Coronavirus

[Jocephus]

you're a sheep if you take the vaccine. if you are a patriot, you take livestock medicine. ironic.

Just [expletive] stop w/ that “livestock medicine” [expletive] narrative. Like many medications, it can and is used in both humans and animals.

i probably should report you over that. relax.

Lol….go right ahead. It’s not as if this place is all that enjoyable anymore anyway.

I try to come here to give an alternate view point from the echo chamber this place has become (minus a few voices) and get blasted everyday.

you are not obligated to participate. i dont care what you think of GRB, if it is so bad, leave. you've said multiple times you were done with the covid threads yet you continue.

[G. Keenan]

Nobody is picking up their toys and going home.

That's an order.

[cardinalkarp]

Apparently, I’m a glutton for punishment.

We all love a good debate, no?

[Jocephus]

i thought this place wasn't all that great? hypocrit

[cardinalkarp]

I didn’t say that, I said it hasn’t exactly been enjoyable.

[Jocephus]

oh right, the victimhood, how could i forget. i forgot you're considered 3/5ths a person or can't vote because of your gender.

[G. Keenan]

Alrighty, let's get back to some substance and chill with the bickering (I get to say that as a former mod).

This is where we left off.

?Sure, get vaxxed to protect yourself. Sure, wear masks to protect others. But, for how long? And, more importantly, is there a way this virus ever goes away? I'm not getting the warm and fuzzies given all that he said.

Certainly now preventative measures are needed to reduce demand on the hospitals. Is it going to be the same every year?

I really feel like the talk about pandemic mitigation measures have obscured in most people’s minds the basic dynamics of infectious disease outbreaks, namely that they end. This happens by them either being wiped out or becoming an endemic low level problem. With COVID, it seems almost certain at this point us that endemic is going to be the ultimate end.

But this does not mean that we’ll see hundreds of thousands of people dying from it every year in perpetuity. The deadliness comes from the novel part of the novel coronavirus. Once the virus is no longer novel to your immune system, either through vaccination or infection, repeat exposure is much less dangerous. There are several coronaviruses already in permanent endemic circulation. It’s pretty likely that these are the residue of past pandemics. For example, there’s recently been talk about the 1889 “Russian flu” pandemic actually being the entry point for one of these.

At this point, while these viruses can still be deadly for people with compromised immune response, for most, they are largely a nuisance or non-issue minor infection that you don’t spend much time worrying about.

What about variants? That’s certainly a concern, but variant evolution is not an unlimited process that churns out totally new and ever deadlier versions. In fact, the virus evolves to some kind of “best fit” form that maximizes its replication under the present immune conditions. Unclear how far that will go, but again the primary threat is to those without prior exposure. To generate a new threat the immune system can’t put up a good fight against, the virus needs to evolve in a separate population without circulating among humans. This is precisely the reason the big source for new deadly infections is crossover from other animal species.

Good article on this:
Novelty Means Severity: The Key To the Pandemic

Perhaps inhaled vaccination would be a route to truly wipe out COVID, but that would be a long term project. Development seems too late to be of much use in the acute phase. I would like to believe that this experience will be the motivation to pursue these sorts of long term projects even without an active ongoing catastrophe, but I guess we’ll see.

[Arthur Dent]

I’m going to shamelessly repost myself.

The vaccination and masking debate is going nowhere, so it’s sad that the news that natural infection provides better immunity than vaccination gets refracted into that rhetorical dead end. Instead, can we not come to hear the Good News that, just as in past outbreaks, this one will end as well regardless of vaccine acceptance?

?Sure, get vaxxed to protect yourself. Sure, wear masks to protect others. But, for how long? And, more importantly, is there a way this virus ever goes away? I'm not getting the warm and fuzzies given all that he said.

Certainly now preventative measures are needed to reduce demand on the hospitals. Is it going to be the same every year?

I really feel like the talk about pandemic mitigation measures have obscured in most people’s minds the basic dynamics of infectious disease outbreaks, namely that they end. This happens by them either being wiped out or becoming an endemic low level problem. With COVID, it seems almost certain at this point us that endemic is going to be the ultimate end.

But this does not mean that we’ll see hundreds of thousands of people dying from it every year in perpetuity. The deadliness comes from the novel part of the novel coronavirus. Once the virus is no longer novel to your immune system, either through vaccination or infection, repeat exposure is much less dangerous. There are several coronaviruses already in permanent endemic circulation. It’s pretty likely that these are the residue of past pandemics. For example, there’s recently been talk about the 1889 “Russian flu” pandemic actually being the entry point for one of these.

At this point, while these viruses can still be deadly for people with compromised immune response, for most, they are largely a nuisance or non-issue minor infection that you don’t spend much time worrying about.

What about variants? That’s certainly a concern, but variant evolution is not an unlimited process that churns out totally new and ever deadlier versions. In fact, the virus evolves to some kind of “best fit” form that maximizes its replication under the present immune conditions. Unclear how far that will go, but again the primary threat is to those without prior exposure. To generate a new threat the immune system can’t put up a good fight against, the virus needs to evolve in a separate population without circulating among humans. This is precisely the reason the big source for new deadly infections is crossover from other animal species.

Good article on this:
Novelty Means Severity: The Key To the Pandemic

Perhaps inhaled vaccination would be a route to truly wipe out COVID, but that would be a long term project. Development seems too late to be of much use in the acute phase. I would like to believe that this experience will be the motivation to pursue these sorts of long term projects even without an active ongoing catastrophe, but I guess we’ll see.

[GeddyWrox]

I'm one of those who wasn't going to wear a mask again. Then work mandated it, hospitals have filled up, and the state has mandated it everywhere. So I'm wearing it.

Me too.

[haltz]

To defend Karp for a minute here, and I hope I'm not overstepping but I have some things in common and it's public info on this board... He's a recovering addict from pharmaceuticals iirc and has built a health-conscious lifestyle and ideology that works for him. I can imagine that some of the distrust is well-earned and I'll take him at his word that he's being as careful as possible within that framework. I've pushed back and argued as much or more than anyone with the details, but that's the place it's coming from if I had to guess. I don't mean to hand wave the arguments or condescend since I know he'll read this, but have a little perspective when saying someone is selfish or an [expletive].