I thought we had all understood this would happen and agreed to just forge on? What am I missing here?
1. The Delta variant is incredibly contagious, but the chances of it being a serious case in a child or a vaccinated person are incredibly low.
2. 99% of people over 16 should have the vaccine now if they want it.
3. There is no sign that the 30% or so of anti vax Americans will be budging any time soon and doing what they need to do to help kill Covid.
4. Provided the last point is true, we either keep locking things down again or just let it burn through and hope we achieve herd immunity soon between the vaccines and the contagious strain among the unvaxed.
5. The non-whackos who are vaccinated are having to pay for the idiots who think vaccines are poison or some dumbass thing like that. (Yes I’m aware that some people want the vaccine and can’t get it, and I have sympathy for them, and also recognize that’s very rare)
What’s the endgame here, then, if that’s all true, with these restrictions coming back? And if I’m wrong here, please do tell me, I know many of you here know far more about this stuff than I do.
not physicians that care for kids.
COVID has killed 350-500 kids during a time where masks, distancing, school closures, etc where happening. Flu in that time period killed 1. Now we are removing all those measures and kids less than 12 can't get the vaccine.
Death isn't the only downside of COVID for kids. Long COVID in kids is real. Myocarditis happens in about 1/50 and it tends to be more severe than than the myocarditis from the vaccines that happens somewhere between 1/3,000-6,000 kids in Israel. 95% of those cases from Israel where asymptomatic.
Pediatric associations have long supported return to in-person school on the low risk to kids and developmental harm to cutting out socialized learning.
Yes, anyone with a very low risk of harm can be among the very few outliers. That's the case for anything.
That doesn't mean all child physicians want to avoid all safeguards. But the risk is low enough that they adamantly want in-person school, and they have before widespread vaccine distribution.
Sure, while we have big outbreaks, mask up the kids. No issue here. But if we return to levels we had a month ago, I'm open to removing masks. They still pose social developmental challenges that should be balanced to some degree with estimated risk.
I have no issue with in person schools. My kids went to school all year last year in masks. My son went to speech therapy last year in a mask. He no longer needs speech therapy. My kids won’t go to school without a mask until they are vaccinated and the cases have dropped.
COVID is a risk for kids that is my issue.
last sentence?
If people are going to be militant about "proving" that masks work, it stands to reason that the risks of masks shouldn't be intentionally overstated. The only data I've seen is related to (potential) speech development in babies. Which doesn't apply if we're talking about school-age children. Admittedly I don't keep up with child development research, so I'm asking honestly because I certainly could have missed it.
Boss hog.
Further, how do you know that masking was a better prophylactic than say symptom trackers, temperature checking, hygiene monitoring, and attendance bars for symptomatic students? You do not because no studies were done on that. But masking signals compliance so it is preferred.
We will do Whatever is asked for kids to be in school. That said everything else posted here is junk.
How many is too many? Not relevant to how we make decisions.
If we had to fight ww2 today we would lose with the way some of you all think.
patients in the hospital. There was 1 flu death in children last year.
The risks of transmission and for i fection are different for, say, 7 and u der and 12-17.
I normally don't judge these sorts of things, but we just have to say no to pedophilia.
Of course it’s supposed to be ( age/2 ) + 7 (any Google search tells you that) but he (or maybe she) flipped it.
For all that is remembered back here, I’m surprised how many folks forgot that one.
known as Wooderson.
If Elvis and Charlie Chaplin could do it why not me?
The linked article has direct links the CDC page.
At least as it relates to mortality. Caveats surrounding the age for "child" based on variability and state reporting. Appendix 2C, page 20.
appear to only be for 43 states, plus NYC, Guam and Puerto Rico. The total would presumably be higher if all 50 states were included.
Numbers need context.
I'll do some of the research. 4,000 kids in 2016 (source linked, USNWR). 8x covid. But we all let our kids ride in cars.
I'm pro vaccine and all that, but people are out of their minds on what risk levels really are.
What is the risk of dying or serious issues from covid ... If you are under 20 it's tiny. If you are over 20 and vaccinated it is tiny. If you are over 20 and didn't get the vaccine - it is NOT tiny, get the damn vaccine.
If you do what is the difference between this and a mask?
Wait, that sounds insane.
We were told that mandated car seats and seat belts would flatten the curve of pediatric auto fatalities. We signed up for them based on our understanding they wouldn’t be around forever.
Now we have MUCH safer cars that prevent a lot more deaths than anything we had before. With improvements to air bags, brakes, car design, automated safety features we can/should remove the car seat & seat belt mandates which don’t even prevent deaths that well anyways.
If people choose to drive cars without automated safety features maybe they should use car seats and seat belts but we shouldn’t have to. If they (or their kids) die, they die, it was their choice. Natural selection
Put chocolate pudding in my shoe and make it look like I shot diarrhea down my leg?
roads have speed limits, stop signs, lights, kids cant sit in the front, without car seats, and many other laws and regulations, let alone rules the driver must abide by (licenses, no drinking, etc).
Thats what we do to protect children from driving accidents. Asking to wear a mask seems quite minor compared to all of the above. And I cant stand seeing my daughters, and my teacher wife, wear a mask. It sucks.
I agree its a tiny death number and get the vaccine. We shouldnt make it out to be bigger than it is, but comparing covid deaths of children to car accidents or drownings, isnt really telling the whole story. If we can do anything to protect our children from potential disease, death, and potentially long term side effects, that is a small inconvenience, shouldn't we do so?
I much rather have the kids wear masks than go back to hybrid or distance learning.
Outside of birth defects.
