Moderators: LawBeefaroni, $iljanus
How much are the benefits of wearing a mask compromised when you spend all day in the same room at home with people who were in the same places unmasked? If I can't convince the rest of the family to mask, is there still meaningful benefit to wearing one when I'm out with them?
There is benefit (however little) to you wearing a mask while at [Store X] if the rest of your family isn't. The reason is that immune response is individual. Yes, we all have the same basic immunological tools but depending on the circumstances surrounding your own exposure two people could have very different paths under the same conditions.Blackhawk wrote: ↑Thu Jun 02, 2022 5:30 pm How much are the benefits of wearing a mask compromised when you spend all day in the same room at home with people who were in the same places unmasked? If I can't convince the rest of the family to mask, is there still meaningful benefit to wearing one when I'm out with them?
I think Omicron is less likely to result in fever than earlier variants, but it's still a symptom to watch out for.LawBeefaroni wrote: ↑Thu Jun 02, 2022 9:37 pm By the way, are we still taking temperatures or does that not work anymore? I remember checking several times a day 15 years ago or whenever it was that this all started.
I don't believe this has been recommended as a screening tool for quite some time - now that we know the virus spreads asymptomatically (I think the current belief is in 50%+ of the cases). You might catch someone with an elevated temp, but I'd be more concerned about those without obvious symptoms that are just shedding the virus because, freedom.LawBeefaroni wrote: ↑Thu Jun 02, 2022 9:37 pm By the way, are we still taking temperatures or does that not work anymore? I remember checking several times a day 15 years ago or whenever it was that this all started.
My hood is closer to 20% masking at the grocery store.
I shop mostly at work or on the way home so Ravenswood/Lincoln Square. Though I did grab some beer at the WF by my place. Recalling that trip...only employees and myself were masked. A few customers with masks under the chin as if to say, "Trying to please everyone but pleasing no one."
The closer:The United States is now in its fourth-biggest Covid surge, according to official case counts – but experts believe the actual current rate is much higher.
America is averaging about 94,000 new cases every day, and hospitalizations have been ticking upward since April, though they remain much lower than previous peaks.
But Covid cases could be undercounted by a factor of 30, an early survey of the surge in New York City indicates. “It would appear official case counts are under-estimating the true burden of infection by about 30-fold, which is a huge surprise,” said Denis Nash, an author of the study and a distinguished professor of epidemiology at the City University of New York School of Public Health.
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There is also a “huge disincentive” for many people to get tested for Covid, said Lara Jirmanus, a family physician and clinical instructor at Harvard Medical School. Americans have been told the virus is mild and won’t affect their lives, she said, but if they test positive, they need to stay home from work and school.
“It’s almost as though we’ve created a national ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ Covid policy – and that is a perfect way to promise that Covid will spread rapidly,” she said – especially concerning given as much as 60% of Covid transmission happens from people who never have any symptoms.
Vaccines protect against long Covid by about 15%, new research suggests, underscoring the need for other precautions to prevent infections.
“This idea that we need to return to normal and that’s the most important thing, rather than just actually using mitigation measures to save lives – it’s actually not that hard, and if it were normalized, we could do it,” Jirmanus said.
“To just decide that it’s perfectly fine for everyone to be infected three to four times a year in the future with a new virus whose effects we don’t fully understand is a huge, huge gamble,” she continued. “We just don’t know what Covid could lead to in the future… We’re playing with fire.”
This is what I'm seeing from without and what I'm hearing from others who have to be at places to move their existence forward. I mean the presumptive future head Twitter and king of all social media just yesterday said of his remote workforce: "They should pretend to work somewhere else" which was amplified, repeated, and broadcast all day long on the news cycle.There is also a “huge disincentive” for many people to get tested for Covid, said Lara Jirmanus, a family physician and clinical instructor at Harvard Medical School. Americans have been told the virus is mild and won’t affect their lives, she said, but if they test positive, they need to stay home from work and school.
“It’s almost as though we’ve created a national ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ Covid policy – and that is a perfect way to promise that Covid will spread rapidly,” she said – especially concerning given as much as 60% of Covid transmission happens from people who never have any symptoms.
, now it's just part a familial conversation. "So and so got COVID again last week."
People are saying it's worse because everyone is getting sick with COVID. My counter is that only people who feel sick are getting tested so no one knows or hears about asymptomatic cases.LordMortis wrote: ↑Fri Jun 03, 2022 10:52 amThis is what I'm seeing from without and what I'm hearing from others who have to be at places to move their existence forward. I mean the presumptive future head Twitter and king of all social media just yesterday said of his remote workforce: "They should pretend to work somewhere else" which was amplified, repeated, and broadcast all day long on the news cycle.There is also a “huge disincentive” for many people to get tested for Covid, said Lara Jirmanus, a family physician and clinical instructor at Harvard Medical School. Americans have been told the virus is mild and won’t affect their lives, she said, but if they test positive, they need to stay home from work and school.
