How much damage did Covid do?

[BigNumbers]

Do we need a welfare check done on fotze.... I am concerned.

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by blankall

It got to a point where rules were coming into place just to show that the politicians were doing something. They would purposely put rules in that were as visible as possible, even though these rules may not have substantially reduced spread.

When it painfully became obvious that we were all getting exposed to Covid at some point and the vaccines were not going to prevent that, some people still wanted to believe that a zero covid policy was possible. This resulted in a lot of extra economic and social damage that didn't need to occur.

The point of reducing spread post-vaccine wasn't to keep vaccinated people from getting exposed and infected; it was to prevent the morons who willingly had zero immunity from filling up our hospitals all at once and breaking the medical system. If everyone got vaccinated, there would have been no need for rules post-summer 2021. But the fact is, even having 10% of the 40+ population remain unvaccinated meant that the medical system was still under significant threat until they got their immunity the hard way.

And it was a real risk. I remember doing the math for Alberta in the summer of 2021, and just taking the unvaccinated population, age-adjusting their hospitalization risk, and then reducing it by 50-75% (to account for a potential overestimation of hospitalization risk), and you'd end up with about 15-20K hospitalizations in the 40+ group. For context, 1.5 years into the pandemic, there had only been 9K hospitalizations total. So if even half those people got infected over a several month period, the system would have been crushed. And that started to happen during the "best summer ever" with the ICU hitting its pandemic peak in September 2021, so they were forced to introduce mitigation measures again to save people from themselves.

Only when basically everyone without pre-existing immunity got infected after Omicron did we finally come out of the emergency phase and life could return to normal with no real risk to the medical system. But that could have also happened with a high enough vaccination rate.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by opendoor

The point of reducing spread post-vaccine wasn't to keep vaccinated people from getting exposed and infected; it was to prevent the morons who willingly had zero immunity from filling up our hospitals all at once and breaking the medical system. If everyone got vaccinated, there would have been no need for rules post-summer 2021. But the fact is, even having 10% of the 40+ population remain unvaccinated meant that the medical system was still under significant threat until they got their immunity the hard way.

And it was a real risk. I remember doing the math for Alberta in the summer of 2021, and just taking the unvaccinated population, age-adjusting their hospitalization risk, and then reducing it by 50-75% (to account for a potential overestimation of hospitalization risk), and you'd end up with about 15-20K hospitalizations in the 40+ group. For context, 1.5 years into the pandemic, there had only been 9K hospitalizations total. So if even half those people got infected over a several month period, the system would have been crushed. And that started to happen during the "best summer ever" with the ICU hitting its pandemic peak in September 2021, so they were forced to introduce mitigation measures again to save people from themselves.

Only when basically everyone without pre-existing immunity got infected after Omicron did we finally come out of the emergency phase and life could return to normal with no real risk to the medical system. But that could have also happened with a high enough vaccination rate.

The point was that the government wasn't actually putting restrictions in place that prevented spread. They would allow family meetups during the holidays but then randomly close golf clubs in the summer.

It also became abundantly clear very early on that vaccines would not prevent spread. They did, however, vastly reduce serious infection. So vaccinated and relatively young people weren't an especially high risk to end up in the ICU...yet young people aged 18-40 seemed to be the most targeted by restrictions. The things they do were deemed least valuable.

People vaccinated under the age of 50 were in no way filling up hospitals.

[PeteMoss]

Originally Posted by blankall

The point was that the government wasn't actually putting restrictions in place that prevented spread. They would allow family meetups during the holidays but then randomly close golf clubs in the summer.

It also became abundantly clear very early on that vaccines would not prevent spread. They did, however, vastly reduce serious infection. So vaccinated and relatively young people weren't an especially high risk to end up in the ICU...yet young people aged 18-40 seemed to be the most targeted by restrictions. The things they do were deemed least valuable.

People vaccinated under the age of 50 were in no way filling up hospitals.

A lot of things reopened with vaccine requirements. That set off a bunch of Yoho's

[Knut]

We got lucky with a couple things here.

1) Roll-out of vaccines before/during Delta wave. This significantly reduced the number of casualties from COVID.

2) The switch to Omicron relatively quickly. Still dangerous but much less deadly.

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by blankall

The point was that the government wasn't actually putting restrictions in place that prevented spread. They would allow family meetups during the holidays but then randomly close golf clubs in the summer.

