Author Topic: Where do you stand on "living with Covid", "getting back to normal"  (Read 213502 times)

GodlessCommie

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Re: Where do you stand on "living with Covid", "getting back to normal"
« Reply #200 on: December 15, 2021, 02:54:56 PM »
100 years later, people will forget why exactly some groups people walk around as groups under tarps... kind of like no how one remembers why people say "bless you" after you sneeze today.

...or they may recall that in some Asian countries the tradition to hold tarps during minor meteor showers predates the fallingrockapolypse.

Chris Pascale

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Re: Where do you stand on "living with Covid", "getting back to normal"
« Reply #201 on: December 15, 2021, 06:56:58 PM »
Answering the original Q: I've lived pretty normally the whole time.

My older kids have had jobs through the pandemic when they could (oldest currently loads trucks from 3AM-8AM at FedEx), and when schools opened their doors, they went. This semester, I taught in the classroom.

When restaurants shut down for dining we chose 2 to order in from every week to support them. When the state opened for travel in 2020, we went away. When my daughter's foreign exchange was cancelled 2 years in a row she and my wife took a trip to France.

Obviously, everything was within the guidelines while also being sensible. I wouldn't go out if I was sick, or send my kids to school sick.

Villanelle

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Re: Where do you stand on "living with Covid", "getting back to normal"
« Reply #202 on: December 15, 2021, 07:15:41 PM »
100 years later, people will forget why exactly some groups people walk around as groups under tarps... kind of like no how one remembers why people say "bless you" after you sneeze today.

...or they may recall that in some Asian countries the tradition to hold tarps during minor meteor showers predates the fallingrockapolypse.

And yet somehow they managed to live meaningful, fulfilled, happy lives.  Weird, that. 

former player

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Re: Where do you stand on "living with Covid", "getting back to normal"
« Reply #203 on: December 15, 2021, 07:44:48 PM »
Yes, at this point we are looking at covid-19 becoming endemic and resulting in a permanent reduction in life expectancy.

If this is the case, should we recalibrate early retirement numbers?  How much of a life expectancy reduction is expected?

https://www.bmj.com/content/373/bmj.n1343

The BMJ paper says life expectancy in the USA declined by 1.87 years between 2018 and 2020.  There were racial disparities in this, declining by 3.88, 3.25, and 1.36 years in Hispanic, non-Hispanic Black, and non-Hispanic White populations respectively.

nereo

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Re: Where do you stand on "living with Covid", "getting back to normal"
« Reply #204 on: December 16, 2021, 04:21:14 AM »
Yes, at this point we are looking at covid-19 becoming endemic and resulting in a permanent reduction in life expectancy.

If this is the case, should we recalibrate early retirement numbers?  How much of a life expectancy reduction is expected?

I think its way too early to have any sensible data on whether Covid will have a permanent reduction on life expectancy, which is what i think the poster was suggesting might happen.
https://www.bmj.com/content/373/bmj.n1343

The BMJ paper says life expectancy in the USA declined by 1.87 years between 2018 and 2020.  There were racial disparities in this, declining by 3.88, 3.25, and 1.36 years in Hispanic, non-Hispanic Black, and non-Hispanic White populations respectively.

former player

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Re: Where do you stand on "living with Covid", "getting back to normal"
« Reply #205 on: December 16, 2021, 04:47:20 AM »
Yes, at this point we are looking at covid-19 becoming endemic and resulting in a permanent reduction in life expectancy.

If this is the case, should we recalibrate early retirement numbers?  How much of a life expectancy reduction is expected?

I think its way too early to have any sensible data on whether Covid will have a permanent reduction on life expectancy, which is what i think the poster was suggesting might happen.
https://www.bmj.com/content/373/bmj.n1343

The BMJ paper says life expectancy in the USA declined by 1.87 years between 2018 and 2020.  There were racial disparities in this, declining by 3.88, 3.25, and 1.36 years in Hispanic, non-Hispanic Black, and non-Hispanic White populations respectively.
Obviously we don't have data yet.  The paper giving a decline in life expectancy was based on USA deaths in 2020.  USA deaths from covid in 2021 have been higher, which means that the decline will continue in 2021.  In 2022 it seems unlikely that either vaccination rates in social behaviour will be sufficiently different to change infection rates, morbidity rates or mortality rates.  Reinfection rates from omicron for those previously infected with a strain of covid-19 seem to be removing any notion of "herd immunity" from the equation.   So I'm not seeing anything which in the next few years at least, and possibly permanently, which will reverse the reduction in life expectancy which has already happened due to covid-19.

I'd be happy to be wrong, but at present I just don't see how it's going to happen.

Shane

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Re: Where do you stand on "living with Covid", "getting back to normal"
« Reply #206 on: December 16, 2021, 06:04:52 AM »
Our family's fully vaccinated and the adults are boosted, so we're living life, pretty much, as normal. Don't wear masks, unless required. TBH, we generally avoid going any place that requires masks. Made an exception to see Hamilton, recently, but still haven't gone back to our local cinema, where we used to go once or twice a week, because they're requiring masks. Our local, family-run, grocery store is really small, and they have a sign up that says, "Masks Appreciated," I always put a mask on before going in there, just to respect them and the fact that they are asking nicely, not requiring, that we wear a mask.

Jon Bon

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Re: Where do you stand on "living with Covid", "getting back to normal"
« Reply #207 on: December 16, 2021, 06:40:04 AM »
Our family's fully vaccinated and the adults are boosted, so we're living life, pretty much, as normal. Don't wear masks, unless required. TBH, we generally avoid going any place that requires masks. Made an exception to see Hamilton, recently, but still haven't gone back to our local cinema, where we used to go once or twice a week, because they're requiring masks. Our local, family-run, grocery store is really small, and they have a sign up that says, "Masks Appreciated," I always put a mask on before going in there, just to respect them and the fact that they are asking nicely, not requiring, that we wear a mask.

Yeah I can get behind that. I just think lots of people are tired of being constantly told what to do in the name of "safety" I am glad we have gotten rid of much of the "covid theatre"  Like my local library was closed to in person for over a year. They also spent a ton of resources quarantining the books people returned.....

