urbanSTL

Ebsy wrote: ↑

Feb 03, 2022

Changing conditions should lead to changing advice, which it has in this case.

But conditions are getting worse...

The consensus (from the all knowing epidemiologists) is that masking is mostly kabuki theater,

This is absolutely not true. You might be thinking of cloth masks specifically, which were a stopgap measure that the CDC leadership pushed as adequate because of their incompetence at communicating with the public. It's absurd to say that N95s don't protect people from illness, that is complete nonsense. COVID is never going to evolve the ability to shrink itself below the threshold of N95 filtration.

especially when access to N95s is as limited as it is

This was a legitimate issue in April 2020. In 2022 this is a (bipartisan) policy choice by the government. It's not like N95s are made of rare earth metals.

Given the above, and the knowledge that halting economic activity (the only way to institute a quarantine is to have the vast majority of people not go to work) was not effective at preventing a pandemic scale outbreak in every country on earth

When was the last time we had the vast majority of people not go to work? We kept people home for like two weeks and it worked great! Then we stopped doing that because the pandemic "was improving" and somehow that means "is over" in public discourse (actually the government couldn't be bothered to manage the logistics or pay people to stay home).

The only countries I can think of that have had strong lockdown measures are China, Australia and New Zealand, and they all effectively contained the pandemic, until Australia opened up for no reason (except rich pocketbooks). And New Zealand has announced that they're not going to bother containing Omicron even though it's killing millions around the world (?!?). But it's completely wrong to say that lockdowns don't work when they've absolutely 100% worked in every circumstance where they are actually tried. That's why the NYT and other media are so mad at China; because China is proving that it's possible to contain the pandemic.

It would be more accurate to say that halting pandemic measures (which is the main thing we've done for the past two years) has not been effective at protecting economic activity (because people don't want to die for the economy).

what exactly is left to be done?

Anything at all? "We" haven't done anything since April 2020. Forget China as an example, we haven't even managed to vaccinate the population, despite having the most vaccine access, which (along with our generally crappy health care) is probably why we have twice the death rate of other Western countries.

I mean, I agree that we will not do anything. But it's perfectly obvious that at minimum we should be sending free masks to everyone and mandating them where possible. We haven't even developed a public mask standard (like the KN95 or KF94)! Over a million Americans are dead and we haven't even designed a mask certification for children! There is plenty left to do!

Covid hysteria is as harmful as covid denial.

^Well said, Mark. 

Which raises the question, is the US ruling class incompetent or malicious? My answer is both, but YMMV. 

Alternatively, maybe the US PMC truly are the "best and brightest" and ever so virtuous, but its just a feature of democracies  constitutional republics that there are too many governmental jurisdictions to do effective public health. A convenient case to make if you self-identify as such.

Ebsy wrote: ↑

Feb 03, 2022

Covid hysteria is as harmful as covid denial.

What hysteria? We're spending less time and effort mitigating COVID than we do about a hundred other things that kill a fraction of the people every year. Literally all we've done as a country since summer 2020 is:
* Make vaccines available
* Temporarily recommend wearing masks in public sometimes
* Cut child poverty in half for six months

What "harm" was caused by any of these hysterical measures? What harm would be caused by certifying child N95s, or paying sick people to stay home? The only harm being done is the millions of COVID casualties and excluding millions of vulnerable people from public spaces.

MarkHaversham wrote: ↑

Feb 03, 2022

The only countries I can think of that have had strong lockdown measures are China, Australia and New Zealand, and they all effectively contained the pandemic, until Australia opened up for no reason (except rich pocketbooks). And New Zealand has announced that they're not going to bother containing Omicron even though it's killing millions around the world (?!?).

Wildly hyperbolic and easily disproven claims like this are why it is sometimes very difficult to take you seriously.

Omicron is killing "millions around the world"? Really??

The omicron variant has only been widespread for about 2 months, since the beginning of December. In the last 2 months, there have been roughly 500,000 deaths GLOBALLY from all strains of COVID-19. Given that omicron was barely on the radar in November 2021 (meaning there weren't yet a significant number of omicron cases, hospitalizations, or deaths being reported then), how is it that it has killed "millions of people around the world", when only 500K people in the world have died from all strains of COVID-19 since omicron became prevalent?

