It's Been Two Years Since Covid-19 Became a Pandemic (technologyreview.com) 187
Today, March 11, 2022, marks two years since covid-19 was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization. We've had lockdowns, vaccines, and arguments about how to move forward and live with this virus. We've watched the pandemic through numbers and data and memorials to the many lives lost, officially now over six million. It is likely this figure is a vast undercount. A study published in The Lancet this week estimated that the true number may be three times higher, at 18.2 million. Technology Review: And, in a statement marking the two-year anniversary, WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned: "Although reported cases and deaths are declining globally, and several countries have lifted restrictions, the pandemic is far from over -- and it will not be over anywhere until it's over everywhere."
I find it interesting (Score:2)
How this has played out. First there was fear and confusion, which is understandable as health officials tried to understand what it did and how to combat it.
Then came recommendations on how to minimize risk.
From there came the push back.
Which continues to this day over such trivial things as being considerate to your fellow citizens and either get a vaccine, or wear some paper over your nose and mouth.
One can only imagine how this world might have reacted has the virus been something catastrophically dange
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While science supports efficacy of the vaccine, and proper N95 masks, the cloth and paper masks most people have been wearing most of the pandemic are simply feel good measures that do little to nothing.
They were basically a placebo to keep a lot of people from panicking during the early days of the outbreak. Without the masks people would have been confronted with the simple truth that until a vaccine came along there really wasn't anything to be done about the virus, aside from full quarantine and isolati
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This is not true. Yes, you can still get Covid-19 with a mask. But if you get a lighter viral load, you can get a mild case. Before the vaccine was available, a mild or asymptomatic case helped give you immunity. There is a good article here:
https://www.inverse.com/mind-b... [inverse.com]
Or this good video on the subject: https://youtu.be/5ho3M8i-jXA [youtu.be]
The bottom line is, hardly anyone ever said the were foolproof. They were just supposed to slow down the spread enough to keep resources at hospitals freed up.
I recently chal
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The main benefit to mask wearing, though, is protecting others from the mask wearer.
It's the main benefit of cloth mask wearing, anyway. N95 masks, with ~99% effectiveness against transmission, provide a pretty big benefit to the mask wearer as well.
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> we were told not to dare touch the N95 masks
Moreover, we were told this *after* literally years (Ever since fire season became an annual thing.) of being told that absolutely nothing less than a properly-fitted N95 was worth a damn. This was because smoke particles are so small as to pass through anything short of that N95. (Which, in fairness, makes perfect sense.). Well, viruses are even smaller than those smoke particles so it sure stands to reason that the same "anything less than an N95 is garba
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is that a properly worn and fit tested respirator?
Yes
(N95, if fitted properly),
And I guess it would actually be 95%. You would think the name would give me a hint :-)
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You are misinformed. Cloth and paper masks work just fine, to protect others from you if you are infected. Just not as effective as an N95 mask to protect yourself from getting infected.
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I use science AND real world results to make my decisions. That's why I'm vaccinated. There is tons and tons of science AND evidence that they work. Sadly, cloth masks aren't showing any real-world results, as evidence by the recent January surge in masked California and unmasked Florida:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/california/#graph-cases-daily
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/florida/#graph-cases-daily
(note, California has double the population, so you will see double
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That's not true and you know it. Masks work. There is no legitimate debate here.
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There's a difference between your silly anecdotes and actual science, you know. Or maybe you don't...
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Is there any macro data supporting mask usage?
Tons of it.
Granted, I think a fresh
We don't need uninformed opinions, we have actual facts.
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Your evidence is.... 'Tons of it'?
Wait, hold on a second, I want to try it to0.
(Ahem).
There is tons AND TONS of evidence that mask mandates don't work.
Wow, that was easy. I should have been doing that the whole time. Did I convince you?
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Deny reality all you want. You're not going to convince anyone, not even yourself.
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I'll get my evidence from scientists, thanks, not rando anti-science nuts on the internet.
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You're an anit-science troll. I'm not here to educate you. You don't actually care about facts and reality anyway. I'm here to point out that you're spreading nonsense. Fuck off.
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If masks 'work', why did California have the same surges as other less masked states? You can point to whatever study showing a 5% reduction in transmission or whatever, but I look at real-world results. Masking had a negligible effect., there is no legitimate debate on that point. Go look at the recent surge a few months ago. You will see nearly the exact same surge in masked California as unmasked Florida.
And if you still truly, with all your heart, think that masks work, answer me this one question:
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I'm not going to spend an hour digging up sources and explaining statics to you just to have you ignore everything and make a different evidence-free claim.
Just know that your idiotic conspiracy theories are getting people killed.
