The Covid-19 Pandemic Thread

[JoeMemphis]

Inference: we live in scary times.

We have always lived in scary times. I remember when everyone worried about going to war with the Soviets and nuclear Armageddon. I think the difference is that we found a way to continue to live our lives. We didn’t go home to hide. We did what every “essential” worker did.

[JoeMemphis]

You're the one that can't respond. Not me. Own it.

[gounion]

Thank you for making my point. Cartoons are your level.

[gounion]

We have always lived in scary times. I remember when everyone worried about going to war with the Soviets and nuclear Armageddon. I think the difference is that we found a way to continue to live our lives. We didn’t go home to hide. We did what every “essential” worker did.

You guys used to hate communism. Now you champion KGB thugs.

[ProfX]

With a virus that mutates inside human hosts, the more infected, the more likely new mutant variants will arise that are more dangerous.

You want as few people infected as possible in a pandemic, doesn't matter if they are age 1 or age 80, or what some actuarial table says is most likely to die.

The goal of public health in a pandemic is to reduce all infections. For all age groups. Period. End of report.

And yes, I get that point will never be understood by those who don't work in it.

The most effective method to deal with a pandemic is not to ask an entire country to do the same thing. It's through testing and tracing finding the highest areas of spread, and focusing mitigation measures on those areas.

[marindem01]

Simple statement of fact.

MASKS SAVE LIVES.

But please joe, don't wear one. But when you are deathly ill, don't go to the hospital either. Die at home and in agony.

[JoeMemphis]

You guys used to hate communism. Now you champion KGB thugs.

[gounion]

Your problem, not mine. The GOP is the party of Trump and Putin. And you vote for his supporters.

[bradman]

With a virus that mutates inside human hosts, the more infected, the more likely new mutant variants will arise that are more dangerous.

You want as few people infected as possible in a pandemic, doesn't matter if they are age 1 or age 80, or what some actuarial table says is most likely to die.

The goal of public health in a pandemic is to reduce all infections. For all age groups. Period. End of report.

And yes, I get that point will never be understood by those who don't work in it.

The most effective method to deal with a pandemic is not to ask an entire country to do the same thing. It's through testing and tracing finding the highest areas of spread, and focusing mitigation measures on those areas.

[bold] Kinda difficult to implement a "circuit breaker" shut down when half the nation refuses to test and trace.

[JoeMemphis]

With a virus that mutates inside human hosts, the more infected, the more likely new mutant variants will arise that are more dangerous.

You want as few people infected as possible in a pandemic, doesn't matter if they are age 1 or age 80, or what some actuarial table says is most likely to die.

The goal of public health in a pandemic is to reduce all infections. For all age groups. Period. End of report.

And yes, I get that point will never be understood by those who don't work in it.

The most effective method to deal with a pandemic is not to ask an entire country to do the same thing. It's through testing and tracing finding the highest areas of spread, and focusing mitigation measures on those areas.

Except we don’t treat every virus the same do we? There are other viruses out there that kill. But we treat them. We mitigate the risk. That’s what we eventually did in this case. My point is that expecting 320 million people to behave in the same manner was unrealistic and largely ineffective in this country. The virus still spread as viruses do and while we were worried about whether 20 or 30 year old were wearing their masks we could have focused more attention on the more narrow population that composed greater than 80 percent of the deaths. Maybe we wouldn’t have been sending infected seniors back into nursing homes.

It’s the same argument you and I have had many times before. You haven’t changed your mind. I haven’t changed mine.

[JoeMemphis]

Your problem, not mine. The GOP is the party of Trump and Putin. And you vote for his supporters.

[ProfX]

It’s the same argument you and I have had many times before. You haven’t changed your mind. I haven’t changed mine.

I know you've ignored a dozen studies I've showed you showing these measures are effective. And yes, that one you showed me by some economists claiming otherwise failed peer review.

I haven't changed my POV because it's based on what people in public health are saying. And what the majority of properly conducted studies show.

