Coronavirus All Purpose Thread: The unnecessary Dumb Dumb 4th wave

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Azure

So what exactly are you going for? You already know there will never be no risk, regardless of vaccination rates.

We already know that hospital rates can quite easily be reduced with restrictions & mandates, and with 80% vaccination rates. Had the Alberta government not be so bone-headed stupid, there never would have been an issue on that front to begin with. Most other provinces have long moved past that problem.

Vaccine rates are consistently going up, and will continue to go up, though slower with these approvals, but you are never going to 100%, so if you are waiting on the day where you can leave isolation and never have to worry about COVID, it is simply not coming. Protecting the vulnerable is 100% about vaccinating the vulnerable, and have treatment options in place, and the resources to take care of them, and not about vaccinating kids you'll never see.

I must be missing something, because if you are vaccinated, why exactly do you need to isolate? Statistically your risk of going to the hospital is not going to change if the vaccination rates go up 5%.

We are waiting primarily for hospital space to be available, should we need it, and community cases to drop to an acceptable level. I'm not really sure what that is at this point, but it's lower than 600 case a day. We are also waiting for kids to be vaccinated to a reasonalbe level.

I'm not sure why you think unvacinated kids aren't a risk. they spread the virus more readily than vaccinated ones do. Basic science will tell you they are more of a risk, weather I come into direct contact with them or not. But I have friends with kids, so they are certainly a risk. We had a close call this summer on that issues specifically.

What you are missing is that some classes of the vulnerable are at much greater risk. My wife has a ~50% chance of being hospitalized if she gets covid(based on real stats) and an 11% chance of death.

We won't be hiding the rest of our lives, but the situation in Alberta makes it very difficult, and to hear people say its no big deal not to get kids vaccinated(when clearly it is very important based on basic facts about transmission) irritates the hell outa me, because it means we have to wait longer, and are settling into another winter where outdoor visits are rare, and indoor are a high risk. Her doctors highly recommend avoiding all unnecessary contact at this point, so that's what we have been doing.

The bottom line is the more easy to infect hosts that exist, the more cases there will be. The more vaccinated, the fewer. The fewer cases, the less chance hospitals are swamped, and the lower risk there is being in public. Your message is counter to that.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

We are waiting primarily for hospital space to be available, should we need it, and community cases to drop to an acceptable level. I'm not really sure what that is at this point, but it's lower than 600 case a day. We are also waiting for kids to be vaccinated to a reasonalbe level.

I'm not sure why you think unvacinated kids aren't a risk. they spread the virus more readily than vaccinated ones do. Basic science will tell you they are more of a risk, weather I come into direct contact with them or not. But I have friends with kids, so they are certainly a risk. We had a close call this summer on that issues specifically.

What you are missing is that some classes of the vulnerable are at much greater risk. My wife has a ~50% chance of being hospitalized if she gets covid(based on real stats) and an 11% chance of death.

We won't be hiding the rest of our lives, but the situation in Alberta makes it very difficult, and to hear people say its no big deal not to get kids vaccinated(when clearly it is very important based on basic facts about transmission) irritates the hell outa me, because it means we have to wait longer, and are settling into another winter where outdoor visits are rare, and indoor are a high risk. Her doctors highly recommend avoiding all unnecessary contact at this point, so that's what we have been doing.

The bottom line is the more easy to infect hosts that exist, the more cases there will be. The more vaccinated, the fewer. The fewer cases, the less chance hospitals are swamped, and the lower risk there is being in public. Your message is counter to that.

The situation in Alberta is dire, stupid and very unfortunate. That being said, it is trending in the right way, and doing so with vaccination rates being at a similar rate as they are in other provinces. Here in Manitoba most things have been trending in the right direction, and surgeries & procedures are back on track.

I'm sorry you have to deal with such an unfortunate situation, but at the end of the day, the risk will always be there, and it won't change if you move the needle 5% (which is all it will move regardless of how you feel).

We need to find a way to move forward to live with COVID being here to stay. That means vaccinating & providing treatment for those that are the most vulnerable, and making sure we care for them by having the proper resources in place to do so effectively.

[Harry Lime]

Eventually the rate of vaccination is going to plateau, and probably sit at around >80% when it's all said and done.