Our current 7 day rolling average for global deaths (all forms of COVID) is about 10,000 people per day (which is still nowhere near the worst global daily death rate we've seen since the start of the pandemic). If it were to stay at that level, we'll hit 1 million global deaths since the beginning of omicron's prevalence around the end of March. I'm not going to predict whether the number of global daily deaths will be higher or lower at the end of March than it is right now because I really don't know, but in any event, it will probably be quite a long time before someone can accurately claim that omicron has killed "millions" (meaning at least 2 million) of people.



I agree with you that the U.S. has done an overall pretty poor job of containing and mitigating the pandemic, and that we could and should be doing a lot more. But when you throw around these ridiculously overblown claims, you lose a lot of the people that might be somewhat persuadable on this issue. The real facts are bad enough on their own. There is no need to inflate the numbers to make the situation look worse than it actually is.

And enough with this "both parties are just as bad" bullsh*t. The f*ck they are. If you want to argue that Democrats have been disappointing in their efforts to get the pandemic under control and should be doing more than what they have been doing, fine. But they're not out there actively trying to get half their constituents infected, like Ron DeSantis in Florida. There is no Democratic governor in America who has done anywhere near as much to exacerbate the pandemic as that malevolent clown has done down in America's penis.

Some day I want to find something I love as much as some posters on this thread love bad news about COVID.

DTGstl314 wrote: ↑

Feb 04, 2022

MarkHaversham wrote: ↑

Feb 03, 2022

The only countries I can think of that have had strong lockdown measures are China, Australia and New Zealand, and they all effectively contained the pandemic, until Australia opened up for no reason (except rich pocketbooks). And New Zealand has announced that they're not going to bother containing Omicron even though it's killing millions around the world (?!?).

Wildly hyperbolic and easily disproven claims like this are why it is sometimes very difficult to take you seriously.

Omicron is killing "millions around the world"? Really??

The omicron variant has only been widespread for about 2 months, since the beginning of December. In the last 2 months, there have been roughly 500,000 deaths GLOBALLY from all strains of COVID-19. Given that omicron was barely on the radar in November 2021 (meaning there weren't yet a significant number of omicron cases, hospitalizations, or deaths being reported then), how is it that it has killed "millions of people around the world", when only 500K people in the world have died from all strains of COVID-19 since omicron became prevalent?

Our current 7 day rolling average for global deaths (all forms of COVID) is about 10,000 people per day (which is still nowhere near the worst global daily death rate we've seen since the start of the pandemic). If it were to stay at that level, we'll hit 1 million global deaths since the beginning of omicron's prevalence around the end of March. I'm not going to predict whether the number of global daily deaths will be higher or lower at the end of March than it is right now because I really don't know, but in any event, it will probably be quite a long time before someone can accurately claim that omicron has killed "millions" (meaning at least 2 million) of people.

[snipped giant picture for space]

I agree with you that the U.S. has done an overall pretty poor job of containing and mitigating the pandemic, and that we could and should be doing a lot more. But when you throw around these ridiculously overblown claims, you lose a lot of the people that might be somewhat persuadable on this issue. The real facts are bad enough on their own. There is no need to inflate the numbers to make the situation look worse than it actually is.

And enough with this "both parties are just as bad" bullsh*t. The f*ck they are. If you want to argue that Democrats have been disappointing in their efforts to get the pandemic under control and should be doing more than what they have been doing, fine. But they're not out there actively trying to get half their constituents infected, like Ron DeSantis in Florida. There is no Democratic governor in America who has done anywhere near as much to exacerbate the pandemic as that malevolent clown has done down in America's penis.

It's nonsensical to quibble about Omicron killing millions. What I meant was that COVID has killed millions, obviously. Omicron (and its successors) will kill millions. In any case, you're nitpicking semantics to avoid the point (that NZ is stupidly welcoming a deadly disease that has killed millions and will kill millions more).