When that consensus changes, maybe it will.

BTW: as we discussed, while I agree many states made mistakes early in the pandemic, once they knew seniors were at the highest risk, almost all senior facilities in the country were put on the highest level of lockdown. I watched it happen with some of my Mom's friends. Every state did it - as they should have.

[bradman]

It's not about Brad's mother. It's about common sense health precautions. The same thing happened in 1918. They de facto declared the pandemic over but it wasn't. That's why you can't get good statistics. That and war censorship.

As a result, 1918 data is unreliable. Now we have reliable data, but unreliable public discourse. Different problem, same effect. The small minority of assholes screws life up for everyone else.

Plus ça change...............

So some do get my analogies.

[bold] It's been common courtesy to inform people you had the flue. It's been common courtesy to stay home to help stop he spread. You may go to work with a minor head cold, but common courtesy dictated you let your fellow workers know they should keep there distance. Common courtesy said you didn't sneeze into your hand but cuff it in your elbow. Common sense says It may not stop the whole threat, but it would somewhat minimize the spread. They were the rules of common courtesy. Apparently, Covid rules and common courtesy are a different animal.

[ProfX]

[bold] Kinda difficult to implement a "circuit breaker" shut down when half the nation refuses to test and trace.

Concur. It's what forced us to rely on the only proxy data we could use in that absence. And yep, one thing that serves as a nice proxy for prevalence is looking for the virus in samples of poop (wastewater). And we did.

https://www.cdc.gov/healthywater/survei ... lance.html

You gotta do what you gotta do.

Also, BTW, I totally agree with all your "common courtesy" points, but when dealing with a virus that can have asymptomatic spread, (let alone low levels of testing), you have to do more than just tell people what to do once they know they have it.

[marindem01]

Your problem, not mine. The GOP is the party of Trump and Putin. And you vote for his supporters.

That has been Joe's dodge for the longest time, "I never voted for Trump". Joe refused to accept or understand that when he votes for the people who do defend and support the Traitor, Joes in fact defending and supporting the Traitor.

He thinks by not voting the Traitor he somehow absolved of any blame for the Traitor's actions. If he votes for people who support and the defend the Traitor, Joe supports and defends the Traitor.

[ZoWie]

Joe's argument would work if the purpose of masks was to keep people from getting covid. It's not. It's (1) to keep people with asymptomatic or incubating cases from spreading it, and (2) to prevent the rapid mutation of the virus as it spreads through a population. The first one protects everyone in the population, and the second one gives hope for the future, because right now there is none. Omicron has something like 50 variants already. Some of the newer ones circumvent immunity to the ones from last winter.

It's really kind of a moot point, because you're never going to convince the conservatives that a simple and sensible public health precaution that is only done under one certain condition is of any value. That's not how they think. They're the me generation. Probably they think it's their right to spread it, and too bad if you're old or immunocompromised, you don't deserve to live anyway.

[Number6]

i gave up on the anti vaxxer's months ago. Vax, don't vax, whatever. i said as much to my brother (anti-vaxxer) who hadn't been allowed around Mom or my family for almost a year. It started as a nice conversation. He missed Mom and my side of the family. Since covid cases were down at the time, i was willing to try and help. It started to go south when he mention the whole covid thing was fake, and it wasn't any worse than the seasonal flu. i let it go and tried to set up new ground rules. Masks, testing, tracking, and isolation. Common courtesy. Limit the risk. He told me i worried to much. He and his wife had covid the week before and it wasn't any worse than a head cold. i asked him if he tested. Nope. Then how do you know you had covid? And more importantly, how do you know if you're asymptomatic or not? The frustration started to rise when he asked what asymptomatic was. What i then tried to explain obviously went in one ear and out the other. Instead, he jumped back on the, covid is fake thing and proceeded to tell me about all those empty hospital beds. i tried to explain the difference between a hospital bed and a bed in a ICU unit. One we had plenty of, the other we don't. His next comment changed my mood from frustration to anger. He wanted to know what a ICU bed was. i almost lost it. Instead, i calmly explained to him if he was going to talk like that and refuse to do what i consider common courtesy in testing, tracking. and isolation, that it was best if he didn't show up here again. It's been 2 months now and i haven't heard a word from him. So be it. The ball is in his court.