For the record my family and I wear masks when asked so I'm not a die hard on this issue. But the standard of "We should do ANYTHING" to protect children is interesting.
Because we do not enforce pool fence laws. We don't even try. Most states have made it illegal to construct a pool without a fence and yet it is not enforced in slightest. 11 kids die each day. So if the standard is we should take any measure to protect kids, why don't we have pool inspectors that go door to door and inspect your backyard pool fence?
I'm not sure how I feel about mandatory pool inspections to be honest.
choice to have a pool without a fence is highly unlikely to cause me a problem without my input. If I know you have a pool without a fence, I can choose not to come to your house.
As for the "attractive nuisance" aspect of unsupervised children wandering into a neighbor's pool, I have control over whether I buy a house near an unsecured pool. And if my neighbor puts in a pool without a fence in an area where this is regulated by statue, I absolutely would be calling the city.
"I agree its a tiny death number and get the vaccine. We shouldnt make it out to be bigger than it is .."
We are both pretty data based and of course agree. But here is where I part ways: "If we can do anything to protect our children" (emphasis mine). No, I think there should be limits to how much risk mitigation is done based on the size of the risk. Again, we tolerate the deaths of 4,000 kids (and 30K adults) rather than have 25 MPH speed limits.
I agree masks are better than distance learning. Ours went back today and the district only recommends masks. They had theirs on for family harmony, but like "take your mask off and smile for a picture of the first day of school" just kind of was sad.
But yeah, i love a good data/stats debate.
As far as Anything, i use masks and some social distancing as Anything. Im not in favor of remote learning or keeping them isolated in any other way, unless a new variant that is deadlier to children comes around.
said most masks that people wear are ineffective. And that if people wear masks they should wear N95 masks - there are issues with too.
And, of course, he's specifically said his message isn't "Masks are useless" and "We shouldn't use masks". But that is, of course, what Clay Travis wants you to believe.
At the outset, I want to make several points crystal clear:
I support the wearing of cloth face coverings (masks) by the general public.
Stop citing CIDRAP and me as grounds to not wear masks, whether mandated or not.
Don't, however, use the wearing of cloth face coverings as an excuse to decrease other crucial, likely more effective, protective steps, like physical distancing
Also, don't use poorly conducted studies to support a contention that wearing cloth face coverings will drive the pandemic into the ground. But even if they reduce infection risk somewhat, wearing them can be important.
EDIT: And if you have read through what he's said over time, I suspect the better summation is "If we are going to wear masks, we should be wearing better masks." Hard to disagree with that.
Partial text, full transcript available at the link:
I just want to add one last context on masking. I know that I'm not in the mainstream on this issue. Every time I hear this term masking, it's like for me nails on the chalkboard because we are not giving our citizens the information they need and deserve. We've already pointed out on multiple occasions the limits that face cloth coverings and surgical masks play in reducing the actual transmission of this virus. The studies that have been done have been largely flawed in this regard. In the meantime, the use of N95 respirators or KN95 approved respirators could have a dramatic impact and even the availability of N95 or KN95 and now we have even KN95 respirators available for children. I wish we would talk about not masking but talking about what needs to be done. So I am very, very strong supporter of respiratory protection. Don't get me wrong, I'm not an antimasker at all, just the opposite. But I'm saying use the materials that will actually protect you. As I pointed out before, we know that if you use a face cloth covering, you may get five to 10 minutes additional protection in a room where the virus is present than if you wore nothing at all. That's not a real margin of safety. N95 respirators may give you well under 25 to 30 hours of protection. So I want to get us off of just masking and that's this whole focus, the last 24 hours or 36 hours about masking. Have you seen anybody mentioning about, by the way, don't wear it under your nose that chin diaper? Again, we continue to see up to 25 percent of people wearing a mask under their nose. As I've said so many times, it's like fixing three of the five screen doors in your submarine. So I hope we get this message out. We can right now greatly reduce transmission, if people are using N95s. They are abundantly available your hardware stores, online ordering sites, etc. They are available. So I hope we promote good respiratory protection, not just the concept of masking, and that could have a real important difference right now.
I think that is a slight difference. Surgoen masks were always supposed to improve your odds of preventing the virus, not a panacea against it. Obviously n95s are much better. I just bought some new ones myself last week.
It wasnt clear to me if he said wearing a surgeons mask are ineffective against someone with covid if both are wearing the surgeon mask.
movement in or out."
Let me add he didn't say there were issues with n95 masks and that is my input. But N95 are more expensive, need to be well fitted to work and need to be either cleaned or replaced regularly.
if he was talking about just an individual or if they dont matter if everyone is wearing that type of mask.
Either way, I think its been known for a while that the surgeon mask was not nearly as effective as an n95. Yes, they are more expensive, its one of the reasons people like myself think Trump failed us originally by not making a full on effort to make more of these types of masks. More supply would presumably make the costs low. Biden may have to start doing the same thing, but the delta variant outbreak is no where near where we were pre vaccine obviously. But it would be nice if N95s were offered for free to those who cant afford them.
Or is there a difference?
I have a couple boxes of KN95's.
An N95 has to be fit tested so their is no leak. Males cannot have much facial hair as even stubble can interfere and cause a leak.
A KN95 is made of the same material but it is not fit tested so there isn’t a tight seal.
chinese approved. They are supposedly similar but i would assume N95s are a bit better. But the CDC said KN95s are a suitable substitute.
I would guess the hierachy of masks goes
cloth covering
surgeon mask
KN95
N95
SonoMask
Israeli grade Gas mask
Mostly kidding.
WITH the current measures, 4,000 a year die. How stressed do we get about getting in the car? But we should alter our daily interactions for 500?
