outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

i'm so sorry

Xp I’ve seen reputable infectious disease people say that viral load does not necessarily tell you infectivity, will try to find and post a good source when not on my phone. For example I think kids have viral loads pretty close to adults but are considerably less infective.

Dr Angela Rasmussen said exactly that, think I posted in the other thread....one sec

Let's just skip the small talk and get right to the point. This figure shows the data. It shows Ct (cycle threshold) values for vaccinated vs unvaccinated people infected with delta. Yes, they are basically the same.

But are Ct values a good measurement of viral load...? pic.twitter.com/3hypqB1ZCc

— Dr. Angela Rasmussen (@angie_rasmussen) August 1, 2021

-?

=?

error

human error overload

"=?" is the best 80s Rush song

even Christgau likes it!

What does overload mean to me?

Talking Heads trying to sound like Joy Division without having heard them before

Love =? Buildings On Fire

that would be interesting, man alive. but just to be clear, do you mean infectivity of the host or shedding (infecting others)?

I mean the chance of infecting others. The Rasumussen thing suggests it may even go further than that, i.e. we may not even be using a good measure of viral load to begin with.

Just because there have been reports about the vaccinated being equally likely to spread COVID. The more obvious flaw with that statement is that the vaccinated are less likely to get COVID, but it sounds like we may also need more info on whether or not the vaccinated who do get infected are equally likely to transmit.

We are continuing to rely on the responsible to pick up the pieces for the irresponsible. We haven’t been able to count on the voluntarily unvaccinated to get vaccinated. We can’t rely on them to wear masks to limit the impact of their irresponsibility on others. We can’t even rely on them to be honest enough to abide by a masking policy only for the unvaccinated. So we’re left with arguably over-broad guidance and continued unclarity about why all of this is happening.

As I’ve been saying for some time, the problem with our policy is that we are not doing enough to place the burden of non-vaccination squarely on the voluntarily unvaccinated. That is both the most equitable and the most effective approach. Here though we can see that public authorities’ effort to work around the problem of the irresponsibility of the unvaccinated actually manages to bring them into a sort of public contempt. The science clearly has changed with the Delta variant. It’s much more transmissible. But the problem remains that Delta is spreading like wildfire among the unvaccinated and it’s lapping up onto the shores on vaccinated America.

So just as we’ve gotten the balance off by having the vaccinated shoulder the burden created by the unvaccinated, we now have public health authorities bringing their own authority into contempt because of too aggressive coddling of the unvaccinated. So now they’re picking up the burden for the unvaccinated too – not at the cost of daily inconveniences but at the cost of their public authority. We all suffer for that.

We need to be placing the burdens on non-vaccination on the unvaccinated. And we need to be clear with the public that the problem is the non-vaccinated. They’re at fault. They’re to blame. And even more, the public influencers, celebrities and political actors who’ve driven resistance to vaccination are to blame.

blame is pointless in this era. blame only has a point when there is accountability

I think we need a harm reduction approach with vaccination. There are really two different categories of people, maybe with some occasional overlap at the margins. There are the actual hardcore "antivaxxers" who think the 5G chip is going to be implanted or whatever. I don't think you can reach those people, no matter how much you browbeat them (in fact it probably just makes them dig in harder). But there are also the merely "hesitant" or even foot-dragging people, and there are more of those than you think. Some of them may just not be the highest functioning people. Some are a little nervous about the vaccine but not hardcore antivax. Some may fear shots but ultimately get what's good for them. Some may be overwhelmed by their lives and haven't found the time. There's good evidence that there are people in these latter categories who can still be reached with the right outreach. I saw a great twitter thread by someone who does this work, will try to find (maybe it was already posted ITT, hard to keep track).

Point being, give up on the real antivaxers, but recognize there are still plenty of people who can be reached who are not entrenched against the vaccine, and focus on reaching those people rather than shaming them.

Give up on the antivaxxers? I already did, a long time ago.