Anyways about to leave for my annual physical, I wonder if he will recommend a booster....


jrhampt

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Re: Where do you stand on "living with Covid", "getting back to normal"
« Reply #208 on: December 16, 2021, 08:20:24 AM »
Our family's fully vaccinated and the adults are boosted, so we're living life, pretty much, as normal. Don't wear masks, unless required. TBH, we generally avoid going any place that requires masks. Made an exception to see Hamilton, recently, but still haven't gone back to our local cinema, where we used to go once or twice a week, because they're requiring masks. Our local, family-run, grocery store is really small, and they have a sign up that says, "Masks Appreciated," I always put a mask on before going in there, just to respect them and the fact that they are asking nicely, not requiring, that we wear a mask.

Yeah I can get behind that. I just think lots of people are tired of being constantly told what to do in the name of "safety" I am glad we have gotten rid of much of the "covid theatre"  Like my local library was closed to in person for over a year. They also spent a ton of resources quarantining the books people returned.....

Anyways about to leave for my annual physical, I wonder if he will recommend a booster....

I feel just the opposite.  I won't go to a venue unless they require masks and proof of vaccination.  Would prefer it if our cinema required masks and/or vaccination, but they do not, so I watch the movies from my couch.

Jon Bon

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Re: Where do you stand on "living with Covid", "getting back to normal"
« Reply #209 on: December 16, 2021, 08:32:19 AM »
Our family's fully vaccinated and the adults are boosted, so we're living life, pretty much, as normal. Don't wear masks, unless required. TBH, we generally avoid going any place that requires masks. Made an exception to see Hamilton, recently, but still haven't gone back to our local cinema, where we used to go once or twice a week, because they're requiring masks. Our local, family-run, grocery store is really small, and they have a sign up that says, "Masks Appreciated," I always put a mask on before going in there, just to respect them and the fact that they are asking nicely, not requiring, that we wear a mask.

Yeah I can get behind that. I just think lots of people are tired of being constantly told what to do in the name of "safety" I am glad we have gotten rid of much of the "covid theatre"  Like my local library was closed to in person for over a year. They also spent a ton of resources quarantining the books people returned.....

Anyways about to leave for my annual physical, I wonder if he will recommend a booster....

I feel just the opposite.  I won't go to a venue unless they require masks and proof of vaccination.  Would prefer it if our cinema required masks and/or vaccination, but they do not, so I watch the movies from my couch.

Whatever floats your boat I guess? It's your health, do as you please with it. However (assuming your vaxed) masked or unmasked its more likely you'd die in a car accident driving to the theatre than from covid right?

My current attitude from our elected officials/business owners etc. Is that using general common sense plus you know, asking rather then mandating EVERYTHING goes a long way.

former player

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Re: Where do you stand on "living with Covid", "getting back to normal"
« Reply #210 on: December 16, 2021, 08:52:06 AM »

Whatever floats your boat I guess? It's your health, do as you please with it. However (assuming your vaxed) masked or unmasked its more likely you'd die in a car accident driving to the theatre than from covid right?

How are you working out the odds on the car death as against the covid death?  My understanding is that in 2020 in the USA covid deaths came out at 10 times the number of car deaths.

GodlessCommie

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Re: Where do you stand on "living with Covid", "getting back to normal"
« Reply #211 on: December 16, 2021, 09:11:15 AM »
Whatever floats your boat I guess? It's your health, do as you please with it. However (assuming your vaxed) masked or unmasked its more likely you'd die in a car accident driving to the theatre than from covid right?

One more data point for only considering individual risk and completely ignoring societal effects.

PDXTabs

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Re: Where do you stand on "living with Covid", "getting back to normal"
« Reply #212 on: December 16, 2021, 09:25:35 AM »
Whatever floats your boat I guess? It's your health, do as you please with it. However (assuming your vaxed) masked or unmasked its more likely you'd die in a car accident driving to the theatre than from covid right?

One more data point for only considering individual risk and completely ignoring societal effects.

But equally, for both the automobile travel and the masks.

mizzourah2006

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Re: Where do you stand on "living with Covid", "getting back to normal"
« Reply #213 on: December 16, 2021, 09:27:26 AM »
Our family's fully vaccinated and the adults are boosted, so we're living life, pretty much, as normal. Don't wear masks, unless required. TBH, we generally avoid going any place that requires masks. Made an exception to see Hamilton, recently, but still haven't gone back to our local cinema, where we used to go once or twice a week, because they're requiring masks. Our local, family-run, grocery store is really small, and they have a sign up that says, "Masks Appreciated," I always put a mask on before going in there, just to respect them and the fact that they are asking nicely, not requiring, that we wear a mask.

Yeah I can get behind that. I just think lots of people are tired of being constantly told what to do in the name of "safety" I am glad we have gotten rid of much of the "covid theatre"  Like my local library was closed to in person for over a year. They also spent a ton of resources quarantining the books people returned.....

Anyways about to leave for my annual physical, I wonder if he will recommend a booster....

I feel just the opposite.  I won't go to a venue unless they require masks and proof of vaccination.  Would prefer it if our cinema required masks and/or vaccination, but they do not, so I watch the movies from my couch.

Whatever floats your boat I guess? It's your health, do as you please with it. However (assuming your vaxed) masked or unmasked its more likely you'd die in a car accident driving to the theatre than from covid right?

My current attitude from our elected officials/business owners etc. Is that using general common sense plus you know, asking rather then mandating EVERYTHING goes a long way.

There was a preprint I read a few days ago, that used mathematical modeling to investigate how many unvaccinated individuals would have to be removed from a setting to prevent a transmission. Obviously this could completely change with Omicron, but I was surprised by the number. They suggested it needed to be about 1k unvaccinated people for most settings given vaccination rates in many of the places using vaccine passports/cards for exclusion. So, in a city where the vax rate for adults is around 80-85% in something like a restaurant there might only be 15-20 unvaccinated people in the entire place. In a movie theatre it may be closer to 30-40.

I think the idea of being scared of vaxxed people is overblown at this point. Sure, it's right to be concerned about the undue burden they could have on our healthcare system, but given how much of a minority they are in the population they almost certainly aren't the primary vector of transmission at this point.