I just like using the car analogy because it is a risk we knowingly and willingly accept to enjoy life. And it works as a thought exercise. If you are 70 years old and not vaccinated, you chances of dying from Covid are 500%-1000% greater than the chances of dying in a car accident. That is significant.
and I would argue you may have unknowingly cherry picked the data. Your data includes teenagers, who presumably make up a large percentage of that number due to their own driving ( we all know how safe teenage drivers are). Perhaps there is a better report, but CDC link below suggests the number is much lower for children
In the United States, motor vehicle crashes are a leading cause of death among children. In 2018, 636 children 12 years old and younger died in motor vehicle traffic crashes, and more than 97,000 were injured. Of the children 12 years old and younger who died in a crash in 2018 (for which restraint use was known), 33% were not buckled up.
So the number who are in seatbelts (for this year)is almost exactly the same as covid deaths (making the assumption most of those without seatbelts would not have died if buckled up)
To add to the teens dying in car accidents I found this: Obviously 13-16 year are presumably mostly passengers. However, the stats of teenagers driving as the worst group of drivers is telling to counter your 4k stats
https://www.cdc.gov/transportationsafety/teen_drivers/teendrivers_factsheet.html
In 2019, almost 2,400 teens in the United States aged 13–19 were killed, and about 258,000 were treated in emergency departments for injuries suffered in motor vehicle crashes.1 That means that every day, about seven teens aged 13–19 died due to motor vehicle crashes, and hundreds more were injured. In addition, motor vehicle crash deaths among teens 15–19 years of age resulted in about $4.8 billion in medical and work loss costs for crashes that occurred in 2018.1
Who is most at risk?
The risk of motor vehicle crashes is higher among teens aged 16–19 than among any other age group. In fact, per mile driven, teen drivers in this age group are nearly three times as likely as drivers aged 20 or older to be in a fatal crash.
The original point of the thread was masks/distancing. Those are basically the "seatbelts" of COVID. A minor annoyance that can be effective. Are 500 child deaths worth that annoyance (at least as it relates to schools and high-transmission areas?) I'd say yes.
EDIT: And it should be noted that those 300 deaths are with schools using mitigation measures, hybrid, etc. In other words, 300 is the number with seatbelts. What's the number when we go without? We may find out. Why we would choose to figure out that number is beyond me, though.
(65 Covid and pneumonia included in both). Total of 1,293
Age 0-17 accounted for 0.06% of Covid deaths, 0.15% of pneumonia deaths and 2.03% of influenza deaths.
Which was prior to COVID and the lockdowns/masking. If you look at the numbers once March and the lockdowns started the flu disappeared. During the last flu season 11/2020-3/2021 there was 1 pediatric flu death.
the chart is using for children?
Because even using the five month window you want for the flu only, the chart shows one every month in November through and including March, then one more in April, one more in May, and two in June.
And Pneumonia deaths exceed Covid deaths in 0-17 year olds from your period of November 2020-March 2021 as well.
Finally, the 147 0-17 Covid deaths over the November-March flu season would be fewer deaths than the typical flu season, IIRC.
children and young, healthy people were hit particularly hard because (the theory goes) older people had been through previous flu epidemics in the late 19th century and had some immunity.
Imagine if there was an effective vaccine like the ones we've seen for Covid-19. I bet the currently vaccine-hesitant would be banging down the doors to get the shots, with the exception of the nutty anti-vaxxers who are against all vaccines.
It's obviously a very lucky and very good thing that child deaths are very low. But it also means is that too many people take a cavalier attitude about it.
need analysis of the risk/benefit.
It's obviously not reasonable to outlaw kids riding in cars. Just like I'd say it's not reasonable that the response to COVID at this point is to shutdown schools.
But how many deaths is a reasonable tradeoff when the things we're talking about is masks and mandatory vaccination? I'm going to go on record to say it's as close to zero as you can get.
This isn't even wading into the idea that COVID outbreaks in schools are going to disrupt the year, and potentially shutdown classrooms, even if they don't result in death. Those that have been forcefully talking about in-person school should actually be arguing for masking and mandatory vaccination as a method to avoid said disruptions. It's almost like they're more interested in school board kabuki theater, and not the actual issue of keeping kids in school.
There needs to be a risk/benefit analysis as you noted. I don't know that I agree the relative weight that tradeoffs are scored by you. but the point is there are tradeoffs.
We could eliminate almost 33,000 deaths (all ages) by just making all cars have a governed maximum speed of 25 MPH. Is people being in a rush a reasonable tradeoff for 33,000 deaths? We as a society have actually decided it is. (And actually much more death was ok as a tradeoff in the past.)
But my point was just to state this "zero risk" mentality is a really bad way to think.
Proof of vaccination should be required in schools. Those under 12 should be masked. If you choose not to be vaccinated, masks should be mandatory with surveillance testing. If you don't want to do that, then a hybrid option should be provided.
EDIT: And I would also say that I don't get it when people say "only" 300 kids died of COVID. Can someone give me the acceptable number of child deaths that balances out asking kids to mask and others to provide proof of vaccination? 50? 100? 200? 1000? Because that number isn't going to stay static at 300 if we decide on the "hold my beer" approach. That doesn't even factor in the other risks that you bring up.
It dovetails with my post below. Sure, the chance of "my" kid dying is low. But get enough childhood infections, and someone will.
It seems as though your answer is zero, which feels like one of the underlying concerns (another being the risks to children being used to justify shutting down schools again, an absolutely unacceptable resolution at all levels). If zero childhood COVID deaths is the only scenario wherein masks can be discarded, we will be masking until the end of time. Maybe that's okay, but that's what's implied.
