💾 Archived View for dioskouroi.xyz › thread › 29412681 captured on 2021-12-03 at 14:04:38. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
________________________________________________________________________________
I mean this question with all respect. For those of you who error towards caution with COVID, do you prefer the world as it is under coronavirus restrictions?
Again I am asking this with sincerity, if we could blink away COVID but keep the world as it is (remote work, limited travel, acceptable reason for isolation etc.) would you prefer that world?
I hate the world COVID has created . I hate seeing everything through the lens of infection risk. I hate sacrificing childhood to save elderly. I hate masks. I hate that my glasses fog up. I hate working out wearing a mask. I hate that I couldn’t see my father as he died in an ER. I hate that I can’t enjoy a simple meal with friends. I hate being talked down to. I hate remote meetings. I hate the little condoms they put on remotes in hotel rooms. I hate taking my cat to the vet and waiting in the car. I hate paying some poor person a pittance to deliver my meals. I hate that students have to stay at home. I hate that I love alcohol. I hate that I am judged for hating these things. I hate that I have to wear a mask outside, despite it being utterly pointless, due to social pressure.
I hate that I’ve ideated suicide more in the past year than the previous 34 combined. I hate this pandemic. And fuck you if you make me feel like I’m selfish for hating this pandemic
> do you prefer the world as it is under coronavirus restrictions?
What _present_ restrictions are you referring to? Could you list a few of the most onerous ones? I know there mask mandates in lots of places currently, and I know _earlier_ in the pandemic there were severe restrictions on gathering indoors and such (and I'm not here to defend or condemn them), but what restrictions are there besides mask mandates that are _currently_ causing you grief? I actually don't know. (Are you in the US? or is this about another country?)
I've been trying to guess them from the things you listed, but it's not clear to me, e.g. I don't quite know what restrictions are imposed on you that prevent you from having dinner with friends.
I am in the US. Where I live masks are required indoors under all circumstances regardless of vaccine status. Indoor dining has been allowed for a few months now but there’s talk of introducing restrictions again.
It’s not so much how it is today, it’s the damage yesterday had done. And it’s the sword of Damocles that hangs over us all at the whisper of a new variant
I would move to Arizona, COVID was only there for a few weeks. Phoenix is over it completely.
Your mask isn't fitting right if it is fogging your glasses. Check for tips on fitting or other solutions like medical tape over nose bridge.
There are also masks that come with additional foam gaskets or have a fully moldable outline, not just the nose piece.
I had a problem where the masks either leaked at the nose or right where the nose wire ended no matter what I did. Got some of them with foam gasket, no problem anymore
Okay that changes things a lot then. I'm sorry for everything you had to go through, and I'll try to respond to your main points, but just note that I don't fall neatly into whatever side of the issue you might imagine (regardless of what it might look like from my brief replies here):
> Where I live masks are required indoors under all circumstances regardless of vaccine status.
I assume there are extremely reasonable constraints you haven't mentioned (e.g., I don't imagine you have to wear masks in your own house, nor would I guess the government is forcing you to wear masks when you visit your friends' homes), so with that in mind:
My own take on indoor mask mandates is: no I don't like them, and yes fogging glasses is annoying, but I could say the same thing about red traffic lights. I hate them so much and find them frustrating, yet I still understand & respect both of them regardless, and try to move on with my life. In neither case do I find there to be so much burden that I can't tolerate living this life anymore, though I can understand that for people with e.g. breathing difficulties the case might be different (and I hope/expect they would have been able to been accommodated accordingly).
> there’s talk of introducing restrictions again.
I'm not sure preventing people from "talking" about restrictions would result in a better world, so I'm not sure what alternative you're proposing here. Yes it's frustrating, but that's what we get with democracy and free speech. All I can suggest is that tuning out the news would probably be helpful if you're finding it overwhelming.
> It’s not so much how it is today, it’s the damage yesterday had done.