What I'm hoping going forward, is that people take it seriously when they start to produce symptoms, and if not isolate themselves, take steps to curtail their activities. Close contacts (in the future) social distance themselves voluntarily for a few days, and don't visit vulnerable people.

This would be a silver lining coming from this pandemic if the free-for-all that we had in the past is replaced with people more in tune with their part in spreading the flu/cold/covid/everything else.

[activeStick]

BC is the first province to announce that the general population will be given boosters. Starting in January, everyone 12 and older will be able to get their 3rd dose which will be either of the mRNA vaccines.

[PeteMoss]

Originally Posted by Azure

The situation in Alberta is dire, stupid and very unfortunate. That being said, it is trending in the right way, and doing so with vaccination rates being at a similar rate as they are in other provinces. Here in Manitoba most things have been trending in the right direction, and surgeries & procedures are back on track.

I'm sorry you have to deal with such an unfortunate situation, but at the end of the day, the risk will always be there, and it won't change if you move the needle 5% (which is all it will move regardless of how you feel).

We need to find a way to move forward to live with COVID being here to stay. That means vaccinating & providing treatment for those that are the most vulnerable, and making sure we care for them by having the proper resources in place to do so effectively.

Lower risk > higher risk so I will take that 5% improvement.

[Azure]

Provided you and your immediate & extended family are vaccinated, if you want to further lower your risk of hospitalization, instead of worry about moving needle a few percentage points, you are much better off changing your lifestyle to eat healthy, losing weight, exercising 4-5x per week (walking isn't good enough), and getting your blood levels checked for vitamin D, because at this point the correlation between hospitalization & low Vitamin D levels simply cannot be denied.

Obesity
Lack of exercise
Unhealthy eating habits

All increase your risk of unwanted outcomes due to COVID by more than 50%.

Increasing the vaccination rate among eligible people from 85% to 90% is not going to statistically lower the risk of COVID spread among the entire population in any meaningful way, and people need to get off that wagon immediately.

Why those other higher impact choices are being ignored is beyond me, but I guess as with all things big pharma, the narrative is always driven by what makes the highest amount of profit, and more vaccines = more profit.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Harry Lime

Eventually the rate of vaccination is going to plateau, and probably sit at around >80% when it's all said and done.

What I'm hoping going forward, is that people take it seriously when they start to produce symptoms, and if not isolate themselves, take steps to curtail their activities. Close contacts (in the future) social distance themselves voluntarily for a few days, and don't visit vulnerable people.

This would be a silver lining coming from this pandemic if the free-for-all that we had in the past is replaced with people more in tune with their part in spreading the flu/cold/covid/everything else.

In the Winnipeg area, every single district is above 80%, with many areas above 85%, and some pushing into 90%. Vaccination approval for kids might push that number to 90% and higher for all areas. We really don't know yet.

But of course it is kind of meaningless as far as public health policy goes because Winnipeg has been doing fine in terms of hospital rates, ICU capacity, surgeries and every other metric you want to use for months now.

At least if you look in terms of how it always is. Overcrowded, long waiting times, lack of proper care, sitting in emergency for hours, etc, etc.

[FireFly]

Living in an area with low vaccination rates, I will feel more comfortable when my daughter is vaccinated. My husband wants to wait and see what happens in the US as more children get theirs done.

[Fuzz]

The ONLY thing that improves safety for immune compromised individuals is high vaccinations rates in the community. That's it. Going from 85-90% is absolutely important, as is going from 90-95%. So if the goal is to protect them, there is only one answer. Vitamin D levels are so far down the list of relevance for them, it's not even worth discussing.

But I suspect the refrain of protecting the vulnerable was only important for as long as non-vulnerable weren't too affected by it. Now nobody seems to care. Kenny and Hinshaw sure as #### didn't when they removed all restrictions.

[Azure]

Nobody has cared about the vulnerable throughout this entire deal. There is a reason the military was sent into care homes and was sickened by what they found.

Treatment & treatment development (there are drugs on the way specifically for COVID) are essential for helping immune compromised people. Vaccines are secondary given our high update rates, because relying solely on vaccines means there is always a risk. Having treatments available means that regardless of the risk, we can help those that will be affected.

And to be clear, there will always be COVID. You simply cannot deny that regardless of what you hope the vaccination rates will be, and you seem to not understand that even if we lived in a 100% vaccinated populace, there will still be COVID.