Just for the hellva it, have a little fun with your brother. The next time you see him face-to-face, wear a mask with some red splotches on it and while you're around him start coughing. Your brother will ask what's wrong with you and you say "It's nothing! The doctor's just trying to scare me with a fake diagnosis so he can charge my health insurance more money." Continue to cough near him and see what his reaction is. Let him go on his reaction for awhile before you tell him you punked him using his COVID logic against him with your fake disease. Then show him the mask and the red Magic Marker you used to make the splotches. Once he realizes what you did gently explain to him how COVID is real and that over one million people in this country have died from it and hundreds of thousands are suffering lingering effects of it. If nothing else, he may start to question his beliefs about COIVD being fake. If not, at least you'll have a good laugh at his expense, like most brothers do with each other.

[gounion]

Except we don’t treat every virus the same do we? There are other viruses out there that kill. But we treat them. We mitigate the risk. That’s what we eventually did in this case. My point is that expecting 320 million people to behave in the same manner was unrealistic and largely ineffective in this country. The virus still spread as viruses do and while we were worried about whether 20 or 30 year old were wearing their masks we could have focused more attention on the more narrow population that composed greater than 80 percent of the deaths. Maybe we wouldn’t have been sending infected seniors back into nursing homes.

It’s the same argument you and I have had many times before. You haven’t changed your mind. I haven’t changed mine.

Because you ignore facts and medicine and even germ theory. You live in a fantasy world.

Joe is truly unable to grasp reality and thinks this all was a liberal prank to screw over Trump and the GOP and business owners. He doesn't think it's real.

[marindem01]

Because you ignore facts and medicine and even germ theory. You live in a fantasy world.

Joe is truly unable to grasp reality and thinks this all was a liberal prank to screw over Trump and the GOP and business owners. He doesn't think it's real.

Joe cares more for his wallet and his bank about than he does his family or customers. As long he has money, he cares for nothing else.

He ignores the science of wearing masks because he does not care about anyone or anything other than money.

[gounion]

Joe cares more for his wallet and his bank about than he does his family or customers. As long he has money, he cares for nothing else.

He ignores the science of wearing masks because he does not care about anyone or anything other than money.

Joe is such a fucking wuss that he didn't want to wear a mask because they were "soooo hot and uncomfortable". WAAAAH!

He should have tried to wear what I had to wear when painting in the aircraft industry. He couldn't have stood it.

Of course, he's spent his entire life in a comfortable office ordering others around. He has no idea what working people have had to put up with in their lives. I spent one summer in Kansas in a horrible heat wave working across the isle from a heat treat oven. But Joe thanks a medical mask is hot and uncomfortable. Ha!

[JoeMemphis]

Joe's argument would work if the purpose of masks was to keep people from getting covid. It's not. It's (1) to keep people with asymptomatic or incubating cases from spreading it, and (2) to prevent the rapid mutation of the virus as it spreads through a population. The first one protects everyone in the population, and the second one gives hope for the future, because right now there is none. Omicron has something like 50 variants already. Some of the newer ones circumvent immunity to the ones from last winter.

It's really kind of a moot point, because you're never going to convince the conservatives that a simple and sensible public health precaution that is only done under one certain condition is of any value. That's not how they think. They're the me generation. Probably they think it's their right to spread it, and too bad if you're old or immunocompromised, you don't deserve to live anyway.

Your argument would work if everyone wore the proper mask. Your argument would work if everyone who wore a proper mask actually wore it properly. But neither of those actually happened and to expect that kind of compliance in this country is fantasy. Plus let’s add the fact that many times the rules defied common sense. Plus the fact that the people who insisted on these mandates often didn’t comply with their own mandates. Finally, when we had surges in cases, we didn’t go back to what many here believe were highly effective mandates.