I agree it's not going to be zero, but I think it's backwards to suggest the burden should be on people supporting masks to show they might prevent "enough" deaths.
I mean, based on the fact that 350 (at least) died with many schools shut down or using masks/distancing, the number won't be zero. So the question is what kind of increase (plus general disruptions to clarrooms if there are outbreaks) is everyone willing to tolerate to not have to wear them. Ultimately, the problem is that you don't get a do-over.
And it's not forever. It's until vaccines are approved for 2+, which should hopefully be by early next year.
gone that route from the get-go and is doing relatively well.
Sweden 1,451 deaths per million
Norway 145 deaths per million
Finland 178 deaths per million
...risk in alternative situations, something financial people model for clients all the time, but an idea that seems all too gut-level/hunch-involved among the general public.
Example: I place a "cost" of 100 units on getting a delta headache. The odds of getting it might be 50%--just my guesstimate in this hypothetical. So the expected value is 50 units of cost.
I place a "cost" of 100,000 units on being hospitalized with COVID. I mean, isn't that like a thousand times worse than a headache? The positivity rate among unvaccinated people in my area, say, is 5%. Would I be hospitalized if infected as an unvaccinated person? Who knows. Maybe a 5% chance of that. The expected value of this scenario is 100,000 x 5% x 5% = 250. Call it a 2% chance--now the cost is 100, still higher than the headache cost. You'd have to be confident that even if you contracted Covid, you'd have less than 1 chance in a hundred of needing to be hospitalized. Remember that scene in Dirty Harry where Harry asks, "Do ya feel lucky?" Get the shot.
Now, the inputs can make a big difference, but my point is that people don't even get close to approaching it this way. It doesn't even have to be quantified, just dichotomized--"What would you fear more, a headache from the shot or getting a breathing tube at the hospital?"
I think the plethora of scare stories might be having an effect, since they are implicitly advancing the dichotomy. They are true stories, but clearly publicized in order to have an effect on the unvaccinated akin to the intended effect of the bloody car-crash movies and slides shown to us as teens and 20-somethings back in the day (in lieu of a ticket, or to get a ticket expunged from your record).
And civics. And economics. And finance.
What we don't teach anymore (or at least was heavily deemphasized) is geography, cursive (go ahead and let me rant on it) and logic.
What we don't do is demand an hour of physical training to even gain entrance to the building.
We should start doing that after everybody gets vaccinated.
We should also add a course called "how to determine whether or not your internet source is bullshit." I'll leave it to the higher pay grades to come up with a better name for that class.
An increasingly important skill set.
"Mass Media and Bias" or some variation of that. I can't remember if it was my actual English one semester, or an elective. A diocesan Catholic high school.
Granted, this was 1998 before social media, but the principles would still apply.
on not being shamelessly self-interested.
From the beginning, a sub-segment has been focused only on how the pandemic affects them personally. How many times have we heard discussions about how vaccinations, masks, etc. protect not just an individual but those around them?
The problem is that the cost can be magnified. Sure, the cost of a delta headache for one person might be 100 units. But what's the societal cost if that person continues the chain of transmission. They didn't die, so no skin of their back, but what if someone downstream dies? Or, as others have mentioned in this thread, what if their behavior leads to hospitalizations which amplify the pressure on the healthcare system?
The calculus frequently boils down to "Well, if I get sick I won't die, so it doesn't matter what I do. It's up to me to decide my risk tolerance." While that may be true, it's different when decisions about your individual risk tolerance negatively influence others. Even if you could explain risk in alternative situations, I think we'd still fall short in having people appreciate risk that extends beyond the individual.
Using the same weights/math, but accounting for age…
A 65-74 year old has 6x and 95(!)x chance of hospitalization and death, respectively, as a 18-29 year old. So the result could be the young foregoing vaccination (at least for now). The young have an increased chance of symptoms from vaccination and a markedly decreased chance of Covid severe outcomes.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/investigations-discovery/hospitalization-death-by-age.html
Waaaayyyy back when I was young, I sure did.
Which is why mandates are necessary whether they like it or not.
If you want to go into bars and restaurants, indoor concerts, movies, and all that fun stuff, get your shots or you can't come in.
Unfortunately Biden can't do what Emanuel Macron did in France, but businesses can just like they did with smoking, and I hope they will.
Do you have some kind of documented proof?
No one's going to believe that just because you say so.
And this quote didn't originate from me:
"It feels a bit like being asked to drive 25mph on the highway to help ensure the people choosing to drive drunk have the best chance of making it home safely."
I personally have absolutely had it with the anti-vax excuses, or the "gee, maybe I'll get around to it sometime, because I'm young and invincible" blah, blah, blah, and I'm certainly not alone.
It has got to become socially unacceptable not to be vaccinated, similar to the change in attitudes on smoking indoors. Because, when you think about it, it's practically the same thing.
I absolutely can't stand wearing masks, or talking to people wearing masks, but obviously it was a necessity. But now 8 months into the vaccinations and that anyone can walk in and get the shots, I'm supposed to put them on to protect people like this? People who don't want to protect others by just getting the damn shots?
It's absolute insanity and we need to stop indulging it. On CBS This Morning today there was a New York restauranteur who said in his restaurants, anyone 18 or older must show proof of vaccination or they don't get to eat inside. This same restauranteur banned smoking in his restaurants back in the 90's 10 years before NYC did, to protect his workers restaurants. He said his business didn't suffer then and he doesn't expect it to now, especially after having to close them for months last year.
May his tribe increase.
