Coronavirus in Massachusetts (home, calculation, gyms)

[bostongymjunkie]

Originally Posted by mdovell

I don't think you actually understand what you saying. If you take a look at when the SARS outbreak happened around 2002 they continued to wear masks even after that pandemic was over. And if you look at 1918 it clearly had masks and vaccinations. You can't argue with us that somehow we shouldn't be using these things. I think that what you're trying to infer that obesity kills more people which is correct but that's a completely separate issue.

If we really want to go Whole Hog on everything healthy then we would simply adopt the 30 or 25 year old LDS study by UCLA. Become a vegetarian, don't smoke, rarely drink, exercise.

I wouldn't necessarily say things are entitled but we're talkin about the baby boomer generation going forward. Things like no fault divorce, microwaves, on demand TV networks, Broadband, wireless networks, everything is consistently been made to be better cheaper and faster that's what we've been dealing with since about the 1950s onward. If you want to take some sort of primitivist John Zarzen mentality that rejects even the cultivation of Agriculture and domestication of animals by all means do so but that goes down the line of the Unabomber.

When it comes down to what risk management can be a number of things. The fact of the matter is you have to realize that if you accidentally expose somebody to any form of a disease you can be held legally liable for it. People have been sued that have AIDS and had sex with people and didn't tell him that. School districts are being sued for covid exposures for not testing or having mask mandates. Where I live occasionally I see signs about "unmasking our kids" alright fine I can be for that but how much higher do we want our taxes to go to pay for the litigation for exposure?

The United States didn't exactly have that much in the way of a national lockdown it was largely met up to the states and even then there were many things that did not shut down at all like Manufacturing and the trades. Administrative Professionals largely moved online so I have to ask what jobs shut down?

You talk about Scandinavian countries as if they did something correct but would you fail to point out is that nearly half of their population lives alone. There are already socially distanced to begin with!
https://ourworldindata.org/living-alone

It would take decades if not generations to build that amount of housing per capita to even begin to get close to that percentage. Also remember is that in many respects Scandinavian countries are monocultures you looking at a much lower amount of variance in terms of genetic data so of course if people have roughly the same DNA they're going to be easier to have form of immunity. When you have a variance that is through immigration which has historically happened in the United States and in much of the Americas it's going to be harder to establish that. The only public good we have to remedy that is things like vaccination of which you belittle which makes a little sense as a public good vs what exactly?

What do you think is faster to develop a vaccine or to build tens upon tens of millions of homes across the United States to the point where light Scandinavian countries the majority of people would be able to live alone? I highly doubt a vaccine will cost six figures per person it doesn't work out that way.

I don't think you understand what I have been saying. A systematic risk management approach that targets those most at risk as opposed to a shoot in the dark approach has been needed since the early days of the pandemic. All your points above are marvelous but none that I can see excludes protecting those at highest risk as opposed to trying to do the impossible which is a) to control a viral disease and b) to pretend to protect millions of people. Ain't gonna happen, hasn't happened and won't be happening. Nobody from this addresses indicated that masks weren't appropriate under certain conditions and nobody said public health campaigns targeted at improving fitness and nutrition would replace vaccines or anything. But when you consider that there has been very little effort aimed at protecting highest risk, improving health, and using well established treatments (early) to mitigate possibility of death I think there is a BIG problem. The point is that the problem will not be mitigated only by vaccines and it certainly has not been mitigated by mass lockdowns. Scandinavian had better results because they focused less on lockdowns and more on protecting older and high-risk citizens. Florida adopted similar approaches which resulted in lower age adjusted mortality rate than the national average. Not sure why you would be hellbent on continuing on a limited path which includes imperfect vaccines and mass masking/lockdowns zero emphasis on treatment or improvement of health, all of which have shown dismal results? What are you trying to protect?

[bostongymjunkie]

Originally Posted by htfdcolt

Man, are you mistaken. Same people doing the same things? The federal response in 2020 was to deny there was a crisis, then obstruct, then openly flout public health guidance by chastising masking and social distancing. No vaccines at the time, and sane places like Massachusetts still had restrictions in place. A year later? 70% of the population vaccinated, and we're in a *much* better spot by all measures.

Let's assume for a minute that your "get into shape" strategy to fight off Covid was sound. How on earth would you get an entire population to follow that strategy on such a short time scale? It's delusional to think otherwise, and honestly, it's a copout for doing nothing. Which was the intent all along--no restrictions, just a free-for-all, let the virus run rampant. This is similar to the logic used by the anti-gun control folks when they say "focus on mental illness".

It's ONE aspect of an overall risk reduction approach which should have been implemented long ago. It is difficult to have a conversation with someone who apparently sees anything beyond vaccine/lockdown as being mutually exclusive countermeasures. Complex problems call for holistic and complex solutions. The world isn't privileged enough to hide in their basement or to be threatened with having their businesses closed every time some sh-muck gets excited over an increase in cases. It's not a solution and the world economy can't take it. Oh and there's absolutely no evidence that would suggest that people who flouted mask rules did anything to increase the viral spread. None. And yes, we've had more deaths in 2021 than in 2020.

[OutdoorLover]

Originally Posted by rach5

https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/14/us/co...ses/index.html
Cornell shutting moving online in the middle of final exams after 500 covid cases within a few days. Omicron surging through the vaccinated campus.