It also became abundantly clear very early on that vaccines would not prevent spread. They did, however, vastly reduce serious infection. So vaccinated and relatively young people weren't an especially high risk to end up in the ICU...yet young people aged 18-40 seemed to be the most targeted by restrictions. The things they do were deemed least valuable.

People vaccinated under the age of 50 were in no way filling up hospitals.

People under 50 interact with people over 50. And as long as there was a population of about 400K willingly unvaccinated 40+ year olds (to use Alberta as an example), there was a significant risk to the medical system if pre-Omicron variants were allowed to spread rapidly.

Once you accept that, it really just because a question of what activities to prioritize. There is no real incongruency in permitting small family gatherings and having in-person schooling, while requiring that restaurants temporarily have capacity limits or require vaccination to enter. Obviously the measures were far from perfect or consistent, but there was logic to most of them.

[Bonded]

Originally Posted by Knut

We got lucky with a couple things here.

1) Roll-out of vaccines before/during Delta wave. This significantly reduced the number of casualties from COVID.

2) The switch to Omicron relatively quickly. Still dangerous but much less deadly.

If Delta was the first wave of Covid then there would be way less anti-vaxxers. Delta was crushing hospitals and most of the population had at least one shot by that point.
I shudder to think of the death toll there would have been if no vaccines were rolled out.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by Bonded

The worst fallout from Covid outside of the death tolls is that it really cemented and deepened the political divide.

This almost goes without saying. A country like Canada going from maybe 10 per cent of people having a visceral distrust of public institutions to more like 25 is a body blow to liberal democracy. We moved several big steps closer to the disaster that is U.S. political culture.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by opendoor

People under 50 interact with people over 50. And as long as there was a population of about 400K willingly unvaccinated 40+ year olds (to use Alberta as an example), there was a significant risk to the medical system if pre-Omicron variants were allowed to spread rapidly.

Once you accept that, it really just because a question of what activities to prioritize. There is no real incongruency in permitting small family gatherings and having in-person schooling, while requiring that restaurants temporarily have capacity limits or require vaccination to enter. Obviously the measures were far from perfect or consistent, but there was logic to most of them.

The virus was widespread and everywhere. People over 50 were never going to hide forever from it. Your view is based on a belief that if we kept Covid suppressed for long enough vulnerable people could avoid being exposed. After a certain point, it became clear that wasn't the case. The government kept up a bunch of showy but largely non-effective restrictions to appease people.

After vaccination, it made sense to shift towards protecting vulnerable, as the rate of severe infection in non-vulnerable and vaccinated were extremely low. That shift took another 8 months to make. It's just one example of where the economic and social harm could have been mitigated but wasn't.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by PeteMoss

In North America this is very false. With the government handouts - lots of poor folk were better of during the pandemic then they had been in ages and are now.

Pretty much. Savings rate for everyone went up to historic levels, but they rose higher for the working class and poor than for anyone else.

On the other hand, it was the working class who shouldered the burden of carrying on with necessary work to keep us fed and our goods delivered, leaving their children unsupervised at home while they had to work, etc.

[darockwilder]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

https://twitter.com/user/status/1686485910643216385


Great, now we can't even use them for spare parts. We've lost organs to save lives, from selfish POS's who's only concern is themselves, even after they are dead. Totally indefensible.

Is there no character limit on Tweets, I mean Xs, anymore? This is like thousands of characters long.

[Bigtime]

Originally Posted by darockwilder

Is there no character limit on Tweets, I mean Xs, anymore? This is like thousands of characters long.

Blue checks get to run rampant and have some insanely high character limit I believe.

[MoneyGuy]

Yes, paying Musk monthly gets you more characters.

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by blankall

The virus was widespread and everywhere. People over 50 were never going to hide forever from it. Your view is based on a belief that if we kept Covid suppressed for long enough vulnerable people could avoid being exposed. After a certain point, it became clear that wasn't the case. The government kept up a bunch of showy but largely non-effective restrictions to appease people.

After vaccination, it made sense to shift towards protecting vulnerable, as the rate of severe infection in non-vulnerable and vaccinated were extremely low. That shift took another 8 months to make. It's just one example of where the economic and social harm could have been mitigated but wasn't.

You're really missing the point and countering an argument no one is making (who said anything about "hiding forever from it"?). When Delta was dominant, the vaccination rate hit its ceiling, leaving about 20% of the 50+ population in Alberta immunologically naive. So with that population, you really had 2 options:

a) Let it rip and have probably 10-20K or so hospitalizations in a short period of time, obliterating the healthcare system in the process.

b) Try to spread out the rate of infection over a longer period of time to keep the healthcare system functional. Surely you can understand why say 10,000 hospitalizations in Alberta over 2 months is a crisis whereas 10,000 hospitalizations over a year is less of one, right?