Sounds like Shirk brothers.
Sounds like... Well, I probably shouldn't finish that thought.
wrong? Nah...
It's about you continuing to be wrong in the same way for the past 15 months with absolutely no humility or acknowledgement that you've been consistently wrong.
I do not think it goes to 0, or even 20%, but there does seem to be some who are finally getting the message. Vaccinations are up over the last week. I guess better late than never though I still blame these people for not doing this months ago. Would have saved alot of the delta headache we are going thru now.
The U.S. administered more than 700,000 shots for four days in a row this week, White House chief of staff Ron Klein said on Twitter. About 3 million people received their first dose of a coronavirus vaccine over the past seven days.
Klain said more adults are getting their first vaccine dose than at “any time in the past 8-10 weeks” and that rise is “particularly strong” in areas that have been hit hard by the delta variant.
program being given out.
Ridiculous that people need to be bribed by Wal Mart gift cards, but whatever works I suppose.
I understand blaming the unvaccinated collectively, but these people who have decided in the last week to get vaccinated have not had C19, or at least not the Delta, and ergo cannot have contributed to any "delta headache".
In fact, they're taking steps to reduce that headache in the coming weeks by not becoming tinder for the burning.
... (which, as noted below, cannot or at least will not be determined for hardly any of them), then it's pure luck that they haven't. They were engaged in the same petulant, selfish behavior as the willingly-unvaccinated people who did catch it and transmit it. Yes, you got lucky, and yes, it's good that you're finally knuckling under, and yes, you can have a shot now, and now go home and sit in the corner and think about what you've done.
"Yeah, we know you've finally gotten off the fence and you're doing the right thing, but you still suck and we still will shame you."
"You have knuckled under now that the consequences of your childish behavior have been made clear to you by the fresh graves of other Americans who were doing the same stupid thing.
But I know you need your feelings to be taken care of, because if there's one thing that a proud freedom-loving American can't handle, it's regret. So good job getting your shot, champ. You sure were a brave boy, and don't you worry yourself one little bit about your dead neighbors. They're all gone now, and you don't suck."
God forbid we abandon any chance to look down on our neighbors.
I, OTOH, convinced one of my non-vaxing friends to get their first shot Saturday. That makes five of them in the last two months. I found that patience and a distinct lack of smarmy self-righteousness went a very long way to getting the job done. Which, after all, is the point.
May not do much to the numerator, but it's better than nothing.
Most effective when persuading your friends?
Give me a fire team of Marines we’ll have this fixed in a month.
Let me choose those Marines myself it’ll be a couple weeks
Hasn't the belief been that asymptomatic people would never know they had covid unless it was through contact tracing?
So if one asymptomatic person passes it on to another at like a restaurant, you're not going to get a test unless you get a call from the contact tracers.
by the summer (outside the few who cant get vaccinated that have been described here before). Yes, its great they Finally are getting vaccinated, but if they had done so in the spring the delta variant would not have as many hosts to invade and you wouldnt see the large amount of cases, hospitalizations, and soon deaths, we are seeing now. Which is therefore causing various governments to start a new wave of restrictions and mandates which thus creates the "headache" for the vaccinated people.
They are taking the steps to help reduce the headache now, sure, but alot of the damage we are dealing with now is already done. And alot of these procrastinators (if that is their excuse) are too late to the party as we have seen many asking for the vaccine while in the hospital from covid. That too little too late attitude not just affects them personally, but affects their families, the doctors and nurses who have to deal with them as patients, and eventually vaccinated people as well (though clearly not at the level of the first two groups).
Some of the spike in Covid in the past two weeks is attributed to people who have had the vaccine.
but even so, they are not, as far as I can tell, leading the inc. in hospitalizations, which is the most important part
From the link:
"In July 2021, following multiple large public events in a Barnstable County, Massachusetts, town, 469 COVID-19 cases were identified among Massachusetts residents who had traveled to the town during July 3–17; 346 (74%) occurred in fully vaccinated persons. Testing identified the Delta variant in 90% of specimens from 133 patients. Cycle threshold values were similar among specimens from patients who were fully vaccinated and those who were not."
Does this suggest the chances of a "breakthrough" infection being much higher than the numbers I've seen to date (which range from 0.1% to 3%)?
Hint: It was sex. Don’t have sex with and French kiss a Covid positive person. It apparently results in a very high viral load.
the next studies people will go apeshit over.
I was there for the 4th about 10 years ago. Definitely didn't see uh, that kind of party, more bourbon-street-esque.
It also makes me wonder the % of vaccinated people for whom efficacy is low. Probably not a ton, but a reminder that it's about the denominator more than anything.
turn around on indoor masking by the CDC last week. Though you would have to ignore the CDC's initial power point relying on a rejected Indian viral load study that was based on a vaccine that isn't available in the US.
We had been told that wasn’t true before, it’s not the fact that they got sick, it’s the fact that after they did there was evidence the viral load in their nares was the exact same as a non vaccinated person. The masks only have to go on when spread is high or substantial, unfortunately currently that’s 80% of this country.
Has the CDC ever released any data on those thresholds or were the numbers just plucked out of thin air?
Do those definitions which are based on case counts matter anymore? Now that we have 3 approved vaccines that are widely available and there has been a de-linkage between the old math of cases - hospitalizations - deaths why have are we still looking at cases. The percent of hospitalizations per case has gone way down.
Low Transmission: <10 per 100k cases in the past week and <5% positive test results in the past week
Moderate: 10-49 cases per 100k or 5-7.99% positive
Substantial: 50-99 cases per 100k or 8-9.99% positive
High: >100 cases per 100k or >10% positivity
I know what the categories are. How did they pick those case counts as the definition for low, moderate, high substantial. Have they shown the reasoning behind that?