Quote
Findings The NNEs suggest that at least 1,000 unvaccinated people likely need to be excluded to prevent one SARS-CoV-2 transmission event in most types of settings for many jurisdictions, notably Australia, California, Canada, China, France, Israel, and others. The NNEs of almost every jurisdiction examined are well within the range of the NNTs of acetylsalicylic acid (ASA) in primary prevention of cardiovascular disease (CVD) (≥ 250 to 333). This is important since ASA is not recommended for primary prevention of CVD because the harms outweigh the benefits. Similarly, the harms of exclusion may outweigh the benefits. These findings depend on the accuracy of the model assumptions and the baseline infection risk estimates.

It's obviously a preprint, but it does make sense, even if the 1000 number is high it does seem reasonable that you'd need a large amount of unvaxxed to create "more spread" in a single location.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.08.21267162v1


Whatever floats your boat I guess? It's your health, do as you please with it. However (assuming your vaxed) masked or unmasked its more likely you'd die in a car accident driving to the theatre than from covid right?

How are you working out the odds on the car death as against the covid death?  My understanding is that in 2020 in the USA covid deaths came out at 10 times the number of car deaths.

10x more vaccinated people are dying every year from covid than are from car accidents? 
« Last Edit: December 16, 2021, 09:33:04 AM by mizzourah2006 »

PDXTabs

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Re: Where do you stand on "living with Covid", "getting back to normal"
« Reply #214 on: December 16, 2021, 09:36:30 AM »

Whatever floats your boat I guess? It's your health, do as you please with it. However (assuming your vaxed) masked or unmasked its more likely you'd die in a car accident driving to the theatre than from covid right?

How are you working out the odds on the car death as against the covid death?  My understanding is that in 2020 in the USA covid deaths came out at 10 times the number of car deaths.

Right now Oregon breakthrough infections that lead to death are running slightly higher than automobile fatalities. So far there have been 527 automobile fatalities and 580 breakthrough death. Of course breakthrough deaths are entirely in the 30+ crowd while automobiles are the largest killer of children and young adults.

EDITed to add that many people couldn't be fully vaccinated until what, July 6th or so?
« Last Edit: December 16, 2021, 10:35:49 AM by PDXTabs »

GodlessCommie

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Re: Where do you stand on "living with Covid", "getting back to normal"
« Reply #215 on: December 16, 2021, 09:37:36 AM »
But equally, for both the automobile travel and the masks.

Would you elaborate?

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Re: Where do you stand on "living with Covid", "getting back to normal"
« Reply #216 on: December 16, 2021, 09:50:56 AM »
But equally, for both the automobile travel and the masks.

Would you elaborate?

Jon Bon wrote "Whatever floats your boat I guess? It's your health, do as you please with it. However (assuming your vaxed) masked or unmasked its more likely you'd die in a car accident driving to the theatre than from covid right?" and then you wrote "One more data point for only considering individual risk and completely ignoring societal effects."

What you wrote is absolutely true. Comparing your own personal risk level for driving to a theatre to your own personal risk level for getting a breakthrough COVID infection that leads to death does "only considering individual risk and completely ignoring societal effects." But that's true for both the automobile use AND the possibility of spreading SARS-CoV-2 with an asymptomatic breakthrough infection. The car will burn carbon and spread particulate matter and risks killing innocent people in a collision. So I think it's actually a really good comparison, society is struggling with both of those problems right now and we're not quite sure what to do about it.

Feel free to join me in the war on cars. Enlist today!

GodlessCommie

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Re: Where do you stand on "living with Covid", "getting back to normal"
« Reply #217 on: December 16, 2021, 09:58:12 AM »
Feel free to join me in the war on cars. Enlist today!

I'm not sure that I understand 100% of your point, but let me assure you that I 100% agree that our car addiction has hugely damaging effects on the society in general and most our fellow citizens individually.

Chris22

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Re: Where do you stand on "living with Covid", "getting back to normal"
« Reply #218 on: December 16, 2021, 10:12:08 AM »
3/4 of us in our house are vaxxed up (4y/o isn’t yet but she’s been exposed to Covid a couple times with zero ill effects and is a perfectly healthy kid) so we aren’t concerned. Also had Covid in October 2020 and it was a nothingburger for us.


Therefore aside from having to mask up in most places, life is 100% back to normal. My wife and I also both transitioned to full time WFH during the pandemic; I expect I’ll go back 0-1 days a week in the office and she’ll go 2-3 days but that is purely because of our convenience that Covid made possible, it’s not due to any fear of Covid. I slowed down business travel for Covid but expect I will pick it up again in 2022 (trip a month or thereabouts)

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Re: Where do you stand on "living with Covid", "getting back to normal"
« Reply #219 on: December 16, 2021, 10:34:59 AM »
This entire thread really sums up the misinformation about COVID, vaccines, and age related risk. I said before people under 50 are extremely unlikely to die from COVID, and that includes vaccinated and  not vaccinated.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/09/covid-19-vaccine-status-age-discrimination.html

Highlights:



Quote
According to the CDC, 70 percent of breakthrough cases resulting in hospitalizations and 87 percent of those resulting in death were in patients over 65. The median age of breakthrough deaths in England was 84; in King County, it was 79.

Quote
That 11-fold reduction of risk found in the national CDC study, for instance? Enormous, of course, but it is an average across the observed population as a whole and represents only the equivalent of the ­difference between an unvaccinated 86-year-old man and a 61-year-old one, all else being equal. According to an analysis of British data by the Financial Times, a vaccinated 80-year-old has about the same mortality risk as an unvaccinated 50-year-old, and an unvaccinated 30-year-old has a lower risk than a vaccinated 45-year-old. Even a 42-fold reduction, as was found in King County, would only be the rough equivalent of the difference between an unvaccinated 85-year-old woman and an unvaccinated 50-year-old — the sort of person who was very worried last year before the arrival of vaccines and who may this year be worrying many of those around them by not getting one.

As I was saying, if you are under 50, and vaccinated, the risk of death to you is so minor that its not even worth discussing. As far as worrying about children in schools:

Quote
According to that data, an unvaccinated 10-year-old, who may look like the very picture of COVID vulnerability heading into the school year, faces a lower mortality risk than a vaccinated 25-year-old, whom we might today regard as close to safe as can be. In England, the incidence of hospitalization among unvaccinated kids was lower than that of those vaccinated aged 18 to 29, and in recent weeks, the hospitalization rate among kids ages 5 to 14 has been only about one per 100,000. Over the course of the entire pandemic, which has killed more than 135,000 Brits, just one boy and seven girls between the ages of 5 and 9 have died; between the ages of 10 and 14, nine girls and five boys have died. These are all tragedies — and each means many more years of life lost than with a death among the elderly — but they are nevertheless relatively few in number. As schools reopened on the backslope of the U.K.’s Delta surge, there were about seven times as many British kids under age 5 hospitalized with the respiratory disease RSV as there were with COVID.