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What 'different' claim did I make? What 'conspiracy theory' are you talking about? Did you reply to the correct post? And my claim ABSOLUTELY had evidence. Just go look up the most recent surges in California and Florida. Well, you didn't bother to look before to see that I was right, so I guess I'll have to link it for you:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/california/#graph-cases-daily
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/florida/#graph-cases-daily
Amazingly, that took me way, way
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You should leave science to the scientists. There's a reason actual experts don't agree with the conclusion you've blamelessly drawn. I'm not here to teach you basic science, but I will call out your bullshit.
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Why do my glasses fog up when I wear a mask?
a) because you are wearing the wrong mask, or have not fitted it correctly
b) because your exhaling makes the airflow going upward over your eyes, and hence fogs the glasses
Are you really that stupid that you do not know why your glasses fog up?
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You don't need to filter viruses to capture COVID19, you need to capture water droplets.
Yes, it's not 100% effective, nothing is. Boring masks work *well enough* (because they just have to capture droplets!) to reduce transmission.
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So if a mask is 90% effective in protecting against one encounter of the virus. There is f(1)=.9 that you aren't exposed.
For two encounters f(2)=0.9Ã--0.9=0.81 that both encounters left you unexposed.
If you encounter the virus 5 times a day for a week the mask has f(35)=0.9^35=0.025
Most people don't encounter the virus 35 times per week. Even at the peak of omicron in the U.S., only one in 408 people caught COVID in any given day, which means a little more than 1% would have been contagious on any given day (assuming people are typically contagious for five-ish days). So unless you spend a significant period of time around O(3500) people each week, you're not going to be exposed 35 times per week. Even someone operating a cash register at Walmart doesn't spend time around nearly th
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Exactly this, every little bit helps and the goal is an R value substantially below 1.0 but that means you don't stop social distancing when wearing a mask, you do both.
Anyhow, 2 years down the line and it seems that in the UK at least 98%+ of people have anti-bodies now either via vaccine or by catching the virus. The problem is some people have such poor immune systems that the next variant might kill them or give th
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No one is forcing you to not be a raging asrehole. Stop whining about that. You're free to be a wanker, we're free to point it out.
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I'm not trying to persuade you. You've had two years to figure out how not to be a tosser. Clearly it's beyond you.
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From the party who sponsors these bills. https://thehill.com/homenews/s... [thehill.com]
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Vaccines (Score:2)
The vaccines unequivocally reduce the chance of death & illness from SARS-CoV-2 infection, to the point where more than 90% of COVID deaths in the past year (since vaccines have become widely available) have been among the unvaccinated.
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We're no far enough into the pandemic that we have real data on how well masks work: they don't.
False. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2014564118 [pnas.org]
The CDC even admitted this in January, stating directly that anything less than an N95 mask was worthless at preventing COVID spread.
Not what the CDC said. Their statement explicitly says that any mask is better than no mask. See https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2022/s-0114-mask-protection-fit.html [cdc.gov].
Comparing case rates between areas with lots of mask use and no mask use also shows this.
Also false. See for example this German study https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2015954117 [pnas.org] or look at the Bangladesh study. That one is particularly good because they actually randomized it, giving masks to some villages and not others, and the measuring covid growth. https://www.s [science.org]
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Please show us that trial data, then. Or by "impacted mortality rate by less than 1%" do you mean that the mortality rate went from 1.2% to 0.2% or something?
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You're lying. The vaccine was not "unproven". Masks and vaccines work. Your bullshit is killing people.
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and don't force them to inject unproven drugs or to wear things that don't work.
I'm 100% with you man. I too would post AC if I were to write something so dumbfucking stupid.
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No, the vaccines do not "flood the body" with spike protein. The mRNA ones do cause cells local to the injection site to make spike protein, but the mRNA completes its' task quickly and those spike proteins are effectively removed completely by the immune system within around 48 hours. As opposed to the infection, which can rage for well over a week, making not only spike proteins, but the whole virus that
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Doesn't your vaccination protect you? If not, then why did you get vaccinated?
This is such basic stuff, it's amazing that an adult in this day and age doesn't understand it. Of course, maybe you're a child and this has not been explained to you yet. Basically, there are a number of factors that lead to spread of a disease in a population. One of those, and possibly the most important, is herd immunity. Just in case you're confused on that as well, herd immunity does not only refer to that obtained by actual infection. Herd immunity is achieved by enough people in population being imm
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Technically, vaccines do not "work". A vaccine is exactly the same as a poster "Wanted Dead or Alive" in the Post Office. The vaccine (like the poster) does *not* do anything by itself (ie, there is nothing that the vaccine does itself to work).
