does anyone have recent excess death statistics, most local areas say something like 500 cases. like i see thousands of people running around at pride with no masks.... i feel like people are insane
I feel like a real second wave could get extremely bad.
People are totally desensitized to the death numbers and done with restrictions.
I'm vaccinated but I still wear a mask whenever I go into a public indoors space. I don't wear a mask outside because unless people are literally exhaling directly into my mouth the chance of spreading anything is zero. I have no reason to eat at a restaurant or do anything with crowds because I have no friends :agony-deep:
Basically, I'm doing my part to not contribute to a second wave via pure depression and loneliness.
How long until a vaccine resistant strain explodes on to the scene.
Depends on the vaccine. There's already one resistant to the AZ vaccine.
AZ vaccine is only 25% effective against beta variant. AZ is currently modifying their vaccine to cover it.
Its actually worse than that unfortunately, 10-22% effectiveness
https://www.contagionlive.com/view/novavax-reports-effectiveness-of-its-covid-19-vaccine-against-south-african-variant
For the latter (AstraZennica) trial, an overall vaccine efficacy was reported at 22% and 10% against the South African variant, with B.1.351 making up 95% of the cases
Southern Africa has the beta variant, which is vaccine resistant against the AZ vaccine, only 10-22% effectiveness.
https://www.contagionlive.com/view/novavax-reports-effectiveness-of-its-covid-19-vaccine-against-south-african-variant
For the latter (AstraZennica) trial, an overall vaccine efficacy was reported at 22% and 10% against the South African variant, with B.1.351 making up 95% of the cases
95-98% of new cases are among the unvaccinated, which is 30-50% of a given region.
It's not over for that group, though rates are down more than proportionally, likely due to the protective effect of the vaccinated. And that 2-5% is still vulnerable and is going to be constantly put at greater risk of new variants so long as infection rates are high and travel is not restricted.
Culturally, the system has given up and the population wants to believe it's all over, having received signals from the system that everything will reopen and be "normal" now or very soon. Those suggesting caution will now be a slim minority: those rejecting the cynical incompetence of institutional recommendations and that aren't anti-maskers, which is to say, basically just a subset of leftists, i.e. a percent at best.
Only a horrific new variant would jostle the public out of this, imo. Fingers crossed that won't happen.
I wonder if the variants will only get slowly worse. It won't be a terrible variant all the sudden but just a slow degredation of the vaccines effectiveness as new variants slowly evolve.
It's very hard to predict. The only certainty is that high infection rates dramatically increase the chances of escape variants.
Yeah, I think boosters will help initially, but after a while people will get tired of those too and we'll have another 2020.
The delta variant already did this.
There is a strong selective pressure to escape the vaccines, it's just a matter of how large the space of functional escape mutations is and how quickly it can be explored. That space is of unknown size, but the speed at which it can be explored is directly proportional to population size, i.e. infection rates. In addition, the larger the population, the more likely that slightly deleterious mutations will survive long enough for a new optimum to be reached in subsequent mutations.
If every country had followed China's example, we'd at least have a low rate of new allele generation, possibly even eradicated it by now. Instead, we're playing with fire.
Source: took virology and lots of pop gen.
Good points. Yeah I'm definitely no biologist but that makes a lot of sense
Everyone who's gonna get vaccinated got vaccinated, everyone else is saying fuck it, so yeah, pretty much. More unvaccinated people will get it and die. A very small number of vaccinated people will get it and get sick or, in an extremely small number of cases, die. But COVID numbers are, all around, on the decline.
The unvaxxed are gonna get some vaxxed people killed because they'll keep spreading it. That's so fucking depressing to me...
I was just thinking I wish they did these vaccine lotteries every year. If just 50% of people got the flu shot that could save tens of thousands of lives a year.
Giving people a reward for doing the right thing seems like the only way to get people to care about others.
:shocked-pikachu:
People act in their personal material interest?
There are still a few hundred people dying per day, but it's on the decline and with well over half the population immune (a number that's only heading up) the writing is on the wall. Cases should drop under 10k per day within a couple weeks. Summer temperatures will be good for keeping numbers low, too.
