The Delta variant is the fastest, fittest and most formidable version of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 the world has encountered, and it is upending assumptions about the disease even as nations loosen restrictions and open their economies, according to virologists and epidemiologists.
It's really weird that people focus so much on vaccine escape when that's the absolute least of our worries and also the concern humanity has the least capability to do anything about. Vaccine escape isn't why we're in another wave right now, and the vaccine is still at least 100 times more effective than every other intervention we have to handle covid. Fearmongering about vaccine escape while calling for things like fucking mask mandates (I'm not accusing OP of this) should be considered no different than anti-vax propaganda. With Delta so much more infectious, the vaccine has gone from our best weapon against COVID to our only decent one.
If Delta really has an R0 of ~6, we're going to get the point where every person - at least in the US but likely everywhere - is going to either get vaccinated or get COVID. There's no middle ground here. With wild-type COVID, people estimated herd immunity at 70%. With Delta, it's probably closer to 95%. The current wave in places like the UK are almost entirely among the unvaccinated, and that'll be the case globally regardless of other interventions. If you are not vaccinated, you're going to get this disease at some point and likely soon.
COVID preparedness needs to be focused on living with it. Yeah, cue the Boris Johnson shit. The fact is we're not eradicating the virus. Doesn't mean we're doomed to it, but Delta's so infectious that eradication is basically off the table unless you had vaccine coverage of ~100%. It's going to be endemic and probably common-cold like for vaccinated people. We're probably all going to need booster shots at some point. And while vaccine coverage is 100 times more important than vaccine escape, we shouldn't discount that vaccine escape does exist. Some people aren't going to react well enough to the vaccine, get COVID, and die. That's already happened ~800 times in the US right now. Almost all of them had comorbidities, indicating that the vaccine isn't going to do enough for many chronically ill people. There is no currently existing way to stop this (but there could be at some point!)
The high transmissibility means most vaccinated people will probably get COVID too, but far fewer will get seriously ill or die. This is basically unavoidable. Mask mandates will not do a fucking thing to stop this. Social distancing will not do a fucking thing to stop this. The whole point of masks and social distancing was to delay the inevitable until we had a vaccine. Now that we have one, there's not much of a point to them. Unless a better vaccine or a silver bullet to higher vaccination is imminent, masking and distancing are like bringing a ping-pong paddle to a gun fight.
tl;dr: Read this thread. COVID is here to stay, the vaccine is the only tool we have worth a damn (mask mandates are worthless), and there's not a prayer of getting to a vaccine threshold to hit herd immunity. The technology or policy to eradicate COVID does not exist. The short-term will be pretty dire, the long-term doesn't have to be.
It's not that lockdowns don't work - they do in theory. Massive lockdowns - farther than we went in March 2020 - including the shutdown of freight travel across land borders would probably work if sustained for a month or two. I can't imagine that's going to happen in the United States as of right now. We can't even get people to comply with a mask mandate, never mind a vaccine. The likelihood of mass compliance with a lockdown is virtually zero, and the social cost of a lockdown (which does matter) is orders of magnitude greater than mandating vaccines.
I do support antigen testing at workplaces, restaurants, basically every form of public life. I would love nothing more than a vaccine mandate, with exceptions for the immunocompromised (I'm not counting children here because I support approving the vaccine for children ASAP). When it comes to sustained lockdowns versus pushing vaccines, I want whatever will work. I think a lockdown on the scale of what China did (or heck, even what France did would probably be enough) in early 2020 is so unlikely to happen I barely consider it. It's not absolving the government, it's recognizing that our government sucks and our chuds suck and understanding that the government is not coming to save us.
Basically my take here is that there are two ways out of this: massive lockdowns lasting probably 2 months or so, or mass vaccination. Other non-pharmaceutical interventions such as mask mandates or social distancing requirements are a drop in the bucket compared to vaccines and lockdowns. I think the former is literally impossible due to non-compliance. I think the latter is unlikely but possible. As such, I think we should mandate vaccines as far and wide as possible while preparing for the likely reality that endemic COVID is coming.
I very much interpreted that thread's "praise" of BoJo as tongue-in-cheek, as in "BoJo wanted to live with it, now he has no other choice."
We should always organize around what is necessary. That does not mean we will win on our desired timeframe, or at all, on a given issue.
You're correct: high vaccination rates are necessary in a cultural context contingent on international travel, no quarantines, and otherwise relying on "personal responsibility" as their "solution". In fact, vaccination itself is a "personal responsibility" narrative in these cultures.
But to be clear, no, that's not the only way. It's just one way that would work. Complete, coordinated worldwide lockdowns would also work, they just appear less politically feasible. Individual countries committing to individual isolation and lockdowns could also work, but would require their perceived economic self-sacrifice. Actually mandated masks - not just suggestions from on high - would be a helpful element of such an approach.