Quote
That’s because a vaccinated 95-year-old is still probably over a thousand times more at risk of death, all else being equal, than an unvaccinated 15-year-old. Which means we probably shouldn’t be giving those two groups the same advice about masks or social distancing or boosters.

Rather than interrupting people's lives, destroying businesses, and imposing not all that useful mask mandates on people, we should probably be doing accurate risk assessments and giving better protection to the elderly.

Quote
Mask wearing offers differential benefits, too: according to the much-applauded study in Bangladesh, cloth masks of the kind typically worn by children offer very little protection, and the strongest effects of surgical masks were observed among the elderly.

Anyway, something I found fascinating and something to read and think on.

mm1970

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Re: Where do you stand on "living with Covid", "getting back to normal"
« Reply #220 on: December 16, 2021, 11:00:05 AM »
I'm not sure there's as much dis-information as you think.

My husband and I are over 50.
Our youngest child was only recently vaccinated.
I have MANY coworkers who are over 65.

This makes it all very real to me.

jrhampt

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Re: Where do you stand on "living with Covid", "getting back to normal"
« Reply #221 on: December 16, 2021, 11:07:01 AM »
I get the exponentially increasing age risk, but the fact remains that even though I am in my mid-forties, my husband is 50, my in-laws are in their mid-eighties, my still unvaccinated parents are in their late sixties, and I do have immunocompromised friends (that I know of - the number is actually probably higher than I know).  It's these people I worry about.  And the more covid there is floating around in the community, the more at risk they are.  And the more covid there is floating around in the community, the less space in the hospitals for EVERYONE.  It's not about individual risk as much as about community risk and responsibility, a fact which has been repeated ad nauseam in this thread and others but which some people refuse to grasp.

tl/dr; It's NOT JUST ABOUT YOU AND YOUR INDIVIDUAL RISK.
« Last Edit: December 16, 2021, 11:14:53 AM by jrhampt »

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Re: Where do you stand on "living with Covid", "getting back to normal"
« Reply #222 on: December 16, 2021, 11:21:29 AM »
I get the exponentially increasing age risk, but the fact remains that even though I am in my mid-forties, my husband is 50, my in-laws are in their mid-eighties, my still unvaccinated parents are in their late sixties, and I do have immunocompromised friends (that I know of - the number is actually probably higher than I know).  It's these people I worry about.  And the more covid there is floating around in the community, the more at risk they are.  And the more covid there is floating around in the community, the less space in the hospitals for EVERYONE.  It's not about individual risk as much as about community risk and responsibility, a fact which has been repeated ad nauseam in this thread and others but which some people refuse to grasp.

tl/dr; It's NOT JUST ABOUT YOU AND YOUR INDIVIDUAL RISK.

So what is it that you disagree with? Or what are you proposing?

Log

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Re: Where do you stand on "living with Covid", "getting back to normal"
« Reply #223 on: December 16, 2021, 11:26:03 AM »
But equally, for both the automobile travel and the masks.

Would you elaborate?

Jon Bon wrote "Whatever floats your boat I guess? It's your health, do as you please with it. However (assuming your vaxed) masked or unmasked its more likely you'd die in a car accident driving to the theatre than from covid right?" and then you wrote "One more data point for only considering individual risk and completely ignoring societal effects."

What you wrote is absolutely true. Comparing your own personal risk level for driving to a theatre to your own personal risk level for getting a breakthrough COVID infection that leads to death does "only considering individual risk and completely ignoring societal effects." But that's true for both the automobile use AND the possibility of spreading SARS-CoV-2 with an asymptomatic breakthrough infection. The car will burn carbon and spread particulate matter and risks killing innocent people in a collision. So I think it's actually a really good comparison, society is struggling with both of those problems right now and we're not quite sure what to do about it.

Feel free to join me in the war on cars. Enlist today!

I’ve noticed your comments elsewhere on these forums—thanks for spreading the anti-car gospel! It’s appalling how much car-dependent design absolutely ruins our quality of life in so many “developed” countries around the world and we just take it for granted.

jrhampt

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Re: Where do you stand on "living with Covid", "getting back to normal"
« Reply #224 on: December 16, 2021, 11:34:17 AM »
I get the exponentially increasing age risk, but the fact remains that even though I am in my mid-forties, my husband is 50, my in-laws are in their mid-eighties, my still unvaccinated parents are in their late sixties, and I do have immunocompromised friends (that I know of - the number is actually probably higher than I know).  It's these people I worry about.  And the more covid there is floating around in the community, the more at risk they are.  And the more covid there is floating around in the community, the less space in the hospitals for EVERYONE.  It's not about individual risk as much as about community risk and responsibility, a fact which has been repeated ad nauseam in this thread and others but which some people refuse to grasp.

tl/dr; It's NOT JUST ABOUT YOU AND YOUR INDIVIDUAL RISK.

So what is it that you disagree with? Or what are you proposing?

I'm proposing that we use the golden rule here.  Do what you reasonably can to lower the risk you will help turn your community into a covid cesspool with overwhelmed hospitals.  For me, that means:

Get vaccinated. 
Get boosted.
When case levels are high and hospitalizations are increasing in your community, follow indoor masking and other cdc recommendations. 

seattlecyclone

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Re: Where do you stand on "living with Covid", "getting back to normal"
« Reply #225 on: December 16, 2021, 11:45:08 AM »
I get the exponentially increasing age risk, but the fact remains that even though I am in my mid-forties, my husband is 50, my in-laws are in their mid-eighties, my still unvaccinated parents are in their late sixties, and I do have immunocompromised friends (that I know of - the number is actually probably higher than I know).  It's these people I worry about.  And the more covid there is floating around in the community, the more at risk they are.  And the more covid there is floating around in the community, the less space in the hospitals for EVERYONE.  It's not about individual risk as much as about community risk and responsibility, a fact which has been repeated ad nauseam in this thread and others but which some people refuse to grasp.

tl/dr; It's NOT JUST ABOUT YOU AND YOUR INDIVIDUAL RISK.