That's really all there is to it. There's no "protecting the vulnerable" because those 50+ year olds who chose not to get vaccinated refused to be protected. So what do you do?

[Locke]

Originally Posted by opendoor

You're really missing the point and countering an argument no one is making (who said anything about "hiding forever from it"?). When Delta was dominant, the vaccination rate hit its ceiling, leaving about 20% of the 50+ population in Alberta immunologically naive. So with that population, you really had 2 options:

a) Let it rip and have probably 10-20K or so hospitalizations in a short period of time, obliterating the healthcare system in the process.

b) Try to spread out the rate of infection over a longer period of time to keep the healthcare system functional. Surely you can understand why say 10,000 hospitalizations in Alberta over 2 months is a crisis whereas 10,000 hospitalizations over a year is less of one, right?

That's really all there is to it. There's no "protecting the vulnerable" because those 50+ year olds who chose not to get vaccinated refused to be protected. So what do you do?

I've said this a million times....'X-Men 3.'

Put the vaccine into guns and roll out the army. Weaponize the Vaccine!

Sure, people will bitch and moan about it for a bit, but they'll get over it. And if they dont? People disappear all the time.

Plus its a great training exercise for the armed forces! You know...hitting a running target.

[Russic]

Purely anecdotal, but by virtue of having a spouse in the teaching profession, I speak to a lot of teachers. It seems (to me) that since the return to school, some teachers are experiencing problems on a new level. Drugs (like, the good ones) ending up in middle schools, fights everywhere (and happening in class), student-on-teacher assaults... my wife had lunch with a colleague yesterday that reported an actual parent/student fist fight that happened in her school this year (grade 8).

There is a theory that stress in early life is a massive contributor to all sorts of ailments, a big one being ADHD. It will be interesting to see rates of that (which are already rising like crazy) as the kids conceived and born in early covid start hitting kindergarten in the next 1-3 years. It doesn't matter what side of the great battle you were on, stress was a huge component of the last 3 years.

[Sainters7]

Originally Posted by PeteMoss

It should have been more targeted for sure. The US they were just giving everyone money. In Canada - I didn't get any money.

Be happy you didn't. My buddy in Ontario collected on it basically the entirety of peak Covid as it affected his work. Now he's basically having to pay it all back, or a lot of it anyway. Sounds like a nightmare.

[Mr.Coffee]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

This almost goes without saying. A country like Canada going from maybe 10 per cent of people having a visceral distrust of public institutions to more like 25 is a body blow to liberal democracy. We moved several big steps closer to the disaster that is U.S. political culture.

Hmmm I wonder if it's less to do with the pandemic though and more to do with social media.

Or maybe also that no governments appear to be truly willing to work on or address serious and major issues. Fact is liberal democracy IS failing, because governments are simply put not doing their jobs. Governing for ideology and votes, not what's in the best interest of citizens.

[PeteMoss]

25% seems like a wild overstatement. The PPC got 4.94% of votes in the 2021 election.

And most of these untrusting people are now in love in Pollivere who is the leader of the one of the two parties of record in Canada.

[nfotiu]

Originally Posted by opendoor

You're really missing the point and countering an argument no one is making (who said anything about "hiding forever from it"?). When Delta was dominant, the vaccination rate hit its ceiling, leaving about 20% of the 50+ population in Alberta immunologically naive. So with that population, you really had 2 options:

a) Let it rip and have probably 10-20K or so hospitalizations in a short period of time, obliterating the healthcare system in the process.

b) Try to spread out the rate of infection over a longer period of time to keep the healthcare system functional. Surely you can understand why say 10,000 hospitalizations in Alberta over 2 months is a crisis whereas 10,000 hospitalizations over a year is less of one, right?

That's really all there is to it. There's no "protecting the vulnerable" because those 50+ year olds who chose not to get vaccinated refused to be protected. So what do you do?

You could definitely make a case that if everyone got vaccinated, and made a best effort to following guidelines to reduce spread, not nearly as many restrictions would have been required, and would not have been required for nearly as long.

One major lasting effect is that the anti-vax movement for all vaccinations seems to have grown signficantly. Right-wingers weren't traditionally very anti-vax pre-covid, and now it is becoming part of their movement.