“It’s almost as though we’ve created a national ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ Covid policy – and that is a perfect way to promise that Covid will spread rapidly,” she said – especially concerning given as much as 60% of Covid transmission happens from people who never have any symptoms.
My brother's work space (in Aurora, CO) has all but shut down twice in the last six months due to COVID spread and now none of the staff have PTO left for this second COVID outbreak. So if you want to be sick, you take vacation or nothing. That was strange to me as I thought COVID was short term disability under FMLA. Shows what I thought I knew. Not too long ago (in a family that has lost a member and has another with permanent debilitating diabetes) one person getting COVID twice was
So closed off and mask wearing when out I go I remain. In April I thought I was this >< close to loosening up. And here I am hoping all this heat is going to slow things down... any minute...
Would you share the critique that the way he spoke is somewhat or completely at odds with communicating with the public? She asks him about straightforward things people complained about symptom wise and he starts his response talking about the heterogeneity of symptoms. Early on he talks about 'temporal' connection between COVID and infections. This is all great and all if he is standing on a stage at NIH but...I can't help but feel like this approach to communicating with the public enables the hucksters.
It's frustrating to us because we focus on those who are still being harmed, but it's also absolutely true that the pandemic *is* effectively over for the large majority of the population, at least here in America.
This pandemic has really opened my eyes to the thoughts of the average American, and not in a good way. As long as the perception (and to a degree the perceived reality) is that the problem only affects others (climate change, hunger, gun violence, chronic illness, risk of disease, etc...) there is zero interest in proactively doing anything to help unless there is a direct, measurable benefit to themselves. It's beyond depressing at this point.
What really bothers me is that this attitude only spreads one way. No one suddenly decides, "hey, I've been a selfish, anti science dick! I should really start thinking in the long term and about others!" But people do occasionally decide, "Well, I tried and I'm the only one suffering and sacrificing so fuck it..."Smoove_B wrote: ↑Mon Jun 06, 2022 11:03 amThis pandemic has really opened my eyes to the thoughts of the average American, and not in a good way. As long as the perception (and to a degree the perceived reality) is that the problem only affects others (climate change, hunger, gun violence, chronic illness, risk of disease, etc...) there is zero interest in proactively doing anything to help unless there is a direct, measurable benefit to themselves. It's beyond depressing at this point.
I did see a sign on a restaurant door this weekend still gloating about how they don't 'infringe anyone's rights' at that establishment. By which, of course, they meant they wouldn't enforce the mask mandate that hasn't existed in that county for a very long time.LawBeefaroni wrote: ↑Mon Jun 06, 2022 11:10 am What really bothers me is that this attitude only spreads one way. No one suddenly decides, "hey, I've been a selfish, anti science dick! I should really start thinking in the long term and about others!" But people do occasionally decide, "Well, I tried and I'm the only one suffering and sacrificing so fuck it..."
I think the initial attraction to Dr. Fauci is because outside of the Fox News base the Trump administration (to put it mildly) did not have a reputation for competence or smarts. So Dr. Fauci was almost the only person in the entire administration who both conveyed "I know what I'm doing on this" and who was willing to speak his mind regardless of the consequences.Smoove_B wrote: ↑Mon Jun 06, 2022 9:35 am Absolutely. I'd be amazed if you could find other mainstream media interviews with him prior to the pandemic. It's been a core problem for the entire pandemic - there's no one on the side of science that has the personality / charisma of all the hucksters, at least not at a national level. I think people were initially gravitating towards. Dr. Fauci because of his heavy NY accent, not because of his messaging.
Look, I get that we're never going back and no state government is going to mandate masks ever again. But there's nothing stopping the CDC from saying *right now* everyone should be masked in public spaces while indoors, on mass transit, etc...This is the current COVID transmission map for the US. 90% of counties have high or substantial transmission. The entire country should be wearing masks in public. CDC and this administration should say that unequivocally.
The South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control sent out a plea Friday as COVID-19 levels across the state and the nation begin to rise: Get vaccinated, boosted and wear a mask if you live in areas with rising coronavirus levels.
In a release, DHEC urged residents to track community-level spread in the county where they live and work and follow the prevention steps to take based on the latest data.
The CDC map provided by DHEC shows the entire Upstate is in the low-level zone. South Carolina's Marlboro and Dillion counties were the only counties in the state showing high levels of COVID-19 cases.
Another 14 counties, from Richland and Lexington in the Midlands to Charleston, Berkeley and Horry counties along the coast, are showing medium levels of cases.
