chronic symptoms then ongoing vigilance makes more sense. Many people are seeing omicron as having reached the end-game (very high cost required to control transmission, lower cost of infection given vaccination) and have exhausted their ability to tolerate lockdowns etc., although I think that maybe 6 more months of inconveinence for production and distribution of readily available anti-virals makes sense.
posted by a robot made out of meat at 8:55 AM on January 6, 2022 [11 favorites]
posted by a robot made out of meat at 8:55 AM on January 6, 2022 [11 favorites]
MeFi's population leans very anti-booze, introvert, homebodyish and it seems easy for folks to dismiss whole swaths of socializing when they personally don't value or enjoy them.
Wait, what. I'm not sure this sweeping generalization applies. I'm sure many of us are this way. Also, many of us are not. (I really think very few sweeping generalizations apply to this population - except that we lean progressive and U.S.-centric)
posted by Glinn at 8:57 AM on January 6, 2022 [7 favorites]
Wait, what. I'm not sure this sweeping generalization applies. I'm sure many of us are this way. Also, many of us are not. (I really think very few sweeping generalizations apply to this population - except that we lean progressive and U.S.-centric)
posted by Glinn at 8:57 AM on January 6, 2022 [7 favorites]
I’d be less skeptical of the “Open schools now” folks if even a small percentage of them were pushing schools to take measures to make it safe for kids to attend.
We know how to make schools safer. Good masks, mandatory vaccines, good air filtration, regular testing, smaller class sizes, and sensible contact-tracing definitions. These are all completely achievable right now, and almost nobody’s talking about doing any of it.
I’m very sympathetic to the argument that we should be making sacrifices (such as keeping other businesses/restaurants/ closed) to keep schools open. However, nobody seems to actually care about how safe things are once the schools are actually open. It’s like people think we can grit our teeth and brute-force our way back into normalcy.
—
I’m with a robot made out of meat. We certainly can’t stay locked down forever, but it actually does feel like we’re very close to a point where we can safely ramp things back up, provided that we don’t drop all of our precautions at once.
Given the speed that Omicron’s tearing through the country, I’d even suggest that timeline might even be weeks, rather than months. However, it’s absolute insanity to be actively pushing for people to congregate more at a time when hospitals are turning away patients.
posted by schmod at 8:58 AM on January 6, 2022 [5 favorites]
We know how to make schools safer. Good masks, mandatory vaccines, good air filtration, regular testing, smaller class sizes, and sensible contact-tracing definitions. These are all completely achievable right now, and almost nobody’s talking about doing any of it.
I’m very sympathetic to the argument that we should be making sacrifices (such as keeping other businesses/restaurants/ closed) to keep schools open. However, nobody seems to actually care about how safe things are once the schools are actually open. It’s like people think we can grit our teeth and brute-force our way back into normalcy.
—
I’m with a robot made out of meat. We certainly can’t stay locked down forever, but it actually does feel like we’re very close to a point where we can safely ramp things back up, provided that we don’t drop all of our precautions at once.
Given the speed that Omicron’s tearing through the country, I’d even suggest that timeline might even be weeks, rather than months. However, it’s absolute insanity to be actively pushing for people to congregate more at a time when hospitals are turning away patients.
posted by schmod at 8:58 AM on January 6, 2022 [5 favorites]
That we've gone through the past year and not universally decided that we need way more hospital beds is maddening.
Have we not decided this? I don't get the sense that people are like, cool cool, our hospital system is dope. The problem is that you can add all the beds in the world (not as fast as we need them though) -- but it still takes years and years to train the doctors and nurses who will treat the patients in those beds.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 8:59 AM on January 6, 2022 [8 favorites]
Have we not decided this? I don't get the sense that people are like, cool cool, our hospital system is dope. The problem is that you can add all the beds in the world (not as fast as we need them though) -- but it still takes years and years to train the doctors and nurses who will treat the patients in those beds.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 8:59 AM on January 6, 2022 [8 favorites]
Wait, what. I'm not sure this sweeping generalization applies.
No, you're right -- a better way to phrase it would be that MeFi has a large and very active contingent of Stay At Home kids who were that way long before it became public policy.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 9:01 AM on January 6, 2022 [8 favorites]
No, you're right -- a better way to phrase it would be that MeFi has a large and very active contingent of Stay At Home kids who were that way long before it became public policy.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 9:01 AM on January 6, 2022 [8 favorites]
MetaFilter: I’m with a robot made out of meat.
posted by vibrotronica at 9:02 AM on January 6, 2022 [10 favorites]
posted by vibrotronica at 9:02 AM on January 6, 2022 [10 favorites]
The world has changed. Going out to restaurants with friends and hanging out in large groups of people was fun in the before times, but now it's just not possible. Get used to it.
The population has a very broad spectrum of risk tolerance which I suspect is the root of a lot of disagreement.
One extreme would be "wear four masks and isolate in your basement permanently" while the other would be "drunken clubbing every night and making out with strangers" (exaggeration for effect). As with many different normal distributions, most people fall somewhere in between.
For many people I see around me, going out to restaurants or hanging out in large groups of people is not only possible but common - it lands within their level of "acceptable risk."
I'm hoping there will be some kind of reasonable equilibrium reached where people with very different levels of risk tolerance will be able to coexist and each operate at their own level. The big challenge comes in public spaces where very different visions of "normal" compete with each other.
Just prior to omicron we had a family gathering. We're all vaccinated and we all missed each other, so we took that risk and had ~20 people in the same room with several small kids.
One my cousins had the sniffles and decided not to come. I cannot even begin to describe how much respect I have for him because two days later he tested positive. If he had dismissed his symptoms and come anyway, all of us probably would have gotten it.
This almost exactly describes our Christmas party with my wife's side of the family: one cousin had to opt out because he had ominous symptoms. I think most of the 20-ish people who gathered at my mother-in-law's place were vaccinated, but we all appreciated him thinking of everyone else. This was especially important for a couple of relatives who have chronic illness that is a known covid comorbidity.
posted by theorique at 9:02 AM on January 6, 2022 [2 favorites]
The population has a very broad spectrum of risk tolerance which I suspect is the root of a lot of disagreement.
One extreme would be "wear four masks and isolate in your basement permanently" while the other would be "drunken clubbing every night and making out with strangers" (exaggeration for effect). As with many different normal distributions, most people fall somewhere in between.
For many people I see around me, going out to restaurants or hanging out in large groups of people is not only possible but common - it lands within their level of "acceptable risk."
I'm hoping there will be some kind of reasonable equilibrium reached where people with very different levels of risk tolerance will be able to coexist and each operate at their own level. The big challenge comes in public spaces where very different visions of "normal" compete with each other.
Just prior to omicron we had a family gathering. We're all vaccinated and we all missed each other, so we took that risk and had ~20 people in the same room with several small kids.
One my cousins had the sniffles and decided not to come. I cannot even begin to describe how much respect I have for him because two days later he tested positive. If he had dismissed his symptoms and come anyway, all of us probably would have gotten it.
This almost exactly describes our Christmas party with my wife's side of the family: one cousin had to opt out because he had ominous symptoms. I think most of the 20-ish people who gathered at my mother-in-law's place were vaccinated, but we all appreciated him thinking of everyone else. This was especially important for a couple of relatives who have chronic illness that is a known covid comorbidity.
posted by theorique at 9:02 AM on January 6, 2022 [2 favorites]
How about we stop blaming parents and each other and focus on the garbage job our governments are doing.
Yes, absolutely. I was really dismayed when Biden called this "a pandemic of the unvaccinated" because it signaled that he didn't really see any role for government in actively managing public health at this stage of the pandemic--which is a profound abdication of the basic, essential responsibilities of any government--and was instead shifting blame to individual actions. It was a shrug from the only people in any position to collectively manage this.
Our government and public infrastructure at all levels have mostly failed us through this pandemic. So the real, abiding problems beyond this are those, and we're ignoring them because they're big and complicated and will be hugely expensive to fix.
posted by LooseFilter at 9:03 AM on January 6, 2022 [13 favorites]
Yes, absolutely. I was really dismayed when Biden called this "a pandemic of the unvaccinated" because it signaled that he didn't really see any role for government in actively managing public health at this stage of the pandemic--which is a profound abdication of the basic, essential responsibilities of any government--and was instead shifting blame to individual actions. It was a shrug from the only people in any position to collectively manage this.
Our government and public infrastructure at all levels have mostly failed us through this pandemic. So the real, abiding problems beyond this are those, and we're ignoring them because they're big and complicated and will be hugely expensive to fix.
posted by LooseFilter at 9:03 AM on January 6, 2022 [13 favorites]
Or we could just hire back all the teachers and nurses who had to quit because they couldn't support themselves and pay them what they deserve (100k+) and a lot of these issues would sort themselves out. If there were enough teachers to do 1:3 classes outside then maybe that would work. If there were enough nurses so they could do half time for the same pay maybe that would work. But no one in charge of the paychecks is willing to do that. Instead let's just blame the folks urging caution & characterize them as a bunch of nerds & killjoys. There's no way that will work but it sure feels good it sounds like.
posted by bleep at 9:09 AM on January 6, 2022 [23 favorites]
posted by bleep at 9:09 AM on January 6, 2022 [23 favorites]
There was a post here on the blue before this happened about a nurse who lost her license because she wasn't paid enough as a nurse to pay off her student loans. Not to mention all of the highly qualified people who come here from other countries that we stick into taxis and janitor closets instead of letting them do what they trained for. We have plenty of professionals, just no desire to pay them. If we paid them what they deserved we could get through this safely & effectively. But since that's not gonna happen then we have to at least try to keep people alive & healthy as best we can.
posted by bleep at 9:32 AM on January 6, 2022 [9 favorites]
posted by bleep at 9:32 AM on January 6, 2022 [9 favorites]
Something to keep in mind when frustrated at parents who want to send their kids to school in the middle of a pandemic:
79% of Americans do not work from home. The percentage is higher for women, younger adults without seniority and people with lower incomes. The majority of parents fall into the category of people who cannot work for home. They are also at an income level that cannot afford to pay for supplemental child care so that they can go out to work.
This means that they are either leaving the children at home unattended, or getting friends and/or family to assist when the schools are closed. Getting friends and family to assist is likely to mean making only token efforts to practice social isolation, which in turn means that keeping their kids out of school does not confer any appreciable benefit over sending them to school in terms of cutting community transmission. If you covered last week by swapping play dates with the kid's second best friend, and this week by having your friend came over and next week it will be your elderly mother who is really too frail to be an effective childminder, you are not keeping to a two family bubble. For many families closing school does nothing to decrease their infection risk and only puts an enormous burden on households that had previously relied on government provided free childcare and free education and who are now not getting it.
When you can't comply with pandemic safety rules you stop trying very hard. I have seen this a LOT with people who work in public facing service jobs and parents who are scrambling to get someone in to watch the kids so they can go to work. If you interact with fifty customers during the day (some of whom are wearing their masks under their chin) and have two kids attending two different schools, if the schools are open at all, and when they are not you are playing musical babysitters, it feels draconian to not allow the seven year old a birthday party with the people he sees anyway during shared babysitting arrangements, and it feels stupidly over compliant to not run to the store for the fourth time this week when you run out of milk. They want the schools open because having them closed is not making their families safer.
posted by Jane the Brown at 9:36 AM on January 6, 2022 [51 favorites]
79% of Americans do not work from home. The percentage is higher for women, younger adults without seniority and people with lower incomes. The majority of parents fall into the category of people who cannot work for home. They are also at an income level that cannot afford to pay for supplemental child care so that they can go out to work.
This means that they are either leaving the children at home unattended, or getting friends and/or family to assist when the schools are closed. Getting friends and family to assist is likely to mean making only token efforts to practice social isolation, which in turn means that keeping their kids out of school does not confer any appreciable benefit over sending them to school in terms of cutting community transmission. If you covered last week by swapping play dates with the kid's second best friend, and this week by having your friend came over and next week it will be your elderly mother who is really too frail to be an effective childminder, you are not keeping to a two family bubble. For many families closing school does nothing to decrease their infection risk and only puts an enormous burden on households that had previously relied on government provided free childcare and free education and who are now not getting it.
When you can't comply with pandemic safety rules you stop trying very hard. I have seen this a LOT with people who work in public facing service jobs and parents who are scrambling to get someone in to watch the kids so they can go to work. If you interact with fifty customers during the day (some of whom are wearing their masks under their chin) and have two kids attending two different schools, if the schools are open at all, and when they are not you are playing musical babysitters, it feels draconian to not allow the seven year old a birthday party with the people he sees anyway during shared babysitting arrangements, and it feels stupidly over compliant to not run to the store for the fourth time this week when you run out of milk. They want the schools open because having them closed is not making their families safer.
posted by Jane the Brown at 9:36 AM on January 6, 2022 [51 favorites]
How many teachers and nurses do you think are required then?
The US has more primary teachers per child than: the G7 average, The UK, France, The Netherlands. Very close to the same as Finland.
Even countries like Germany which have higher ratios of teachers and which has a truly astounding number of ICU beds have had to bring in restrictions. As good an idea as it might be for the US to have more capacity in these areas, you cannot simply ignore the fact that in other countries which have very substantially more provision, while they have fared better, lockdown restrictions have still been required.
Also, I don't think you can suggest having enough teachers to do 1:3 ratios and then tell other people that *they* are the ones suggesting things that won't work but sure feel good. Especially as a solution to a pandemic that is happening right now. You would probably need more than a quintupling of the number of primary school teachers
posted by atrazine at 9:39 AM on January 6, 2022 [2 favorites]
The US has more primary teachers per child than: the G7 average, The UK, France, The Netherlands. Very close to the same as Finland.
Even countries like Germany which have higher ratios of teachers and which has a truly astounding number of ICU beds have had to bring in restrictions. As good an idea as it might be for the US to have more capacity in these areas, you cannot simply ignore the fact that in other countries which have very substantially more provision, while they have fared better, lockdown restrictions have still been required.
Also, I don't think you can suggest having enough teachers to do 1:3 ratios and then tell other people that *they* are the ones suggesting things that won't work but sure feel good. Especially as a solution to a pandemic that is happening right now. You would probably need more than a quintupling of the number of primary school teachers
posted by atrazine at 9:39 AM on January 6, 2022 [2 favorites]
I think only one of so many issues is that a school with unprecedented staffing shortages cannot be both the government's solution to full time child care AND a place for academic and social success. Schools are under so much pressure to "make up" for learning loss when some districts don't have barely enough staff to keep children fed and safe.
posted by nakedmolerats at 9:59 AM on January 6, 2022 [9 favorites]
posted by nakedmolerats at 9:59 AM on January 6, 2022 [9 favorites]
imagine they have said "eh, cooking and libraries aren't important, we can just do without them."
They did close libraries because of the pandemic. We don't have to imagine. We did have to do without them.
posted by AlSweigart at 10:03 AM on January 6, 2022 [14 favorites]
They did close libraries because of the pandemic. We don't have to imagine. We did have to do without them.
posted by AlSweigart at 10:03 AM on January 6, 2022 [14 favorites]
They did close libraries because of the pandemic. We don't have to imagine. We did have to do without them.