Understood, and the same can be said about other things. If we all treated driving as something to be done only when absolutely necessary (i.e. never for frivolous things such as transportation to social gatherings), there would be fewer car crash victims and more space in the hospital for everyone else. But we don't. We have collectively accepted that there are risks inherent in driving, but also benefits, and we try to balance those as well as we can. We need to come together and define what the line is between acceptable and unacceptable risks. We have arrived at such a line with driving (no driving above a certain speed, no driving drunk, use your headlights at night, etc.). Most of us more or less agree the line should be more or less where the rules say it is, and if you have a significantly lower risk tolerance than the norm you're sort of on your own to protect yourself the best you can.

We're still in the early days of this process with COVID. There are those who still think that any unnecessary group events are too risky, and there are those who think that it should be perfectly fine for a crowd of unvaccinated folks to attend a basketball game unmasked. We're starting to meet in the middle with the rules: sporting events aren't banned outright anymore, but (depending on where you are) they may require a vaccine and/or a negative COVID test and/or mask wearing to attend. I have generally been quite satisfied with how my local leaders have been handling these rules, taking the pulse of how people seem to be feeling while also taking input from experts and generally erring on the side of caution. If my local laws say that going to a restaurant with a vaccine is an acceptable risk to the community, I'm no longer interested in second-guessing that.

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Re: Where do you stand on "living with Covid", "getting back to normal"
« Reply #226 on: December 16, 2021, 11:53:45 AM »
I’ve noticed your comments elsewhere on these forums—thanks for spreading the anti-car gospel! It’s appalling how much car-dependent design absolutely ruins our quality of life in so many “developed” countries around the world and we just take it for granted.

Your welcome, but I was also really trying to make the point that there are certain risks that certain communities just accept as reasonable, even when externalized to others. To put it another way everything in life is a probabilistic risk/reward gamble. I think that is what we see playing out in this thread; a difference in risk level that you are willing to take on for both yourself and the community in exchange for a reward. Obviously your democratically elected government should get to regulate that risk to some extent. I continue to follow all local mandates even if I don't agree with all of them, and I 100% agree that this is not the time to end up in a hospital for any reason, including breakthrough infection. But I personally worry way more about accidentally hitting a pedestrian than having an asymptomatic COVID case after my three jabs that results in transmission to another person in a way that causes them significant harm.

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Re: Where do you stand on "living with Covid", "getting back to normal"
« Reply #227 on: December 16, 2021, 12:18:36 PM »
I really hope this all makes this us look really silly in 3 months.

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/pfizer-says-covid-19-pill-near-90-effective-final-analysis-2021-12-14/

My doc has really high hopes for it. Also said the virus is doing what it should do, more contagious and less deadly.




HPstache

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Re: Where do you stand on "living with Covid", "getting back to normal"
« Reply #228 on: December 16, 2021, 12:23:51 PM »
I really hope this all makes this us look really silly in 3 months.

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/pfizer-says-covid-19-pill-near-90-effective-final-analysis-2021-12-14/

My doc has really high hopes for it. Also said the virus is doing what it should do, more contagious and less deadly.

I hope it does... but even if it is as effective as they hope, I guarantee some people are still going to want to see mask mandates and restrictions.

jrhampt

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Re: Where do you stand on "living with Covid", "getting back to normal"
« Reply #229 on: December 16, 2021, 12:27:01 PM »
I really hope this all makes this us look really silly in 3 months.

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/pfizer-says-covid-19-pill-near-90-effective-final-analysis-2021-12-14/

My doc has really high hopes for it. Also said the virus is doing what it should do, more contagious and less deadly.

I hope it does... but even if it is as effective as they hope, I guarantee some people are still going to want to see mask mandates and restrictions.

That would be awesome.  I guarantee some people will still prefer ivermectin, though.

GodlessCommie

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Re: Where do you stand on "living with Covid", "getting back to normal"
« Reply #230 on: December 16, 2021, 12:27:44 PM »
I get the exponentially increasing age risk, but the fact remains that even though I am in my mid-forties, my husband is 50, my in-laws are in their mid-eighties, my still unvaccinated parents are in their late sixties, and I do have immunocompromised friends (that I know of - the number is actually probably higher than I know).  It's these people I worry about.  And the more covid there is floating around in the community, the more at risk they are.  And the more covid there is floating around in the community, the less space in the hospitals for EVERYONE.  It's not about individual risk as much as about community risk and responsibility, a fact which has been repeated ad nauseam in this thread and others but which some people refuse to grasp.

tl/dr; It's NOT JUST ABOUT YOU AND YOUR INDIVIDUAL RISK.

Understood, and the same can be said about other things. If we all treated driving as something to be done only when absolutely necessary (i.e. never for frivolous things such as transportation to social gatherings), there would be fewer car crash victims and more space in the hospital for everyone else. But we don't. We have collectively accepted that there are risks inherent in driving, but also benefits, and we try to balance those as well as we can. We need to come together and define what the line is between acceptable and unacceptable risks. We have arrived at such a line with driving (no driving above a certain speed, no driving drunk, use your headlights at night, etc.). Most of us more or less agree the line should be more or less where the rules say it is, and if you have a significantly lower risk tolerance than the norm you're sort of on your own to protect yourself the best you can.

We're still in the early days of this process with COVID. There are those who still think that any unnecessary group events are too risky, and there are those who think that it should be perfectly fine for a crowd of unvaccinated folks to attend a basketball game unmasked. We're starting to meet in the middle with the rules: sporting events aren't banned outright anymore, but (depending on where you are) they may require a vaccine and/or a negative COVID test and/or mask wearing to attend. I have generally been quite satisfied with how my local leaders have been handling these rules, taking the pulse of how people seem to be feeling while also taking input from experts and generally erring on the side of caution. If my local laws say that going to a restaurant with a vaccine is an acceptable risk to the community, I'm no longer interested in second-guessing that.

Or maybe we should re-assess the risk that driving poses. Not just in direct deaths, but also second-order effects. Like, I don't know, climate change and obesity. And maybe we shouldn't accept these negatives as readily as we are doing it now.