"Part of treating COVID-19 as an endemic virus is recognizing that we need to know the current community level and the steps to take to stay virus-free," Dr. Edward Simmer, DHEC Director said. "We are seeing more medium and high transmission across South Carolina, so we strongly encourage our residents to follow all recommendations, including masking, staying home when sick, and being vaccinated, including boosters when eligible, that will help bring these numbers back down."
| Running__ | __2014: 1300.55 miles__ | __2015: 2036.13 miles__ | __2016: 1012.75 miles__ | __2017: 1105.82 miles__ | __2018: 1318.91 miles | __2019: 2000.00 miles |
I know we've said over and over the UK (or Africa, or where ever) isn't the same as the United States - and that's true. But when we've all broadly adopted the same "let 'er rip" philosophy, I can't help but think this is how it's going to look here in August - at least in the NE. Namely, we might get hit with 2 more waves before year end, not the one gigantic one they're forecasting for the Fall.THREAD: a new wave has started in England (and likely about to or has in rest of UK)
TLDR: this will be 3rd wave within 6 months. Long covid an increasing issue - particularly in overexposed professions.
We don't need a UK ventilator challenge we need a ventilation one! 1/xx
If they're going to talk about community transmission, they should be showing you the community transmission map, not the community levels map.
| Running__ | __2014: 1300.55 miles__ | __2015: 2036.13 miles__ | __2016: 1012.75 miles__ | __2017: 1105.82 miles__ | __2018: 1318.91 miles | __2019: 2000.00 miles |
Funny you should mention that - interesting piece on the COVID event horizon from a few days ago:
So where does that leave us?If we manage it the way that we manage it now, then most people will get infected with it at least a couple of times a year,” virologist at the Scripps Research Institute in San Diego, Kristian Andersen, says in the New York Times. Doctors are now “seeing kids with [their] 3rd infection in [a] 4 month period. The shortest time between reinfection recorded by the CDC was 23 days.
All of which begs the question: how many SARS-CoV-2 infections can an organism sustain? People don’t get the flu 2 or 3 times a year, and if they did that would probably *also* be bad. But getting a thing that kills your T cells seems not infinitely scalable, right?
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COVID degrades your immune system for the next time you encounter the virus, and also makes you more susceptible to infections overall. (Population-level immune dysfunction may go a ways to explaining the emergence of the sudden new characters in our viral cinematic universe — Monkeypox, Pediatric Hepatitis, et al.) COVID also increases your risk of developing diabetes by 59%, which is then a contributing risk factor for severe COVID, including death.
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Imagine your DNA strands as intertwined shoelaces. At the end of each lace is a plastic tip that keeps the strand from coming undone. Telomeres are these caps at the end of each DNA strand that protect the chromosomes.
We start out our lives with long telomeres, but as our cells replicate the telomeres progressively get shorter. Like tree-rings, telomere lengths can be used as biological markers of age in every cell. Last year, a study looking at the telomeres of people who had been infected with COVID found that infection can make the aging process happen much faster. According to the findings, “COVID-19 survivors exhibited a significant acceleration of their biological age, occurring mainly in the younger individuals.” Just because you’re supposed to “learn to live with it” doesn’t mean it will be for long.
In closing:While we don’t yet know what number of SARS CoV-2 assaults an organism can tolerate, we do know what level of COVID deaths the Biden administration thinks the American public will tolerate. According to Politico reporter Rachael Levy, “Biden officials in recent months privately discussed how many daily Covid-19 deaths it would take to declare the virus tamed. One person involved in the conversations said, ‘500 a day is a lot. You still have 9/11 numbers in a week… People generally felt like 100 [a day] or less, or maybe 200, would be OK.’ The U.S. has never sustained that level of deaths.”
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Each surge, of course, washes fresh new waves of disabled and significantly sicker people ashore. COVID’s mass disabling is not so much an event — which implies a start and end time — as an era. As Diana Berrent, Founder of Survivor Corps, a grassroots COVID advocacy group says, “This is going to change the fabric of our society, and we need to prepare ourselves for it. There is no part of our society that is not going to be touched by Long COVID.”
As we continue the denihilist status quo of doing whatever this nothing we’ve been doing is, we now live in a state of collective grief. Whether through the loss of those we love, the health we used to take for granted, or the idea of any solidarity or accountability in the face of mass crisis. “The collective trauma of the past several years has slowly begun to erode our resilience and our hope,” Melissa Flint, PsyD, associate professor of clinical psychology at Midwestern University Glendale who specializes in thanatology (the study of death, dying and bereavement) and traumatic loss, tells CNBC. “Our brains have not practiced what it takes to cope with these enormous losses, one after another, after another. The cumulative effect of this has yet to be seen.”
So...interesting. Isn't this very similar to what measles does to your immune system? Except measles nukes your antibodies and (I think) B-cells - but the point where it can take your immune system several years to recover. And you only get measles once. This is insane.Smoove_B wrote: ↑Fri Jun 10, 2022 10:22 pm All of which begs the question: how many SARS-CoV-2 infections can an organism sustain? People don’t get the flu 2 or 3 times a year, and if they did that would probably *also* be bad. But getting a thing that kills your T cells seems not infinitely scalable, right?
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COVID degrades your immune system for the next time you encounter the virus, and also makes you more susceptible to infections overall.