[PepsiFree]

Bizarre that, given the overwhelming of hospitals by a small percentage of the population (unvaccinated), that removing a huge percentage of that population is being argued against.

Though not surprising considering the source.

[SportsJunky]

Originally Posted by FireFly

Living in an area with low vaccination rates, I will feel more comfortable when my daughter is vaccinated. My husband wants to wait and see what happens in the US as more children get theirs done.

I'm interested in how these things work within the family. Do you "win" and your daughter gets vaccinated or does your husband "win" and you wait. Like, how is the decision made?

I wonder about divorced and separated couples as well. What if one wants the kid to get vaccinated and the other doesn't? That must be stressful as hell.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Azure

Nobody has cared about the vulnerable throughout this entire deal. There is a reason the military was sent into care homes and was sickened by what they found.

Treatment & treatment development (there are drugs on the way specifically for COVID) are essential for helping immune compromised people. Vaccines are secondary given our high update rates, because relying solely on vaccines means there is always a risk. Having treatments available means that regardless of the risk, we can help those that will be affected.

And to be clear, there will always be COVID. You simply cannot deny that regardless of what you hope the vaccination rates will be, and you seem to not understand that even if we lived in a 100% vaccinated populace, there will still be COVID.

I'm not denying covid is always going to be around, but I'd like to see the risk of it spreading among unvacinated minimized. So that includes vaccinating kids.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by SportsJunky

I'm interested in how these things work within the family. Do you "win" and your daughter gets vaccinated or does your husband "win" and you wait. Like, how is the decision made?

I wonder about divorced and separated couples as well. What if one wants the kid to get vaccinated and the other doesn't? That must be stressful as hell.

One of my wife's friends is immune compromised. She ended up extremely sick in the hospital after her unvacinated ex-husband got it, spread it to the kid, who passed it to her. She ended up going to court to be able to home school her kid because he was insisting the kid go to school, which would have meant her not being able to see him, and probably losing parental rights. Not sure where they are on vaccination talk for the kid...

[PeteMoss]

Originally Posted by Azure

Provided you and your immediate & extended family are vaccinated, if you want to further lower your risk of hospitalization, instead of worry about moving needle a few percentage points, you are much better off changing your lifestyle to eat healthy, losing weight, exercising 4-5x per week (walking isn't good enough), and getting your blood levels checked for vitamin D, because at this point the correlation between hospitalization & low Vitamin D levels simply cannot be denied.

Obesity
Lack of exercise
Unhealthy eating habits

All increase your risk of unwanted outcomes due to COVID by more than 50%.

Increasing the vaccination rate among eligible people from 85% to 90% is not going to statistically lower the risk of COVID spread among the entire population in any meaningful way, and people need to get off that wagon immediately.

Why those other higher impact choices are being ignored is beyond me, but I guess as with all things big pharma, the narrative is always driven by what makes the highest amount of profit, and more vaccines = more profit.

A vaccine takes about 10 minutes of time to do. Getting someone to lose enough weight takes months or years.

Should we try to get a more fit population - yes - for many reasons including covid - but that is not something you jab into people and get immediate results. So we can hang out here and wait for obesity rates to lower like we did for smoking rates over the last 50 years or we can give people a vaccine.

The vaccine is the answer to everything you want to happen.

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by Azure

Provided you and your immediate & extended family are vaccinated, if you want to further lower your risk of hospitalization, instead of worry about moving needle a few percentage points, you are much better off changing your lifestyle to eat healthy, losing weight, exercising 4-5x per week (walking isn't good enough), and getting your blood levels checked for vitamin D, because at this point the correlation between hospitalization & low Vitamin D levels simply cannot be denied.

I mean, Vitamin D is a bit of a red herring. It's more of a marker of health than it is a causative factor (healthier people are more likely to have higher levels), and studies for a range of diseases have found little to no clinical benefit from supplementation in terms of preventing or reducing disease. There's also the possibility of reverse causality, as there's evidence of vitamin D levels falling rapidly during hospitalization. So it's also possible that severe infection itself depletes vitamin D levels

That's not to say people shouldn't take it (I personally take Vitamin D every day), but population-wide vaccination coverage is going to have a massively bigger effect on every negative effect of COVID than people taking vitamin D supplements.