Yeah but nobody talks blithely about doing without them permanently. Whereas folks will easily say that bars and restaurants (apart from pickup/fast casual) should just be a relic of the past.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 10:06 AM on January 6, 2022 [6 favorites]
Yeah but nobody talks blithely about doing without them permanently. Whereas folks will easily say that bars and restaurants (apart from pickup/fast casual) should just be a relic of the past.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 10:06 AM on January 6, 2022 [6 favorites]
The Oxford study, the subsequent meta-analsyis, and a similar preprint from Penn State yesterday were all missing a control group. They’re not just bad science – they fail to meet the basic definition of science altogether.
This is such a strange belief about what science is. Science absolutely includes observational study. We desperately need more study on long Covid: prevalence, recovery, symptoms, risk factors and of course mechanisms, but to dismiss it all as just people having a headache is just silly.
Part of the problem, which we've seen with some other studies, is that it is very difficult to find a control group post-infection. The majority of infections are not confirmed with a PCR test, rapid tests are not that widely available in most countries and antibodies are not a reliable indicator after infection, as a significant portion of people do not seroconvert. If you just take a random sample of people who can't prove they had Covid (as one study recently did) and declare them your control group, you will certainly find your control group includes people who were infected and your results will be garbage. Even if you try to find people who swear they were never infected and test for antibodies, you'll still have a non-zero number of previously infected people in your control group, who had asymptomatic infection and no antibodies. This could and should be solved by selecting a group of people, testing them regularly, and following them for the next few years, but that is, of course, quite expensive.
There are definitely widely varying estimates of how many people have long Covid, which will of course depend on how you define it. I think it's likely there are probably three or more different illnesses lumped together. One is post intensive care syndrome for those who were intubated and such. Another seems very similar to ME/CFS, which is likely also frequently or entirely post-infectious. There are also a significant number of people who take a long time to recover their sense of smell and similar, which seems more like a localized issue.
Long Covid prevalence probably isn't 50% as some studies have claimed and it probably isn't 1%, as others have found. Right now, I think the best estimate we have is the UK ONS survey data, with half a million people self-reporting long Covid for a year or more. We don't know exactly how many Covid cases there were in the UK up to a year ago, but there were 1.7 million confirmed cases, so probably something like three times that many cases, which gives you a self-reported prevalence of about 10% after a year. Maybe some of those people have something else going on with their health, but there are clearly a lot of people with post-Covid illness.
It's pretty awful to dismiss those people just because there is no study with a control group.
posted by ssg at 10:10 AM on January 6, 2022 [22 favorites]
This is such a strange belief about what science is. Science absolutely includes observational study. We desperately need more study on long Covid: prevalence, recovery, symptoms, risk factors and of course mechanisms, but to dismiss it all as just people having a headache is just silly.
Part of the problem, which we've seen with some other studies, is that it is very difficult to find a control group post-infection. The majority of infections are not confirmed with a PCR test, rapid tests are not that widely available in most countries and antibodies are not a reliable indicator after infection, as a significant portion of people do not seroconvert. If you just take a random sample of people who can't prove they had Covid (as one study recently did) and declare them your control group, you will certainly find your control group includes people who were infected and your results will be garbage. Even if you try to find people who swear they were never infected and test for antibodies, you'll still have a non-zero number of previously infected people in your control group, who had asymptomatic infection and no antibodies. This could and should be solved by selecting a group of people, testing them regularly, and following them for the next few years, but that is, of course, quite expensive.
There are definitely widely varying estimates of how many people have long Covid, which will of course depend on how you define it. I think it's likely there are probably three or more different illnesses lumped together. One is post intensive care syndrome for those who were intubated and such. Another seems very similar to ME/CFS, which is likely also frequently or entirely post-infectious. There are also a significant number of people who take a long time to recover their sense of smell and similar, which seems more like a localized issue.
Long Covid prevalence probably isn't 50% as some studies have claimed and it probably isn't 1%, as others have found. Right now, I think the best estimate we have is the UK ONS survey data, with half a million people self-reporting long Covid for a year or more. We don't know exactly how many Covid cases there were in the UK up to a year ago, but there were 1.7 million confirmed cases, so probably something like three times that many cases, which gives you a self-reported prevalence of about 10% after a year. Maybe some of those people have something else going on with their health, but there are clearly a lot of people with post-Covid illness.
It's pretty awful to dismiss those people just because there is no study with a control group.
posted by ssg at 10:10 AM on January 6, 2022 [22 favorites]
It's insane that people are talking about "super-immunity" when one of the main concerns about omicron is that it evades previous infection- and vaccination-based protection (eg: so-called "super-immunity"). It's like they're pretending that there is no chance of another evasive variant.
posted by meowzilla at 10:14 AM on January 6, 2022 [8 favorites]
posted by meowzilla at 10:14 AM on January 6, 2022 [8 favorites]
Well, DirtyOldTown, the friends who scolded me for being so careless as to purchase groceries in person, the friends who would not even gather outdoors, post-vax, pre-Delta, ALSO have COVID. There's really just no point in making it a moral judgment anymore.
There is an argument to made that none of us can be sure how careful we should really be and that people doing their best shouldn't hector each other. There's another that even those of us who try to be conscientious are not likely to do so 100% of the the time and that any slack we leave may be enough to catch the virus. I got bullied into a half day in-office meeting and well, I'll let you know how that goes.
I am not certain I see any argument that vindicates the "Dude, why worry?" contingent. I hope we're all doing the math and managing our risk as best we are able, even if that guarantees nothing.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:14 AM on January 6, 2022 [8 favorites]
There is an argument to made that none of us can be sure how careful we should really be and that people doing their best shouldn't hector each other. There's another that even those of us who try to be conscientious are not likely to do so 100% of the the time and that any slack we leave may be enough to catch the virus. I got bullied into a half day in-office meeting and well, I'll let you know how that goes.
I am not certain I see any argument that vindicates the "Dude, why worry?" contingent. I hope we're all doing the math and managing our risk as best we are able, even if that guarantees nothing.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:14 AM on January 6, 2022 [8 favorites]
The authors of the meta-analysis concluded that a third and a fifth of those included in the studies experienced those symptoms.
They also include subgroup analysis showing no statistically significant difference for either fatigue or cognitive impairment for hospitalized versus non-hospitalized patients. I agree that it would be better if there were more studies with non-hospitalized patients, but the data we have so far doesn't indicate that long Covid is correlated to initial Covid severity (leaving aside people who have post intensive care syndrome).
posted by ssg at 10:22 AM on January 6, 2022 [5 favorites]
They also include subgroup analysis showing no statistically significant difference for either fatigue or cognitive impairment for hospitalized versus non-hospitalized patients. I agree that it would be better if there were more studies with non-hospitalized patients, but the data we have so far doesn't indicate that long Covid is correlated to initial Covid severity (leaving aside people who have post intensive care syndrome).
posted by ssg at 10:22 AM on January 6, 2022 [5 favorites]
Looking at the sum response of a D administration... wtf.
Between the I95 strandings, delivery dispatch in Kentucky feeding a tornado, and this mess the message appears to be: you're on your own to figure out when when a life threatening situation is approaching. Especially in an election year.
posted by Slackermagee at 10:35 AM on January 6, 2022 [5 favorites]
Between the I95 strandings, delivery dispatch in Kentucky feeding a tornado, and this mess the message appears to be: you're on your own to figure out when when a life threatening situation is approaching. Especially in an election year.
posted by Slackermagee at 10:35 AM on January 6, 2022 [5 favorites]
It's insane that people are talking about "super-immunity" when one of the main concerns about omicron is that it evades previous infection- and vaccination-based protection (eg: so-called "super-immunity"). It's like they're pretending that there is no chance of another evasive variant.
Well again I think this is a different story for the short/medium term versus the long term. Part of the “super immunity” story is that (in early in vitro tests of antibody neutralization, anyway) “hybrid immunity” held up much better against Omicron than a prior infection or double vaccination alone. It would be silly to bet that getting Omicron now, post-vax means you won’t get COVID again ever. Less so to bet that you won’t get it again within, say, a year.
posted by atoxyl at 10:38 AM on January 6, 2022
Well again I think this is a different story for the short/medium term versus the long term. Part of the “super immunity” story is that (in early in vitro tests of antibody neutralization, anyway) “hybrid immunity” held up much better against Omicron than a prior infection or double vaccination alone. It would be silly to bet that getting Omicron now, post-vax means you won’t get COVID again ever. Less so to bet that you won’t get it again within, say, a year.
posted by atoxyl at 10:38 AM on January 6, 2022
It's pretty awful to dismiss those people just because there is no study with a control group.That’s not at all what my comment said. I even bolded that point to make it very clear.
posted by schmod at 10:42 AM on January 6, 2022 [3 favorites]
I am not certain I see any argument that vindicates the "Dude, why worry?" contingent. I hope we're all doing the math and managing our risk as best we are able, even if that guarantees nothing.
DOT I apologize if I read a judgment into your original comment that wasn't intended. I don't think anyone should be scolding anyone short of, get vaccinated ASAP if you can, wear masks in public, follow distancing measures. I'm certainly not about to scold my friends for their extreme caution (and they have not scolded me for my lesser restriction).
It just struck my eye as saying, "serves them right for not being cautious" which...I understand that sentiment. But it will also be seen by, and hurt, people who are trying very, very hard to be safe (or whose lives do not allow them to isolate perfectly--like yourself) and have nonetheless gotten infected.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 10:43 AM on January 6, 2022 [1 favorite]
DOT I apologize if I read a judgment into your original comment that wasn't intended. I don't think anyone should be scolding anyone short of, get vaccinated ASAP if you can, wear masks in public, follow distancing measures. I'm certainly not about to scold my friends for their extreme caution (and they have not scolded me for my lesser restriction).
It just struck my eye as saying, "serves them right for not being cautious" which...I understand that sentiment. But it will also be seen by, and hurt, people who are trying very, very hard to be safe (or whose lives do not allow them to isolate perfectly--like yourself) and have nonetheless gotten infected.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 10:43 AM on January 6, 2022 [1 favorite]
the data we have so far doesn't indicate that long Covid is correlated to initial Covid severity (leaving aside people who have post intensive care syndrome
Are people who required intensive care excluded from the studies? If not, and if we’re taking as a given that post intensive care syndrome is a factor, shouldn’t we expect a correlation?
(I’ve seen several individual studies that do show a correlation. Generally symptoms are not confined to people who had severe cases, but they are more severe on average in people who had more severe cases.)
posted by atoxyl at 10:43 AM on January 6, 2022 [1 favorite]
Are people who required intensive care excluded from the studies? If not, and if we’re taking as a given that post intensive care syndrome is a factor, shouldn’t we expect a correlation?
(I’ve seen several individual studies that do show a correlation. Generally symptoms are not confined to people who had severe cases, but they are more severe on average in people who had more severe cases.)
posted by atoxyl at 10:43 AM on January 6, 2022 [1 favorite]
This could and should be solved by selecting a group of people, testing them regularly, and following them for the next few years, but that is, of course, quite expensive.
Hospital staffs?
posted by clew at 10:45 AM on January 6, 2022
Hospital staffs?
posted by clew at 10:45 AM on January 6, 2022
We know how to make schools safer. Good masks, mandatory vaccines, good air filtration, regular testing, smaller class sizes, and sensible contact-tracing definitions. These are all completely achievable right now, and almost nobody’s talking about doing any of it.
My 2nd grader's public elementary school in Santa Cruz, CA is doing all of these things (and a bit more, like outdoor lunch and banning all adults who aren't staff or well-vetted classroom volunteers from the buildings), except that mandatory vaccination is for staff/volunteers only. They ran a vaccine clinic for the kids less than a week after it was approved for 5-11s, and the vast majority of students made use of it.
The school has not been COVID-free, but it's been very limited and contained, so far. We'll see what happens with Omicron.
I'm in team "keep the schools open if at all possible" because my child's socialization really suffered with homeschooling/zoom-school (I was the primary parent for schooling at the time, and while my work suffered greatly for it, that's a tradeoff I'd gladly make... if that kind of schooling worked well for my child). He has an IEP for ADHD and some other adjacent issues, and absolutely needs a group setting at least part of the time.
We moved to Santa Cruz partially because the schools were planning for and then executing on their plans to build a COVID-safer in-person school. Previously we were in San Francisco, which did not make that a priority. I suspect that we are not alone.
posted by toxic at 10:57 AM on January 6, 2022 [5 favorites]
My 2nd grader's public elementary school in Santa Cruz, CA is doing all of these things (and a bit more, like outdoor lunch and banning all adults who aren't staff or well-vetted classroom volunteers from the buildings), except that mandatory vaccination is for staff/volunteers only. They ran a vaccine clinic for the kids less than a week after it was approved for 5-11s, and the vast majority of students made use of it.
The school has not been COVID-free, but it's been very limited and contained, so far. We'll see what happens with Omicron.
I'm in team "keep the schools open if at all possible" because my child's socialization really suffered with homeschooling/zoom-school (I was the primary parent for schooling at the time, and while my work suffered greatly for it, that's a tradeoff I'd gladly make... if that kind of schooling worked well for my child). He has an IEP for ADHD and some other adjacent issues, and absolutely needs a group setting at least part of the time.
We moved to Santa Cruz partially because the schools were planning for and then executing on their plans to build a COVID-safer in-person school. Previously we were in San Francisco, which did not make that a priority. I suspect that we are not alone.
posted by toxic at 10:57 AM on January 6, 2022 [5 favorites]
This is the lowest suicide mortality rate in a decade (Twitter Thread.)
posted by warriorqueen at 10:59 AM on January 6, 2022 [8 favorites]
posted by warriorqueen at 10:59 AM on January 6, 2022 [8 favorites]
Are people who required intensive care excluded from the studies? If not, and if we’re taking as a given that post intensive care syndrome is a factor, shouldn’t we expect a correlation?
Yeah we definitely can't underestimate the impact of long term intubation and sedation in the ICU here. I've seen first hand how devastating that experience can be. Some people never really get over it mentally, and it can have physical impacts for years, especially strain on the heart.
posted by dis_integration at 11:00 AM on January 6, 2022 [5 favorites]
Yeah we definitely can't underestimate the impact of long term intubation and sedation in the ICU here. I've seen first hand how devastating that experience can be. Some people never really get over it mentally, and it can have physical impacts for years, especially strain on the heart.
posted by dis_integration at 11:00 AM on January 6, 2022 [5 favorites]
Something to keep in mind when frustrated at parents who want to send their kids to school in the middle of a pandemic
For the record I don't think anyone is frustrated at parents. I'm certainly not. I'm frustrated at the idea that anyone has to throw themselves under the bus to keep the money wheels turning. All of our lives are worth more than this. We have to figure something out.
posted by bleep at 11:12 AM on January 6, 2022 [8 favorites]
For the record I don't think anyone is frustrated at parents. I'm certainly not. I'm frustrated at the idea that anyone has to throw themselves under the bus to keep the money wheels turning. All of our lives are worth more than this. We have to figure something out.
posted by bleep at 11:12 AM on January 6, 2022 [8 favorites]
They also include subgroup analysis showing no statistically significant difference for either fatigue or cognitive impairment for hospitalized versus non-hospitalized patients. I agree that it would be better if there were more studies with non-hospitalized patients, but the data we have so far doesn't indicate that long Covid is correlated to initial Covid severity (leaving aside people who have post intensive care syndrome).