HPstache

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Re: Where do you stand on "living with Covid", "getting back to normal"
« Reply #231 on: December 16, 2021, 12:37:28 PM »
I really hope this all makes this us look really silly in 3 months.

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/pfizer-says-covid-19-pill-near-90-effective-final-analysis-2021-12-14/

My doc has really high hopes for it. Also said the virus is doing what it should do, more contagious and less deadly.

I hope it does... but even if it is as effective as they hope, I guarantee some people are still going to want to see mask mandates and restrictions.

That would be awesome.  I guarantee some people will still prefer ivermectin, though.

Could be.  From what I've read on the Hermain Cain Award subreddit from doctors though... anti-vaxxers beg for the vaccine when things take a turn for the worse.  Of course it's way too late by then, but I have a hunch they'd be willing to take a pill a little sooner.

DaTrill

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Re: Where do you stand on "living with Covid", "getting back to normal"
« Reply #232 on: December 16, 2021, 12:53:32 PM »
Eat healthy, lose weight, don't lick toilet seats, WFH b/c it's easier and more enjoyable. 

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Re: Where do you stand on "living with Covid", "getting back to normal"
« Reply #233 on: December 16, 2021, 01:06:53 PM »
I get the exponentially increasing age risk, but the fact remains that even though I am in my mid-forties, my husband is 50, my in-laws are in their mid-eighties, my still unvaccinated parents are in their late sixties, and I do have immunocompromised friends (that I know of - the number is actually probably higher than I know).  It's these people I worry about.  And the more covid there is floating around in the community, the more at risk they are.  And the more covid there is floating around in the community, the less space in the hospitals for EVERYONE.  It's not about individual risk as much as about community risk and responsibility, a fact which has been repeated ad nauseam in this thread and others but which some people refuse to grasp.

tl/dr; It's NOT JUST ABOUT YOU AND YOUR INDIVIDUAL RISK.

Understood, and the same can be said about other things. If we all treated driving as something to be done only when absolutely necessary (i.e. never for frivolous things such as transportation to social gatherings), there would be fewer car crash victims and more space in the hospital for everyone else. But we don't. We have collectively accepted that there are risks inherent in driving, but also benefits, and we try to balance those as well as we can. We need to come together and define what the line is between acceptable and unacceptable risks. We have arrived at such a line with driving (no driving above a certain speed, no driving drunk, use your headlights at night, etc.). Most of us more or less agree the line should be more or less where the rules say it is, and if you have a significantly lower risk tolerance than the norm you're sort of on your own to protect yourself the best you can.

We're still in the early days of this process with COVID. There are those who still think that any unnecessary group events are too risky, and there are those who think that it should be perfectly fine for a crowd of unvaccinated folks to attend a basketball game unmasked. We're starting to meet in the middle with the rules: sporting events aren't banned outright anymore, but (depending on where you are) they may require a vaccine and/or a negative COVID test and/or mask wearing to attend. I have generally been quite satisfied with how my local leaders have been handling these rules, taking the pulse of how people seem to be feeling while also taking input from experts and generally erring on the side of caution. If my local laws say that going to a restaurant with a vaccine is an acceptable risk to the community, I'm no longer interested in second-guessing that.

Or maybe we should re-assess the risk that driving poses. Not just in direct deaths, but also second-order effects. Like, I don't know, climate change and obesity. And maybe we shouldn't accept these negatives as readily as we are doing it now.

I'm a big fan of reducing car dependence and building more walkable/bikeable communities with solid transit options for longer trips. Among other things, I support reconfiguring our streets to prioritize non-car transport in more places, better funding for transit, and pricing of carbon to offset the environmental damage done by fossil fuel usage. I also still own a car and drive it often because my city is still set up in a way that alternatives to driving are highly unpleasant for many trips I want to do. As nice as it would be to reduce the amount of driving (and the community risk created by drivers), I can't say that this risk is so categorically unacceptable that driving needs to be severely curtailed right this instant. And if the community danger from breakthrough COVID infections is roughly in the same ballpark as the community risk from driving (as shown in @PDXTabs statistics), doesn't it make sense to think of the risks in a similar manner?

simonsez

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Re: Where do you stand on "living with Covid", "getting back to normal"
« Reply #234 on: December 16, 2021, 01:09:14 PM »
@seattlecyclone well put!

I think we will have a new normal - maybe some things won't have changed at all but some will and possibly permanently.  For instance, I will probably never fly on an airplane again without a mask regardless of what the rules/requirements in the future will be.  Pre-pandemic I always felt that flying unmasked and exposing yourself to others' germs and exposing others to your germs in a contained space was just part and parcel for air travel.  I wouldn't be sick per se but was sometimes not 100% for 12-24 hours after a flight when I had been totally fine prior to the flight.  On these occasions there was a slight but noticeable shock to the immune system and I was fairly confident it was related to the flight portion.  Now with wider normalization of masks and realizing that this is an option to utilize, I don't see the negatives outweighing the benefits moving forward and will mask up on planes.  I realize there is some security blanket and placebo effect mixed in there but whatever works to improve health outcomes both physical and mental is a good thing especially when there isn't much of a penalty for doing so (and bonus I guess if it slightly helps others not be as exposed to my germs).

GuitarStv

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Re: Where do you stand on "living with Covid", "getting back to normal"
« Reply #235 on: December 16, 2021, 01:10:09 PM »
don't lick toilet seats

You're not my shift supervisor!

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Re: Where do you stand on "living with Covid", "getting back to normal"
« Reply #236 on: December 16, 2021, 01:10:26 PM »
Some crazy high percentage of motor vehicle deaths are related to either DUI, not wearing a seatbelt, or both. If you always buckle up, and you don’t drive impaired and stay off the roads at times when others are most likely to be impaired (closing time, late at night, NYE, etc) your risk goes down substantially.

