Strypey
@clacke
> In Russian roulette, is the game harmless if you survived the first round?
Are you suggesting that someone who gets mild flu symptoms from one COVID infection could get killed by a later one? I see no reason to think that's true. AFAIK the people killed by COVID were killed by their first infection.
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Santa Claes πΈπͺππ°π
Santa Claes πΈπͺππ°π
@strypey Most cases resolve within 1β1.5 years. That's a long time to be potentially not able to work.
Again: Not a cold, not a flu, a flu with this severity and spread would normally be cause for an enhanced health and security response, and there are long-term effects beyond what any cold or flu has.
Even if the government response has been lowered due to fatigue it is not fair to label calls for enhanced
safety at conferences as unfounded, deluded, disproportional or otherwise divorced from reality. Reality is that the health environment is *not* the same as in 2019 and people with underlying conditions are justified in being extra cautious.
Strypey
@clacke
> At least 65 million individuals around the world have long COVID
This is a legitimate problem and needs publicly-funded research and health care. But let's be clear on what it is;
"...the continuation or development of new symptoms 3 months after the initial SARS-CoV-2 infection, with these symptoms lasting for at least 2 months with no other explanation."
https://www.who.int/europe/news-room/fact-sheets/item/post-covid-19-condition
In other words, those numbers include all the cases that resolve themselves within a year.
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Santa Claes πΈπͺππ°π
@strypey I am dead serious. You are wilfully ignorant on the efficacy of the vaccines.
Again your anecdata doesn't match the available statistics, and I'm talking epidemic data by government agencies, not trials by manufacturers.
If you look at hospitalizations, even in countries where 90% are vaccinated, the majority of hospitalizations are the unvaccinated, a vast overrepresentation.
β² libranet.de/display/0b6b25a8-1β¦
Strypey
@clacke
> vaccines work
π€£
Wait...are you serious? Almost everyone I know whose had COVID (again, most of them) had been vaccinated, almost all of them 2 if not 3 times. I got it immediately after getting the first booster.
Now that only reflects on the Pfizer vaccine, which was the only one widely available here. But asking me to supply proof it doesn't work is reversing the burden of proof. As always, the burden of proof belongs on those promoting for-profit medical treatments.
Santa Claes πΈπͺππ°π
This is an astonishing claim that we're really going to need a reference for, given that the vaccine schedule is based on epidemic data that immunity tapers off in 6 months and that vaccines work.
Strypey
@jens
In other words, the very majority of mask wearing is health theatre. So pressuring potentially traumatised people to mask up, or constantly justify why they're not, is cruel and unnecessary.
The same applies to most of the other "enhanced safety" measures people are demanding. Most of them (including perpetual vaccine boosters) demonstrably don't work.
Just like Young Sheldon's garage bubble solution. Thus the OP.
(3/3)
Strypey
@jens
Demanding that they everyone wear masks all though a conference can be catastrophically triggering for such people. Excluding us from participating.
That might be the lesser evil if mass mask wearing was effective at preventing viral spread. But I did a first aid course in 2021, that had a whole module on COVID precautions. It explained that anything less than hospital grade mask protocols makes it pointless to wear a mask, unless you're coughing or sneezing.
(2/?)
Strypey
@jens
> it's a bit of a dick move to try and downplay it
Maybe, but you know what else is a dick move? Ignoring the mental health side of post-COVID disability.
A lot of people had their lives turned upside down by the pandemic response. Or had legitimate medical reasons for mask exemptions, and spent months having to justify their masklessness and getting shouted at by people who thought they were doing it for contrarian reasons.
Some of us now carry huge burdens of trauma.
(1/?)
Jens FinkhΓ€user π»
@clacke @strypey Research also goes in the direction that long COVID, MS, Crohn's and others are all caused by viruses, because they seem to share things. We may actually be closer to treating some because of COVID. Which is nice...
... but you know, it's also a class of illnesses causing disability, so it's a bit of a dick move to try and downplay it.
Jens FinkhΓ€user π»
@clacke @strypey It's not a cold at all, it's a virus that, aside from producing cold-like symptoms, causes cardiovascular damage (primarily, as is normal for these things, in the smaller blood vessels like those powering your lungs and brain), and which leaves the immune system to deal with a persistent irritant, which produces a long term immunoresponse.
Please stop calling it flu-like. What looks flu-like are just the outward symptoms of our immune system going under extreme load.
Jens FinkhΓ€user π»
@clacke @strypey You might be lucky and get through this faster than others. But you will have suffered damage. To the brain, to your lungs.
I mean, people also *smoke* and survive for a long time, but these days few people think that's a good idea.
Santa Claes πΈπͺππ°π
> implies preventing infection and thus spread
@strypey A vaccine works if it has effect and there's a point in taking it.