Ban them from public spaces

As has been suggested, life just needs to be made prohibitively inconvenient for the unvaccinated, where people with the authority to make it happen say: if you are unvaccinated, you can't go to your job, you can't use public transportation, you can't indulge in any kind of public entertainment, etc. The only distinction that needs to be made is with those who have a legitimate, health-related reason why they can not or should not be vaccinated. We can make accommodations for that small minority, particularly since they are far more likely to behave responsibly for the sake of their own health and the health of others. Any other unvaccinated adults in the US fall into the 'get vaxxed or get fucked' category imho.

OL on the money. The problem is that in most non urban centers, there is absolutely nothing stopping these anti-vaxxers from living a completely normal life yet. Talking my (fully vaxxed) dad who lives about an hour and a half west of the Chicago suburbs last week, he said no one is enforcing masks out where he lives, it's just life as normal. When people see absolutely zero consequences for being as irresponsible as possible, of course there's little reason for them to change a fucking thing.

On the other infuriating tip, is the hordes of super angry seeming redditors that are rabidly furious about being asked to mask up again. Just shocked by the level of "fuck you, I'm vaccinated, I'm not doing a fucking thing I don't want to do" vitriol over there. Of course I wish we weren't moving backwards in some regards but, we are, sorry buds.

Employers and private venues can require it, schools can require it but at some point it's prohibitively logistically complicated and expensive to require proof of vaccination everywhere -- what are you going to do, station cops at every bus stop and public park entrance? Require a $10/hr line cook with poor english to go through an elaborate verification process so he can ride the subway to his job? And some businesses just won't do it. I think outreach is much more important and effective.

Also, just worth noting (and I continue to find this absurd and a bizarre policy failure), that the only proof of vaccination I received was a small and very easily forgeable piece of paper.

FWIW, I'm fine with going back to masking, but I also feel like there is a lack of clear thinking on what the end goal is. Are we doing this until we reach a certain vaccination rate? It's pretty apparent we are not going to, and cannot, hit zero COVID.

Employers and private venues can require it, schools can require it but at some point it's prohibitively logistically complicated and expensive to require proof of vaccination everywhere

Of course. Require it everywhere except where it’s logistically prohibitive, then.

When you’re at 0 out of 100 on the scale of logic, it is a huge win to bring it to 60 out of 100. I’m not worried about 100% effectiveness. Let’s see ANY effectiveness and worry about the last few percentage points later

people are profoundly lazy when it comes to medical shit sometimes. I feel like a lot of these are the same people who will delay getting a cavity filled until they start really hurting and wind up needing a root canal. there's definitely a segment of the population that's not necessarily opposed to it but rather are like "well I don't wanna take time out of my day and get poked, I can't take 2 days off work if I experience side effects, and if everyone else gets it then I won't need to anyway"

That. Like there have been years where I've wanted the flu vaccine and just never got around to it. Obviously I took the COVID vaccine much more seriously and got it as soon as I possibly could. But there are people who treat COVID like I treat flu.

Of course the media's absolutely terrible reporting on breakthrough cases is not helping things either. Just so disappointed in everything right now.

The reporting and honestly even the CDC's messaging has been such a mess that I can't even completely tell what kind of mess it is.

Also, just worth noting (and I continue to find this absurd and a bizarre policy failure), that the only proof of vaccination I received was a small and very easily forgeable piece of paper.

This is in NY State, under the Great Cuomo who vanquished COVID.

One thing I am trying to get my mind around: do we have an achievable end game in mind? I mean I understand that the situation shifts, new variants change the picture, but say we are stuck with this super contagious version of COVID and it turns out that people can easily get infected and spread even vaccinated? Then what? Do we rest on the fact that at least the vaccine protects against severe illness? Do we have an idea of a % target for vaccination that would allow normalization of life? I just feel confused by the calls to lock down again, because I don't understand what that accomplishes other than prolonging the inevitable unless it's "until we can do ____." As a vaccinated person, from what I know now, I'm comfortable with my own risk. I don't want to spread COVID to an unvaccinated person, but at the same time it's like, how much do I need to alter my behavior for the sake of someone who, for whatever reason, doesn't feel concerned enough about their own risk to have gotten vaccinated? And I'm even willing to be the bigger person and take that person's risk into account, but for how long? What is the goal here?