I know. I read the study. The authors decided to include the limitation I mentioned despite that result. There is a reason science utilizes experimental procedures like random samples and control groups. We shouldn't ignore the people suffering from long-COVID. There is a place for non-experimental study designs in science. At the same time, we shouldn't scare people with inflated estimates of prevalence and incidence from such studies. If we could just rely on correlations, Vitamin D supplements likely could end the pandemic.
Also, on an unrelated (but maybe not) note, the American Academy of Pediatrics has been consistent from almost the start of the pandemic that in-person schooling (with proper protections) is needed. Link from summer 2020 This statement from the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia reaffirms this view after the emergence of Omicron: Link.
This is the lowest suicide mortality rate in a decade (Twitter Thread.)
In the US, suicide attempts increased amongst individuals 12 - 25, especially amongst young woman.
posted by eagles123 at 11:16 AM on January 6, 2022 [3 favorites]
I know. I read the study. The authors decided to include the limitation I mentioned despite that result. There is a reason science utilizes experimental procedures like random samples and control groups. We shouldn't ignore the people suffering from long-COVID. There is a place for non-experimental study designs in science. At the same time, we shouldn't scare people with inflated estimates of prevalence and incidence from such studies. If we could just rely on correlations, Vitamin D supplements likely could end the pandemic.
Also, on an unrelated (but maybe not) note, the American Academy of Pediatrics has been consistent from almost the start of the pandemic that in-person schooling (with proper protections) is needed. Link from summer 2020 This statement from the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia reaffirms this view after the emergence of Omicron: Link.
This is the lowest suicide mortality rate in a decade (Twitter Thread.)
In the US, suicide attempts increased amongst individuals 12 - 25, especially amongst young woman.
posted by eagles123 at 11:16 AM on January 6, 2022 [3 favorites]
If all of the teachers are out sick then how can you keep a school open.
In the San Francisco school district, there were 693 requests for substitute teachers yesterday.
posted by Lexica at 11:28 AM on January 6, 2022 [3 favorites]
In the San Francisco school district, there were 693 requests for substitute teachers yesterday.
posted by Lexica at 11:28 AM on January 6, 2022 [3 favorites]
Exactly why it really rubs me the wrong way to hear people DEMANDING something - that all school must be in person - that in the current state of affairs - an ongoing pandemic where people are sick, dying, and contagious- is physical impossible. We have to figure something else out.
posted by bleep at 11:34 AM on January 6, 2022 [8 favorites]
posted by bleep at 11:34 AM on January 6, 2022 [8 favorites]
Having online schooling is bad. Having in-person schooling where everyone is getting sick is bad. ALL CHOICES ARE BAD. You have to pick your least bad option, and as far as I can tell, online schooling, no matter how awful/scarring/not as good/whatever it is, is less bad than the entire first grade class and teacher getting Covid.
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:41 AM on January 6, 2022 [16 favorites]
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:41 AM on January 6, 2022 [16 favorites]
It’s a false dichotomy, though. There are plenty of options between 100% remote and 100% in-person, and there’s a lot that we could be doing (but aren’t) to make in-person learning safe.
posted by schmod at 11:45 AM on January 6, 2022 [9 favorites]
posted by schmod at 11:45 AM on January 6, 2022 [9 favorites]
At the same time, we shouldn't scare people with inflated estimates of prevalence and incidence from such studies.
Well, the fundamental problem is we don't know exactly what the prevalence of long Covid is. But we can reasonably conclude it's probably not 2% and it's probably not 50%. I'm not citing the studies with the highest estimates here, but presenting a selection of data I think is reasonable with middle of the road estimates.
Even if long Covid incidence is only around 10%, our public health policies are clearly insufficient if we're letting so many people become ill in the long term, potentially permanently. We need to start taking long Covid into account instead of just hospitalizations and deaths. This isn't about scaring people, it's about protecting public health. We need to take action based on the data we have available to us, even if it is imperfect.
posted by ssg at 11:58 AM on January 6, 2022 [3 favorites]
Well, the fundamental problem is we don't know exactly what the prevalence of long Covid is. But we can reasonably conclude it's probably not 2% and it's probably not 50%. I'm not citing the studies with the highest estimates here, but presenting a selection of data I think is reasonable with middle of the road estimates.
Even if long Covid incidence is only around 10%, our public health policies are clearly insufficient if we're letting so many people become ill in the long term, potentially permanently. We need to start taking long Covid into account instead of just hospitalizations and deaths. This isn't about scaring people, it's about protecting public health. We need to take action based on the data we have available to us, even if it is imperfect.
posted by ssg at 11:58 AM on January 6, 2022 [3 favorites]
Well, the fundamental problem is we don't know exactly what the prevalence of long Covid is.
I’d argue the bigger problem is we don’t know what it is (or, uh, how long is long). As a disease process clearly we don’t but more than that I mean even the definition is unclear. I know you talked about this yourself in the thread, I think your comments about this are quite good. Just as a point of clarifying the nature of the problem of even trying to assess risk, one can’t really do so without somehow putting together prevalence of symptoms, duration of symptoms and severity of symptoms.
posted by atoxyl at 12:07 PM on January 6, 2022 [3 favorites]
I’d argue the bigger problem is we don’t know what it is (or, uh, how long is long). As a disease process clearly we don’t but more than that I mean even the definition is unclear. I know you talked about this yourself in the thread, I think your comments about this are quite good. Just as a point of clarifying the nature of the problem of even trying to assess risk, one can’t really do so without somehow putting together prevalence of symptoms, duration of symptoms and severity of symptoms.
posted by atoxyl at 12:07 PM on January 6, 2022 [3 favorites]
Re: long covid.
I just came across this recent article about some research out of South Africa that may shed some light on the root causes of the condition.
posted by theorique at 12:46 PM on January 6, 2022 [2 favorites]
I just came across this recent article about some research out of South Africa that may shed some light on the root causes of the condition.
posted by theorique at 12:46 PM on January 6, 2022 [2 favorites]
Well, the fundamental problem is we don't know exactly what the prevalence of long Covid is. But we can reasonably conclude it's probably not 2% and it's probably not 50%. I'm not citing the studies with the highest estimates here, but presenting a selection of data I think is reasonable with middle of the road estimates.
It becomes a problem when reported long-covid symptoms amongst individuals who test positive for COVID are only marginally higher than those amongst COVID negative controls. I am not suggesting long covid doesn't exist or that we shouldn't address it. I am suggesting, however, that high estimates are problematic in light of this fact. More information on measuring long COVID.
posted by eagles123 at 12:53 PM on January 6, 2022 [7 favorites]
It becomes a problem when reported long-covid symptoms amongst individuals who test positive for COVID are only marginally higher than those amongst COVID negative controls. I am not suggesting long covid doesn't exist or that we shouldn't address it. I am suggesting, however, that high estimates are problematic in light of this fact. More information on measuring long COVID.
posted by eagles123 at 12:53 PM on January 6, 2022 [7 favorites]
You have to pick your least bad option, and as far as I can tell, online schooling, no matter how awful/scarring/not as good/whatever it is, is less bad than the entire first grade class and teacher getting Covid.
My kids have been in school since August and 4 kids (of 400 in the school) got COVID bad enough to require being tested for it, and a few staff members did too. So it really depends on community spread if a few or all are going to get it, and community spread is different in every community.
posted by The_Vegetables at 1:01 PM on January 6, 2022 [2 favorites]
My kids have been in school since August and 4 kids (of 400 in the school) got COVID bad enough to require being tested for it, and a few staff members did too. So it really depends on community spread if a few or all are going to get it, and community spread is different in every community.
posted by The_Vegetables at 1:01 PM on January 6, 2022 [2 favorites]
Also, that 50% estimate includes anyone who reported any mild symptom after 6 months. The list includes things like “headache” and “fatigue”
Frankly, given those criteria, 50% seems too low, calling their methodology even further into question.
Like I said (literally in bold), we should take long COVID seriously, and believe patients about their symptoms. However, this particular study does not make a very good case for the (rather alarming!) numbers that it produced.
It’s fine for us to call out bad science, even when the results agree with our beliefs.
posted by schmod at 1:02 PM on January 6, 2022 [9 favorites]
Frankly, given those criteria, 50% seems too low, calling their methodology even further into question.
Like I said (literally in bold), we should take long COVID seriously, and believe patients about their symptoms. However, this particular study does not make a very good case for the (rather alarming!) numbers that it produced.
It’s fine for us to call out bad science, even when the results agree with our beliefs.
posted by schmod at 1:02 PM on January 6, 2022 [9 favorites]
DetriusXii: We're saddling our next generation with costs that they didn't receive the majority of benefit from.I dream of a grand bargain:
COVID and its mitigations both have costs that affect everybody, but the toll of COVID falls especially on the older generations. Climate change and its mitigations both have costs that affect everybody, but the toll of climate change will fall mainly on the younger generations. In exchange for all the sacrifices that young people are expected to make in the face of COVID, boomers should be expected to finally get it together and make real sacrifices to fight climate change.
Wishful thinking, I know...
posted by mbrubeck at 1:13 PM on January 6, 2022 [5 favorites]
Or, on the other hand, you could drip with contempt and just LOL that these asshole parents probs just don't even like their shitty kids
Well this doesn't read as very charitable to me. I very specifically did not totalize and I couched it as my suspicion (which I also italicized then) in order to place the entire statement within my personal imagination. I didn't call my Senator. I didn't say you hate your kids! There is a lot of black & white thinking in this thread and a lot of black & white interpretation too.
And you can complain about MeFi'ers being indoor kids who pulled the dirty trick of being capable of enduring isolation. Hey, maybe that's a good topic, about whether the complaint discourse is being driven by hyper-social extroverts who aren't able to go to their favorite nightclub anymore and guess who talks loudest in any survey/civic meeting they find themselves? Ah, the uncharitable doesn't seem so great now.
79% of Americans do not work from home. The percentage is higher for women, younger adults without seniority and people with lower incomes. The majority of parents fall into the category of people who cannot work for home. They are also at an income level that cannot afford to pay for supplemental child care so that they can go out to work.
And for those who have to face the public and/or work in close quarters, like grocery clerks and restaurant workers and field workers (not to mention medical and bureaucratic staff)? I've been saying since about May 1, 2020 that they should be getting hazard pay. Like, relatively life-changing amounts like $50,000-100,000, and not only for those working 40hrs/wk. They have been much more essential workers than half of every police department and all the other jobsworth goldbrickers.
posted by rhizome at 1:36 PM on January 6, 2022 [10 favorites]
Well this doesn't read as very charitable to me. I very specifically did not totalize and I couched it as my suspicion (which I also italicized then) in order to place the entire statement within my personal imagination. I didn't call my Senator. I didn't say you hate your kids! There is a lot of black & white thinking in this thread and a lot of black & white interpretation too.
And you can complain about MeFi'ers being indoor kids who pulled the dirty trick of being capable of enduring isolation. Hey, maybe that's a good topic, about whether the complaint discourse is being driven by hyper-social extroverts who aren't able to go to their favorite nightclub anymore and guess who talks loudest in any survey/civic meeting they find themselves? Ah, the uncharitable doesn't seem so great now.
79% of Americans do not work from home. The percentage is higher for women, younger adults without seniority and people with lower incomes. The majority of parents fall into the category of people who cannot work for home. They are also at an income level that cannot afford to pay for supplemental child care so that they can go out to work.
And for those who have to face the public and/or work in close quarters, like grocery clerks and restaurant workers and field workers (not to mention medical and bureaucratic staff)? I've been saying since about May 1, 2020 that they should be getting hazard pay. Like, relatively life-changing amounts like $50,000-100,000, and not only for those working 40hrs/wk. They have been much more essential workers than half of every police department and all the other jobsworth goldbrickers.
posted by rhizome at 1:36 PM on January 6, 2022 [10 favorites]
Calling something a suspicion or a personal imagination doesn't make it any less offensive - I'm sure you can use your personal imagination to see how well that would go over for any other statement that disparages a certain group (particularly one under unusual strain from the pandemic).
The strain on working parents is also not solved by wishing someone would give every minimum wage frontline worker a life-changing amount of money. Why not be more generous and imagine we're making them all millionaires? It's equally likely to happen.
posted by randomnity at 2:12 PM on January 6, 2022 [6 favorites]
The strain on working parents is also not solved by wishing someone would give every minimum wage frontline worker a life-changing amount of money. Why not be more generous and imagine we're making them all millionaires? It's equally likely to happen.
posted by randomnity at 2:12 PM on January 6, 2022 [6 favorites]
@whstancil: people say "we have to do cost-benefit analysis on covid mitigations," which sounds very reasonable, and then they say "okay, let's assume the cost of school closures is infinity"
posted by DirtyOldTown at 2:23 PM on January 6, 2022 [11 favorites]
posted by DirtyOldTown at 2:23 PM on January 6, 2022 [11 favorites]
And for those who have to face the public and/or work in close quarters, like grocery clerks and restaurant workers and field workers (not to mention medical and bureaucratic staff)
Many of whom are…parents. There are undoubtedly extrovert parents and introvert parents and antivax parents and parents who signed their kids up for vaccine trials.
posted by warriorqueen at 2:29 PM on January 6, 2022 [1 favorite]
Many of whom are…parents. There are undoubtedly extrovert parents and introvert parents and antivax parents and parents who signed their kids up for vaccine trials.
posted by warriorqueen at 2:29 PM on January 6, 2022 [1 favorite]
You know, I'm an indoor kid who pulled the dirty trick of being able to endure isolation. I haven't had an in-person social interaction at all since March of 2020. Haven't seen any family, don't have any friends (anymore). How much you need social interaction is definitely a spectrum, and I do think we have to have some sympathy for the extroverts and hyper-extroverts because socially, this shit is starting to get a little tiring, even for me.
posted by mrgoat at 2:30 PM on January 6, 2022 [27 favorites]
posted by mrgoat at 2:30 PM on January 6, 2022 [27 favorites]
Admittedly I haven't read everything and just did some key word searches, but really, no mention of Medicare for All yet? (I realize this is a distinctly American problem and not everyone here is American, but since the article in the OP is US-centric....)
I'm not sure why there hasn't been more chatter lately about Medicare for All. Like, maybe more teachers would be willing to be in classrooms right now if they didn't have to worry about potentially losing their job if they developed long-term symptoms, and thus losing their health insurance (and, perhaps their family's health insurance). Like one of atrazine's comments points to, the vast lack of a social safety net in the US makes the risk of public-facing employees all the more untenable right now. Of course, many continue to work because they have no choice - but I certainly don't blame teachers for taking advantage of being in a union.
posted by coffeecat at 2:37 PM on January 6, 2022 [6 favorites]
I'm not sure why there hasn't been more chatter lately about Medicare for All. Like, maybe more teachers would be willing to be in classrooms right now if they didn't have to worry about potentially losing their job if they developed long-term symptoms, and thus losing their health insurance (and, perhaps their family's health insurance). Like one of atrazine's comments points to, the vast lack of a social safety net in the US makes the risk of public-facing employees all the more untenable right now. Of course, many continue to work because they have no choice - but I certainly don't blame teachers for taking advantage of being in a union.
posted by coffeecat at 2:37 PM on January 6, 2022 [6 favorites]
“If only we had socialized medicine, teachers would be more willing to risk permanent disability” is not the brilliant leftist take that you think it is.
