I think that people’s identities moving increasingly on-line has a lot to do with this. Same goes with internet dating and discussions about such. Many people develop these long lists of dealbreakers that are never enforced should they happen to meet someone in real life. I do think the Internet enhances that sort of rigidity and fixed views.
This is for a single month, so annualized the mortality per 100k is 20.5 for unvax, 2.6 for vax and 1.2 for boosted. The flu averages something around 10 (33k deaths vs 330M pop). These covid numbers are a bit low in total, but it’s also not during peak season.
I took these numbers and did a bit of math. Assuming 150k deaths per year, 330M USA residents and from the NY Times 21% of the population is unvaxxed, 47% vaxxed and 32% boosted. The annualized mortality is about 45 (much worse than the flu), but the split is 157 for unvaxxed, 20 for vaxxed and 9 for boosted. (same ratio as the SA figures)
My take from this is, if you get vaccinated, Covid is the Flu. It’s an extra flu we don’t need, and maybe it’s a bad flu, but it’s the flu. We don’t shut down the world for the flu. I am certainly not shutting down my world to protect people who have been actively trying to kill me and my family by doing everything in their power to keep Covid alive and well in our society.
Can we tell whether the Scientific American numbers were point-in-time numbers (i.e. on this specific day, the rates were thus) or aggregate numbers for the month (i.e. for all of March, this many per 100k died)?
I bring that up because the 7-day average daily COVID death count dropped rapidly throughout March 2022 – from ~1,700 on 3/1 to ~600 on 3/31. Since then, the 7-day daily death counts got down to a simmering point around 350/day +/- 40 deaths from about mid-April 2022 through mid-July 2022. Starting about a month ago, the same metric crept back above 400 and has, for now, settled in the high-400s/day.
The article is from June and the graphs and charts say they are weekly averages for March, so I see nothing to lead us away from knowing that the entire month is represented.
Is there anyplace that still has strict public protocols? My state had pretty strict mask mandates and other measures. Unlike some places I read about, hearing of noncompliance was rare. Everyone I saw was wearing a mask out in public. But the mask mandates ended a while ago. The only places I see that require them are doctors offices and not all of them. Is there any place that still has strict rules?
Meet & greet events with pop stars (typically included with VIP tickets) still often require masks to protect the artist. In fact I’ve recently been to a pop concert where the artist insisted everyone attending wear a mask.
Then the situation is even better today. Ballparking the daily death count average throughout March as being in the 900-1000 range, the same metric was in the 300s for a good three months before rising over the last four weeks back into the high 400s.
A Facebook friend posted from a fan event where Frodo and Sam were doing meet and greets with fans. You could take pictures with them but in reality there was a plexiglass wall between them and the fans.
I think this is where you’re having a problem. If you are relatively healthy and recently-vaccinated, your risk of serious disease is quite low. Where I live, this latest wave has resulted in less than 25% the hospitalizations of the wave last summer. ICU hospitalizations are 14%, ventilator patients 15%, and deaths 1% of last summer’s. This is pretty typical throughout the US except for a few counties in the middle of nowhere that somehow escaped previous waves. This is what we’re trying to tell you.
If you stick to outdoor venues and wearing a mask, you risk of even catching covid is low. Think about it. If you are outside, the only people that could infect you are those that are in your immediate vicinity. Even then, they’d have to cough right in your face. Plus, if you wear a mask, your risk is further reduced. So outdoor concerts, eating, even sports events are usually safe.
Yes! I was just going to stress this point.
I disagree vehemently, and it honestly frustrates me. You can literally have a thread where people are explaining their logic, and yet you still get arguments the vast majority of people are just lying for brownie points or to make themselves feel superior.
I see no reason to assume that, at all. Virtue signaling (the current, non-scientific concept) may occur at times, but it’s not this hugely common practice people act like it is. Most of the time it’s just people with their own reasons to think differently about something than you. Often they have stricter morals, different priorities, different risk tolerances, etc. And if they get preachy, it’s only because they think the world would be better if everyone followed those morals, and get frustrated that there are problems that should be fixable but aren’t.
That’s where I am. We learned that masking worked not only for COVID-19, but made flu and colds better. That to me suggests that there should have been a shift to masking while sick. If there is an acceptable level of death, COVID-19 takes that above the previous level, so we should be reducing all of it. It frustrates me that people are still framing this as solely about their own personal risk.
At the same time, I do recognize that it makes sense for recommendations to lighten as the statistics have changed. I just don’t think we were at the right place before.
I also think that, even if it doesn’t kill you, getting sick sucks. And masking is easy when I’m out in public, not just among a small group of friends. It’s not this huge burden. And I’m pretty sure I avoided getting a cold/COVID-19/etc because of it. I also experience a lot of fatigue as is due to other issues, and don’t want it compounded. And I can’t stand the idea that I might make someone else sick (e.g. my friend who had to have oxygen) when I had a simple thing I could do to stop it. So I wear a mask when out.
It’s dumb that people would rather think I was doing it to “virtue signal” rather than think I might have a legitimate reason or difference of opinion. And if I’m not doing it for that reason, and neither are the people in this thread, why assume that’s the case for most everyone else?
Look, the first thing I want to say is that I always wear a mask when required, and in other appropriate circumstances.
