This thread has been completely hijacked with the New Zealand discussion. While I think it’s a good discussion to have, it’s not the original topic of this thread.
Unfortunately, the hijack has gone on for so long that I don’t think it’s possible to restore this thread to its original topic. Anyone wishing to discuss the actual OP of this thread is urged to start a new discussion. Feel free to link back to this thread and also to specifically mention that the New Zealand discussion is not a part of this topic.
In the future, if you wish to have a discussion about a tangential topic, please start a new thread and link back to the original. Let’s try to avoid complete hijacks like this one as it loses the original topic.
Actually, looking at case and hospitalization and death rates in my state, we MAY have become (mostly) immune to the death. Our death rate is far below where it was in March, when the case and hospitalization rates were similar.
I live in a highly vaccinated state in a highly vaccinated region (the north east US.) Our hospitals still have plenty of capacity. I am cautiously hopeful that the current surge won’t be as bad as previous ones. On the other hand, colleges just opened a few weeks ago, and K-12 schools only just returned. And looking at infection-by-age in my state, it looks like the numbers are peaking (increasing MUCH more slowly than a few weeks ago) for every age cohort over 29. But the infection rates for younger people look linear and are heading up.
I guess we’ll see what happens. I’m vaccinated. All my friends and family are vaccinated. Most of us are still mostly staying home, and all of us are wearing masks when we go out. I bought some rapid covid antigen tests, and I use them when I go to a higher-risk activity shortly after having been to a higher-risk activity. As you say, there’s not much more that I, as an individual, can do.
I am endlessly frustrated with poor messaging (imo) from pretty much every branch of government, under both the current and the past administration. But there’s nothing I can do about that. Writing letters that say “communicate better” isn’t going to make any difference, and besides, it’s probably too late.
I in no way am suggesting that ant-vaxxers “It’s just the flu” was the correct response when this all started. And all those assholes are the reason where we are now.
My OP was more about the defeatism mode we are in now. It’s much worse than the flu we have been dealing with forever, but we are getting close to treating it like a “bad flue”
I live in a highly vaccinated area. Everybody wore masks when the public health officials said so.
We are still doing better than Idaho etc. But nobody wears a mask. People are just tired of it.
That’s my sense as well. I live in a pretty well-vaccinated area but a lot of the younger people have stopped wearing masks, or they often half-ass wear them on their chin - a lot of good that does.
I think the big mistake that was made at the federal level was hyping up expectations in April and May that we could be past the worst of the pandemic in June. Particularly in light of the devastation that was taking place in India, that was just piss poor judgment.
People are still aware of the pandemic and delta variant, but I’m guessing that for many, vaccination was their way of mentally putting the pandemic behind them. It’s been hard for them to make the switch back to vigilance.
For a young, vaccinated person, honestly, maybe you need to be more specific as to what you want them to do. We’ve been doing this for 18 months. For someone in their 20s, that’s 18 months of their 20s they are NOT getting back. No one is getting any of this time lost back, opportunities lost back. That’s all gone.
So you need to start being more specific. I think vigilance needs to be tied to local cases. Otherwise you need to let it go. I think some people were/are expecting the sort of amorphous vigilance, fear based vigilance, that we had in March 2020. Maybe because they’re still there. That goes away over time, you can’t call on that forever.
Yes, but were were on a solid downward trend in the middle of 2021. I have made it almost a hobby to talk to people in bars regarding what they think is going on. There is a perception that it’s going away. People are surprised when I tell them the current rise in deaths.
EVERYBODY is burned out on masks and social distancing. IMO the message has been poorly disseminated publicly and now it’s that much harder to generate an interest in dealing with it.
I get it - I’m also burnt out on wearing masks. I still wear them, though.
I get that young people just want to move on with life - I get that, too. I would probably have a different outlook if I were 27 and single, rather than being 47 and married and confronting the thought of caring for an aging mother and aging in-laws should they come down with COVID or something else.
In retrospect, I think a lot of politicians were hesitant to push for vaccine mandates because they’d been worn down by the protests over masks. But I think more leaders, both in the public and private sectors, should have insisted on mandates, criticism be damned. Obviously, it’s easy to be a Monday morning QB but our lack of collective vigilance has been the problem.
I dunno, I think I’m starting to view masks the way dogs view their leash. “Hey, I’m going to go spend time in-the-flesh with other people”.
I went to a small party yesterday, and after the main activity ended, we sat around on the patio talking about masks, trading masks (clean extras, not the ones we were wearing, of course) and generally about which masks we liked the most, which fit best, were most comfortable, etc.
I gave away three fun-looking kf94s, and was given a “duck bill” style n95 that some of my friends have had good luck with.
The message is all over legitimate media pretty much nonstop. Where it isn’t all over is Fox News and Facebook feeds. How are you going to make people follow real news?
New Zealand, one of the last countries aiming to eliminate the virus, have now also committed to move away from lockdowns and their formal “elimination strategy”.
That was to be expected. For any country such a strategy was never realistically sustainable in the long term given vaccines, better treatments but a much more virulent strain. And of course that move away from harsh restrictions will necessarily bring about more cases and associated deaths than previously seen but that is something that cannot be avoided.