Vaccines became available to most adults around April/May, and by June states had started lifting many restrictions. I think it was literally beginning of June where even in liberal Massachusetts a ton of people took off their masks in (crowded!) malls as soon as the mandates lifted. So I'm not sure during what time period you believe the government imposed unjustifiably onerous restrictions. If you're talking about those few weeks in the span of those few weeks, I don't think a few extra weeks made the difference here. If you're talking about afterward, I'm not aware of particularly onerous/lasting restrictions (see above). And if you're talking about before vaccine availability, no, I don't think many people liked that world, but I don't find it at all obvious that letting the pandemic just burn through the entire population would've been better, or that letting potentially infected people walk into ERs amidst other patients with compromised health would have been a wise decision. I know >700,000 people have died in the US so far due to the pandemic, and that number would've been _far_ larger if they had let it grow exponentially, so that factor needs to be considered. (I'm sorry for your loss; I realize this is probably difficult to read. I'm just trying to reply since you were requesting that.)
Of course, if we had the _same_ restrictions today as we had pre-vaccines, that would've been quite a different story.
This seems like an incredibly insensitive response. It's basically "come on, it's not so bad".
I agree with OP. These restrictions are incredibly disruptive to every day life and causing plenty of mental strain. If there was some end game, then people could put on a stiff upper lip. But it's clear there isn't one.
We've gone from "2 weeks to bend the curve" to "vaccines will allow us to return to normality" to "well the vaccinated are still getting infected" to "everyone needs a booster" and now "well, the vaccine might not work that well with the new variant, so hold tight".
We're coming up to the _2 year_ mark. It seems pretty clear to me that the present approach mean we we are likely looking at _years_ of continuing restrictions that wax and wane. If you asked people what the summer of 2022 will be like, anyone who says they know _is lying to themselves_.
I'm guessing we'll still be dealing with masks, vaccine boosters, travel restrictions and disruptions to work and school 2 years from now.
> These restrictions
By the OP's own admission this is only "wearing masks" right now. That's what I was referring to. When you use "restrictions" so broadly you make the burden sound _far_ more severe than what it is in reality to many people: "I have to wear masks indoors when in public."
I feel like even if you think mask mandates are actually a big deal and too much for a human to intolerable, you should be able to understand why others (like me) genuinely don't see them that way?
His description is clearly about more than masks. You can't say "what's the big deal with masks" all the while ignoring everything that's happened over the past 2 years and will likely continue into the near future.
> You can't say "what's the big deal with masks" all the while ignoring everything that's happened over the past 2 years and will likely continue into the near future.
No I'm not. _You're_ the one ignoring the vast majority of what I wrote. I _explicitly_ addressed the restrictions during the pre-vaccine, mid-vaccine, _and_ post-vaccine periods. They did _not_ all summarize to "it's not that bad"; only _the present_ (i.e. the post-vaccine period) did, and that's what you addressed. Now you're clearly misrepresenting my comment while mixing them up and adding in speculation about the future, and this is pretty unproductive, so I likely won't be replying further.
> I hate that I’ve ideated suicide more in the past year than the previous 34 combined.
Ouch. What about a less "final" idea, like moving to the midwest or Texas?
Here we mostly don't care about such things, so it's business as usual!
I’ve considered it.
I’m not in any way thinking of moving from ideation to realization. But ideation is scary enough
first of all, i agree. it sucks. it wiped out my business, i have asthma and it feels like i can't breath wearing a mask. i live in washington state. my advice is don't move to washington state if you don't like covid-19 extraness.
you would not like it here. we still have a 5-10 person limit at many stores. basically tons of places look like people are waiting in line for a rock concert. as much as i love the mountains and the coffee i am thinking about moving to a less over the top state.
it's rough, hang in there and maybe try and move to another state if it keeps clawing at your mental health.
Hey, you are very much not alone. It sounds like these various aspects of isolation have really affected you a lot, and I'm so sorry to hear that how things were with your dad in the hospital. That's terrible.
