Mostly Apolitical Thread for Discussing/Venting our Rational/Irrational COVID-19 Fears and Experiences in 2020

(it's less than 25% in the uk, they changed the age limit recently, can't be bothered to check though)

down to 16s

but illinois's vaccination rate is 10% below the UK's.

Illinois is a big, long state, and I live at the top of it, as do most people in this state, so it's not helpful to cite the state's vaccination rate at large. Down at the bottom, five hours away, Illinois hits Missouri and Kentucky, which (if the names were not giveaway enough) are very different. Where I am, where we associate, where we go to school and live, is 80%+ vaccinated, among those eligible. If being 80%+ vaccinated, and masked, and aware is not good enough to hope for the best, then it's hopeless. I'm thankful for how things seem to be here, right here, because there's nothing I can do about anywhere else.

the uk is a long country also? i mean we can compare the UK's highest vaccinated regions to the bit where you live if you want. my point is the same.

Sure, compare whatever you want. But the most important thing, as far as risk goes, is where you live, and where I live it is 80% vaxxed among the eligible, which is not perfect but which makes me feel a bit more comfortable.

sure, you should feel more comfortable than someone in florida (https://covidactnow.org/us/florida-fl/?s=21801106).

i guess i'm frustrated that people are acting like either 1) it's going to be fine (eh, maaaybe, arguable), or 2) there's simply no way of knowing what's going to happen when schools reopen (there kind of is!). i've never lived somewhere where the rest of the world simply doesn't exist to this extent.

man alive i kind of can't believe you're asking that?

reread the first two words of this sentence

21.2% of the UK is under 18; 19% are under 16. I don't know if the 25% cited above included people ineligible for reasons other than age?

Nearly 90% of adults in the UK have had their first dose and presumably will have their second fairly shortly. I don't think that's bad.

I am team "2) there's simply no way of knowing what's going to happen when schools reopen"

Worth noting as well that cases in IL have been on a steady rise for weeks now and we haven't even really been hit with delta yet. I don't know how we've largely avoided it bit it's surely just a matter of time (if that time hasn't come already, as reliable information gathering is fuckin' nigh impossible these days).

There are 50 million children under 12 (like mine!) who can't get vaccinated and pediatric hospitalizations are skyrocketing but that doesn't seem to count

man alive i kind of can't believe you're asking that? the majority of people in a lot of states are unvaccinated. you think now it's okay to just let them get it? frankly my 85-year-old dad is vaccinated but i don't want it even getting a couple of millimetres into his right nostril if i can help it. most vaccinated people will be fine. but super oldies with health problems? yeesh.

― Tracer Hand, Monday, 16 August 2021 20:22 (yesterday) link

But a lot of those people are simply going to remain unvaccinated even though the vaccine is easily available to them. So is this a forever war or is there actually an end goal? We aren't going to eradicate COVID and we aren't going to get 90% vaccination.

Kids are another story, I have my views on that (and I have two unvaccinated children), but putting that aside, let's assume we should at least wait until the vaccine is widely and easily available to all kids. Then what? Say a lot of states at that point are still only at 70% vaccination, which seems likely. Do we then spend another year masking, distancing, not spending time indoors with those outside our immediate family, not dining indoors, etc? I just think people are not grappling with the fact that the disease is here to stay. There is no eradication and no end.

harm reduction, pure and simple. waiting until the local medical system is already severely overburdened before instituting NPIs is bad policy, in the same way that waiting for catastrophic outcomes of global warming before instituting effective reductions in CO2 emissions is bad policy.

― it is to laugh, like so, ha! (Aimless), Monday, August 16, 2021 3:12 PM (six hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

On one hand, yes, waiting until extreme overburden is bad policy. But the other extreme means you can literally never lift restrictions. Because we have a highly contagious variant that we're not going to get rid of, and we're also not going to reach 90% vaccination. So surely there should at least be some level of hospitalizations at which restrictions are triggered?

Biden Officials to Advise Boosters for Most Americans 8 Months After Vaccination - The New York Times https://t.co/tvYSMFH0jI

— John Bresnahan (@bresreports) August 17, 2021

On one hand, yes, waiting until extreme overburden is bad policy. But the other extreme means you can literally never lift restrictions.

Yes, surely those two extremes you mention represent the only two available options.

xpost -- Interestingly, that'll make me due for such a booster next month. Which, if that can be logistically swung...I won't mind, simply because of my hoped-for concert plans alone. If I can get one by mid-September, well. But let's see more about the specifics first.

So they're really going to recommend a *third* shot before they even officially get FDA approval, huh? I know the wheels of bureaucracy move slow, but if they're going to keep this vaccine train rolling then why even wait? Been some 357 million doses given in the US, what's the FDA going to say? "Sorry, folks, we've determined it's *not* safe, hold off on those vaccines"?

Anyway, we all know the need for boosters is that when people started talking about tracking chips and magnetism the pharmaceutical industry realized they missed an opportunity and that this time around we'll get jabbed with the real deal and get the superpowers we deserve.

Per my 16-year-old son, the booster shots are to move us from 5G to 6G, which sounds awesome.