I don't want to get too political in this thread but the Democrats have done nothing and will do nothing to fight COVID. Under Biden's administration we've had more deaths and fewer mitigations. You can argue about which party has superior decorum but the material reality has been similar under both. The best you could say is that the Democrats are an 8 and the Republicans are a 2, on a scale from 1 to 100. I think the Democrats' mask-off policy has done more damage than anything Trump ever did, by surrendering on behalf of the half of the country that was still fighting against COVID, but ultimately both parties strive to do nothing materially useful. Some local politicians are fighting for mask mandates so they deserve some respect on a case-by-case basis. When you have mask mandates like "you have to wear a mask into a restaurant but not at your table" it's debatable whether you're protecting health or just undercutting credibility of masks in general, and which factor is more influential in the long run.

What mitigations can the feds even enact? It's all state and local. Joe Biden can't shut down the bars in St. Louis or enforce the mask mandate at Enterprise.

eee123 wrote: ↑

Feb 04, 2022

What mitigations can the feds even enact? It's all state and local. Joe Biden can't shut down the bars in St. Louis or enforce the mask mandate at Enterprise.

Firstly, there's a lot you can do with control of the executive and legislative branches.
Secondly, there are plenty of things Biden could do (like consistently recommend N95s when possible, or develop a public mask standard applicable to children) that they haven't even bothered to do. Instead Biden's CDC recommended people remove masks, even before most people had the opportunity to be vaccinated (and right before the first Delta wave hit).
Thirdly, somehow even in jurisdictions with Democrats at every level of leadership, nothing can be done. Biden can't do it, has to be states. Governor can't do it, has to be national/local. Mayors don't have the power to do it, has to be the health director. Health director doesn't have that authority, etc. Even where Democrats are in complete control, they are somehow completely unable to do anything through no fault of their own.

It's just learned helplessness that politicians use to avoid doing anything to help workers, it's not a real limitation. If it was the Fortune 500s dying, no amount of red tape would stop them. Or more eloquently:

Some people are simply exhausted by the constant lecturing. Anytime someone pops into this thread with a shred of encouraging news, it’s immediately shot down and we’re all told we’re not doing enough simply because we haven’t matched you’re intensity. 

Just my humble, masked and fully vaccinated opinion

Honestly asking, when did the CDC recommend people remove masks? I remember them easing up on the guidance of when masks were necessary, but I don't remember them coming out and saying people were better off without masks. Saying you don't have to wear a mask all the time is not the same thing.

Black02AltimaSE wrote: ↑

Feb 05, 2022

Saying you don't have to wear a mask all the time is not the same thing.

Am I encouraging people not to wear seat belts if I say "you only have to wear seat belts when you're driving fast/dangerously?"

The CDC discouraged people from wearing N95s from the start of 2020, and in May 2021 they altered their guidance to (baselessly) say vaccinated people don't need to wear masks.

When is the next round of STL covid $500 debit cards get mailed getting low on beer

You guys are still playing pandemic?

In the real world, the pandemic continues to recede in St. Louis at an accelerated rate relative to past waves, and we seem likely to have significantly fewer deaths.

I’ll repeat what I said weeks ago. It’s over by March.

whitherSTL wrote: ↑

Feb 05, 2022

I’ll repeat what I said weeks ago. It’s over by March.

The December/January wave will be over, but the next wave will probably be kicking off in March/April. Hopefully warmer weather and lingering immunity will prevent it from overwhelming hospitals to the same degree, but you might want to schedule any group activities before that happens.

whitherSTL wrote: ↑

Feb 05, 2022

I’ll repeat what I said weeks ago. It’s over by March.

Put some numbers on that.

When you say "over", what exactly do you mean? Zero new COVID cases, hospitalizations, and deaths? In St. Louis only, or the US, or the world?

I assume you don't mean that there will be no more COVID at all then, since it seems likely to be with us to some degree for years to come, but I'm guessing you think it will be down to such a low level that all normal activities prior to the pandemic will resume, and we'll be back to "normal"?

Clarify what you mean by "over". FWIW, I think you're extremely wrong. I wish your prediction would be correct and I'd love to eat crow over this, but I don't think I will be. I also don't think things are as hopelessly dire as somebody else in this thread seems to think.

Clarify what you mean by "over".  ahhhh drama?
https://tenor.com/view/im-over-it-im-so-over-this-done-im-done-gif-14926481