The folks who promoted strict aberance to the mandates, well They followed the mandates when the cameras were on and it was convenient. But once they believed cameras were off it was a different story. Do as I say but not as I do. We were so focused on mandates that we sent infected people back into nursing homes filled with high risk individuals. Yeah, that made lots of sense. That was competent.

And it wasn’t all about masks. It was about essential versus non essential. It was about some businesses staying open and others having to close. It was the difference between operating a business you built from the ground up and closing forever because some bureaucrat who didn’t comply with their own mandates said you couldn’t open. All supposedly for your own good. And god forbid if anyone questioned the logic behind it all.

[gounion]

Your argument would work if everyone wore the proper mask. Your argument would work if everyone who wore a proper mask actually wore it properly. But neither of those actually happened and to expect that kind of compliance in this country is fantasy. Plus let’s add the fact that many times the rules defied common sense. Plus the fact that the people who insisted on these mandates often didn’t comply with their own mandates. Finally, when we had surges in cases, we didn’t go back to what many here believe were highly effective mandates.

Folks, this is conservatives logic. It's HILARIOUS! Since not everyone will do it right, then NO ONE SHOULD DO IT!

This is a guy with a fucking college degree!

The folks who promoted strict aberance to the mandates, well They followed the mandates when the cameras were on and it was convenient. But once they believed cameras were off it was a different story. Do as I say but not as I do. We were so focused on mandates that we sent infected people back into nursing homes filled with high risk individuals. Yeah, that made lots of sense. That was competent.

And again... Since everything wasn't done PERFECTLY, since people MADE MISTAKES, that means we shouldn't have done ANYTHING.

Is that how you run a business?

And it wasn’t all about masks. It was about essential versus non essential. It was about some businesses staying open and others having to close. It was the difference between operating a business you built from the ground up and closing forever because some bureaucrat who didn’t comply with their own mandates said you couldn’t open. All supposedly for your own good. And god forbid if anyone questioned the logic behind it all.

And, as always, we finish up with business and profits before human life. It's the ONLY THING that matters to Joe.

[marindem01]

Human LIfe means nothing to Joe. It's his wallet and his bank account. Masks save lives. In fact if Joe bothered to go to CDC website, he would see that because of masks the rate of infection from cold and flu were in fact way down. But of course Joe does not believe in science, he believes the money he has and that is it.

[JoeMemphis]

Folks, this is conservatives logic. It's HILARIOUS! Since not everyone will do it right, then NO ONE SHOULD DO IT!

This is a guy with a fucking college degree!

And again... Since everything wasn't done PERFECTLY, since people MADE MISTAKES, that means we shouldn't have done ANYTHING.

Is that how you run a business?

And, as always, we finish up with business and profits before human life. It's the ONLY THING that matters to Joe.

Actually, when you are spending trillions propping up an economy you purposely tanked, it’s quite logical to ask if the measures you employed were effective. That’s the responsible and smart thing to do. I’m not surprised such a concept eluded you. You appear to be more interested in covering ass.

I don’t expect perfection from human beings. That’s as unrealistic as expecting zero Covid cases. I do expect a measure of effectiveness especially when we are putting a significant amount of stress on other people. That’s also logical and responsible. I don’t expect you to understand.

[carmenjonze]

Actually, when you are spending trillions propping up an economy you purposely tanked, it’s quite logical to ask if the measures you employed were effective. That’s the responsible and smart thing to do. I’m not surprised such a concept eluded you. You appear to be more interested in covering ass.

I don’t expect perfection from human beings. That’s as unrealistic as expecting zero Covid cases. I do expect a measure of effectiveness especially when we are putting a significant amount of stress on other people. That’s also logical and responsible. I don’t expect you to understand.

Disease-spreading colonizer.