(Also, unionized teachers likely have reasonably-good disability insurance. I don’t think this is factoring into anybody’s decision-making process)
posted by schmod at 3:03 PM on January 6, 2022 [9 favorites]
(Also, unionized teachers likely have reasonably-good disability insurance. I don’t think this is factoring into anybody’s decision-making process)
posted by schmod at 3:03 PM on January 6, 2022 [9 favorites]
"Should I just get dying from CovID behind me so I can move on with my life?"
posted by dgeiser13 at 3:15 PM on January 6, 2022 [7 favorites]
posted by dgeiser13 at 3:15 PM on January 6, 2022 [7 favorites]
It becomes a problem when reported long-covid symptoms amongst individuals who test positive for COVID are only marginally higher than those amongst COVID negative controls.
Well, that's a meta-analysis of studies of symptoms in children and youth, not adults. It is pretty clear that long Covid is a lot less common in children and youth than adults (though it certainly happens). So pointing to it as general evidence is quite misleading.
But I also discussed earlier in this thread the difficulties of using seronegative controls (since a significant portion of the infected don't seroconvert), which is what most of the studies in that analysis did. The study using ZOE data has also been heavily criticized for failing to account for their very high dropout rate. In general, it's important to look at the statistical power of the studies, not just if they found significant results. If the study doesn't have enough participants to reach any solid conclusions, then a finding of non-statistical significance certainly doesn't mean that something isn't there. If you're looking for evidence of long Covid in kids, you'd need a lot more data because I don't think there is going to be that strong of a signal.
posted by ssg at 3:18 PM on January 6, 2022
Well, that's a meta-analysis of studies of symptoms in children and youth, not adults. It is pretty clear that long Covid is a lot less common in children and youth than adults (though it certainly happens). So pointing to it as general evidence is quite misleading.
But I also discussed earlier in this thread the difficulties of using seronegative controls (since a significant portion of the infected don't seroconvert), which is what most of the studies in that analysis did. The study using ZOE data has also been heavily criticized for failing to account for their very high dropout rate. In general, it's important to look at the statistical power of the studies, not just if they found significant results. If the study doesn't have enough participants to reach any solid conclusions, then a finding of non-statistical significance certainly doesn't mean that something isn't there. If you're looking for evidence of long Covid in kids, you'd need a lot more data because I don't think there is going to be that strong of a signal.
posted by ssg at 3:18 PM on January 6, 2022
“If only we had socialized medicine, teachers would be more willing to risk permanent disability”
Can we agree on Metafilter not to use quotation marks unless you're actually quoting another user? And not, you know, twisting their words into an argument they clearly didn't make...that's the kind of behavior I expect on Twitter and elsewhere, but would rather avoid on here if possible. Thanks. (Apologies if this is more appropriate for MetaTalk)
Anyway, in case it wasn't clear, I support the teachers' unions, not only because our health system is shit, but because our government underinvests in education - this is why I referenced atrazine's comments who, among others, have pointed out why the US hasn't been able to address this situation as well as other countries.
(Side note: many teachers do get good health insurance for their whole family, which disability won't cover.)
posted by coffeecat at 3:22 PM on January 6, 2022 [6 favorites]
Can we agree on Metafilter not to use quotation marks unless you're actually quoting another user? And not, you know, twisting their words into an argument they clearly didn't make...that's the kind of behavior I expect on Twitter and elsewhere, but would rather avoid on here if possible. Thanks. (Apologies if this is more appropriate for MetaTalk)
Anyway, in case it wasn't clear, I support the teachers' unions, not only because our health system is shit, but because our government underinvests in education - this is why I referenced atrazine's comments who, among others, have pointed out why the US hasn't been able to address this situation as well as other countries.
(Side note: many teachers do get good health insurance for their whole family, which disability won't cover.)
posted by coffeecat at 3:22 PM on January 6, 2022 [6 favorites]
The ‘it’s all in your head' crowd has definitely come a cropper with long Covid, and in my opinion no comeuppance in recent memory has been more richly deserved.
One plausible candidate for a cause of long Covid is autoantibodies (antibodies against the body's own tissues) which continue to be produced by the immune system in the wake of a Covid infection, and which seem to stem from similarities between tissue proteins and proteins of the virus — a phenomenon known as molecular mimicry:
One plausible candidate for a cause of long Covid is autoantibodies (antibodies against the body's own tissues) which continue to be produced by the immune system in the wake of a Covid infection, and which seem to stem from similarities between tissue proteins and proteins of the virus — a phenomenon known as molecular mimicry:
As reported by Guglielmo Lucchese in The Lancet Microbe,2 SARS-CoV-2 can damage the nervous system via an indirect mechanism, resulting in a high prevalence of autoantibodies, mainly against unknown autoantigens in the brain, in cerebrospinal fluid from patients with neurological complications.2 The cause of low vagal tone and SARS-CoV-2 has not yet been investigated sufficiently and here we would like to share some original data supporting the putative role of molecular mimicry as the culprit of COVID-19 pathogenesis, including the post-COVID-19 neurovegetative syndrome.2, 3, 4, 5posted by jamjam at 3:28 PM on January 6, 2022 [4 favorites]
I think the comment above about the USA being a failed state is really where it's at. Here we all are, griping at each other about our personal choices because there really aren't any government measures in place to cope with COVID actively. The coping has been foisted on the healthcare system, and the damage of that choice is apparent.
I'm in Germany ATM, and you simply can't enter a single building or outdoor event without using the CovPass app, which has a unique QR code stating your up-to-date vaccine status or recently recovered status, plus your government issued ID to confirm that this is in fact your phone matching your records. Nobody makes a fuss about this, anyone at the door does the job of checking people's status. I went to a random pharmacy and got my shitty cardstock CDC vaccine card transcribed into my unique QR code, which took about 3 minutes and I did at a train station apothecary. Prior to getting my QR code sorted, I showed my CDC card and always apologized for how shitty the card was, for how unprofessional and janky this super important document was.
It's been hard to transition feeling comfortable eating and drinking in public again, but I console myself knowing that every individual in the room has been vaccinated or recently recovered and there is no grey area around that specific piece. There is another Covid contact tracing app here too, Luca, so you can scan a location's unique QR code and check in to that area, thus opting in for updates if anyone you were close to that day at that location later tested positive for COVID.
On top of that, antigen tests are 4.95€ at any pharmacy, and are available at all of them. There are walk up testing sites everywhere, literally everywhere, with the frequency of like, McDonald's. And most often the tests are free.
Plus, people get paid sick time off here.
Everyone wears masks, aside from when eating and drinking in 2G spaces.
Seriously, the USA is a failed state.
All of the "we can'ts" for why we haven't implemented the above in the USA are just excuses. Our government needs to pull itself up by its bootstraps and just get the job done and quit making excuses, the way us poors are told to do. It can succeed if it truly wants to, right?
posted by erattacorrige at 3:28 PM on January 6, 2022 [51 favorites]
I'm in Germany ATM, and you simply can't enter a single building or outdoor event without using the CovPass app, which has a unique QR code stating your up-to-date vaccine status or recently recovered status, plus your government issued ID to confirm that this is in fact your phone matching your records. Nobody makes a fuss about this, anyone at the door does the job of checking people's status. I went to a random pharmacy and got my shitty cardstock CDC vaccine card transcribed into my unique QR code, which took about 3 minutes and I did at a train station apothecary. Prior to getting my QR code sorted, I showed my CDC card and always apologized for how shitty the card was, for how unprofessional and janky this super important document was.
It's been hard to transition feeling comfortable eating and drinking in public again, but I console myself knowing that every individual in the room has been vaccinated or recently recovered and there is no grey area around that specific piece. There is another Covid contact tracing app here too, Luca, so you can scan a location's unique QR code and check in to that area, thus opting in for updates if anyone you were close to that day at that location later tested positive for COVID.
On top of that, antigen tests are 4.95€ at any pharmacy, and are available at all of them. There are walk up testing sites everywhere, literally everywhere, with the frequency of like, McDonald's. And most often the tests are free.
Plus, people get paid sick time off here.
Everyone wears masks, aside from when eating and drinking in 2G spaces.
Seriously, the USA is a failed state.
All of the "we can'ts" for why we haven't implemented the above in the USA are just excuses. Our government needs to pull itself up by its bootstraps and just get the job done and quit making excuses, the way us poors are told to do. It can succeed if it truly wants to, right?
posted by erattacorrige at 3:28 PM on January 6, 2022 [51 favorites]
Here in Ontario we have universal health care and I remember speaking with teacher friends in the summer of 2020 that were freaking out about going back to school that September (our schools went online in March 2020 and stayed that way for the rest of the school year). It is great to have health care if you need it and know it won't bankrupt you but no one wants to get sick, especially if there's a decent chance it could lead to death or long-term effects.
The things in a school that are needed to keep teachers and students "safe" would be increased ventilation, N95 masks, and significantly lower student density whether that's by putting the same amount of students in larger rooms or putting fewer students in the current rooms. We did none of those here, even though we've had almost 2 years where we've known what needs to be done, and I'm pretty sure that if our schools didn't go virtual after the winter holidays ended then pretty much every school would become an outbreak site.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 3:30 PM on January 6, 2022 [4 favorites]
The things in a school that are needed to keep teachers and students "safe" would be increased ventilation, N95 masks, and significantly lower student density whether that's by putting the same amount of students in larger rooms or putting fewer students in the current rooms. We did none of those here, even though we've had almost 2 years where we've known what needs to be done, and I'm pretty sure that if our schools didn't go virtual after the winter holidays ended then pretty much every school would become an outbreak site.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 3:30 PM on January 6, 2022 [4 favorites]
One plausible candidate for a cause of long Covid is autoantibodies
This is quite similar to guillain barre syndrome. I wonder if intravenous immunoglobulin or plasmapheresis have been studied at all in treating long covid.
posted by mrgoat at 3:33 PM on January 6, 2022
This is quite similar to guillain barre syndrome. I wonder if intravenous immunoglobulin or plasmapheresis have been studied at all in treating long covid.
posted by mrgoat at 3:33 PM on January 6, 2022
SSG - Read the other links I posted from the Uk government that look at adults as well. It’s in the same post you responded to.
posted by eagles123 at 3:54 PM on January 6, 2022
posted by eagles123 at 3:54 PM on January 6, 2022
I do think we have to have some sympathy for the extroverts and hyper-extroverts because socially, this shit is starting to get a little tiring, even for me.
Having access to a large enough outdoor space to accommodate the occasional friend cocktails at a safe distance in a mild climate has been a real godsend for this extrovert. Also there's a way you can angle a fire pit just right so for shared warmth at an outdoor screening of a wintertime blockbuster in someone's driveway with spaced out camp chairs. Insulated mugs are great for hot toddies, especially if you're not going too far. In some ways I've come out of this year closer to my friends than ever before, despite having seen them less . Sixteen months straight of Friday night Zoom cocktails will do that for a person, as well as regular phone calls, emails, texts and Facetime. I don't think I've ever been quite so familiar with everyone in my life's mental health, their family's mental health and how well or not well a bunch of wildly overeducated lefty records and novels type persons handle a historic crisis that still manages to feel like the end of the world at least once a week, depending on what headlines you read. I've even managed to hug most of them between vaccines and variants. But yes, getting old. Getting so old. Getting so, so, so, so old. I keep waiting to get used to it. I keep waiting for my heart to stop breaking. I keep waiting to not wake up afraid that I'm suffocating from worry and loneliness for myself, for the people I love, for my community that I care so much about . . . well, for most everybody. I've always thought that vague and abstract hope is pretty weak sauce when it comes to surviving the hard times, but if that's all we got right now, then sign me up for whatever you got. Because there are a lot of us who are hanging on in various flavors of barely . Signed, A Real Deal, Honest-To God Extrovert
posted by thivaia at 4:31 PM on January 6, 2022 [16 favorites]
Having access to a large enough outdoor space to accommodate the occasional friend cocktails at a safe distance in a mild climate has been a real godsend for this extrovert. Also there's a way you can angle a fire pit just right so for shared warmth at an outdoor screening of a wintertime blockbuster in someone's driveway with spaced out camp chairs. Insulated mugs are great for hot toddies, especially if you're not going too far. In some ways I've come out of this year closer to my friends than ever before, despite having seen them less . Sixteen months straight of Friday night Zoom cocktails will do that for a person, as well as regular phone calls, emails, texts and Facetime. I don't think I've ever been quite so familiar with everyone in my life's mental health, their family's mental health and how well or not well a bunch of wildly overeducated lefty records and novels type persons handle a historic crisis that still manages to feel like the end of the world at least once a week, depending on what headlines you read. I've even managed to hug most of them between vaccines and variants. But yes, getting old. Getting so old. Getting so, so, so, so old. I keep waiting to get used to it. I keep waiting for my heart to stop breaking. I keep waiting to not wake up afraid that I'm suffocating from worry and loneliness for myself, for the people I love, for my community that I care so much about . . . well, for most everybody. I've always thought that vague and abstract hope is pretty weak sauce when it comes to surviving the hard times, but if that's all we got right now, then sign me up for whatever you got. Because there are a lot of us who are hanging on in various flavors of barely . Signed, A Real Deal, Honest-To God Extrovert
posted by thivaia at 4:31 PM on January 6, 2022 [16 favorites]
Yes, the boat hit the iceberg, but putting the children in lifeboats is the most destructive thing imaginable to their psyche. It's time for us to stop all this evacuation talk and just complete the voyage.
posted by schmod at 5:53 PM on January 6, 2022 [23 favorites]
posted by schmod at 5:53 PM on January 6, 2022 [23 favorites]
I'm still isolating as best as I can in my apartment in my building because I can but let me tell you there is a hell of a lot of coughing noise coming from inside the other apartments on my floor every time I have to walk down the hall. Like a lot. And a lot of delivery people are dropping meals off at apartment doors now which they never did much of before.
posted by srboisvert at 6:40 PM on January 6, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by srboisvert at 6:40 PM on January 6, 2022 [4 favorites]
The things in a school that are needed to keep teachers and students "safe" would be increased ventilation, N95 masks, and significantly lower student density whether that's by putting the same amount of students in larger rooms or putting fewer students in the current rooms. We did none of those here, even though we've had almost 2 years where we've known what needs to be done, and I'm pretty sure that if our schools didn't go virtual after the winter holidays ended then pretty much every school would become an outbreak site.
The crazy thing is that America managed to adapt better to the WWI flu. They actually setup for outdoor schooling, purpose built ventilated temporary school houses and held classes in the summer when it was feasible to be outdoors in the colder climes. North America's current response was to pretend it was all temporary and going to magically go away for ...667 days and counting now..
posted by srboisvert at 6:43 PM on January 6, 2022 [13 favorites]
The crazy thing is that America managed to adapt better to the WWI flu. They actually setup for outdoor schooling, purpose built ventilated temporary school houses and held classes in the summer when it was feasible to be outdoors in the colder climes. North America's current response was to pretend it was all temporary and going to magically go away for ...667 days and counting now..
posted by srboisvert at 6:43 PM on January 6, 2022 [13 favorites]
Interesting sign - Rudy Gobert, the first NBA player to be confirmed positive at the start of the pandemic, is out on COVID protocols again.
posted by atoxyl at 7:17 PM on January 6, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by atoxyl at 7:17 PM on January 6, 2022 [2 favorites]
Nothing to add except anecdotal evidence. Stories. Good night. Dreams are good medicine.
posted by kozad at 7:39 PM on January 6, 2022
posted by kozad at 7:39 PM on January 6, 2022
North America's current response was to pretend it was all temporary and going to magically go away for ...667 days and counting now..