GodlessCommie

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Re: Where do you stand on "living with Covid", "getting back to normal"
« Reply #237 on: December 16, 2021, 01:28:29 PM »
I'm a big fan of reducing car dependence and building more walkable/bikeable communities with solid transit options for longer trips. Among other things, I support reconfiguring our streets to prioritize non-car transport in more places, better funding for transit, and pricing of carbon to offset the environmental damage done by fossil fuel usage. I also still own a car and drive it often because my city is still set up in a way that alternatives to driving are highly unpleasant for many trips I want to do. As nice as it would be to reduce the amount of driving (and the community risk created by drivers), I can't say that this risk is so categorically unacceptable that driving needs to be severely curtailed right this instant. And if the community danger from breakthrough COVID infections is roughly in the same ballpark as the community risk from driving (as shown in @PDXTabs statistics), doesn't it make sense to think of the risks in a similar manner?

I agree that similar risks should be treated with similar priority. I do not agree that if two activities have similar risks, but one has higher acceptance, we should always increase our acceptance of the other one. Decreasing the acceptance of the first one is a perfectly reasonable response.

Separately, I disagree that wearing masks is akin to severely curtailing driving. It is akin to wearing seatbelts, which most people - after a period of similar complaints - accepted.  Limited occupancy, at times of high rates of community transmission, also doesn't raise to the level of severely curtailing. Think of it as closing one line of a highway for resurfacing.

PDXTabs

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Re: Where do you stand on "living with Covid", "getting back to normal"
« Reply #238 on: December 16, 2021, 01:29:39 PM »
Some crazy high percentage of motor vehicle deaths are related to either DUI, not wearing a seatbelt, or both. If you always buckle up, and you don’t drive impaired and stay off the roads at times when others are most likely to be impaired (closing time, late at night, NYE, etc) your risk goes down substantially.

1. DUIs account for well under 50% of deaths https://www.nhtsa.gov/risky-driving/drunk-driving
2. How does my pedestrian seat belt work?

Chris22

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Re: Where do you stand on "living with Covid", "getting back to normal"
« Reply #239 on: December 16, 2021, 01:50:50 PM »
Some crazy high percentage of motor vehicle deaths are related to either DUI, not wearing a seatbelt, or both. If you always buckle up, and you don’t drive impaired and stay off the roads at times when others are most likely to be impaired (closing time, late at night, NYE, etc) your risk goes down substantially.

1. DUIs account for well under 50% of deaths https://www.nhtsa.gov/risky-driving/drunk-driving
2. How does my pedestrian seat belt work?

1.  Combine it with the stats of people not wearing seatbelts, which was my statement. Now what does the math say?

2.  You don’t have one. I wasn’t addressing pedestrian deaths I was addressing deaths of drivers.

I also didn’t say you’d be risk free I said your risk goes down substantially.  Which is true.

mathlete

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Re: Where do you stand on "living with Covid", "getting back to normal"
« Reply #240 on: December 16, 2021, 02:46:42 PM »
I really hope this all makes this us look really silly in 3 months.

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/pfizer-says-covid-19-pill-near-90-effective-final-analysis-2021-12-14/

My doc has really high hopes for it. Also said the virus is doing what it should do, more contagious and less deadly.

I hope it does... but even if it is as effective as they hope, I guarantee some people are still going to want to see mask mandates and restrictions.

I really don't think so. People don't like doing this and are eager for an end to the pandemic restrictions. Post-vaccine pre-delta was as good as things have looked since March 2020. During this time,  we saw mask usage rates fall from 75% down below 25% and mobility rates climb from 70% of pre-pandemic levels to over 90%.

Then, Delta hit and mask usage nearly doubled, back up above 40%.

I'm aware of this meme where people online like to pretend they are the informed and rational ones, and there is this huge group of people running around like Chicken Little.

But the explanation is much simpler. We have an emergent mortality risk causing roughly 10 9/11s per month right now and people are doing what they can to mitigate the risk to themselves and others.


GodlessCommie

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Re: Where do you stand on "living with Covid", "getting back to normal"
« Reply #241 on: December 16, 2021, 03:18:19 PM »
I think the pills will be well-received. The anti-vax sentiment is not a product of general stupidity alone, it entered the vicious cycle where grassroots distrust of "the elites" was fanned by the (conservative) elites, including in the media. Same with masks. Monoclonal antibody treatment didn't get under FoxNews death ray, and is perfectly accepted by anti-vaxxers. Unless conservative media decides to attack the new pill, most every one will swallow it (pun intended). Once the efficacy is demonstrated, ivermectin will be quickly forgotten.

trollwithamustache

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Re: Where do you stand on "living with Covid", "getting back to normal"
« Reply #242 on: December 16, 2021, 03:55:06 PM »
Some crazy high percentage of motor vehicle deaths are related to either DUI, not wearing a seatbelt, or both. If you always buckle up, and you don’t drive impaired and stay off the roads at times when others are most likely to be impaired (closing time, late at night, NYE, etc) your risk goes down substantially.

1. DUIs account for well under 50% of deaths https://www.nhtsa.gov/risky-driving/drunk-driving
2. How does my pedestrian seat belt work?

1.  Combine it with the stats of people not wearing seatbelts, which was my statement. Now what does the math say?

2.  You don’t have one. I wasn’t addressing pedestrian deaths I was addressing deaths of drivers.

I also didn’t say you’d be risk free I said your risk goes down substantially.  Which is true.

Shhhh, you can't tell people on the internet that they can take responsibility and improve their odds. 

PDXTabs

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Re: Where do you stand on "living with Covid", "getting back to normal"
« Reply #243 on: December 16, 2021, 05:54:53 PM »
Some crazy high percentage of motor vehicle deaths are related to either DUI, not wearing a seatbelt, or both. If you always buckle up, and you don’t drive impaired and stay off the roads at times when others are most likely to be impaired (closing time, late at night, NYE, etc) your risk goes down substantially.

1. DUIs account for well under 50% of deaths https://www.nhtsa.gov/risky-driving/drunk-driving
2. How does my pedestrian seat belt work?

1.  Combine it with the stats of people not wearing seatbelts, which was my statement. Now what does the math say?

2.  You don’t have one. I wasn’t addressing pedestrian deaths I was addressing deaths of drivers.

I also didn’t say you’d be risk free I said your risk goes down substantially.  Which is true.

Shhhh, you can't tell people on the internet that they can take responsibility and improve their odds.