You've written your question for people who you say err more toward caution than you imply that you do, saying that it is out of genuine curiosity, rather than out of contempt. I hope that's true. I'm sure there must be some especially introverted people who prefer the world the way it is with the most cautionary measures of 2020 in place, but I think most people who support these cautionary measures also dislike them.
Where does that leave us? You are allowed to resent the world, and the people who have imposed all of these measures, for harming you in the way that they have. We are all allowed to feel any feelings about anything, including people who have lost loved ones to covid and resent the non-mask-wearers for it. I don't know how to explain the difference between your feelings and many other people's feelings on covid restrictions. For my own part, they have felt difficult, but not unjust.
Hang in there. Exercise, even just a very little bit, if you are not already. It helps so much with everything, including perspective. Once the vaccines become approved for toddlers and hopefully older babies, I'm hopeful that restrictions will really start to ease.
Hope I haven't made you feel selfish or talked down to. That's not how I think of you based on your post.
Sounds like you’re having a rough time. I feel for you, pro or against Covid. There is definitely a cost to all this and it must be taken into account.
That said, there is a light at the end of this tunnel. Life in the UK, where vaccination rates are very high, is pretty much normal. Everything is open. Masks were optional until the Omicron scare, we’ll see how it goes. Nurseries, cinemas, restaurants all open, pretty much as normal (cleaner than in the past which is a win).
Maybe it will get worse again but let’s hope not.
Without making hyperbolic comparisons, life is much better net than it was under Bubonic Plague. We’ve seen the alternative to paranoid infection regimes, and it’s total chaos and overwhelmed hospitals. So we’ve been dealt a shit hand and trying to play is as best as we can.
> life is much better net than it was under Bubonic Plague
With all due respect, that's whataboutism. Life is much better than it would be under Ebola, too, but the issue here is that _overall_ quality of life has deteriorated for most humans over the last two years due to the restrictions and interventions related to Covid-19.
> Life in the UK, where vaccination rates are very high, is pretty much normal.
In the UK, but also in many other previously liberal democracies the following are happening at present:
- Freedom of association and freedom of assembly are being made conditional or removed.
- Freedom to travel is being made conditional or removed.
- Freedom to just take part in daily life, e.g. go shopping is being made conditional.
- Freedom to protest is being reduced or removed.
The rule sets under which all this is happening are capricious, changing frequently, based on mostly political considerations with only a sprinkling of scientific reasoning. This removes agency from each of us.
Whether one becomes subject to a restrictive rule by the accident of becoming infected is mostly outside the control of any one person. So this, too, removes agency from each of us.
I see entire countries descending into learned helplessness, while political elites flout the rules they make for others and exploit the urgency of procurement caused by the pandemic to enrich themselves.
This is not a world I want to live in. Improved acceptability of WFH doesn't come close to compensating for all the above.
I agree with every single thing you said, but I don't have a cat. I could also tack on another dozen things I hate about all of this.
sorry to hear for your father. I do love remote meetings though, I can mute myself and go do something else.
It is hard to understand what matters most in life, I’m glad you’ve found what really matters to you.
> I can mute myself and go do something else.
That's exactly what Jeffrey Toobin said as well :P
hahaha, was worth google'ing it
It’s rubbish, isn’t it? But all that is past for most of us. I just came back from a bar in SF and I don’t think I wore a mask anywhere in it. Hung out with loads of friends. Had a great time.
SF is usually Restriction Central so it doesn’t seem like life is particularly bad now.
Personally, I rather like this interstitial time where the scared remain home and I am free to roam with my friends. Traffic and lines are better.
> "Personally, I rather like this interstitial time where the scared remain home and I am free to roam with my friends."
i've been saying all along that the default policy positions should have led directly to this outcome. everyone sorts themselves into risk profiles and everyone is happy with their risk exposure. but that doesn't appease political ambitions, so we don't get that.