It's pretty much been a four-weeks-at-a-time strategy from day one until now, with predictable results.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:35 PM on January 6, 2022
It's pretty much been a four-weeks-at-a-time strategy from day one until now, with predictable results.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:35 PM on January 6, 2022
It's like they don't understand that death is permanent.
Religiosity is a staple of the Herman Cain awards. No one ever dies, God takes them home.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 8:44 PM on January 6, 2022 [7 favorites]
Religiosity is a staple of the Herman Cain awards. No one ever dies, God takes them home.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 8:44 PM on January 6, 2022 [7 favorites]
It sounds almost apocalyptic in NYC public schools right now.
I understand parents are under a lot of pressure, but how can you honestly send your children into that.
posted by zymil at 11:34 PM on January 6, 2022 [10 favorites]
I understand parents are under a lot of pressure, but how can you honestly send your children into that.
posted by zymil at 11:34 PM on January 6, 2022 [10 favorites]
The crazy thing is that America managed to adapt better to the WWI flu. They actually setup for outdoor schooling, purpose built ventilated temporary school houses and held classes in the summer when it was feasible to be outdoors in the colder climes.
The 1998 PBS documentary American Experience: Influenza 1918 is an hour's worth of eye opening historical relevance.
posted by fairmettle at 11:51 PM on January 6, 2022 [5 favorites]
The 1998 PBS documentary American Experience: Influenza 1918 is an hour's worth of eye opening historical relevance.
posted by fairmettle at 11:51 PM on January 6, 2022 [5 favorites]
I think the comment above about the USA being a failed state is really where it's at.
Well, maybe, except that we need to note that even the level of measures that other countries have taken successfully is not necessarily enough to prevent the spread of Omicron.
England has the universal free testing, the government will send antibody tests to your house and except very recently they have been easy to get. Also *very* high vaccine coverage including boosters in the most vulnerable cohorts. So we know that this alone isn't enough.
Scotland is the same except they maintained mandatory public masking in many contexts and had other restrictions. You can see the effect in that there was *slightly* less covid in Scotland but it is also not enough to stop the spread.
The UK has no anti-vax or anti-science (on this) mainstream political movements and barely even individual politicians. There are those who disagree on where tradeoffs between control of the virus and limitations of liberties should be set but fundamentally even people I disagree with are operating with broadly the same set of facts.
Spain and Portugal have incredible vaccination coverage.
France, Germany, Italy, and The Netherlands have much more restrictions. Austria has effectively mandatory vaccinations.
Fundamentally though there is no country that through sheer good governance has been able to suppress Omicron without going back to Lockdown Classic. When I look at this: data I'm not sure that it's the case that the US is some sui generis failure in a see of success.
posted by atrazine at 2:49 AM on January 7, 2022 [8 favorites]
Well, maybe, except that we need to note that even the level of measures that other countries have taken successfully is not necessarily enough to prevent the spread of Omicron.
England has the universal free testing, the government will send antibody tests to your house and except very recently they have been easy to get. Also *very* high vaccine coverage including boosters in the most vulnerable cohorts. So we know that this alone isn't enough.
Scotland is the same except they maintained mandatory public masking in many contexts and had other restrictions. You can see the effect in that there was *slightly* less covid in Scotland but it is also not enough to stop the spread.
The UK has no anti-vax or anti-science (on this) mainstream political movements and barely even individual politicians. There are those who disagree on where tradeoffs between control of the virus and limitations of liberties should be set but fundamentally even people I disagree with are operating with broadly the same set of facts.
Spain and Portugal have incredible vaccination coverage.
France, Germany, Italy, and The Netherlands have much more restrictions. Austria has effectively mandatory vaccinations.
Fundamentally though there is no country that through sheer good governance has been able to suppress Omicron without going back to Lockdown Classic. When I look at this: data I'm not sure that it's the case that the US is some sui generis failure in a see of success.
posted by atrazine at 2:49 AM on January 7, 2022 [8 favorites]
I noticed no mention of China in your comment, though.
Most western countries aren't attempting to get to COVID-0 at this point, and I don't think (just from reading the comments here) that people would be willing to do what it takes to get to COVID-0, which would mean, as you mentioned, lockdowns.
(The USA never really had much of a hard lockdown as it is: my partner was on unemployment for the first two months of the pandemic, and then his restaurant job called him back in to work. If he declined to return, his unemployment would have been cut off. So he didn't have a choice, and the restaurant stayed open through the majority of the pandemic. And this is just one example. IMHO, getting take-out whenever one feels like it doesn't constitute a lockdown. Americans will NEVER go for any more restrictions again, because even when they could order anything they wanted from Amazon or do take out, they STILL complained it was "too much" restrictions. And you can't treat a viral pandemic with zero international coordination with a few stinking months of fewer mimosas indoors, you just can't.)
But my point about Germany is: it's NOT restrictive. There are people out and about doing anything they want, provided they maintain the 2G status and check-ins. We did literally everything we wanted in Germany. And still, the USA *doesn't* have a plan in place for when people inevitably get sick- there is no paid sick leave for most Americans, most Americans simply can't afford to not work. People in America are poor. They must work. That shouldn't be the case, not this far along in the 21st century. If you even suspect you might have COVID, testing should be readily available, sick leave should be instant and not questioned or discouraged, if you begin to feel unwell at work you should literally just be able to leave work and go home. So many Americans have to work a shift through being sick- I've done it myself, many times, including in food service, where it's technically not allowed but if I stayed home or left early for being ill then my workload would be foisted onto my equally overworked and underpaid coworkers, AND I wouldn't get any paid sick time.
We need tiers of policy in place for people with differing levels of risk tolerance. For me, being in Germany and spending time at the dozens of public spaces felt hugely risky, but I'm also young and boosted and pretty healthy overall- not overweight, only a few medical issues, I work out regularly, etc. For people who are low risk/ immunocompromised, we should be providing significantly more support, such as: freely accessible teletherapy options for those feeling strained from isolation, delivery services for food and necessities using staff who are tested daily at the start of their shifts and using limited contact (like leaving packages on doorsteps instead of ringing the bell), increased wages for all workers.. I could go on. Yes, America is a failed state.
Germany understands what America, ironically, does not: freedom isn't free. The price of freedom is more regulation, more supportive services. But conversely, fewer people are getting seriously ill and dying here, fewer people are getting ill overall, the society isn't in a freefall like back home.
posted by erattacorrige at 3:30 AM on January 7, 2022 [5 favorites]
Most western countries aren't attempting to get to COVID-0 at this point, and I don't think (just from reading the comments here) that people would be willing to do what it takes to get to COVID-0, which would mean, as you mentioned, lockdowns.
(The USA never really had much of a hard lockdown as it is: my partner was on unemployment for the first two months of the pandemic, and then his restaurant job called him back in to work. If he declined to return, his unemployment would have been cut off. So he didn't have a choice, and the restaurant stayed open through the majority of the pandemic. And this is just one example. IMHO, getting take-out whenever one feels like it doesn't constitute a lockdown. Americans will NEVER go for any more restrictions again, because even when they could order anything they wanted from Amazon or do take out, they STILL complained it was "too much" restrictions. And you can't treat a viral pandemic with zero international coordination with a few stinking months of fewer mimosas indoors, you just can't.)
But my point about Germany is: it's NOT restrictive. There are people out and about doing anything they want, provided they maintain the 2G status and check-ins. We did literally everything we wanted in Germany. And still, the USA *doesn't* have a plan in place for when people inevitably get sick- there is no paid sick leave for most Americans, most Americans simply can't afford to not work. People in America are poor. They must work. That shouldn't be the case, not this far along in the 21st century. If you even suspect you might have COVID, testing should be readily available, sick leave should be instant and not questioned or discouraged, if you begin to feel unwell at work you should literally just be able to leave work and go home. So many Americans have to work a shift through being sick- I've done it myself, many times, including in food service, where it's technically not allowed but if I stayed home or left early for being ill then my workload would be foisted onto my equally overworked and underpaid coworkers, AND I wouldn't get any paid sick time.
We need tiers of policy in place for people with differing levels of risk tolerance. For me, being in Germany and spending time at the dozens of public spaces felt hugely risky, but I'm also young and boosted and pretty healthy overall- not overweight, only a few medical issues, I work out regularly, etc. For people who are low risk/ immunocompromised, we should be providing significantly more support, such as: freely accessible teletherapy options for those feeling strained from isolation, delivery services for food and necessities using staff who are tested daily at the start of their shifts and using limited contact (like leaving packages on doorsteps instead of ringing the bell), increased wages for all workers.. I could go on. Yes, America is a failed state.
Germany understands what America, ironically, does not: freedom isn't free. The price of freedom is more regulation, more supportive services. But conversely, fewer people are getting seriously ill and dying here, fewer people are getting ill overall, the society isn't in a freefall like back home.
posted by erattacorrige at 3:30 AM on January 7, 2022 [5 favorites]
I can't read Chinese and have never been there, I can read French and German well enough (well, I can read Bild anyway...) I can read Dutch fluently and Italian passably, so this is just based on countries where I regularly read newspapers and feel I have a sense of what is going on.
posted by atrazine at 3:43 AM on January 7, 2022
posted by atrazine at 3:43 AM on January 7, 2022
Germany understands what America, ironically, does not: freedom isn't free. The price of freedom is more regulation, more supportive services. But conversely, fewer people are getting seriously ill and dying here, fewer people are getting ill overall, the society isn't in a freefall like back home.
It doesn't feel like the situation in Germany is particularly free, at least compared to a Texas or Florida. Having to "show your papers" to enter a restaurant or grocery seems more like a clear tradeoff between freedom and the hope of security: giving up freedom for the potential and promise of health security. (This isn't a value judgment of places that choose one direction or another; only saying that the tradeoff is a real one.)
The US seems to have much more of a patchwork of regulations, with some regions skewing more toward the "freedom" end of the spectrum, and some skewing more toward the "security" end. There are evenFor example, in NYC they nominally have a vax papers requirement for any restaurant or venue, but that varied a lot from place to place. Nicer places or those in Manhattan checked documents and enforced masks a lot more often than more casual places or those in outer boroughs. In Florida things are mostly open but specific venues or events did sometimes have their own rules (e.g. some of the Miami Beach art shows did check vaccine documents but none of them required masks).
This reflects the nature of the US as a union of culturally different states and regions with their own outlooks and habits. This is probably what Biden was referring to when he said there was no federal solution to the pandemic: so much power is vested in the states to handle things as they wish, and the power of the federal government to impose uniform demands across the country is structurally limited.
posted by theorique at 5:53 AM on January 7, 2022
It doesn't feel like the situation in Germany is particularly free, at least compared to a Texas or Florida. Having to "show your papers" to enter a restaurant or grocery seems more like a clear tradeoff between freedom and the hope of security: giving up freedom for the potential and promise of health security. (This isn't a value judgment of places that choose one direction or another; only saying that the tradeoff is a real one.)
The US seems to have much more of a patchwork of regulations, with some regions skewing more toward the "freedom" end of the spectrum, and some skewing more toward the "security" end. There are evenFor example, in NYC they nominally have a vax papers requirement for any restaurant or venue, but that varied a lot from place to place. Nicer places or those in Manhattan checked documents and enforced masks a lot more often than more casual places or those in outer boroughs. In Florida things are mostly open but specific venues or events did sometimes have their own rules (e.g. some of the Miami Beach art shows did check vaccine documents but none of them required masks).
This reflects the nature of the US as a union of culturally different states and regions with their own outlooks and habits. This is probably what Biden was referring to when he said there was no federal solution to the pandemic: so much power is vested in the states to handle things as they wish, and the power of the federal government to impose uniform demands across the country is structurally limited.
posted by theorique at 5:53 AM on January 7, 2022
Oh yeah I understand all that. I've lived in Texas, Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, California, Wisconsin. It's not like some secret that states have certain rights versus the capacity of the federal government. That's US Civics 101.
So the idea here being that... This system is ok, and working as it should? Because it's not working okay, and if this is how it *should* be working, then yes, this is a failed nation state system. The system is designed to fail its citizens if the desired outcomes are those we are seeing in the USA now.
Other countries have different states too of course, ie Australia, Germany, etc. My main point is, we don't have any organizational capacity in the USA to coordinate preventative measures or supportive measures to actually support human life.
The tradeoff of living life more freely with scanning my QR code is worth it-- 10 seconds of that to do whatever I want? Sure, I'll take it, it didn't even cost me money.
I for one no longer wish to live in a society that functions the way the USA does. I've never felt particularly "free" in any meaningful or measurable way that differed from how I felt living in other places. I lived in Kazakhstan while Nazarbaev was in power, and I could still say and do whatever I wanted-- granted, I've never been into gun collecting. The structural oppression of life in the USA isn't worth it. The cruelty isn't worth it. We deserve better.
posted by erattacorrige at 6:05 AM on January 7, 2022 [7 favorites]
So the idea here being that... This system is ok, and working as it should? Because it's not working okay, and if this is how it *should* be working, then yes, this is a failed nation state system. The system is designed to fail its citizens if the desired outcomes are those we are seeing in the USA now.
Other countries have different states too of course, ie Australia, Germany, etc. My main point is, we don't have any organizational capacity in the USA to coordinate preventative measures or supportive measures to actually support human life.
The tradeoff of living life more freely with scanning my QR code is worth it-- 10 seconds of that to do whatever I want? Sure, I'll take it, it didn't even cost me money.
I for one no longer wish to live in a society that functions the way the USA does. I've never felt particularly "free" in any meaningful or measurable way that differed from how I felt living in other places. I lived in Kazakhstan while Nazarbaev was in power, and I could still say and do whatever I wanted-- granted, I've never been into gun collecting. The structural oppression of life in the USA isn't worth it. The cruelty isn't worth it. We deserve better.
posted by erattacorrige at 6:05 AM on January 7, 2022 [7 favorites]
It doesn't feel like the situation in Germany is particularly free, at least compared to a Texas or Florida.
I think so many Americans have forgotten (or never valued) what freedom for a society means vs. the "personal freedom" to do whatever I damn well please and never mind the greater good.
Yes, I am in an angry and foul mood this morning. (Apologies to you all.) I am so tired .... Okay, I just deleted the rest of my rant about personal work situation.
I just think the American view of freedom is terribly skewed.
posted by jaruwaan at 6:16 AM on January 7, 2022 [19 favorites]
I think so many Americans have forgotten (or never valued) what freedom for a society means vs. the "personal freedom" to do whatever I damn well please and never mind the greater good.
Yes, I am in an angry and foul mood this morning. (Apologies to you all.) I am so tired .... Okay, I just deleted the rest of my rant about personal work situation.