To say that it "works" is mostly a turn of phrase (note that you said that a "...vaccine works..." in the very next paragraph). However, some vaccines are definitely more active than others. In the end, it is, of course, your immune system that has to do the real work as you say.
I liked the wanted poster analogy pretty well. I think I'm most partial to the "Death Star plans" [xkcd.com] analogy from XKCD though. "Keep building ships! Build ships forever! DESTROY THE ORB!"
Is WHO director-general Ghebreyesus a doctor? (Score:2)
"My doctorate's in literature, but that seems like a pretty good pulse to me."
N times higher (Score:2)
the true number may be three times higher, at 18.2 million.
That would be two times higher. Double is one time higher, triple two times higher.
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I understand what you're getting here, but it's a slightly ambiguous idiomatic expression. It's hard to get agreement on a meaning because the usage they used is in common usage. So is the other meaning, of course. It would be tricky if we could not infer from context. It's probably better to just never use it.
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How is 18 million not three times more than 6 million?
Interesting ft.com article two days ago (Score:2)
Basically, the present statistics from the UK, showing that now a smaller fraction of Covid-19 infected die than die from Influenza in an average flu season. Thanks to immunity from vaccination or prior infection and better treatment options for this.
The antivax movement is about to suddenly vanish (Score:2)
Acccording to this Wired article, the slick Russian disinformation ,machine that has been aimed at us for the last few years may be headed for bankruptcy along with its sponsor's war:
https://www.wired.com/story/pu... [wired.com]
It's as good as it's going to get, ever (Score:2)
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at least in most Western countries. With antivaxers entrenched in their beliefs, vaccine uptake rate is not going to improve substantially anywhere.
Its not as hard as you think.
Western Australia has the highest vaccination rate for over 16s of the mainland States: 98.1 per cent first dose, 95.7 double dose and 66.6 per cent booster
How did we do it? Get all those "entrenched antivaxers" to take the shot? Simple. First vaccination was mandated for many jobs, and for entering bars or restaurants. That worked well,
but the real winning move was to require proof of vax for buying take-away liquor. I thought the remaining hard-core would get fake ID
NCBI: Ivermectin is effective (Score:2)
Review of the Emerging Evidence Demonstrating the Efficacy of Ivermectin in the Prophylaxis and Treatment of COVID-19
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8088823/
Sadly, leftist propaganda kept people away from this "horse de-wormer" for years. I wonder how many lives were lost for the sake of the narrative.
Re:NCBI: Ivermectin is useless for COVID (Score:2)
Review of the Emerging Evidence Demonstrating the Efficacy of Ivermectin in the Prophylaxis and Treatment of COVID-19
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov]
Sadly, leftist propaganda kept people away from this "horse de-wormer" for years. I wonder how many lives were lost for the sake of the narrative.
The first sentence says that article has been corrected. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8415512/ [nih.gov]
How many lives were lost because they listened to conspiracy theorists like you. You literally have blood on your hands you are trying to wash off with bullshit. Hell, if it weren't for people like you, this pandemic would have never made it to 2, we'd be lucky if it lasted a year if not for utter nutters spreading falsehoods.
The only "narrative" here is yours, trying to push quack cures that
COVID-19 magically stopped mutating (Score:2)
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No more variants, it's time for the masks to come off, just in time for a war.
No, it's still mutating.
What has happened is that the majority of the population in many countries have been vaccinated. This has done two things that have made the virus far less of a threat. The vaccines are still effective against mutations.
1. Vaccines have reduced the severity, keeping vaccinated people out of hospital, off of oxygen and not in graves.
2. Vaccines have reduced the transmissibility of the virus by making it harder for vaccinated people to contract the virus in the first place (a
Oh yeah (Score:2)
300 times 9/11 in the US (Score:2)
There was an enormous uproar about 9/11, which killed around 3000 people.
But was the uproar about the attack, or about the dead?
If it was about the dead, why don't we hear 300 times the uproar that 9/11 caused?
If it wasn't about the people, that, and the absence of uproar about 1 million COVID deaths, proves that too many people don't care about other people's lives
And look where business is now (Score:2)
We've reached the point in the pandemic that the business and govt employers, are forcefully desperately and damn near violently pulling people back in to the office, trying to claw back control and drag us into the office.
If you're not "one of the chosen" (management layer or close to it) or highly skilled, you're about to get shafted.
Thought you could do your job at home? Well you could, but magically right now it's IMPERATIVE you get back in the office, apparently.
Seeing articles across the web, across m
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Which cancer? Throat? Breast? Colon? Liver? Lung? Cancer is a spectrum. You can't compare a spectrum with a specific item. Pick one
and heart diseases also about 10k.