Interesting, but misleading beyond the title. One part that deserves attention about the Israel outbreak:
"Fourteen fully vaccinated patients became severely ill or died, the two unvaccinated patients developed mild disease". This seems to imply an adverse effect of the vaccine. On the contrary, what happened is that patients were either older or had comorbidities - check
https://www.eurosurveillance.org/content/10.2807/1560-7917.E...
and
https://www.eurosurveillance.org/content/table/10.2807/1560-...
The last phrase of the article, though, has its merits:
"It appears to be grossly negligent to ignore the vaccinated population as a possible and relevant source of transmission when deciding about public health control measures."
This is true. New measures like the new italian "super green pass" exclude unvaccinated from certain activities (cafes, theaters, cinemas) even when
they can exhibit a negative Covid-19 test. This makes no sense; the latter
group has fewer chances of transmitting the disease than the former.
On the contrary, it could make sense to have an "admission priority" in hospital wards when they're full, depending on whether you're vaccinated or not; because, hospitalization-wise, that's totally relevant. No vaccine would imply lower priority when requiring access to medical wards.
> This makes no sense; the latter group has fewer chances of transmitting the disease than the former.
I think you're only looking at _transmission of a pre-existing infection during the event_. You don't seem to be looking at transmission that happens _later_ but that was _caused_ by attending the event (and getting the virus), nor do you appear to be looking at the number of people who get the disease directly at the event. Shouldn't those be factored in as well?
The big thing about the vaccine is that it vastly reduces the chance that infection converts to an illness. For that to happen, you need to be immune compromised in some way or get hit with an immune avoiding variant.
It only slightly shortens time for transmitting the virus. Hence silent infected people who are vaccinated might not even know they're carriers. Hence everyone should still be wearing masks to limit the spread.
I don't think you read the (brief) article.
> In Germany, the rate of symptomatic COVID-19 cases among the fully vaccinated (“breakthrough infections”) is reported weekly since 21. July 2021 and was 16.9% at that time among patients of 60 years and older [[2]
]. This proportion is increasing week by week and was 58.9% on 27. October 2021 (Figure 1) providing clear evidence of the increasing relevance of the fully vaccinated as a possible source of transmission.
In Denmark, a law was recently enacted allowing (not requiring) employers to demand a "coronapas" (health passport). Many of the largest municipalities have availed themselves of this possibility (including my employer).
You have a valid coronapas if you've been vaccinated, had a negative PCR test in the last 72 hours, or had a negative antigene test in the last 48 hours, or have recovered from covid in the last 6 months.
The obvious problem (and the reason why cases are exploding) is that vaccinated people are spreading the virus because most don't bother to get tested (why should they? People were told that the vaccine would defeat the pandemic and many still believe this). Unvaccinated, otoh, _are_ getting regularly tested and must self-isolate if they test positive.
Mass vaccination against an airborne virus is not the best way to defeat the pandemic. Regular testing and effective contact tracing is.
Vaccination should have been reserved for the high-risk groups (although even triple-vaccinated elderly people are dying, as are those with comorbidities).
But when unvaccinated are shown to have more infection rates, because of constant testing, than vaccinated the “pandemic of the unvaccinated” fear scenario is reinforced.
Yes. And that might suit a (hypothetical) hidden agenda. I just don't think the authorities are smart or cynical enough to foresee and plan something like that (in Denmark)
IMO, the responses to the virus have been driven by media hysteria and politicians doing what they think will make them look good.
>Yes. And that might suit a (hypothetical) hidden agenda. I just don't think the authorities are smart or cynical enough to foresee and plan something like that (in Denmark)
What is hidden or hypothetical about it?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Reset
The first book came out in 2010 post financial crisis. The whole design is about fighting against STEM and producing an economy in which creativity is rewarded. The politicians took that are twisted it to their needs.
Zoom in and read exactly what they are still working on. Bonus points if you see what isn't labelled on that graph.
>IMO, the responses to the virus have been driven by media hysteria and politicians doing what they think will make them look good.