Flu vaccines have been said to work for decades, even though it's well known that they're anywhere from 20% to 80% effective against recorded infection depending on season and vaccine, because vaccinating the most sensitive members of society reduces suffering and death among those vaccinated, and vaccinating people who can probably get away with a few days of symptoms maintains productivity and reduces spread to those who would suffer worse.
The idea that a vaccine doesn't work if someone got vaccinated and later was infected anyway is a misinformation campaign directed against sensible public health policy and I am sad to see it repeated here.
Strypey
@clacke
> If you look at hospitalizations, even in countries where 90% are vaccinated, the majority of hospitalizations are the unvaccinated, a vast overrepresentation
This is a much narrower claim than...
> vaccines work
... a ludicrous overgeneralisation that implies preventing infection and thus spread, as promised when they were being heavily promoted.
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Santa Claes πΈπͺππ°π
@strypey Yes, confounding variables
are accounted for. E.g. the elderly end up more commonly in the hospital, but they have high vaccination rates too and it's the unvaccinated that are the majority.
Communities like immigrant communities with lower trust in government and ideological communities like anthroposophy have lower rates of vaccination and corresponding higher rates of infection.
Strypey
@clacke
> I'm talking epidemic data by government agencies, not trials by manufacturers
That does the data more convincing. But is it corrected for confounding variables?
Like the unvaccinated being predominantly from segments of the population who are more likely to be hospitalised for COVID anyway. Eg because they're older, indigenous, or have chronic health problems that have led them a 'natural health care' discourse, including vaccine scepticism.
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Santa Claes πΈπͺππ°π
It's clear from observations that vaccination against the right SARS-CoV-2 strains makes a beneficial difference, i.e. works.
Pfizer and friends are of course happy to earn money on their products, but the reason social democratic governments are buying them and vaccinating people is because it saves hospital cost compared to letting people get sick at higher rates.
Jens FinkhΓ€user π»
@strypey @clacke The question of which masks to use is one of the size of particles you want to capture. Since COVID is airborne, you should absolutely go for the best filters available; some masks mostly capture droplets.
But that doesn't stop the masks from being effective. See e.g. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abi9069 for a study that focuses on effect rather than mechanism. The likely conclusion, then, is that droplets contain more of the virus and are more infectious, but that's also a given really.
Jens FinkhΓ€user π»
@strypey @clacke I'm aware of the psychological issues mask wearing can cause. But it's also something you can get through. This isn't supposed to minimize the effect, it's merely stating that it is treatable. Long COVID is not, not yet.
You cannot compare the two. In particular, because the exact same arguments you raise against masks can be raised for masking. Long COVID sufferers or other immunocompromised folk face the same pressure and exclusion if they wish to participate in life.
So...
Indieterminacy
Yes, targeting an existing regulatory approach is apt, given it targets contagion from further afield (something more significant) and reduces duplication.
Also, modern standards of ventilation of the event hall(s) is worthy of bringing up. There is no point us tearing into eachother if it distracts us from the improvements to the physical environment (which is an old divide and rule game).
Strypey
@indieterminacy
> For conferences test rather than mask attendees
That seems reasonable. A negative test is still required for air flights yes? So it's also consistent. Which is important, because constantly moving through different COVID response regimes is stressful, and makes compliance with any of them much less likely.
Indieterminacy
@strypey @jens @clacke At the height of the pandemic the lack of masks in highly dense public transport systems was a disgrace, all the more clearer given that many of those refusing to wear a mask had the hypocrisy to have one under the chin.
It seems to me there was not only ignorance but moral hazard, *im alright jack* type behaviour and socialising risks.
In all likelyhood many environments dont need mandates (and the data should arbitrate).
For conferences test rather than mask attendees
Santa Claes πΈπͺππ°π
@strypey The point is twofold:
- These communities are small and yet provide evidence for vaccine efficacy.
- They are still larger than the group of people who will not vaccinate due to medical reasons, making that group a vanishingly small confounding factor.
I do not have a study to reference for this and I will not be digging for it soon. I will be satisfied with saying that peer review and other professionals have not pointed this out as something that undermines epidemiological studies on efficacy.
Strypey
Me:
> unvaccinated being predominantly from segments of the population who are more likely to be hospitalised for COVID anyway Eg because they're... indigenous, or have chronic health problems that have led them a 'natural health care' discourse
@clacke
> Communities like immigrant communities with lower trust in government and ideological communities like anthroposophy have lower rates of vaccination
Seems we agree on this point?
(2/2)
Strypey
@clacke
> confounding variables
are accounted for
I don't think this means what you think it means.
> the elderly end up more commonly in the hospital, but they have high vaccination rates too
I'll take your word for it.
> it's the unvaccinated that are the majority
This doesn't exclude the small proportion of unvaccinated older people from being a high proportion of the hospitalised unvaccinated. Where we can reliable figures to find out?
(1/2)
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