Coronavirus in Massachusetts (2014, hotels, home)

[massnative71]

Originally Posted by yesmaybe

People could use the excuse that they are scared of getting the Rona to not look for a job?

And that has what to do with the price of tea in China???

[rach5]

Originally Posted by htfdcolt

Be careful. Not trying to minimize this but breakthrough infections are more common with the non-mRNA vaccines...which given that it's Singapore, is likely what those workers received.

No. Singapore has authorized only Pfizer and Moderna. These are not only breakthrough infections, but also onward transmission.

[yesmaybe]

You could say that pressuring Vaccine Lazy people to get the shot, knowing they will be soon be in close contact with tons of unvaccinated maskless people could work. I don't think that's what happened here though.

[htfdcolt]

Originally Posted by rach5

No. Singapore has authorized only Pfizer and Moderna. These are not only breakthrough infections, but also onward transmission.

If that's the case...it's exceedingly rare. But not impossible.

[rach5]

Originally Posted by htfdcolt

If that's the case...it's exceedingly rare. But not impossible.

At least in Singapore, with the India variant, it may not be that exceedingly rare. They have very few cases (up until this week mostly in the single digit community/not imported cases! here, the airport cluster would be tiny - but there it is a significant fraction of cases; also, according to the graphic from the channelnewsasia, as of May 11, 2/10 infected vaccinated individuals transmitted to close contacts outside of the airport; I would not consider that order of onward transmission exceedingly rare - and the cluster is still growing); this is with top-notch contact tracing that we just don't have here with our high community spread. Just to give you another idea of how careful with contact tracing they are there (and they have been since the start of the pandemic) https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news...riant-14820456
We also don't know what will happen when we still have very significant community transmission, with (effectively) no masking, and no social distancing, with businesses at full capacity. Everybody who is out and about will be in close proximity to the virus all the time. I doubt the studies have considered that type of scenario without any protections beyond vaccines - we certainly have not been in that situation here in the US in well over a year. Israel lifted its "outdoor" mask mandate when 50% of the population (more than 80% of the adult population) was fully vaccinated. At an individual level, a vaccinated person's risk may still be small - but with a population of hundreds of millions, and when we need to suspect that many antivaxxers are also antimaskers - what will happen? I don't know. Does the CDC know?

[msRB311]

Overall I don't think this virus is going away. At least vaccinations will help contain it. People die from pneumonia and the flu every year. Unfortunately I just foresee this being another virus that kills people, vaccinated or not.

[Amontillado]

Not exactly "just another virus" recently, though. Covid-19 went from zero to the third-leading cause of death between 2019 and 2020. That's behind heart disease and cancer, but way ahead of any other contagious disease. Maybe it can be knocked down to something like the effect of flu. We'll have to wait to find out.

[rach5]

Originally Posted by msRB311

Overall I don't think this virus is going away. At least vaccinations will help contain it. People die from pneumonia and the flu every year. Unfortunately I just foresee this being another virus that kills people, vaccinated or not.

Well - with the better vaccines being so highly effective (MUCH more effective than the flu vaccine), we would actually have had a shot at creating something approaching herd immunity (assuming Pfizer et al keep up with variants) that protects all those that can't mount an immune response (and of course, for now, kids and those that have only recently become eligible!). Clearly, the CDC gave up on that - but some advance notice instead of the whiplash shift in policy, to give people a chance to get fully vaccinated before facing hordes of maskless customers without distancing, and local governors (and stores) a chance to more carefully adapt the guidance to local conditions, would still have been much better public health policy. And it still would have given people on the fence the same incentive to get vaccinated.
I also don't like the shift in CDC advice from "no masks needed", to "your mask protects me, mine protects you", to "wear a mask to protect yourself" (with businesses at full capacity) to young kids and immunocompromised transplant and cancer patients (as well as many others on immune-suppressing drugs). My trust in the CDC has dropped like a rock this pandemic. Not sure it will ever recover. Clearly, it was not just a Trump problem.
The UK had under 2000 cases (MA a bit under 500) and 4 deaths (MA 5) today, with good vaccination statistics. With a population over 66 million (RI is even worse than MA, as usual). And the UK are just now opening up a bit more, and already warning that a full reopening may be delayed due to the Indian variant.

[htfdcolt]

Originally Posted by rach5

The UK had under 2000 cases (MA a bit under 500) and 4 deaths (MA 5) today, with good vaccination statistics. With a population over 66 million (RI is even worse than MA, as usual). And the UK are just now opening up a bit more, and already warning that a full reopening may be delayed due to the Indian variant.

That is stellar performance by the UK. I had heard from my colleagues there that the vax campaign was going well, and that (anecdotally) there was less resistance to taking it. Those of us who had Boris Johnson pegged for Trump Jr. need to eat our words, I guess!

[BostonMike7]

Originally Posted by htfdcolt

Those of us who had Boris Johnson pegged for Trump Jr. need to eat our words, I guess!

Didn't get get it bad enough to need hospitalization? Not as a precaution, but out of necessity? If so, i would think that would light a fire under his knickers.