Obesity
Lack of exercise
Unhealthy eating habits

All increase your risk of unwanted outcomes due to COVID by more than 50%.

Increasing the vaccination rate among eligible people from 85% to 90% is not going to statistically lower the risk of COVID spread among the entire population in any meaningful way, and people need to get off that wagon immediately.

Why those other higher impact choices are being ignored is beyond me, but I guess as with all things big pharma, the narrative is always driven by what makes the highest amount of profit, and more vaccines = more profit.

Yes, just tell people to eat healthy and exercise, why didn't the government think of that? Perhaps because that kind of thing will take decades to return significant results? Or maybe it's just big pharma, hard to tell which is right.

Ultimately, there is only one realistic answer to significantly limiting the negative effects on COVID and that's vaccinating as many people as possible.

[FireFly]

Originally Posted by SportsJunky

I'm interested in how these things work within the family. Do you "win" and your daughter gets vaccinated or does your husband "win" and you wait. Like, how is the decision made?

I wonder about divorced and separated couples as well. What if one wants the kid to get vaccinated and the other doesn't? That must be stressful as hell.

It's only hard if you make it hard. I'm happy to operate under the "two yes, one no" rule. If someone opposes, it's a no. Both have to be on board. So in this case, my husband wins for now. I will wait until my husband is comfortable with her getting vaccinated, if that ever happens.



In divorced or separated cases, the custodial parent gets to choose. However, there has been cases in the US of parents losing custody because of refusing to vaccinate. I haven't seen it in Canada yet, but I'm sure it'll come if people press the issue.



We are in a unique situation as my bonus daughter lives in Ontario with her mother who is an anti-vaxxer. Because she can no longer fly, we are unable to get our visitation with her. That's the toughest. If you ask her, I think she would like to get vaccinated in order to visit but is afraid to go against her mother.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by PeteMoss

A vaccine takes about 10 minutes of time to do. Getting someone to lose enough weight takes months or years.

Should we try to get a more fit population - yes - for many reasons including covid - but that is not something you jab into people and get immediate results. So we can hang out here and wait for obesity rates to lower like we did for smoking rates over the last 50 years or we can give people a vaccine.

The vaccine is the answer to everything you want to happen.

And as we all know, society always wants the easy approach.

Get a shot, go back to your otherwise unhealthy lifestyle. If risk increases, get another shot.

And yet our healthcare system is going to fall apart because of the underlying issue. Obesity, heart disease, diabetes, etc are all on the rise and we are not handling them correctly. From a public health perspective, your approach is absolutely foolproof. It also absolves everyone from personal responsibility. Not only do they not have to actual pay more taxes so that we can have a better health care system, but now they are also not required to actually give a crap about their health to begin with.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Azure

And as we all know, society always wants the easy approach.

Get a shot, go back to your otherwise unhealthy lifestyle. If risk increases, get another shot.

And yet our healthcare system is going to fall apart because of the underlying issue. Obesity, heart disease, diabetes, etc are all on the rise and we are not handling them correctly. From a public health perspective, your approach is absolutely foolproof. It also absolves everyone from personal responsibility. Not only do they not have to actual pay more taxes so that we can have a better health care system, but now they are also not required to actually give a crap about their health to begin with.

You have some weird hangups. Whatever you are advocating, a vaccine is STILL part of that. Suggesting you can work around by getting society to be healthier it is bonkers logic.

[PeteMoss]

Originally Posted by Azure

And as we all know, society always wants the easy approach.

Get a shot, go back to your otherwise unhealthy lifestyle. If risk increases, get another shot.

And yet our healthcare system is going to fall apart because of the underlying issue. Obesity, heart disease, diabetes, etc are all on the rise and we are not handling them correctly. From a public health perspective, your approach is absolutely foolproof. It also absolves everyone from personal responsibility. Not only do they not have to actual pay more taxes so that we can have a better health care system, but now they are also not required to actually give a crap about their health to begin with.

You want things back to normal. Everyone wants things back to normal. We either take the easy way out by getting people to take a shot or we hang out for 50 years and wait for obesity rates to go down.

Most of the things you are saying are correct but they don't relate to the concern of 'learning to live' with covid or whatever your initial point was.