You can choose to bank on a mandated vaccine strategy, but please remember that this is more about politics than a scientific understanding of, say, masks vs. vaccination. It's about what you think will be the most likely sufficient path to ending the pandemic, in this case by reducing it to a harsh flu through high vaccination rates. In the meantime, please remember that we're operating in societies where even a mask mandate is controversial, that masks do help protect the vulnerable, and that none of what we're talking about here has any real impact. We need to organize irl with clear demands to be doing anything more than role-playing while tut-tutting each other on COVID responses.
Indeed. And similarly, "just do vaccines and individual choices with them and masks" has literally been the failed policy of bourgeois states contributing to that situation.
Banking it all on vaccines -> fucking off about everything else based on West chauvinism (remember Sweden thinking cultural superiority would protect them? lol) -> hoarding vaccines and trying to make as much money off them as possible, limiting supply in both production and trade. People worldwide, particularly in the most exploited of the Global South, suffer from this "approach" to public health.
Don't get me wrong, the vaccines are a necessary technology and we should be producing them at a massive scale with enforced mandates. I agree with parent that socialist orgs should be placing focus on this (and to end vaccine apartheid). But we've gotta adapt to current conditions everywhere as best we can, fight the battles forced on us by those in power while also presenting a clear vision for a better future.
What is the purpose of a mask mandate or a social distancing requirement? To slow down the spread. Delta already spreads twice as fast as wild-type covid, meaning mask/distancing mandates are already half as effective before factoring in greater non-compliance. Secondly, what happens if you do slow down the spread? It just delays the inevitable - that pretty much everyone in the US is going to be exposed to the virus at some point.
The purpose of mask and distancing mandates last year was to delay the inevitable until we had a vaccine. Now that we have a vaccine, that needs to be the priority. Vaccinating 10 unvaccinated people will do more to fight the pandemic than masking 10,000 vaccinated people.
The original estimated R0 for wild-type Covid was in the high 2's - Alpha was about 60% more infectious than wild-type, and Delta 60% more infectious than Alpha. This article estimates the R0 at 6.5 with a margin of error of 2.5 in each direction (so as little as 4 or as great as 9).
It's really weird that people focus so much on vaccine escape when that's the absolute least of our worries and also the concern humanity has the least capability to do anything about. Vaccine escape isn't why we're in another wave right now, and the vaccine is still at least 100 times more effective than every other intervention we have to handle covid. Fearmongering about vaccine escape while calling for things like fucking mask mandates (I'm not accusing OP of this) should be considered no different than anti-vax propaganda. With Delta so much more infectious, the vaccine has gone from our best weapon against COVID to our only decent one.
If Delta really has an R0 of ~6, we're going to get the point where every person - at least in the US but likely everywhere - is going to either get vaccinated or get COVID. There's no middle ground here. With wild-type COVID, people estimated herd immunity at 70%. With Delta, it's probably closer to 95%. The current wave in places like the UK are almost entirely among the unvaccinated, and that'll be the case globally regardless of other interventions. If you are not vaccinated, you're going to get this disease at some point and likely soon.
COVID preparedness needs to be focused on living with it. Yeah, cue the Boris Johnson shit. The fact is we're not eradicating the virus. Doesn't mean we're doomed to it, but Delta's so infectious that eradication is basically off the table unless you had vaccine coverage of ~100%. It's going to be endemic and probably common-cold like for vaccinated people. We're probably all going to need booster shots at some point. And while vaccine coverage is 100 times more important than vaccine escape, we shouldn't discount that vaccine escape does exist. Some people aren't going to react well enough to the vaccine, get COVID, and die. That's already happened ~800 times in the US right now. Almost all of them had comorbidities, indicating that the vaccine isn't going to do enough for many chronically ill people. There is no currently existing way to stop this (but there could be at some point!)
The high transmissibility means most vaccinated people will probably get COVID too, but far fewer will get seriously ill or die. This is basically unavoidable. Mask mandates will not do a fucking thing to stop this. Social distancing will not do a fucking thing to stop this. The whole point of masks and social distancing was to delay the inevitable until we had a vaccine. Now that we have one, there's not much of a point to them. Unless a better vaccine or a silver bullet to higher vaccination is imminent, masking and distancing are like bringing a ping-pong paddle to a gun fight.
tl;dr: Read this thread. COVID is here to stay, the vaccine is the only tool we have worth a damn (mask mandates are worthless), and there's not a prayer of getting to a vaccine threshold to hit herd immunity. The technology or policy to eradicate COVID does not exist. The short-term will be pretty dire, the long-term doesn't have to be.
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China figured this all out two weeks in.
Westerners expect SO LITTLE from government lmfao.
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It's not that lockdowns don't work - they do in theory. Massive lockdowns - farther than we went in March 2020 - including the shutdown of freight travel across land borders would probably work if sustained for a month or two. I can't imagine that's going to happen in the United States as of right now. We can't even get people to comply with a mask mandate, never mind a vaccine. The likelihood of mass compliance with a lockdown is virtually zero, and the social cost of a lockdown (which does matter) is orders of magnitude greater than mandating vaccines.