Heart disease is not transmissible if someone coughs on you.
Note that the flu in a bad year, also kills about 8k people, but then no counter measures are instated.
Yes, there are. People who get the ful are told to stay home and away from other people for a week.
2017-2018 way such
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In the Netherlands (17M population) in 12 months time, ... And that was with full lockdowns and other counter measures.
I think the real argument was over the justification of the lockdowns etc. How many would have died without restrictions?
When it gets to the point of hospitals overwhelmed, as we saw in Wuhan, northern Italy, and New York, the mortality is much higher.
It may have been 100,000 deaths averted in the Netherlands and millions in the US. Far more young people would be dying too, from conditions that are normally treatable.
You don't justify seatbelts by counting the people who still died while wearing them.
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The statistics sound about right. They're also horrific Presenting them as if they're no big deal just makes people look nuts.
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I thought we learned enough when the mortality numbers were tallied for 2020. It was found 0.3% of people died, the average age was in the 80s, only 10% of people who died, died of COVID that year and the number 1 and 2 killers were still heart disease and cancer.
The US is right on the edge of 1 million people killed from COVID. So that means that, on a yearly basis, COVID hits about 75% of the volume of heart disease and 80% of cancer since it became a pandemic. Many lists rate it lower, but that's only because they measure COVID since it first appeared instead of when it first became a pandemic. In any case, it's uncontested for the number three spot in the US. It's bizarre how far people like you stretch to minimize it.
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And the number three killer was Covid, which is the only one of the top five that you could catch from someone else, and the only one that has a single cause. Not to mention that there were months when Covid was the number 1 killer. With almost a million dead in the US from Covid, that's 0.3% of the population, not 0.3% of the infected, and it would have been much worse if it
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> And the number three killer was Covid, which is the only one of the top five that you could catch from someone else, and the only one that has a single cause.
So for statistics sake you want to break cancer up into the various types of cancer. But when it comes to COVID you won't count delta, omicron, etc you're willing to lump them together. I see how it is :)
All COVID strains are caused by the same basic virus that has mutated slightly. The difference between delta and omicron is comparable to the difference between catching H1N1-2009 influenza in 2009 and catching it in 2010. Even the different influenza strains (e.g. H1N1, H3N2) are way farther apart than the COVID-19 variants; the differences between flu strains are closer to the difference between SARS-CoV-2 and the coronaviruses that are considered to be common colds. Yet we lump all of those together w
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From now on, all disaster movies will have to have 1/3 of the characters go from denial to wacky, ineffective countermeasures, cursing the so-called experts under their breath. It won't be believable otherwise.
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From now on, all disaster movies will have to have 1/3 of the characters go from denial to wacky, ineffective countermeasures, cursing the so-called experts under their breath.
What do you mean "from now on"? The crazies and denialists are nothing new, and not a surprise to observers of history.
The 2011 movie "Contagion" got a lot of things right, with mobs of conspiracy theorists, social media lies and fake cures.
(Didn't we all re-watch that in 2020?)
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It hasn't happened yet. Though keep telling that lie. I'm sure someone will believe it.
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Yes. Those idiotic covid conspiracies have never proven true. You have to be pretty delusional to believe otherwise.
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1. Don't eat bats or any raw tetrapods.
2. Conspiracies spread even faster than viruses.
3. "Freedom" seems to include freedom to infect & pollute others.
4. Too many humans are fucking morons.
5. The Boy Scouts were right: "be prepared". (Ironically, they weren't prepared for pedophiles, dooming the org.)
6. Pandemics can drive you nuts in ways you wouldn't anticipate. Everything around you becomes at least slightly twerked by it. (Example: "Since work temporarily closed, I'l
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The classic explanation of freedom and where it ends is: "Your right to swing your fist ends at my face". Not to mention that knowingly or negligently spreading dangerous diseases has been a criminal offense for quite a while now.
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> Your freedom to protect yourself from infection has been maintained.
It's not realistic to wear a space suit everywhere. You don't know own the air, so why should you be allowed to foul it without others' say?
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I kept daily statistics for my local state for all of January. [...] 67% of deaths 2+ vaccinated vs 74% of population 2+ vaccinated. That’s a pretty miserable result for the vaccine.
You claim to be from Queensland, Australia [slashdot.org], but far from being the 74% fully vaccinated that you claim, Queensland is actually 91.2% fully vaccinated [qld.gov.au], so you're off to a rocky start. Then you cherry-picked the worst month on record (Omicron was surging, booster shots weren't yet widespread, and the efficacy conferred by the initial doses was waning), rather than the preceding months, following month, or cumulative values, all of which would have painted a different picture and any of which would have been
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