Yes, the word from the UK is that Omicron is MUCH more transmissable than even Delta, so they are trying to make an all-out push for boosters there, moving timelines up... they may still be too late by the time they can get the boosters into most arms... fortunately, it APPEARS that Omicron typically has a less severe course of infection, but they caution that it may take some time to really sort that out, and meanwhile, Omicron will already wash over the populace like "a tidal wave" as Boris Johnson called it.

[L00k4ward]

Originally Posted by htfdcolt

Agree with this 100%. I was listening to an NPR show over the weekend, where this kind of thing can literally disincentivize scientists in non-Western countries from full disclosure of the genome sequencing results. Apparently happened with India and the Delta variant. Plus as you say, it unfairly penalizes those countries where the discoveries were made, while in reality the damn thing has already spread all over.

A much more egalitarian solution would be to required proof of vaccination mandatory for all air travel, global or domestic.

The vaccinated can and do get infected and transmit the virus. The fact that you need a proof of vaccination to travel and we still have omicron in more than 20 states- in less than 2 weeks after it’s discovery in South Africa - is another cautious tale.

The surge is not due to unvaccinated: count vaccinated as well.

The recent (pre-print, not peer reviewed ) 9 months study in Sweden regarding waning vaccines efficacy even has shown that it looks like the vaccinated have more cases vs unvaccinated.
The authors speculate that it could be explained that the vaccinated feel safer, stopped being cautious and resumed their usual behavior- so they are getting infected more.

To be fair, another theory, that the unvaccinated enrolled into study had previous asymptomatic infection and that helped them to avoid getting Covid during those 9 months of research.

Having 400 vaccinated out of 1000 in the hospitals in MA - doesn’t look encouraging,
It is not just “blame the unvaccinated” - some simply scared to get vaccinated due to health concerns, it is not political for those people and they do wear masks, however futile it might be…

[msRB311]

Cornell is shutting down its Ithaca campus:

https://www.npr.org/sections/coronav...hut-down-covid

I would think they'd be closing for break soon anyways

[redplum33]

Originally Posted by lrfox

largely returned to normal (as opposed to being all but locked down at this time last year)

Originally Posted by timberline742

(we are effectively wide open, vs effectively shut down)

We weren't anywhere even close to being locked/shut down in December 2020.

Spring and part of the summer of 2020, yes.

December 2020, nope.

[YevTK]

Originally Posted by L00k4ward

The vaccinated can and do get infected and transmit the virus. The fact that you need a proof of vaccination to travel and we still have omicron in more than 20 states- in less than 2 weeks after it’s discovery in South Africa - is another cautious tale.

The surge is not due to unvaccinated: count vaccinated as well.

The recent (pre-print, not peer reviewed ) 9 months study in Sweden regarding waning vaccines efficacy even has shown that it looks like the vaccinated have more cases vs unvaccinated.
The authors speculate that it could be explained that the vaccinated feel safer, stopped being cautious and resumed their usual behavior- so they are getting infected more.

To be fair, another theory, that the unvaccinated enrolled into study had previous asymptomatic infection and that helped them to avoid getting Covid during those 9 months of research.

Having 400 vaccinated out of 1000 in the hospitals in MA - doesn’t look encouraging,
It is not just “blame the unvaccinated” - some simply scared to get vaccinated due to health concerns, it is not political for those people and they do wear masks, however futile it might be…

What do you mean "Having 400 vaccinated out of 1000 in the hospitals in MA - doesn’t look encouraging"?

Today's report is that there are 1,410 covid patients in hospital of which 422 are vaccinated.

This means that the unvaccinated are 6x more likely to be hospitalized (If this was adjusted for patient age the number would be even higher for the unvaccinated).

[tribecavsbrowns]

Originally Posted by timberline742

Not higher at all, actually. And the distribution with the important details (we are effectively wide open, vs effectively shut down) shows clear reduction in community transmission, thankfully.

Piece of evidence: Mass. has the same number (actually a touch higher) of average daily confirmed positives compared to a year ago.
Piece of evidence: A populous part of Mass. has been showing year-over-year increased levels of Sars-Cov-2 in its wastewater for the past 4 1/2 months, continuously.
Conclusion: ClEaR rEdUcTiOn In CoMmUnItY tRaNsMiSsIoN!

The sermon of two plus two equals five continues. Kudos to those of you who are calling it out bit by bit, though.

[msRB311]

It’s just kind of frustrating that no one can really tell the difference between covid or a cold now.

[OutdoorLover]

Originally Posted by L00k4ward

:
Having 400 vaccinated out of 1000 in the hospitals in MA - doesn’t look encouraging,
:

A back of the envelope calculation:

- Mass has ~ 7.1E6 people
- 73.4% are fully vaccinated - that's 5.2114E6 vaccinated
- 26.6% are less than fully vaccinated - that's 1.8886E6 less than fully vaccinated
- 418 of those in the hospital are fully vaccinated
- 786 of those in the hospital are less than fully vaccinated

Fully vaccinated are in the hospital at a rate of (418/5.2114E6)*1000= 0.0802 per thousand
Less than fully vaccinated are in the hospital at a rate of (786/1.8886E6)*1000= 0.4162 per thousand

The above indicates that those less than fully vaccinated are going into the hospital at 5x the rate of those that are fully vaccinated. Moreover, of those fully vaccinated, less than half have their boosters, which is the recommended level of protection, plus, some of those less than fully vaccinated have gotten 1-of-2 doses and have some protection from that.

Conclusion: the vaccines are providing strong protection against hospitalization.