I just think the American view of freedom is terribly skewed.
posted by jaruwaan at 6:16 AM on January 7, 2022 [19 favorites]
It doesn't feel like the situation in Germany is particularly free, at least compared to a Texas or Florida. Having to "show your papers" to enter a restaurant or grocery seems more like a clear tradeoff between freedom and the hope of security
I just...I will never, ever understand the kind of brain that says, "I'd rather do nothing, ever, at any time, for the rest of my life, than observe even a single rule or custom in the doing of things" and calls it freedom.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 7:39 AM on January 7, 2022 [19 favorites]
I just...I will never, ever understand the kind of brain that says, "I'd rather do nothing, ever, at any time, for the rest of my life, than observe even a single rule or custom in the doing of things" and calls it freedom.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 7:39 AM on January 7, 2022 [19 favorites]
LIKE SERIOUSLY HOW DID WE EVEN CONVINCE THESE PEOPLE TO WEAR PANTS OUTSIDE THE HOUSE that is a much larger imposition on a person than to hold up a card at a restaurant door!
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 7:39 AM on January 7, 2022 [11 favorites]
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 7:39 AM on January 7, 2022 [11 favorites]
Yeah, having safety regulations is only an impingement on freedom if you consider freedom to be an entirely personal right to make choices that harm others. I would like the freedom to drive on roads without drunk drivers, get on a plane that is inspected regularly, and go to an indoor setting where everyone is vaxxed.
posted by Mavri at 7:41 AM on January 7, 2022 [16 favorites]
posted by Mavri at 7:41 AM on January 7, 2022 [16 favorites]
LIKE SERIOUSLY HOW DID WE EVEN CONVINCE THESE PEOPLE TO WEAR PANTS OUTSIDE THE HOUSE
It's really amazing how much heavy lifting "You're going to hell, you pervert" can do.
posted by thivaia at 7:44 AM on January 7, 2022 [2 favorites]
Random question on Quora:
To my mind, rather than more free, I would feel less free, if I wanted to pick something up from a shop, but then spotted someone in a Punisher shirt is trotting about, not wearing a mask.
posted by sebastienbailard at 7:49 AM on January 7, 2022 [22 favorites]
Q: Why Aren't Germans Patriotic?These days, I'm in Ontario, not California or some other part of the US.
A: Germans ARE patriotic.
In America you show your patriotism by attaching a full sized American flag to your pickup truck (or Confederate flag to show alternative patriotism), singing the anthem before every baseball game, and sending 18 year-olds to Iraq so you can later thank them for their service when they roll by you in their wheelchair at Walmart.
In Germany we show patriotism by voting for higher taxes on ourselves to make healthcare and college tuition universally accessible to our less fortunate fellow citizens and by picking up after one another to keep public spaces clean and nice for everyone.
I guess it gets lost in translation.
- Jens Böttiger
To my mind, rather than more free, I would feel less free, if I wanted to pick something up from a shop, but then spotted someone in a Punisher shirt is trotting about, not wearing a mask.
posted by sebastienbailard at 7:49 AM on January 7, 2022 [22 favorites]
To my mind, rather than more free, I would feel less free, if I wanted to pick something up from a shop, but then spotted someone in a Punisher shirt is trotting about, not wearing a mask.
This, thank you! And, hahahaha. Exactly.
posted by erattacorrige at 8:15 AM on January 7, 2022 [3 favorites]
This, thank you! And, hahahaha. Exactly.
posted by erattacorrige at 8:15 AM on January 7, 2022 [3 favorites]
This Twitter thread may be the best encapsulation of the response to the pandemic response I have seen to date. It only lacks terroristic threats to fully complete the analogy.
posted by wierdo at 8:19 AM on January 7, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by wierdo at 8:19 AM on January 7, 2022 [3 favorites]
I think many of us are saying the same thing in different words.
There's a spectrum of different solutions to the tradeoff between "(attempted) individual freedom" and "(attempted) safety and security." Call one extreme Texas and the other one Australia.
Texas has moved a lot of the decision making to the individual persons or businesses. Want to go to a restaurant? Up to you. Want to stay home? Up to you. Want to ask for vaccine documents at the door of your establishment? OK, fine. Want to refrain from patronizing businesses that ask for vax docs at the door? Also fine. They have optimized for a certain interpretation of individual freedom.
Australia has chosen a more authoritarian approach with broad lockdowns, controlling movement of citizens away from their homes, document checking, physically moving people from their homes to centralized quarantine facilities, etc. They have optimized for a certain interpretation of "safety and security."
posted by theorique at 8:21 AM on January 7, 2022
There's a spectrum of different solutions to the tradeoff between "(attempted) individual freedom" and "(attempted) safety and security." Call one extreme Texas and the other one Australia.
Texas has moved a lot of the decision making to the individual persons or businesses. Want to go to a restaurant? Up to you. Want to stay home? Up to you. Want to ask for vaccine documents at the door of your establishment? OK, fine. Want to refrain from patronizing businesses that ask for vax docs at the door? Also fine. They have optimized for a certain interpretation of individual freedom.
Australia has chosen a more authoritarian approach with broad lockdowns, controlling movement of citizens away from their homes, document checking, physically moving people from their homes to centralized quarantine facilities, etc. They have optimized for a certain interpretation of "safety and security."
posted by theorique at 8:21 AM on January 7, 2022
And then you have Florida which has largely banned (or tried to) most businesses from requiring most forms of mitigation and restricted local governments from doing so either. It's not about freedom, it's about signaling ideological purity to Qanon whackadoodles.
posted by wierdo at 8:27 AM on January 7, 2022 [10 favorites]
posted by wierdo at 8:27 AM on January 7, 2022 [10 favorites]
Want to ask for vaccine documents at the door of your establishment? OK, fine.No, this is not one of the “freedoms” allowed for Texas businesses:
Companies doing business in Texas face new and complicated challenges after Gov. Greg Abbott this week banned COVID-19 vaccine mandates for all entities in the state — including private businesses — for employees or customers.Businesses face tough choices after Gov. Greg Abbott bans vaccine mandates, Mitchell Ferman, The Texas Tribune, 2021-10-12
posted by mbrubeck at 8:41 AM on January 7, 2022 [11 favorites]
Y'know how gorgeous old school architecture is? The huge tall ceilings? The massive banks of windows? All the stuff that's catnip to realtors and means it's not economically feasible to keep them as schools because they need to be condemned and declared too pricey to repair so that they can be repurposed and made into wildly expensive upscale condominiums? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the windows and lofty indoor spaces were because we built for ventilation back in the day because we didn't want all the kids and teachers to die of TB. Okay, today's public school children are not worthy of such excess and must endure their 12 years of education in huts, but why couldn't we upgrade the HVAC in the scholastic huts? Surely the richies could divert a small portion of their Dubai mall skipark/spacerocket money to that?
posted by Don Pepino at 8:43 AM on January 7, 2022 [14 favorites]
posted by Don Pepino at 8:43 AM on January 7, 2022 [14 favorites]
There are some hopeful signs that Maryland is hitting the top of the Omicron wave already:
Hospitalizations seem to have hit an inflection point (but are still rising). Case positivity rates went down after nothing but rocketing up to 29% for a month.
posted by Slackermagee at 8:53 AM on January 7, 2022
Hospitalizations seem to have hit an inflection point (but are still rising). Case positivity rates went down after nothing but rocketing up to 29% for a month.
posted by Slackermagee at 8:53 AM on January 7, 2022
I, too, totally love when my roommates exercise the "freedom" to have as many fire hazards as they want in my apartment in a wood-frame late-19th-century building, in a neighborhood filled with such buildings, many of them inhabited by families with small children. I would never dream of interfering in my roommates' personal choices. That is a moral value of mine.
Actually, that's sarcasm, I have read and will read people the riot act over that exact behavior.
Seriously, I'm in Massachusetts, and some denser, leftier parts of the US decided a long fucking time ago that other people's well-being mattered, that we were going to at least try to have public transit and regulations about fireworks and semi-socialized-ish healthcare and access to gender transition and all these other things that the Right calls "infringing on freedoms."
I don't think the majority of people in this thread consider the approaches taken by the governments of Florida or Texas remotely morally acceptable. I think those states' leaders are "optimizing" for coddling the feelings of abled white Republican Boomers at the cost of virtually everybody else's survival and/or pursuit of happiness.
posted by All Might Be Well at 9:20 AM on January 7, 2022 [11 favorites]
Actually, that's sarcasm, I have read and will read people the riot act over that exact behavior.
Seriously, I'm in Massachusetts, and some denser, leftier parts of the US decided a long fucking time ago that other people's well-being mattered, that we were going to at least try to have public transit and regulations about fireworks and semi-socialized-ish healthcare and access to gender transition and all these other things that the Right calls "infringing on freedoms."
I don't think the majority of people in this thread consider the approaches taken by the governments of Florida or Texas remotely morally acceptable. I think those states' leaders are "optimizing" for coddling the feelings of abled white Republican Boomers at the cost of virtually everybody else's survival and/or pursuit of happiness.
posted by All Might Be Well at 9:20 AM on January 7, 2022 [11 favorites]
Want to stay home? Up to you.
Not really, though! There aren't accommodations for people who need or want to stay home. There is no safety net. Regardless of your personal risk tolerance level, most Americans (in all states) are forced to go out and put hours in at a job that one hope will pay enough to have a home. It is truly not up to the individual to make that call for personal safety.
posted by knotty knots at 9:27 AM on January 7, 2022 [27 favorites]
Not really, though! There aren't accommodations for people who need or want to stay home. There is no safety net. Regardless of your personal risk tolerance level, most Americans (in all states) are forced to go out and put hours in at a job that one hope will pay enough to have a home. It is truly not up to the individual to make that call for personal safety.
posted by knotty knots at 9:27 AM on January 7, 2022 [27 favorites]
Using Texas and Florida as examples of America seems a bit disingenuous or at least very pessimistic to me.
It’s very easy to focus on the idiots but on average Americans are on board with controlling this pandemic through cooperation and science. There are arguments about whether behavior should be forced or not, but at this point 74% of the population has been vaccinated.
America needs to do better than that, but broad statements about the character of the country drawn from the 26% seem unwarranted.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 10:30 AM on January 7, 2022 [4 favorites]
It’s very easy to focus on the idiots but on average Americans are on board with controlling this pandemic through cooperation and science. There are arguments about whether behavior should be forced or not, but at this point 74% of the population has been vaccinated.
America needs to do better than that, but broad statements about the character of the country drawn from the 26% seem unwarranted.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 10:30 AM on January 7, 2022 [4 favorites]
on average Americans are on board with controlling this pandemic through cooperation and science.
We took a week long trip to Colorado late September. We visited multiple cities. Each day we would spend at least two hours driving so we could see as much of the state as possible. I would say we were out in public a minimum of 6 hours a day.
Once we had left the airport, the number of mask wearing people we saw was in single digits. We even had a waitress tell us, "Here in Colorado, we don't wear masks any more."
I would tell you about my daily life, but I am in Texas. You and the OP are absolutely correct about the situation here.
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 11:08 AM on January 7, 2022 [5 favorites]
We took a week long trip to Colorado late September. We visited multiple cities. Each day we would spend at least two hours driving so we could see as much of the state as possible. I would say we were out in public a minimum of 6 hours a day.
Once we had left the airport, the number of mask wearing people we saw was in single digits. We even had a waitress tell us, "Here in Colorado, we don't wear masks any more."
I would tell you about my daily life, but I am in Texas. You and the OP are absolutely correct about the situation here.
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 11:08 AM on January 7, 2022 [5 favorites]
Florida in particular has a higher vaccination percentage than a lot of people think - probably in part due to the high population of retirees who are in the age demographic that is hardest hit by covid.
posted by theorique at 11:23 AM on January 7, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by theorique at 11:23 AM on January 7, 2022 [2 favorites]
And yet the state government in Florida is doing everything in its power to discourage people from taking precautions. Most recently by announcing new testing guidelines to discourage people from getting tested after known exposures. They keep harping on personal responsibility, but it's kinda hard to take personal responsibility when you don't have the necessary information.
posted by wierdo at 11:34 AM on January 7, 2022 [7 favorites]
posted by wierdo at 11:34 AM on January 7, 2022 [7 favorites]
Rich Miller on the situation in Chicago:
I posted this Bloomberg story earlier today…posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 1:13 PM on January 7, 2022Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker has asked the Biden administration for Covid-19 tests to help resolve the latest dispute between Chicago Public Schools and its teachers union, a disagreement that’s led to the cancellation of classes for three straight days.I followed up with the governor’s office about what all he said to the reporter and was told that Pritzker mentioned the things they’d offered CPS and what he’d asked the White House to do for the school district.
I then asked what state help Pritzker had directly offered CPS. I was told the state had offered SHIELD tests, vaccination clinics and masks for the past several weeks.
The city has not yet taken the state up on those offers.
On Wednesday night we got an email from the town schools, repeating a message form the Superintendent. The one from the high school had the Subject line "[High school] Remains Open." The middle school sent the same note; presumably, the grade schools did, too. The middle school principal inserted the large headline, "Cumberland Schools Open on Thursday."
It was very much kevin-bacon-end-of-Animal-House-REMAIN-CALM.gif stuff, and began:
The email continued:
posted by wenestvedt at 1:32 PM on January 7, 2022
It was very much kevin-bacon-end-of-Animal-House-REMAIN-CALM.gif stuff, and began:
Dear Parents/Guardians:Whaaat?! "If"? They carefully avoided making any assurances beyond the next day, and on Thursday hastily declared Friday a snow day with no distance learning. Mind you, every other town in the state besides us and I believe one other did DL, but not us.
I wanted to take this opportunity to update you on all of our schools' abilities to stay open during this latest Covid surge. Across the District, staff absence numbers have been climbing with 80 out on Monday, 93 on Tuesday, and 115 today [i.e., Wednesday].
School principals and our full administrative team have continued to meet to look at real time absence data and project absences for Thursday. Based on our current data on Wednesday afternoon, it looks like we are able to staff all schools and have a regular school day in place. If this changes, we will notify the school community as soon as possible....
The email continued:
I firmly believe that schools, with controlled environments, are where students need to be and to this end we will do everything in our power to keep all schools open. There are times, however, where it becomes necessary to shift to a distance learning environment.That last line being pretty chilling.
Lastly, I am sure you are aware of the changing COVID quarantine and isolation protocols that have been adopted by the CDC and are being considered by the RI Department of Health and RI Department of Education for school environments. As of today, we do not have any change in guidance from what the safety protocols are for schools. We are expecting, however, the State to update its guidance and protocols on how we handle Covid in schools. This new guidance should aid Districts in keeping schools open and safe.
posted by wenestvedt at 1:32 PM on January 7, 2022
> There's a spectrum of different solutions to the tradeoff between "(attempted) individual freedom" and "(attempted) safety and security." Call one extreme Texas and the other one Australia.
meanwhile: ‘DeSantis sent the Gestapo’: Fired Florida Covid data scientist films home being raided by police
HPD: Customer refuses to wear mask, shoots man employee called for help
Verbal and physical attacks on health workers surge as emotions boil during latest COVID-19 wave 'Stressed health workers are now confronting volatile visitors and patients. “The verbal abuse, the name-calling, racial slurs … we’ve had broken bones, broken noses,” said one hospital official in Dallas.'
posted by sebastienbailard at 1:36 PM on January 7, 2022 [5 favorites]
meanwhile: ‘DeSantis sent the Gestapo’: Fired Florida Covid data scientist films home being raided by police
HPD: Customer refuses to wear mask, shoots man employee called for help
Verbal and physical attacks on health workers surge as emotions boil during latest COVID-19 wave 'Stressed health workers are now confronting volatile visitors and patients. “The verbal abuse, the name-calling, racial slurs … we’ve had broken bones, broken noses,” said one hospital official in Dallas.'
posted by sebastienbailard at 1:36 PM on January 7, 2022 [5 favorites]
I think these are two articles that reflect the range of medical expert thinking given the extreme unlikelihood of eradicating SARS-COV 2 and the combination of vaccination and infection acquired immunity reducing severity of illness. The first comes from someone I've considered a "COVID Hawk" over over the course of the pandemic. The second comes from someone I'd consider a "COVID DOVE".
posted by eagles123 at 3:08 PM on January 7, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by eagles123 at 3:08 PM on January 7, 2022 [2 favorites]
"Here in Colorado, we don't wear masks any more."