Ugh, so more forced obsolescence? This is going to be like the Moore's Law of vaccines. You know what they say, don't ever try a 6G vaccine if you've only had the 5G, because the 5G is going to seem so inferior to the new one.

I know there's little we can do about this as individuals, but it is absolutely shameful and disgusting that we're talking about booster shots when 75% of the world population has yet to receive a first shot.

Isn’t it also a little soon to say whether this is “waning” immunity that requires a booster vs delta just breaks through more easily? I can’t imagine we already have enough data to be sure.

seemingly Moderna protects best against Delta, but all the educators (around here at least) got J&J shots

I ate the lasagna.

If you, like me, get flu shots each year, the concept of a regular booster/revamp in response to projections about how a particular disease functions is not unknown.

yep

the justice argument against boosters is extremely compelling.

the "when does this end" argument is obviously not, but is going to be understandably common in countries that don't do mass annual flu vaccination (most of them, the US is unusual in this respect).

Very pleased to learn via email that my mom will not be going on a Viking River Cruise through Europe in October; due to concerns about Delta, she's pushing it back to April 2022.

Wow, mask requirement back in effect here for the next month, "everyone age 2 and older wear a face covering or mask when in in any enclosed building where other people, except for members of the person’s own household or living unit, could be present."

I think of myself as not on the overcautious side but I was already doing this. OK, not necessarily when I've been inside the house of somebody whose vaccination status I know, but a) I have still been primarily socializing outside rather than in, it's awfully nice here this August, and b) I and probably everybody else will still do this and the state is not gonna say boo, this is about stores.

eephus, yeah, same here -- except the part about the "awfully nice" weather.

I mean, I've definitely been hanging out inside (and outside) with friends.

The only thing I've changed is a recent upgrade from cloth to KN95. I haven't been maskless in an interior space (beyond my apartment and my mom's house over the 4th) since the beginning of last year.

you meet friends outside?

If you, like me, get flu shots each year, the concept of a regular booster/revamp in response to projections about how a particular disease functions is not unknown.

― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 17 August 2021 17:38 (yesterday) link

Correct me if I’m wrong but I thought the annual flu shot was not a “booster” at all, but rather a new vaccine based on scientists best guess at which strain of flu would dominate that year. So if that’s the analogy we would need a vaccine tailored to delta rather than a “booster” of the same

Ned literally said "booster/revamp" in your quote

flu jab is 3 or 4 strains at a time and they do repeat, certainly families repeat, but i don't know how much evolving goes on within families between years.

a/Hawaii/70/2019 (h1n1)
b/Phuket/3073/2013

for instance.

I think the whole idea of when do things go back to normal is just fantasy.

and, to quote Miguel, what's normal anyway?

I want no part of what the world looked like in 2019.

I just mean this won't be the last pandemic, obviously global warming is going to totally transform the way we live, we'll be nostalgic for the normal everyday life we had. Or like when seafood doesn't exist, coffee, wine, stuff like that

yeah I wouldn't mind sticking with 2019's avg temp

Seems like the teenage children of my friends are getting COVID left right and centre. I was speaking to another friend of mine whose 35 year old cousin is in intensive care and they don't give him much hope of getting out.I asked if he'd been vaccinated and he said, "Probably not, knowing his politics".

Ugh

So it looks like it's boosters for all (Americans) 8-months after second shot, starting in September. Which means I'm due in ... December?

Incidentally, I just had my blood drawn for the Red Cross antibody study I'm participating in for the first time since getting my vaccine back in April. They usually get back to me with results in a few weeks, I'm curious where my antibodies stand just four or so months after my second dose.

Stories like this infuriate me cuz #clicks

These are the relevant buried grafs:

A vast majority of vaccinated people who are hospitalized for Covid-19 are likely to be older adults or those who have weakened immune systems for other reasons. C.D.C. data show that 74 percent of breakthrough cases are among adults 65 or older.

Most states do not compile the numbers by age, sex or the presence of other conditions. But in Oregon, which does, the median age for a breakthrough-associated death is 83 years

As more people get jabbed, breakthrough cases increase (and let's stop calling them 'breakthrough' cases as if vaccination created a force field).

A vast majority of vaccinated people who are hospitalized for Covid-19 are likely to be older adults

But it's kind of a weird thing to say since that's... also true for unvaccinated people

Just got an email from my school district inviting all staff to "start the school year strong" by attending a "vaccination and wellness event" in a stadium, with yoga, meditation, and a DJ. So, an all-staff stadium party in advance of the school year, with Delta surging. What could go wrong?

They don't even need to do this as an inducement to get vaccinated. They are requiring vaccinations and most teachers in this district already have the shot.

I think the whole idea of when do things go back to normal is just fantasy.

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, August 18, 2021 7:35 AM (thirteen hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Or we could just accept a new normal where we're most likely going to get COVID, and if we are vaccinated we will probably be ok. Because that's the most likely scenario. That's already the scenario for a lot of people who can't work from home - they either get it (or have gotten it) vaccinated and wind up ok or get it unvaccinated and have an elevated risk of not winding up ok. If anything, I think it's a fantasy that things aren't already going back to that kind of normal - most people are not in WFH jobs and are not avoiding crowded indoor places indefinitely.

when was that normal previously