And last fall/winter case counts meant something different than they do today. We should be looking at hospitalizations, not cases. And if you still want to use cases (since they are a leading indicator) using the same numbers are last year is makes no sense since the percent of hospitalizations to cases has gone way down with the vaccines.
with vaccines"?
The 7 day average of new cases peaked on January 7 at about 260,000 per day. The 7 day average of hospitalizations on January 11 at about 140,000.
Yesterday the 7 day average of new cases as about 80,000 and the 7 day average of hospitalizations was about 45,000.
Now vs January
Two questions: (a) where do the numbers to back up the claim above come from?
and (b) why would we even expect it to be so since the preponderance of current cases and hospitalizations are among the non-vaccinated?
I was relying on the data from the UK in my mind and the local NY data - hadn't checked the national data in a week or so.
Deaths are still way down because the most vulnerable group at 65+ is heavily vaccinated. Let's hope it stays that way as the cases peak in the next couple of weeks.
The vax/non-vax cohorts are not the same, specifically by age. The older who were far more likely to have serious cases are much more likely to be vaxed. So the pool of non-vaxed people skews younger which inherently will have a much lower hospitalization/cases rate, just like if we compared a group of young professionals to senior citizens.
Obviously not 1-to-1 but the unvaccinated are mostly not elderly.
when we match the peak in new cases with the (presumably) later peak in deaths.
Hospitalizations may be more correlated with obesity, etc. which may be more prevalent among the unvaccinated than they are in the population as a whole. Any theoretical break in the relationship is certainly not evident in the data so far.
I assume that is a factor of vaccination rates and ages (UK vaccination rate is 75%+ for all age groups 40 yrs +).
Repeating my post from last week:
UK heavily vaccinated as well. July cases peak hit 80% of the January surge peak (7 day average cases of 46,837 in June vs 59,417 in January).
However, deaths (still rising) seem to be on pace to be less than 10% of the January surge peak (deaths are still trending up, the 8 days after the July cases peak the 7 day average death number is 71 vs 1,121 average 8 days after the January cases peak).
Vaccines may not be able to eliminate positive tests. But they do seem to be effective at minimizing hospitalizations and deaths among the vulnerable.
The majority of the vulnerable are easily identified by age. Protecting the vulnerable from hospitalization and death is an achievable goal and can be accomplished by vaccinating the vulnerable.
Looks like hospitalizations are peaking now. Cases are falling almost as quickly as they rose.
The Dutch recently caught up to the UK in the vaccination program.
based on the state's vaccinated/unvaccinated demographics for expected hospitalizations and deaths when the delta variant surge hits a state to help state hospital systems plan.
For example, Israel is continuing to struggle with delta. My guess is that the vaxxed/unvaxxed communities don't mix all that much due to religious differences, while in the NL and other parts of Europe (Portugal is showing a similar pattern) the headline vaxxed number is more realistic for the population as a whole.
My sense is that the US is more like Israel in that some of the unvaxxed communities are isolated enclaves by choice.
and there is also the question if the relationship of "cases" (as in positive test result) actually has the same relationship to actual infections in the community, as anecdotally (but many anecdotes) it seems people aren't getting covid tests for every little cough like we were back in the winter and spring.
and people who are vaccinated aren't getting tested for every sniffle like you said.
So the positive number of tests is surely not catching all the cases.
Trying to use them to trigger mitigation measures would be closing the door after the horse has left the barn.
since the linkage between cases leading to hospitalizations has been dramatically changed.
I guess we can extrapolate from the UK, but I'm not sure what numbers you're asking them to use.
We tied closing schools and businesses to them.
I’m sure there’s a good reason for these levels, and no they aren’t new and have been on the website for months.
I would like to see the rationale behind them. I can't find it on the CDC's site.
The numbers should be updated to reflect the current situation with vaccines in play
...I don't see how the data would change.
If you want to say that unvaccinated need to wear masks at those thresholds have at it, doesn't make sense for vaccinated folks.
And I quote " It was sex. Don’t have sex with and French kiss a Covid positive person." On July 1st, the 7 day moving average of cases in all of Massachusetts was 61. So all of Massachusetts much less P-Town was not in the high or substantial high part of the country back on July 4th - so in other words under the nonsense CDC guidelines they wouldn't have had to wear masks anyway.
But, that calls out questionable behavior in specific demographic that might partake in riskier behavior than others. Just better to force everyone to wear masks inside and not delineate the two issues.
ability of vaccinated people to transmit that led to the change in recommendations:
“This finding is concerning and was a pivotal discovery leading to CDC’s updated mask recommendation,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said in a statement released on Friday. “The masking recommendation was updated to ensure the vaccinated public would not unknowingly transmit virus to others, including their unvaccinated or immunocompromised loved ones.”
Why we vaccinated people don’t have to worry about vaccine escape is because the reason so many vaccinated people got sick was they engaged in the riskiest activity known. The OP was concerned about what this meant for them, my first post was soothing their fear.
My reply to your post stands though, no matter how you get it, if you get it, your as infectious as a non vaxxed individual. Remember the whole my mask protects you thing? We need to protect the vulnerable (children, immunosuppressed people, not antivaxxers) from the disease. When there is such a high amount of community spread their is a higher chance of a vaxxed person getting Covid (it’s 10x less but it’s not zero) that’s why the mask thing is in place.