It's really just the next step. In which if you say that producing all these infographics and having a large cohort of support clearly indicates intention. It's appropriate for elected officials to have these plans. There is no 'conspiracy' but what do you think about the possibility that these folks were driving the public to hysteria in order to justify these plans?
I have no doubt that the elite like to tell themselves that they are planning things and steering this world.
I also have no doubt that the disaffected of this world would also like this story to be true, so they could have a nice target for their wrath.
What I think is, honestly, it's all just a spectacular clusterfuck. Humans are just not smart enough in big groups to coordinate a global action like that.
Potentially relevant:
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/09/post-vac...
It's The Atlantic talking about how post-vaccination COVID is a very different disease compared to how it presents in unvaccinated people.
The endless coronavirus restrictions will end when WE decide it ends.
to me, it was clear from the start that the vaccine was not PREVENTING the transmission of the virus, they were talking about a REDUCED transmission... but politicians(leading by polls) we were so in the rush(arguably legitimately) to restore the economy that we came up with paperwork for the vaccinated as a solution (which I fill monthly to travel and I present to eat chineese food). And some citizen were so in the rush(arguably legitimately) to go back to "normal" that they just let go of the other known working measures like masks and social distancing(take the tube in London to see what I mean)
Even If I am fully vaccinated, I do not wish to send someone who have decided not to take the vaccine to the ER. Even if it was in my opinion a bad decision. I do not mind wearing a mask while we collect more data to have a more efficient response.
This letter to the Lancet is interesting and worthy of being on HN.
But the title being used ("A Pandemic of the Vaccinated") is misleading. The letter's point is that transmission of the virus by the vaccinated may be more significant than was expected or believed, and that it may be incorrect to ignore the vaccinated when considering public health measures. Nothing more or less.
We've replaced it with the article title now.
"_Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize._"
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
It's a counter to the catchphrase "pandemic of the unvaccinated" that politicians have been using to put the blame on keeping restrictions on people who haven't gotten vaccinated.
Not later than this morning I heard a ICU doctor using the same wording to describe his daily job so clearly this sentence has different meanings depending on who utters it to who and when.
That doesn’t make it correct or fitting.
I submitted this 21 hours ago, but I'm a member of the shadowbanned HN underclass, so I guess it was hidden from everyone.
Wow, a barely tested technology that hasn't never been successfully used in the last decades it was developed, targeting a new virus isn't living up to its promise, how surprising!
It's time for governments to implement science-based policies, severe links with snake oil vendors and stop discriminating people on the basis of their (un)willingly participation to an ineffective drug trial.
This is never going to end. I hope a giant meteor obliterated the earth.
Ask and you shall receive.
https://nypost.com/2021/11/30/concerning-asteroid-will-break...
Isn’t life all about timing.
By no means am I an expert, but my understanding is that vaccines don’t go far enough. They provide B-Cell immunity, which doesn’t last permanently because newer variants have different antigens. Getting COVID after vaccination seems to be the most robust, because there is both T-Cell and B-Cell activation.
I used to work in immunology - this is not accurate. We know that e.g. mRNA vaccines elicit quite a good T-cell immune response. e.g. for one of many studies looking at T-cell responses to the recent sars-cov-2 vaccines:
https://www.cell.com/immunity/fulltext/S1074-7613(21)00308-3
Why does vaccine-based immunity lack the durability of natural immunity?
Durability is an abstract quality, it could mean long lasting, or effective against variants, or some other resistance qualities..
IMO the science on natural immunity has been lacking, so it's hard to say with certainty.
one important thing we do know is that mRNA vaccines only generate an s-protein (the spike) whereas the full virus also includes an n-protein (the nucleocapsid). So vaccine immunity one trains against one protein whereas natural infections may train against both. This could be the basis for comprehensive immunity.. but I'll reiterate, it depends on scientific confirmation.
Is this true?
And the cherry on top, excess mortality due to heavy-handed mitigations and vaccine-related reactions.
This will never end unless we learn to live with it.