I do support antigen testing at workplaces, restaurants, basically every form of public life. I would love nothing more than a vaccine mandate, with exceptions for the immunocompromised (I'm not counting children here because I support approving the vaccine for children ASAP). When it comes to sustained lockdowns versus pushing vaccines, I want whatever will work. I think a lockdown on the scale of what China did (or heck, even what France did would probably be enough) in early 2020 is so unlikely to happen I barely consider it. It's not absolving the government, it's recognizing that our government sucks and our chuds suck and understanding that the government is not coming to save us.
Basically my take here is that there are two ways out of this: massive lockdowns lasting probably 2 months or so, or mass vaccination. Other non-pharmaceutical interventions such as mask mandates or social distancing requirements are a drop in the bucket compared to vaccines and lockdowns. I think the former is literally impossible due to non-compliance. I think the latter is unlikely but possible. As such, I think we should mandate vaccines as far and wide as possible while preparing for the likely reality that endemic COVID is coming.
I very much interpreted that thread's "praise" of BoJo as tongue-in-cheek, as in "BoJo wanted to live with it, now he has no other choice."
We should always organize around what is necessary. That does not mean we will win on our desired timeframe, or at all, on a given issue.
You're correct: high vaccination rates are necessary in a cultural context contingent on international travel, no quarantines, and otherwise relying on "personal responsibility" as their "solution". In fact, vaccination itself is a "personal responsibility" narrative in these cultures.
But to be clear, no, that's not the only way. It's just one way that would work. Complete, coordinated worldwide lockdowns would also work, they just appear less politically feasible. Individual countries committing to individual isolation and lockdowns could also work, but would require their perceived economic self-sacrifice. Actually mandated masks - not just suggestions from on high - would be a helpful element of such an approach.
You can choose to bank on a mandated vaccine strategy, but please remember that this is more about politics than a scientific understanding of, say, masks vs. vaccination. It's about what you think will be the most likely sufficient path to ending the pandemic, in this case by reducing it to a harsh flu through high vaccination rates. In the meantime, please remember that we're operating in societies where even a mask mandate is controversial, that masks do help protect the vulnerable, and that none of what we're talking about here has any real impact. We need to organize irl with clear demands to be doing anything more than role-playing while tut-tutting each other on COVID responses.
Never mind all that western chauvinism like the US vaccination plan means shit to people dying in the global south.
Indeed. And similarly, "just do vaccines and individual choices with them and masks" has literally been the failed policy of bourgeois states contributing to that situation.
Banking it all on vaccines -> fucking off about everything else based on West chauvinism (remember Sweden thinking cultural superiority would protect them? lol) -> hoarding vaccines and trying to make as much money off them as possible, limiting supply in both production and trade. People worldwide, particularly in the most exploited of the Global South, suffer from this "approach" to public health.
Don't get me wrong, the vaccines are a necessary technology and we should be producing them at a massive scale with enforced mandates. I agree with parent that socialist orgs should be placing focus on this (and to end vaccine apartheid). But we've gotta adapt to current conditions everywhere as best we can, fight the battles forced on us by those in power while also presenting a clear vision for a better future.
Solidarity, comrade.
?
What is the purpose of a mask mandate or a social distancing requirement? To slow down the spread. Delta already spreads twice as fast as wild-type covid, meaning mask/distancing mandates are already half as effective before factoring in greater non-compliance. Secondly, what happens if you do slow down the spread? It just delays the inevitable - that pretty much everyone in the US is going to be exposed to the virus at some point.
The purpose of mask and distancing mandates last year was to delay the inevitable until we had a vaccine. Now that we have a vaccine, that needs to be the priority. Vaccinating 10 unvaccinated people will do more to fight the pandemic than masking 10,000 vaccinated people.
idk why you think slowing down spread is an unworthy task. just because it won't stop it doesn't mean it won't help anybody.
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Sure!
https://unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com/p/delta-variant-everything-you-need?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoxNzg3MDA5LCJwb3N0X2lkIjozODY3OTkzMCwiXyI6IllMYUJPIiwiaWF0IjoxNjI2MTgxMjQ4LCJleHAiOjE2MjYxODQ4NDgsImlzcyI6InB1Yi0zNDc1MzMiLCJzdWIiOiJwb3N0LXJlYWN0aW9uIn0.yMmh202Ged84ofzAjLqTWoPTh23MHN_NZOr8c7aAo2U
The original estimated R0 for wild-type Covid was in the high 2's - Alpha was about 60% more infectious than wild-type, and Delta 60% more infectious than Alpha. This article estimates the R0 at 6.5 with a margin of error of 2.5 in each direction (so as little as 4 or as great as 9).
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eh I feel like masks and vaccines are pretty close. Like if I could only have one, I'd be unvaccinated and wear a mask
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