Vaccinations are still happening, btw - we're not in the "everyone who wants one has it" stage yet. There are still a million new doses per day and a lot of people - particularly in marginalized communities - are getting it now. People who live either in urban cores without a car or poor transit access still have trouble accessing the vaccine, while people in rural areas might have to travel long distances to get it. A lot of the new vaccinations are coming from those groups. And many people who are vaccine skeptical could very well get it later on - there will always be hardcore anti-vaxxers and fuck those people but there are just as many "wait and see" folks that are seeing it work.
As of now if you're vaccinated you're pretty safe going outside without a mask. It took me a while to get used to it (and I still mask indoors, mostly as a courtesy) but the fact is most covid spread even pre-vaccine was indoors. Post-vaccine (if you're vaccinated), you're very unlikely to spread it even indoors. The proof is in the numbers - cases are plummeting even with restrictions lifting and people getting back to normal because the vaccine works.
The doomers have been wrong about everything this year, and they can stay wrong and stay mad. They were wrong about B117 escaping the vaccine, wrong about the delta variant escaping the vaccine, wrong about a spring 2021 wave, and they'll keep being wrong for internet points until we stop giving the points to them. Look at any doomer post from the past 6 months and laugh about how wrong they were. Covid isn't over yet - it's disrepectful to say that when hundreds are still dying every day - but if you're vaccinated you really can get most of the way back to normal. And if you know anyone on the fence about the vaccine or struggling with vaccine access, please be a comrade and help them out!
Sure, if you use hindsight to take every prediction that didn't pan out and call it "doomer", and every prediction that did and say that that's just being rational, then the doomers are fucking idiots who never get anything right. When you add in "no, there's no way this will be over by the summer of 2020" and "people traveling for thanksgiving/christmas will lead to a massive increase in cases and deaths" to the doomer category, it's not so clear.
I mean, covid seems like a weird place to make this point, considering that when covid first hit the news, the non-doomer position was "The media always scares people about stuff like this for ratings. It will be like ebola, a handful of people will get it, and then we'll forget about it."
They're also wrong about the delta variant, we only have data from one vaccine, it no where near enough to conclude that other vaccines aren't effected by the delta variant.
That's why I said "this year." The doomers on here have been pretty much wrong about everything post-vaccine.
So really it's "and they’ll keep being wrong for internet points until they start being right again"
You're using the fact that conditions have been improving recently to push people to ignore anyone who says they won't keep improving in the future.
...Yes?
"They were right until a major therapeutic breakthrough occurred, and are now wrong because they failed to update their priors" is not unreasonable.
I believe the doomers were correct about government responses to the pandemic but extremely wrong about therapeutics. Now that the primary mitigation strategy is from therapeutics rather than public policy, the doomers have gone from being right to being wrong.
If you want to inform people about why you think an optimistic outlook on post vaccine covid recovery is justified, great.
My problem is with rallying against doomers generally. Doomers are right when they're right and wrong when they're wrong. We shouldn't be pushing people to ignore doomers as a rule, because at some point they're going to be right again about something.
Your post may not have intended that specifically, but the way people were responding, that seemed to be the message they were getting, and I wanted to push back against that.
Except what you call doomerism is already happening . Vaccine escape variants are popping up with increasing competency. Infection rates are still high globally, increasing the risk of new variants. Most governments have given up on eradication, instead leading us down a path of this being like the flu - seasonal, goes after the elderly, only 10X more deadly.
This is not a good outcome our situation, though it might be nice to have this current tentative reprieve if you're privileged enough to be vaccinated.
If all you're saying is wearing a mask is good, then it's pretty obvious I wasn't talking about you...? I literally agreed with that in my post?
It's also bizarrely somewhat helpful in that it can be a self defeating prophecy if people react to it
a bit weird to flex at the doomers after covid killed millions of people and shut down the world for over a year
They were wrong about B117 escaping the vaccine,
True, but unfortunately, B.1.351 beta variant is basically an escape variant for the AZ vaccine. Effectiveness down to 10-22% for that vaccine with the beta B.1.351 variant. Southern African countries had to send shipments back of the AZ vaccine because of this, but again, you wouldn't know because no one cares about Africa. Phizer effectiveness is down to 75% for this variant.
wrong about the delta variant escaping the vaccine
How? No one is wrong or right, there is not enough data yet. Phizer vaccine effectiveness down from 95% to 75% on the delta variant. No data for the other vaccines. This is pretty worrying because it's the same drop in effectiveness as the beta variant, and if other vaccines, such as the AZ vaccine, react the same way to the delta variant as the beta variant, this could be an effective escape variant for vaccines such as the AZ vaccine. But again, not enough data as of yet.