--no matter how you get it, if you get it, your as infectious as a non vaxxed individual--
That hasn't been established. What has been established is that a rejected study comparing the viral loads in India showing comparable viral loads for those that have been vaccinated with vaccine that isn't available in the US (Sinovac?) is comparable to a nonvaccinated. Viral load while important doesn't establish the total story on infectiousness. Typically, viral load is used to monitor therapy/recovery and doesn't expressly provide infectiousness ability.
--Remember the whole my mask protects you thing? --
And? All that does is create the basis for several arguments
1) Why should I get vaccinated if I have to wear a mask if I am vaccinated. This gets to the off ramp from the original poster's question.
2) It creates the argument that every time a variant comes along we are going to mask up. Because if you look out in the internet there is talk of Gamma from South America. Sorry, but society isn't going to live like that even though you as an individual might.
--We need to protect the vulnerable (children, immunosuppressed people, not antivaxxers) from the disease
Children have not been an issue since the beginning and continue to not be an issue. As for immunosuppressed, we didn't think about it prior to 3/20 and we shouldn't now. Seems harsh but society is bigger than a very small segment. Sometimes you need to take your own precautions because I am generally not under a duty to protect you.
--When there is such a high amount of community spread their is a higher chance of a vaxxed person getting Covid (it’s 10x less but it’s not zero) that’s why the mask thing is in place.--
And, as I said before, this wasn't an issue in early July when events were conspiring in P-town and there wasn't a high amount of community spread so there wouldn't have been any such recommendations at that point anyway. Otherwise, your argument is we should always wear masks - regardless if there is no evidentiary support to masks actually working to do what you think masks do.
If you want to wear a mask, social distance and not generally partake in life, have at it. But, most people aren't going to agree to those position.
But, seriously, what is your off-ramp?
It’s simple, you don’t need a mask unless the spread in your area is high or substantial. This peak is going to crest and fall back to those levels in about 4-6 weeks max. Then you can take the mask off.
a reliable metric of determining severity. As Mintirish noted above WRT to the CDC numbers related to "high or substantial" there are issues with that.
First, there is no evidentiary backing as to why those were picked. What if they should be lower?
Second, it doesn't take into account testing numbers. More tests, more cases.
Third, as it was originally stated way back 500+ days ago that we are doing all this to prevent overwhelming our hospitals. There has been a decoupling of cases from hospitalizations and deaths.
Lastly, said standard wouldn't have stopped the outbreak generated in P-town that was basis for the White House deciding they wanted to change the policies. As you stated above "It was sex. Don’t have sex with and French kiss a Covid positive person."
At least for hospitalizations. Since the majority of the cases are amongst the unvaccinated, this makes sense.
Do you have data that shows otherwise?
but here you go.
Cases link from Worldmeters - https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/uk/
Now, look at the two peaks - the winter UK peak and the peak from late July. Top end for July cases was just under 50K daily cases. Top end for winter was 67K.
Now, look at hospitalizations.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/uk-daily-covid-admissions
In the winter top end of hospitalizations was about 3700. Top end of hospitalizations in July was 739 and it is already going down.
Some of it is likely due to the type of patient going into the hospital. Less elderly being ineffected.
Some kinda swingers thing was a super-spreader event?
I think he correctly points to packed clubs…not sex. One infected person in a poorly ventilated bar, restaurant or club can potentially infect hundreds.
“ Is Provincetown our future? Count me skeptical. In Fourth of July week, the town was completely swamped this year, followed swiftly by Bear Week; lines for the bars lasted for blocks; the bars themselves were packed; the weather was dreadful, forcing most of the crowd to pack tightly inside. A tiny town built for a few thousand residents has to absorb up to 40,000 in peak season. One bar in particular — the home for a dance party with the inspired name of “Fag Bash” — resembles a kind of dank dungeon where sweat drips from the ceiling and mold reaches up the walls. It might have been designed for viral transmission. A big swathe of the crowd had also just come from a week of Pride partying in New York City and were likely not, shall we say, at their immunological best. It was a muggy, viral heaven in a classic post-plague burst of bacchanalia. I’m way too old for that kind of thing these days, and don’t like crowds, and so stayed away, finishing the audio version of my forthcoming essay collection. Good call, it turns out.”
This is where I repeat that too little has been done on HVAC controls.
Per Twitter.
If the health care system can handle the burn through, then there is no reason to go back to restrictions; if the health care system is in danger of being overwhelmed, then we need restrictions.
Is imposing a mask mandate in public places going to have a meaningful effect on cases?
My understanding, and perhaps I'm badly mistaken, is that the virus spreads primarily from close, extended personal contact, as opposed to a chance encounter with someone in, say, the grocery store. Even assuming that cloth masks are effective in blocking particles, it seems like a stretch to assume that a mask mandate will work to alleviate the burden on the health care system.
original strains. I'm not saying people are spreading it when walking past each other, but there are a lot of interactions between that and the "close, extended personal contact" that are likely to be the purpose of the masks to try to address.
But the guidance has been very consistent and nearly unanimous from those experts this whole pandemic: masks and social distancing work. Anecdotally, I haven't had even a cold in the last nearly 18 months, so my own personal experience suggests that masks and distancing are effective at keeping people from getting sick.
Given that the delta variant appears to be even more contagious, I don't know why the guidance would change now if it turns out steps are needed to reduce the strain on the health care system.
Locally at least, we seem to have people who want to eliminate all risk. Couple that with self-appointed "experts" who read 3 articles and a high propensity for pseudo-medicine culture, there's a lot of "be afraid" (without context) as a way of life going around.
While they're not nearly as frustrating as the deniers, they add a lot of frustration to the mix.