Right? People wouldn't get shot if they weren't always walking in front of bullets. They should really take a little personal responsibility. The fact that these bullets can be owned by any convicted felon and are massively subsidized by our tax dollars just makes sense. I'm sure that the fact that there has been a precipitous drop in children walking and biking to school has nothing to do with rising childhood obesity. I'm not sure what the appropriate analogy is, tax dollars to not wear a mask?

The RAND corporation isn't writing reports about how ~250 members of the military die per year in automobile collisions because it's a problem. I'm sure that we celebrate our fallen soldiers who are killed in action as heroes (as well we should) but dismiss the deaths of the ones that die in automobile collisions because they are rubes that had it coming. It's like Abraham Lincoln always said "I like people who didn't crash."

Seriously, this is a great discussion because it show how the general public views the lives of some as more important than others. The 2,996 who were killed in 9/11? We'll literally go to war for them. Our allies will send in troops too. The ~4,000 children who die in automobile collisions every single year? What, were they taking their pet hoop for a walk? They obviously had it coming.

EDITed to add: [insert additional pre or post vaccine COVID-19 9/11 death toll analogy]
« Last Edit: December 16, 2021, 06:40:31 PM by PDXTabs »

Log

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Re: Where do you stand on "living with Covid", "getting back to normal"
« Reply #244 on: December 16, 2021, 06:19:56 PM »
Some crazy high percentage of motor vehicle deaths are related to either DUI, not wearing a seatbelt, or both. If you always buckle up, and you don’t drive impaired and stay off the roads at times when others are most likely to be impaired (closing time, late at night, NYE, etc) your risk goes down substantially.

1. DUIs account for well under 50% of deaths https://www.nhtsa.gov/risky-driving/drunk-driving
2. How does my pedestrian seat belt work?

1.  Combine it with the stats of people not wearing seatbelts, which was my statement. Now what does the math say?

2.  You don’t have one. I wasn’t addressing pedestrian deaths I was addressing deaths of drivers.

I also didn’t say you’d be risk free I said your risk goes down substantially.  Which is true.

Read: vehicular collisions aren’t a problem because the other people in giant protective metal boxes are safe. The deaths of people who travel around their neighborhoods outside of protective metal boxes don’t matter, because they’re smug elitists. And bicyclists run stop signs sometimes so they probably had it coming

Chris22

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Re: Where do you stand on "living with Covid", "getting back to normal"
« Reply #245 on: December 16, 2021, 06:33:59 PM »
Some crazy high percentage of motor vehicle deaths are related to either DUI, not wearing a seatbelt, or both. If you always buckle up, and you don’t drive impaired and stay off the roads at times when others are most likely to be impaired (closing time, late at night, NYE, etc) your risk goes down substantially.

1. DUIs account for well under 50% of deaths https://www.nhtsa.gov/risky-driving/drunk-driving
2. How does my pedestrian seat belt work?

1.  Combine it with the stats of people not wearing seatbelts, which was my statement. Now what does the math say?

2.  You don’t have one. I wasn’t addressing pedestrian deaths I was addressing deaths of drivers.

I also didn’t say you’d be risk free I said your risk goes down substantially.  Which is true.

Read: vehicular collisions aren’t a problem because the other people in giant protective metal boxes are safe. The deaths of people who travel around their neighborhoods outside of protective metal boxes don’t matter, because they’re smug elitists. And bicyclists run stop signs sometimes so they probably had it coming

That’s a whole lot of words you put in my mouth.

GodlessCommie

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Re: Where do you stand on "living with Covid", "getting back to normal"
« Reply #246 on: December 16, 2021, 07:49:38 PM »
Speaking of 9/11, we let strangers to see us naked to board a plane, and our government to watch what we are doing without a warrant. All that over ~3,000 deaths. If there were discussions about a return to normal, I missed them. It's generally accepted that there is no going back to pre-9/11 times.

But to wear a mask - sometimes - in a pandemic that took away 800,000 lives is a burden too heavy to bear. It's basically a gospel that we can - and should - start living exactly as before Covid.

MoseyingAlong

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Re: Where do you stand on "living with Covid", "getting back to normal"
« Reply #247 on: December 16, 2021, 08:30:35 PM »
.....
- We don't know a single person socially who has gotten Covid outside of a couple frontline medical providers right at the start of the pandemic.  Since vaccines, zero.  Covid feels a little abstract because while we chatter about it socially, nobody actually gets it.
...
The bolded is pretty shocking to me. 
...

Somewhat related, I'm shocked that no one I know well has had a serious case or required hospitalization. We have a large family, spread out over the US, most with risk factors of age and comorbidities. Add a large and extended network of friends from the military and I'm amazed that no one has died due to COVID. Several mild cases but nothing serious.

I'm not in denial of the seriousness of this pandemic. I spent some time working on COVID units last winter. The first night was very sobering. And several former coworkers have died.

But I can see how someone with the same personal experience, minus the medical work, would be detached/skeptical. It's like news from a foreign country or different state. It's distressing/disturbing/sad but doesn't have the same punch as if it happened next door.

PDXTabs

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Re: Where do you stand on "living with Covid", "getting back to normal"
« Reply #248 on: December 16, 2021, 08:37:20 PM »
Speaking of 9/11, we let strangers to see us naked to board a plane, and our government to watch what we are doing without a warrant. All that over ~3,000 deaths. If there were discussions about a return to normal, I missed them. It's generally accepted that there is no going back to pre-9/11 times.

But to wear a mask - sometimes - in a pandemic that took away 800,000 lives is a burden too heavy to bear. It's basically a gospel that we can - and should - start living exactly as before Covid.

Well, various provisions of the Patriot Act were allowed to expire over the years. I believe that it ceased to exist in 2019. Also, Ron Paul voted against it from the very start, as did a handful of Democrats and a couple Republicans. So that wing of the Republican party has been pretty intellectually consistent. But I guess the strip search came from some other law or executive decision. So, what, 18 years? Also also, I don't get the strip search when flying in Asia. Priorities.
« Last Edit: December 16, 2021, 08:39:12 PM by PDXTabs »

former player

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Re: Where do you stand on "living with Covid", "getting back to normal"
« Reply #249 on: December 17, 2021, 02:36:56 AM »
If you don't know anyone who has died of covid, or had serious complications of covid, it's possibly because the risk factors for that are closely related to poverty and race and you don't know enough people in that demographic.

 

Wow, a phone plan for fifteen bucks!