However, it’s not true that it isn’t a burden. I find it has three significant issues:
- In certain environments my glasses fog up so badly that I literally cannot see. I’ve tried various solutions but none work well.
- When I’m doing anything even a little bit strenuous I feel like I can’t get a deep breath.
- People can’t understand me when I speak, and I don’t understand other people when they speak wearing a mask. A conversation at, say, a food truck, ends up something like this:
Clerk: “Would you like the [mumble] or the [mumble]?
Me: “Could you repeat that?”
Clerk: “Huh?”
Me: “Could you repeat that?”
Clerk: “Would you like the mild salsa or the spicy salsa?”
Me: “Spicy.”
Clerk: “Huh?”
I’m not virtue signaling. I’m trying to stay alive and keep the people around me alive. Neither do I want long COVID. Some of us have medical vulnerability, or are older, or are the sole support for others.
…the CDC defines public health as “concerned with protecting the health of entire populations.” So the stress on the healthcare system is one way to measure the state of public health. But it isn’t the only metric.
One of the biggest issues we have at the moment worldwide is that we don’t actually really have a clear picture of what is going on right now. In the United States, surveillance is inadequate. For example:
This number here is likely to be a significant undercount.
Many places don’t have systems set up to record rapid tests. So we literally have no way of knowing how many cases there have been. But if we compare these figures to places that do have systems to log and report the results of rapid tests it is likely the real amount of cases in the US would be up to 5 times the figures that are being reported.
The same goes for hospitalizations. And for deaths.
So how bad is Covid really in the US? We don’t really know. Cases are undercounted. Deaths are measured inconsistently. In many places race and ethnicity data isn’t being tracked at all.
Public health is about protecting the health of entire populations. That starts with having a clear an understanding of exactly what is going on, as much as possible. The failures here lead to the second problem.
Throughout the pandemic we have seen the disproportionate impact Covid has had on the marginalized, the poor, those in service and food industry, those that have fewer options, those that can’t access healthcare, those where vaccine equity initiatives are failing.
The endgame here is in clear sight. The next step is the " commercialization of buying the vaccines, buying the treatments, buying the diagnostic tests. That isn’t speculation. That is what the White House Covid-19 Response Co-ordinator is hoping will happen next year.
This is a catastrophic failure of public health. Combined with a lack of surveillance, inconsistent metrics, massive under-reporting, no real understanding of the long term impact of long-covid, zero financial support for people that (previously) had to isolate, Covid-19 is on-track to becoming a minor inconvienience to many, but will have devastating and lasting impact on communities in the margins.
But that really is the story of America, I suppose. So I guess that things really are getting back to normal.
Yeah, I think this is the crux of the matter at this point: too many people either don’t realize this or don’t care. I really really hope it’s one over the other. Undercounting is a good point as well. As for long Covid, well, that’s already been pooh-poohed in this very thread for some reason.
Honestly, I’m surprised to see some of the sentiments I’ve seen in this thread. “Oh, it’s just the flu.” “Oh, we don’t know if people died of Covid or with Covid.” Does anyone not remember who originally said those things? I refuse to give stupid anti-vaxxers the benefit of the doubt or a victory, however indirect.
…I am, sadly, not really that surprised. More disappointed than anything. But the general tone of the thread echoes the tone of the current administration, and that really is par-for-the-course.
Oh really.
You’re claiming hospitalizations and deaths are currently being undercounted by a factor of 5. A factor of 5! Are they setting up secret warehouses and graveyards for all of the bodies?
…nope.
“The same goes for hospitalizations. And for deaths.” was in relation to the “information fog” we are in with inconsistent metrics and data which I elaborated further with the cite from “The Covid Tracking Project”.
I don’t think hospitalizations are being undercounted by a factor of 5. I do believe that covid hospitalizations that would be counted in one jurisdiction wouldn’t be counted in another. Same for deaths. Which means we don’t have an accurate picture of exactly where we are at at this stage of the pandemic.
Yes, morons. But it wasn’t the collection of words and ideas that itself was moronic, it was when and how those ideas were applied. Morons said “it’s just the flu” when the disease was far more contagious than the flu, far more deadly than the flu, when we had no effective treatment or vaccine.
If I say “it’s just the flu” today, it’s in relation to the impact of this disease on people who are fully vaccinated, and have access to the treatments developed over the last 2 years. It’s definitely not just the flu for the unvaccinated, but I’m pretty much in “fuck them” mode, we have given them every opportunity to save themselves and they spat in our collective faces.
I know this is just anecdotal not scientific.
I worked in one of the hottest hot zones during the worst of the pandemic. I was going into Covid houses daily sometimes performing CPR on the dead. We would get daily reports the number of dead from town. There were dozens and dozens of houses with the sick that could be left at home. I know where they put the (let’s call it “unpublicized” not secret) morgue to cover the overflow. I had friends and family die.
Today is not that. Not even close. I can’t remember the last time we had an emergency call to a residence because of Covid. I know it’s not over. I have Covid right now. But it’s so obviously different you can’t expect people to continue to act like it isn’t. People will not live that way forever. It will be treated like the flu. It’s inevitable. Since my lovely and wonderful 1st cousin died from the flu just a couple years before Covid I know that’s not nothing.