Depending on where you live, the "doomers" have either been wrong or right. If you live in the USA or UK, the doomers have been wrong this year. If you live in Southern Africa or India, the "doomers" have been right unfortunately.
I mean this thread is literally about the USA, it’s in the title. Situations are obviously different in different regions. India, South America, etc. are going through horrific outbreaks thanks to vaccine apartheid. My comment was only about the US because that’s what this thread is about.
Exactly. Doomers need to get a check on their mental health. I say this as someone who resorted to copious amounts of cocaine and alcohol to power my way through losing my job, lockdowns, and isolation.
Yeah I mean that still happens, the same way people with flu vaccines can still get it and die. 95% effective means someone has to be in the 5%, sadly.
Yes it is. AND YOU WILL GO BACK TO YOUR MINIMUM WAGE JOB AND START PAYING YOUR STUDENT LOANS, SWEATIE
Something like 98 percent of new cases are people who haven't received a single dose of the vaccine, and virtually all serious illness being those who are unvaccinated.
At least where I live everyone has had ample time to get a vaccine, there are pop-up clinics on like every block, to not be vaccinated at this point is purely an individual choice.
not be vaccinated at this point is purely an individual choice
I'm reminded of one of the big early outbreaks occurring in a meat packing plant in South Dakota. Dozens of people taking ill at once. Community spread all the fuck over the place. Interstate transmission, because these folks are migrant laborers living in little pop-up towns with dense living and poor sanitation.
How did the governor respond? Governor Kristi Noem announced Thursday that a $5 million grant for small South Dakota meat processors would be made available through the state’s Coronavirus Relief Meat Processing Grant program.
:-p
Meanwhile, the state continues to lag the curve in all of the above.
This isn't something unique to South Dakota. Every corner of the country that isn't some urban industrial center has been starved for public services going on decades.
Depends on what you mean by "done".
People are not "insane" to not wear masks outside during Pride if they have been vaccinated. You're probably more likely to get run over during the parade than to be vaccinated and catch outdoor-transmitted vaccine-bypassing COVID. So just stay indoors forever if that's your level of risk aversion.
So it doesn't change the numbers much in this case, but I wanted to add that the US actually has a fairly substantial weekly cycle to its covid data. For example there are about 30% more cases that get counted on Fridays than on Sundays. When you're making comparisons, generally you want to get an average over a week, or compare dates that are the same day of the week.
June 5, 2020 was a Friday, so for Friday June 4, 2021 its 16,860 new cases and 510 deaths
Kid started coughing, but its getting into summer and the pollen has been getting bad. "Probably just allergies" we're thinking to ourselves.
Then we get the note from daycare. "A child in our care has reported a family member testing positive."
So... now we're off to the doctor to have a q-tip shoved all the way back to the brainpan of our three-year-old.
Awesome.
I hope it’s just allergies comrade. I’m currently getting my ass kicked by them. :meow-hug:
they don’t do spit tests for kids? ouch
The rapid test still needs the q-tip.
Also, good news, it's just normal kid crud.
My state just said fuck it and stopped reporting cases altogether.
So I guess we're just ignoring it for that sweet, sweet tourism revenue that only the wealthy get to experience in the first place. Cool. :kitsuragi-depress:
I also do wonder about the impact of vaccination on testing. Like, of course vaccinated folks are less likely to catch Covid. But does it follow that people are just getting tested less as a result, including the unvaccinated?
Also, of course they just got the first minor cold they’ve had in like a year - they’re finally seeing other people without a mask for the first time
:agony-deep:
Idk, everyone I know is vaccinated. People around me are still mostly wearing masks in public places. I’m fine with wearing them when out to the store or whatever I just fucking hate wearing them at work because in sweat like a hog and they do get hard to breath through when wet.
I’ll keeping doing whatever the “experts” say (but people here keep saying not to take the CDCs word for things so I don’t fucking know), but I’m hoping we’re at the tail end of things.