Death.

good band

In the states most severely affected by Delta (per capita), there's some signs of slowing of case growth, especially in Missouri and Arkansas, the initial epicenter pic.twitter.com/kY1hlpNz13

— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) August 2, 2021

(naturally our shitty testing in the US muddies the waters there but)

I don't think there's a real end to this at least until many more people are compelled to get vaccinated

Or, alternatively, until Covid evolves into an even more deadly, more transmissible form.

Which isn't going to happen until more employers and companies get serious about enforcing vaccine requirements. That's really the only realistic path forward I see - make these dipshit refusers suffer some actual consequences like being locked out of the Applebee and Cracker Barrel until they get jabbed.

I mean *this wave* is definitely going to end sometime, eventually natural infection plus the millions of people vaccinated means it won't stay at the level it's at now forever (though it'll kill and hospitalize and long COVID many people in the interim). when that happens is murky - UK is much more vaccinated than us and our hospitalization trends are not following their trajectory (ours are continuing to increase around the time theirs leveled off).

but you are right that COVID will endure for a long while. vaccination is ticking up, but not enough to put this in our rearview anytime soon.

I do agree upthread that COVID Zero is impossible and I really wonder what strategy people think would get us there (even a 2 year lockdown until 2024 wouldn't do it by now). that doesn't mean that we should throw all caution to the wind either though, which is what too many people want to do (vaxxed and un-vaxxed). caek's link from earlier about how controlling the spread was helpful in illustrating that COVID becoming endemic doesn't mean we can stop taking measures and just go "ok it's here to stay now, guess we should just let it run its course", as that will mean years of high transmission, hospitalization, long covid, and death, but with effort, it could at least be a much less harmless virus once it's much less 'novel'.

The fact that we're only discussing those scenarios in mid-2021 because a gaggle of dipshits put their freedoms ahead of public health makes me unspeakably angry. And that's the shit I want to mash into the face of every anti-vaxxer: WE COULD BE BACK TO (somewhat) NORMAL NOW IF NOT FOR YOU.

it is their fault (i know, i know, the anti-vaccine people, not the people who have good reasons or just can't understand). they are to blame. and there is no accountability. that went away at the end of the previous era.

i think it would be a good idea to construct a new jerusalem in the sky above the existing one, and then put a sign called "heaven" on it and a bunch of stairs, and tell all the anti-vaxxers that the rapture happened and to go to the new jerusalem in the sky. i bet they would do it. then, when they're all in one place, maybe the actual rapture would happen and they really would go away. i think that's the only way to trigger the rapture and get rid of them, is to actually make the rapture happen. reagan understood this instinctively but did not complete his mission

^ some heavy viral shedding going on there

in heaven there is no sickness. because if you get sick they send you back to earth

The bonus? Liquidating the anti-vaccers also liquidates a healthy component of Trumpists.

This is what we need, and we can do it for much less money:

https://media0.giphy.com/media/l2Je87QlNqPh2QdDW/200.gif

Is there any good data on how many people are legit hardcore "antivax" vs just hesitant/lazy?

one of my friends posted something on Facebook like "so in order to combat the Delta variant, Fauci is telling us to do all the same things that didn't work the first time?" and honestly I wanted to just strangle him

That's like blaming the instructions for the Ikea desk that collapsed because you were drunk when you built it.

delta peaked and then cases dramatically decreased in india already:

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/23/coronavirus-how-india-is-doing-now-after-delta-variant-spread.html

the problem is we may be in this "endless" loop where a new mutation (delta plus) is stronger at "defeating" the vaccines and then a new vaccine is developed to defeat it. at that point, it seems like scientists are in a race against new variants and we wait until they become too weak to actually hospitalize anyone, if that ever happens.

there's a bunch of variables that are unknown, but even at a full vaccination rate that is "high," the question is does a variant just need a "few" hosts (as opposed to "a lot") to turn into a deadly or serious virus? mathematically, you're odds rise the more hosts you have, but this all seems like unexplored territory and has really revealed how corrupt and poorly science is done across the world. i think we're just left with trying to avoid overburdening hospitals for now.