While strain on the healthcare system is certainly an important factor (and I would argue it's the single most important factor) in considering restrictions, I also think we have a moral obligation to take reasonable steps to help stop the spread where possible. Obviously, the toughest part of that sentence is disagreement over where the line is for "reasonable," but I think there is room for some pepole to think we need to go a step further than making sure we don't overwhelm the healthcare system.
I have very little issue with people who would like to see some restrictions kept in place longer or mask mandates being put back in place because I think their hearts are in the right place.
I don't feel personally offended if someone wants me to wear a mask again -it's near zero opportunity cost. Even back when they announced the end of restrictions I didn't begrudge anyone who still wanted to wear one, or the fact that people still chose not to go out to events. Doing more than the minimum is different than people not doing the bare minimum. Plus, on an individual level, my parents not wanting to dine out isn't going to sink the restaurant industry, vs the restaurant being forced to 25% capacity.
Where it gets frustrating is when (non-expert) people project this into what other people should be doing. People such as Fauci, CDC, etc are sources of authority and expertise, and if they say to do it, do it. You don't have to like it, of course, but I trust that the thousands of hours and years of research are going to be right more often than any individual.
Some person on reddit who claims authority because they helped people find vaccines 6 months ago can absolutely go their own way for themselves, but can back right off when telling me what is "right".
It's true, they're not actively causing changes in my life, but they're taking a mental health toll. I just had a friend cancel on me for our (outside) bike pedal event because "sick people breathing hard, delta". I respect his decision but I dislike the fear that influenced him (he loves twitter).
I agree with everything you wrote.
"The Texas Department of State Health Services reported just seven ICU beds on Sunday in Trauma Service Area O that's putting a strain on hospitals."
"Those (7) ICU beds are the total currently available for 11 counties with over 2.3 million residents."
--Adler said hospitals are also seeing a staff shortage which could be causing the lack of ICU beds available. --
So COVID might be a reason but staffing is a reason too. There are ways to fix staffing but hospitals don't like to bring in contract staff unless they absolutely have to do. They will of course do that but it is cheaper to lament the issue in the press.
I’m only half-joking. I don’t have any sympathy or compassion for some MAGA idiot who is taking up valuable hospital resources and hurting our medical system because they aren’t vaccinated.
Almost every conservative I know who believe in MAGA and are not idiots, have been vaccinated.
There are idiots on both sides of the political spectrum
went 75% for Biden in November. Here is an article from the local blog post from last week breaking down vaccination rates. And it is sort of interesting that Black and White demographics have a comparable vaccination rate. One of the reason I suspect is that a large percentage of the white population falls into that post-college living along the Orange line and doesn't feel the need or urgency to get vaccinated.
That fits no matter their political inclinations, otherwise I agree with your argument with the caveat that others have pointed out - don't want to overwhelm the health system
on the left who are anti vax as well, the larger percentage still sits on the right side of the political spectrum
See figure 1 of attached link.
Obviously these numbers could be changing with the recent bump up in vaccinations.
36% of african americans are vaxed, and 41% of hispanics.
RFK Jr. is the grand poobah of the anti vax movement.
but lets not get political.
But regardless, the FDA needs to get all-ages approval going ASAP.
Even though the Delta variant doesn't always lead to serious outcomes in children (although it actually HAS shown to lead to a higher rate of serious issues and hospitalizations in children) doesn't mean I want my child exposed to it.
If billy-bob and ruby-sue from bumblefuck AL,MO,LA have to mask up to protect my child because they CHOSE to forgo a free vaccine then too fucking bad. Suck it up princess.
... I'm not directing this diatribe at you specifically, just the general selfishness of this country.
How long? Didn’t the Spanish flu last a couple of years?
So maybe there are some boosters for those vaccinated. And the unvaccinated will have worse recovery rates vs the vaccinated.
Because it leads to more sickness, more death, and more community spread. At some point we need to seriously use the tools at our disposal to reduce community spread down to a manageable number. We then need to implement enough contact tracing for people to actually make the right personal decisions off good info.
This summer didn’t have to happen. We didn’t have to declare victory over masks as if they were the enemy. If we focused our efforts on stopping the virus and not stopping restrictions - none of this had to happen. (Alternatively we could have made it to 90-95% vaccine adoption and stopped it too)
We screwed up - and now we’re going to need more restrictions - because it’s fairly clear that 90+% immunity will not be permanent and if we have a virus present in 1% of the U.S. population on any given day…it will never, ever, go away. A pandemic that lasts 20 years will end up with a lot more deaths than one that lasts 1 or 2.
even with high vaccination rates, it will at least be endemic.
And to your overall point, I don’t disagree, really, but as you allude to, there is basically no shot that this pandemic ever goes away based on a number of factors. So how long are we meant to do this whack-a-mole game considering Covid is likely going to exist forever? I know in a perfect world we would have a 100% vaccination rate but at this point even 80% looks like a pipe dream.
...We've been applying new therapies, as they've been approved, for decade after decade after decade. Gradually, though not in a straight line, we've improved therapeutic approaches to cancer and heart disease, but they are still significant killers.
I'd say that if trying to address a disease with one, then another, and then another and another and another approach is "whack-a-mole," then modern medicine has been whacking moles for a long, long time, and I don't see a better system unless God, or the supervising aliens, come down and give us the perfect answers.
Now, if by "whack-a-mole" you are strictly referring to the public health approaches that involve distancing and masking (and perhaps even a return to shutdowns), that's a harder one to pin down, because we generally haven't had to enact these measures in anyone's lifetime. I'm 66 and sure don't recall anything like this. But if the boat you're in keeps springing leaks, sometimes you just have to keep bailing.