Similar here in Utah. We were at the credit union today for over an hour for not-fun, not-remote-able reasons. The vast majority of other customers were a veritable Who's-Who of nostril-baring toxic individualists. Many of them were sniffling or coughing, and all were talking at full volume.
Our county just announced a mask mandate that takes effect at midnight. I imagine that, just like last time, a majority of people will flout it because, like a sign that says "no smoking" or "pick up after your dog" or "turning vehicles yield to pedestrians," it calls for slightly inconveniencing oneself to protect the health of others.
Such is my experience of the Mountain West. People tell me "we're friendly here!" I'd have preferred "considerate," but no one asked.
posted by armeowda at 5:10 PM on January 7, 2022 [10 favorites]
Similar here in Utah. We were at the credit union today for over an hour for not-fun, not-remote-able reasons. The vast majority of other customers were a veritable Who's-Who of nostril-baring toxic individualists. Many of them were sniffling or coughing, and all were talking at full volume.
Our county just announced a mask mandate that takes effect at midnight. I imagine that, just like last time, a majority of people will flout it because, like a sign that says "no smoking" or "pick up after your dog" or "turning vehicles yield to pedestrians," it calls for slightly inconveniencing oneself to protect the health of others.
Such is my experience of the Mountain West. People tell me "we're friendly here!" I'd have preferred "considerate," but no one asked.
posted by armeowda at 5:10 PM on January 7, 2022 [10 favorites]
Rich Miller on the situation in Chicago
I lived in Chicago for the longest I've ever lived anywhere, and holy moly I am glad I do not live there anymore. I am so profoundly disappointed in how things are going there. Ugh.
posted by aramaic at 6:13 PM on January 7, 2022
I lived in Chicago for the longest I've ever lived anywhere, and holy moly I am glad I do not live there anymore. I am so profoundly disappointed in how things are going there. Ugh.
posted by aramaic at 6:13 PM on January 7, 2022
Omicron isn't mild for hospitals: When a health-care system crumbles, this is what it looks like.
Both quality and capacity of health care is falling. This is in combination with 2020's declining life expectancy - now I expect that to continue for quite a bit longer.
posted by meowzilla at 6:24 PM on January 7, 2022 [10 favorites]
Both quality and capacity of health care is falling. This is in combination with 2020's declining life expectancy - now I expect that to continue for quite a bit longer.
posted by meowzilla at 6:24 PM on January 7, 2022 [10 favorites]
“A year in, how has Biden done on pandemic response?” Justin Feldman, 04 January 2022
posted by ob1quixote at 6:21 AM on January 8, 2022
posted by ob1quixote at 6:21 AM on January 8, 2022
As in so many other uncertain and rapidly-changing situations, the information on the ground is imperfect and seems to update all the time. And people have so many different interpretations of it that it's hard to come to a clear consensus for the correct actions.
Look at something apparently simple like the choice to wear a mask or not. How many iterations of "truth" have we gone through?
Very early on, Dr Fauci suggested that masks weren't useful or necessary. Later on it was revealed that this was actually a deliberate lie that was meant to prevent consumer stockpiling and runs on medical-grade PPE that was needed for hospitals and clinics.
Next the mask recommendations and mandates came out: you actually do need to wear a mask because it's effective against preventing the spread of SARS-Cov-2. But it doesn't need to be an expensive single-use medical PPE mask ... even a scarf or gaiter will do. Just put something in front of your face.
Then the revelation that the virus spread through microscopic airborne aerosols rather than larger heavy droplets cast doubt on the effectiveness of masks.
The most recent news meme is that cloth masks aren't effective and that people must wear KN-95 masks. I suspect the vast majority of people who are inclined to use KN-95 masks have already been wearing them for months, and those who aren't have already given up on masks. At some point the citizens start to react like the townspeople in the story of the boy who cried wolf: they ignore the urgent cries because they have been deceived too many times before.
A person could read the news and the scientific literature 24/7 and still not come to certainty about even a "simple" issue like this. For that matter, many professionals and experts disagree about these fundamentals - and the people whom we are supposed to listen to for guidance.
The level of saturation and fatigue is so high among the public, medical professionals, and public health professionals. I'm not sure there's a simple solution for anybody here.
posted by theorique at 6:44 AM on January 8, 2022 [1 favorite]
Look at something apparently simple like the choice to wear a mask or not. How many iterations of "truth" have we gone through?
Very early on, Dr Fauci suggested that masks weren't useful or necessary. Later on it was revealed that this was actually a deliberate lie that was meant to prevent consumer stockpiling and runs on medical-grade PPE that was needed for hospitals and clinics.
Next the mask recommendations and mandates came out: you actually do need to wear a mask because it's effective against preventing the spread of SARS-Cov-2. But it doesn't need to be an expensive single-use medical PPE mask ... even a scarf or gaiter will do. Just put something in front of your face.
Then the revelation that the virus spread through microscopic airborne aerosols rather than larger heavy droplets cast doubt on the effectiveness of masks.
The most recent news meme is that cloth masks aren't effective and that people must wear KN-95 masks. I suspect the vast majority of people who are inclined to use KN-95 masks have already been wearing them for months, and those who aren't have already given up on masks. At some point the citizens start to react like the townspeople in the story of the boy who cried wolf: they ignore the urgent cries because they have been deceived too many times before.
A person could read the news and the scientific literature 24/7 and still not come to certainty about even a "simple" issue like this. For that matter, many professionals and experts disagree about these fundamentals - and the people whom we are supposed to listen to for guidance.
The level of saturation and fatigue is so high among the public, medical professionals, and public health professionals. I'm not sure there's a simple solution for anybody here.
posted by theorique at 6:44 AM on January 8, 2022 [1 favorite]
At least we hadn't gone to the nearly suicidal fatigue in Europe where they actually organized COVID parties.
But it's clear that some GBD adherents in Florida and Texas want us to go that way, starting with school kids, with inadequate protection, just so adults can go back to work.
posted by kschang at 11:30 AM on January 8, 2022
But it's clear that some GBD adherents in Florida and Texas want us to go that way, starting with school kids, with inadequate protection, just so adults can go back to work.
posted by kschang at 11:30 AM on January 8, 2022
Insurance company reporting 40% increase in deaths among working-age enrollees, also a big increase in disability claims.
The *other* headlines I saw looking for that were insurance and finance analysis remarking that if increased illness after COVID is as prevalent as we fear, insurance companies are likely to test for past COVID before pricing policies. (Even in the US, that’s life insurance, not health insurance, I hope? We’re still "allowed" preexisting conditions? But if we’re sicker as a group, it will be bad for any kind of health insurance provision.)
posted by clew at 2:04 PM on January 8, 2022 [1 favorite]
The *other* headlines I saw looking for that were insurance and finance analysis remarking that if increased illness after COVID is as prevalent as we fear, insurance companies are likely to test for past COVID before pricing policies. (Even in the US, that’s life insurance, not health insurance, I hope? We’re still "allowed" preexisting conditions? But if we’re sicker as a group, it will be bad for any kind of health insurance provision.)
posted by clew at 2:04 PM on January 8, 2022 [1 favorite]
Yes, one thing that doesn't get talked about much is the all-cause mortality increase in the six months after a COVID infection. A lot of people who make it out of the hospital end up having a heart attack or stroke not long afterward. Some of them would have happened anyway, but the aggregate statistics are quite clear that if you get a bad enough case to put you in the hospital, you have a much higher risk of mortality than you would have otherwise.
And yet the aggressively misinformed persist in claiming that we're actually overcounting COVID deaths.
posted by wierdo at 4:00 PM on January 8, 2022 [7 favorites]
And yet the aggressively misinformed persist in claiming that we're actually overcounting COVID deaths.
posted by wierdo at 4:00 PM on January 8, 2022 [7 favorites]
Everybody is pointing to the big 40% increase in all-cause mortality in the 16-40 age group as support of their favored theory.
Vaccine skeptics are saying that it tracks with availability of vaccines (with the obvious implication that it has been caused by the vaccines).
The mainstream is saying that it's due to pandemic stress or post-covid damage to body systems.
We need to resolve the question with more research to avoid conspiracy theories filling in the vacuum. Clearly "something" is happening, but we need to track down the root cause.
posted by theorique at 4:36 PM on January 8, 2022
Vaccine skeptics are saying that it tracks with availability of vaccines (with the obvious implication that it has been caused by the vaccines).
The mainstream is saying that it's due to pandemic stress or post-covid damage to body systems.
We need to resolve the question with more research to avoid conspiracy theories filling in the vacuum. Clearly "something" is happening, but we need to track down the root cause.
posted by theorique at 4:36 PM on January 8, 2022
Now that's some absurd both-sides-ism, theorique. Pretty sure that people have been reporting on the causes of excess deaths since the very start of the pandemic, as hospitals started to fill up.
posted by sagc at 6:16 PM on January 8, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by sagc at 6:16 PM on January 8, 2022 [6 favorites]
Insurance company reporting 40% increase in deaths among working-age enrollees
A lot of people have pointed to this as some kind of mystery, but it really isn't. Covid deaths were very high, especially for those 30-64, from August through the fall. Lots of Covid deaths in general, but particularly in that age group. A lot of relatively young, unvaccinated people died in the Delta wave. We already knew this and we have the data.
CDC data doesn't quite show a 40% increase in deaths in the third quarter, but it does show a lot of Covid deaths for those age groups for that time period, and it doesn't show any kind of massive increase in deaths that aren't attributed to Covid. There is no big rise in deaths not attributed to Covid in the CDC data. I'm sure some Covid deaths are undercounted as well (we know the US has about 30% more excess deaths than counted Covid deaths over the pandemic and it's unlikely those are all other causes), so any small differences there may be would be easily explained by undercounting of Covid deaths.
The source for this is the head of a small insurance company. It seems likely he's just got the wrong end of the stick on this data (because the increase is less than 40% according to CDC data) and he's definitely wrong that the excess deaths aren't being recorded as Covid. It might be that he's talking about death rates in his region or something like that, which may well be higher.
posted by ssg at 7:42 PM on January 8, 2022 [2 favorites]
A lot of people have pointed to this as some kind of mystery, but it really isn't. Covid deaths were very high, especially for those 30-64, from August through the fall. Lots of Covid deaths in general, but particularly in that age group. A lot of relatively young, unvaccinated people died in the Delta wave. We already knew this and we have the data.
CDC data doesn't quite show a 40% increase in deaths in the third quarter, but it does show a lot of Covid deaths for those age groups for that time period, and it doesn't show any kind of massive increase in deaths that aren't attributed to Covid. There is no big rise in deaths not attributed to Covid in the CDC data. I'm sure some Covid deaths are undercounted as well (we know the US has about 30% more excess deaths than counted Covid deaths over the pandemic and it's unlikely those are all other causes), so any small differences there may be would be easily explained by undercounting of Covid deaths.
The source for this is the head of a small insurance company. It seems likely he's just got the wrong end of the stick on this data (because the increase is less than 40% according to CDC data) and he's definitely wrong that the excess deaths aren't being recorded as Covid. It might be that he's talking about death rates in his region or something like that, which may well be higher.
posted by ssg at 7:42 PM on January 8, 2022 [2 favorites]
> But it's clear that some GBD adherents in Florida and Texas want us to go that way, starting with school kids, with inadequate protection, just so adults can go back to work.
Skimming, I see variations on grifting, contempt for human suffering, and the big-lie approach to reality and truth-telling in society. And voter disenfranchisement.
https://twitter.com/texasgop
Skimming, I see variations on grifting, contempt for human suffering, and the big-lie approach to reality and truth-telling in society. And voter disenfranchisement.
https://twitter.com/texasgop
Jan 7posted by sebastienbailard at 11:30 PM on January 8, 2022 [2 favorites]
If you can wait in line for a covid test, you can wait in line to vote.
Jan 7
wow, this made the pronouns in bio people big mad.
Jan 7
If you want to end mandates, return to normal, and enjoy freedom again, donate $10 and help us save America in 2022:
secure.winred.com
Join the Republican Party of Texas in Saving America
We are going to carry the banner of bold conservatism forward without shame.
Jan 7
The real pandemic is how stupid everyone is
Jan 7
Masks are dumb
meanwhile: First-dose vaccinations quadruple in Quebec ahead of restrictions at liquor and cannabis stores
posted by sebastienbailard at 11:31 PM on January 8, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by sebastienbailard at 11:31 PM on January 8, 2022 [4 favorites]
The source for this is the head of a small insurance company. It seems likely he's just got the wrong end of the stick on this data (because the increase is less than 40% according to CDC data) and he's definitely wrong that the excess deaths aren't being recorded as Covid. It might be that he's talking about death rates in his region or something like that, which may well be higher.
That's a good point. A 40% increase in a small number is still a small number. All-cause-mortality in that age range of 18-40 is relatively low, and the novel category of covid deaths could cause a large increase. Regional variations is also another influential factor as you point out.
This is one of the issues that we've seen all throughout the pandemic (and more generally, in medical and clinical data, reporting, and marketing). People tend to pick the representation of their data that tells the story they want to tell. If some quantity goes from 5 to 7, that doesn't seem like too big a deal, but a 40% increase!! sounds a whole lot worse. Open source data sets and data processing (e.g. "showing your work on Github", etc) is a great way to show the process behind the headline and not merely the headline.
posted by theorique at 5:30 AM on January 9, 2022
That's a good point. A 40% increase in a small number is still a small number. All-cause-mortality in that age range of 18-40 is relatively low, and the novel category of covid deaths could cause a large increase. Regional variations is also another influential factor as you point out.
This is one of the issues that we've seen all throughout the pandemic (and more generally, in medical and clinical data, reporting, and marketing). People tend to pick the representation of their data that tells the story they want to tell. If some quantity goes from 5 to 7, that doesn't seem like too big a deal, but a 40% increase!! sounds a whole lot worse. Open source data sets and data processing (e.g. "showing your work on Github", etc) is a great way to show the process behind the headline and not merely the headline.
posted by theorique at 5:30 AM on January 9, 2022
That's a good point. A 40% increase in a small number is still a small number. All-cause-mortality in that age range of 18-40 is relatively low, and the novel category of covid deaths could cause a large increase. Regional variations is also another influential factor as you point out.
The all cause mortality annual rate for the ' working age' group (I am not sure why you cut it off at 40) from 2018 is roughly the same as the current total pandemic death rate (about 250/100K). It is not a small number.
posted by srboisvert at 7:12 AM on January 9, 2022 [5 favorites]
The all cause mortality annual rate for the ' working age' group (I am not sure why you cut it off at 40) from 2018 is roughly the same as the current total pandemic death rate (about 250/100K). It is not a small number.
posted by srboisvert at 7:12 AM on January 9, 2022 [5 favorites]
People tend to pick the representation of their data that tells the story they want to tell.
In context of your comments, this is sounding more like a brag than a complaint.
Also, a correction to one of your previous comments: it was quite clear from the scientific literature that masks would be helpful, and that medical masks offered more protection than cloth masks, since the very start of the pandemic. The issue, as was stated quite clearly everywhere I read, was that medical masks were in short supply at the time and hospitals needed them more. I’m sure random news sources various places had mixed records on how clearly they communicated this, however, and that folks who (through no fault of their own!) didn’t have as strong a scientific background could have gotten quite confused. But even the CDC, as bad as it was with Trump and Co’s influence during the first half of the pandemic, said that masks were helpful but needed at the time to be reserved for hospital use.
posted by eviemath at 8:12 AM on January 9, 2022 [11 favorites]
In context of your comments, this is sounding more like a brag than a complaint.
Also, a correction to one of your previous comments: it was quite clear from the scientific literature that masks would be helpful, and that medical masks offered more protection than cloth masks, since the very start of the pandemic. The issue, as was stated quite clearly everywhere I read, was that medical masks were in short supply at the time and hospitals needed them more. I’m sure random news sources various places had mixed records on how clearly they communicated this, however, and that folks who (through no fault of their own!) didn’t have as strong a scientific background could have gotten quite confused. But even the CDC, as bad as it was with Trump and Co’s influence during the first half of the pandemic, said that masks were helpful but needed at the time to be reserved for hospital use.
posted by eviemath at 8:12 AM on January 9, 2022 [11 favorites]
Hey listen if I want to keep pretending none of this is happening that's my god given right I suppose.
posted by bleep at 9:56 AM on January 9, 2022
posted by bleep at 9:56 AM on January 9, 2022
As of today, about half the states in the US have reached the highest level of hospitalization of the entire pandemic, and we're only half-way through the omicron wave. Silver lining: % ICU rates are lower than previous waves.
posted by gwint at 9:58 AM on January 9, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by gwint at 9:58 AM on January 9, 2022 [5 favorites]
Delta still made up ~60 of infections the week ending December 18th and ~20 percent of infections the week ending the 25th. By the week ending the 1st it only made up ~5 percent of infections with the rest being Omicron. Given the lag between infections and hospitalizations, hopefully we're beginning to see the end of the effects of Delta.
CDC source: Varient Proportions.
Also "You Local Epidemiologist", who was linked in another post on the pandemic, just posted a great summary of the research on the impact of the pandemic on the mental health of children and youth: It's bad.
posted by eagles123 at 2:46 PM on January 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
CDC source: Varient Proportions.
Also "You Local Epidemiologist", who was linked in another post on the pandemic, just posted a great summary of the research on the impact of the pandemic on the mental health of children and youth: It's bad.
posted by eagles123 at 2:46 PM on January 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
Dr Vinay Prasad - Should you wear an N-95 mask?.
The argument here that kids shouldn't wear n95s is whatever, makes sense, i think having children wear masks is a bit wild, there's no way they have sufficient mask discipline for it to be a good thing.
This, however, is bonkers:
DANMASK is another thing, but that's only on surgical masks (not n95s) for individual protection, which is not the point of surgical masks. Surgical masks protect others from infection from the mask wearer. They do not (or only slightly) protect the mask wearer. The coronavirus is airborne and the only way to protect yourself from infection is a respirator. Anyway, DANMASK study says this about itself "LIMITATIONS: Inconclusive results, missing data, variable adherence, patient-reported findings on home tests, no blinding, and no assessment of whether masks could decrease disease transmission from mask wearers to others." Doesn't sound very conclusive.
posted by dis_integration at 6:01 PM on January 9, 2022 [11 favorites]
The argument here that kids shouldn't wear n95s is whatever, makes sense, i think having children wear masks is a bit wild, there's no way they have sufficient mask discipline for it to be a good thing.
This, however, is bonkers:
Fourth, why delay exposure? After vaccination (and losing weight), there is nothing more you can do to lower your risk of bad outcomes. The virus will never disappear. It will circulate in humans for a thousand years. And, exposure may even be best before vaccine immunity wanes appreciably. With some partial vaccine immunity, natural infection may be milder and solidify longer immunity. Even then, a few years later you will get covid19 again. That’s life, it was never zero risk.This is literally advocating for covid parties for the vaccinated. I have no idea who Vinay Prasad is but I can't take him very seriously after saying this.
DANMASK is another thing, but that's only on surgical masks (not n95s) for individual protection, which is not the point of surgical masks. Surgical masks protect others from infection from the mask wearer. They do not (or only slightly) protect the mask wearer. The coronavirus is airborne and the only way to protect yourself from infection is a respirator. Anyway, DANMASK study says this about itself "LIMITATIONS: Inconclusive results, missing data, variable adherence, patient-reported findings on home tests, no blinding, and no assessment of whether masks could decrease disease transmission from mask wearers to others." Doesn't sound very conclusive.
posted by dis_integration at 6:01 PM on January 9, 2022 [11 favorites]
Prasad has claimed that asking people to mask will lead to fascism in the US and has likened mask mandates to Nazism. He is not a trustworthy source for information about the pandemic. COVID is an airborne illness, and masks filter air. This is quite literally not rocket science: it is basic science. This is not an open question and there are not two equal sides here. It is ridiculous to see these kinds of arguments here on Metafilter.
posted by twelve cent archie at 7:21 PM on January 9, 2022 [25 favorites]
posted by twelve cent archie at 7:21 PM on January 9, 2022 [25 favorites]
Dr. Vinay Prasad is a hematologist-oncologist. He is also an associate professor in department of epidemiology and biostatistics at UCSF. However, he recently started imagining himself a "health commentator" as he compared COVID lockdowns and Biden's mask mandate to Nazi Germany and Crystal Night, and predicted end of democracy in the US. And like the cool "rebels", he has a site on Substack. He basically took all the conservative conspiracies, i.e. they're deploying the military and FEMA to take all our guns, toned it down so it doesn't sound totally insane, add a high school understanding of rise of Nazi Germany, drew some hasty parallels, and spun it into a dystopian prediction based on slippery slope and worst-case scenario interpretations. And antivaxxers and antimaskers are eating it up.
He sees no problem comparing Biden Pandemic response to Nazi Germany, and even his boss is getting alarmed. And he's got enough of an ego he called all criticisms "they're lying about my work". I'll let Dr. Gorski document the rest.
posted by kschang at 10:55 PM on January 9, 2022 [11 favorites]
He sees no problem comparing Biden Pandemic response to Nazi Germany, and even his boss is getting alarmed. And he's got enough of an ego he called all criticisms "they're lying about my work". I'll let Dr. Gorski document the rest.
posted by kschang at 10:55 PM on January 9, 2022 [11 favorites]
Delta still made up ~60 of infections the week ending December 18th and ~20 percent of infections the week ending the 25th. By the week ending the 1st it only made up ~5 percent of infections with the rest being Omicron. Given the lag between infections and hospitalizations, hopefully we're beginning to see the end of the effects of Delta.
The problem with reporting percentages like this is you have to do the math yourself to see how much Delta is actually dropping in raw case count. Using Divoc-91's numbers and your %s:
Delta at December 18th: 130K X 60% = 78K
Delta at December 25th: 200K X 20% =40K
Delta at Jan 1st: 400K X 5% = 20K
So dropping by half per week while omicron is exploding. So the actual count is decaying at a slower rate than the steep decline in % of total covid infections would make you think looking at relative numbers potentially leading people to underestimate their risk of encountering the more immediately and obviously deadly Delta (I am still reserving my judgement on the lethality of omicron). Relative numbers are tricksy.
posted by srboisvert at 1:16 AM on January 10, 2022 [2 favorites]
The problem with reporting percentages like this is you have to do the math yourself to see how much Delta is actually dropping in raw case count. Using Divoc-91's numbers and your %s:
Delta at December 18th: 130K X 60% = 78K
Delta at December 25th: 200K X 20% =40K
Delta at Jan 1st: 400K X 5% = 20K
So dropping by half per week while omicron is exploding. So the actual count is decaying at a slower rate than the steep decline in % of total covid infections would make you think looking at relative numbers potentially leading people to underestimate their risk of encountering the more immediately and obviously deadly Delta (I am still reserving my judgement on the lethality of omicron). Relative numbers are tricksy.
posted by srboisvert at 1:16 AM on January 10, 2022 [2 favorites]
This is literally advocating for covid parties for the vaccinated. I have no idea who Vinay Prasad is but I can't take him very seriously after saying this.
At the very least, given his earlier publications on medical reversal, he should be calling for large clinical trials of his infection hypothesis or waiting for data from the massive natural experiment we are (mostly) inadvertently conducting. We really have no clue how the long term effects of covid-19 will play out from long-covid to the tentative evidence that serious infection increases post-infection all cause morbidity and mortality. His own standards should be to apply caution (but then the motivation for his earlier publications seemed heavily economic so maybe that's what he, like a true U of C graduate, is focused on preserving).
posted by srboisvert at 1:31 AM on January 10, 2022 [1 favorite]
At the very least, given his earlier publications on medical reversal, he should be calling for large clinical trials of his infection hypothesis or waiting for data from the massive natural experiment we are (mostly) inadvertently conducting. We really have no clue how the long term effects of covid-19 will play out from long-covid to the tentative evidence that serious infection increases post-infection all cause morbidity and mortality. His own standards should be to apply caution (but then the motivation for his earlier publications seemed heavily economic so maybe that's what he, like a true U of C graduate, is focused on preserving).
posted by srboisvert at 1:31 AM on January 10, 2022 [1 favorite]
N95s are a different beast than regular masks (which I am still convinced work to a lesser degree). I personally intubated many people with covid (and extubated a smaller number), and was antibody negative until vaccinated. That should not be possible other than PPE + discipline really working.
posted by a robot made out of meat at 8:58 AM on January 10, 2022 [14 favorites]
posted by a robot made out of meat at 8:58 AM on January 10, 2022 [14 favorites]
Even an imperfectly-fitted N95 or similar respirator may be substantially more protective than cloth masks or procedure masks. For example, ACGIH (professional organization for occupational safety experts) has estimates of face covering efficacy that include both imperfectly-fitted N95 (at 10% inward and outward leakage) and professionally-fitted N95 (at 1% inward and outward leakage). According to their modeling, even the imperfectly-fitted N95 provides many times more protection than cloth or procedure masks. (Note: their “time to infectious dose” estimates are pre-omicron.)
We can’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. If we can get more people to wear the best masks available to them at any given time, and get most people wearing them properly most of the time, we can further slow the spread and reduce the number of people infected.
In my neighborhood in Seattle, probably 98% of the people I see are consistently masked indoors, and have been since near the start of the pandemic. Recently, I’ve been seeing a lot more N95-style respirators, though they still aren’t the majority. Also, over 90% of adults and teens (over 80% of the total population) are “fully vaccinated” (e.g. at least 2 doses of Pfizer/Moderna).
I was very skeptical about in-person school this fall, but the district has done a pretty reasonable job at improving ventilation and filtration, providing tests and vaccination clinics, and requiring masks for everyone all year. Even though compliance by children and teens is far from perfect, the metrics this fall were much better than I expected: In a district of 52,000 students, they’ve had only about 70 cases per week, most of them apparently acquired outside of school. Individual schools have had between 1 and 10 cases per month, and none of them have led to in-school outbreaks or closures.
So yes, even in the US, it is possible for government and the community to work together and have effective public health mitigations. Our cumulative COVID death rate is half the national average, representing thousands of lives saved. Now, the omicron wave is already changing things and we may or may not adapt fast enough, but we at least aren’t just giving up.
posted by mbrubeck at 4:30 PM on January 10, 2022 [7 favorites]
We can’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. If we can get more people to wear the best masks available to them at any given time, and get most people wearing them properly most of the time, we can further slow the spread and reduce the number of people infected.
In my neighborhood in Seattle, probably 98% of the people I see are consistently masked indoors, and have been since near the start of the pandemic. Recently, I’ve been seeing a lot more N95-style respirators, though they still aren’t the majority. Also, over 90% of adults and teens (over 80% of the total population) are “fully vaccinated” (e.g. at least 2 doses of Pfizer/Moderna).
I was very skeptical about in-person school this fall, but the district has done a pretty reasonable job at improving ventilation and filtration, providing tests and vaccination clinics, and requiring masks for everyone all year. Even though compliance by children and teens is far from perfect, the metrics this fall were much better than I expected: In a district of 52,000 students, they’ve had only about 70 cases per week, most of them apparently acquired outside of school. Individual schools have had between 1 and 10 cases per month, and none of them have led to in-school outbreaks or closures.
So yes, even in the US, it is possible for government and the community to work together and have effective public health mitigations. Our cumulative COVID death rate is half the national average, representing thousands of lives saved. Now, the omicron wave is already changing things and we may or may not adapt fast enough, but we at least aren’t just giving up.
posted by mbrubeck at 4:30 PM on January 10, 2022 [7 favorites]
The argument here that kids shouldn't wear n95s is whatever, makes sense, i think having children wear masks is a bit wild, there's no way they have sufficient mask discipline for it to be a good thing.
I have a 2nd grader. His entire classroom is "masks required, all the time, except for lunch which is outside". None of the kids have a problem with this. Sure, they all sometimes sneeze or have it fall below their nose and so on, but generally, they're all wearing them, all the time, no problem. The message of "you wear this to keep the others around you healthy" translates to "your classmates will give you a hard time, fast, if you're acting like you're trying to get them sick".
Sure, they're not perfect, but that's a whole lot better than "kids aren't disciplined enough to wear a mask correctly all the time, so why bother?"
Of course, these are the same kids who had Kindergarten become zoom-school, and who haven't had a full year of in-person learning until 2nd grade (if it stays in-person), so their willingness to compromise to stay in the classroom may be higher than most.
posted by toxic at 5:00 PM on January 12, 2022 [6 favorites]
The message of "you wear this to keep the others around you healthy" translates to "your classmates will give you a hard time, fast, if you're acting like you're trying to get them sick".
That sounds a little bit scary to me - effectively leveraging peer pressure and threats to elicit compliance.
Our daughter is in kindergarten. When we last went to parent-teacher conferences her teacher told us that she was one of the most diligent mask-wearers. Apparently her diligence was operational even during mask breaks and other more flexible times (I don't know much about the details of masking at her school, but apparently there are mask breaks). I think she just gets used to wearing it and it fades into the background noise. When she gets off the school bus and meets us, we even have to remind her to remove her mask as we are walking back home.
She hasn't ever talked about mask wearing (or not) at school, or how the other kids respond to it.
posted by theorique at 3:35 AM on January 13, 2022
That sounds a little bit scary to me - effectively leveraging peer pressure and threats to elicit compliance.
Our daughter is in kindergarten. When we last went to parent-teacher conferences her teacher told us that she was one of the most diligent mask-wearers. Apparently her diligence was operational even during mask breaks and other more flexible times (I don't know much about the details of masking at her school, but apparently there are mask breaks). I think she just gets used to wearing it and it fades into the background noise. When she gets off the school bus and meets us, we even have to remind her to remove her mask as we are walking back home.
She hasn't ever talked about mask wearing (or not) at school, or how the other kids respond to it.
posted by theorique at 3:35 AM on January 13, 2022
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