12-30-2021, 09:00 PM
(This post was last modified: 12-30-2021, 09:03 PM by mordant.)
Coronavirus spreads. But don't panic! (topical thread)
Coronavirus spreads. But don't panic! (topical thread)
I'm seeing a new trend around the Internet in the past week, various essays and posts and interviews on the general theme of "when is this ever going to ennnnnnd ..." and "caution is killing us" (no, Covid is killing us, 5.4 million people so far, so caution is a necessary response).
It is clear that the public is getting tired of this, I have seen it even among non-denialists. Friends of ours wanted to have a Christmas brunch until Cornell went to code red a couple of weeks ago, canceling all student activities and ordering them home for Christmas as soon as their last final was done. Their daughter attends Cornell and would not come home after finals; she was going to finish a class project with friends. "Stop ordering me around, Mom". Their other daughter, a front line worker, now has Covid. Brunch cancelled ... we weren't going to go anyway. They still flew to Florida to visit her mother, though, minus the sick daughter. And these are fairly intelligent people.
It is also clear that our corporate overloads are getting really impatient to get past this too. One reason the CDC shortened the quaranteen requirement from 10 to 5 days is because the CEO of Delta Airlines (probably among others) requested it. What's next, you can lick the hand rail on a subway car if no one has touched it for 5 minutes?
According to one Harvard Medical School doctor, it's a myth and wishful thinking that viruses typically mutate into less virulent forms. Also Covid can indiscriminately exchange genetic material with quite a range of organisms. What if it just combines with MERS or SARS, something with a 40% death rate? That'd be fun. It's a game of Russian Roulette we are currently choosing to play, though.
Can't find the reference ATM but one expert I read about said the only way to really stop this madness is a hard global lockdown lasting not less than 2 weeks and preferably 4, to stop the advance in its tracks, during which time we vax the shit out of every man, woman and child that we possibly can, and continue that aggressive program from there.
Obviously, that's not going to happen, so ... instead it's just going to be this same thing year after year, another new variant or three, mainly because we won't release the IP and/or ship doses to poorer countries in sufficient numbers, where it keeps reorganizing its genes and coming right back at us.
It is clear that the public is getting tired of this, I have seen it even among non-denialists. Friends of ours wanted to have a Christmas brunch until Cornell went to code red a couple of weeks ago, canceling all student activities and ordering them home for Christmas as soon as their last final was done. Their daughter attends Cornell and would not come home after finals; she was going to finish a class project with friends. "Stop ordering me around, Mom". Their other daughter, a front line worker, now has Covid. Brunch cancelled ... we weren't going to go anyway. They still flew to Florida to visit her mother, though, minus the sick daughter. And these are fairly intelligent people.
It is also clear that our corporate overloads are getting really impatient to get past this too. One reason the CDC shortened the quaranteen requirement from 10 to 5 days is because the CEO of Delta Airlines (probably among others) requested it. What's next, you can lick the hand rail on a subway car if no one has touched it for 5 minutes?
According to one Harvard Medical School doctor, it's a myth and wishful thinking that viruses typically mutate into less virulent forms. Also Covid can indiscriminately exchange genetic material with quite a range of organisms. What if it just combines with MERS or SARS, something with a 40% death rate? That'd be fun. It's a game of Russian Roulette we are currently choosing to play, though.
Can't find the reference ATM but one expert I read about said the only way to really stop this madness is a hard global lockdown lasting not less than 2 weeks and preferably 4, to stop the advance in its tracks, during which time we vax the shit out of every man, woman and child that we possibly can, and continue that aggressive program from there.
Obviously, that's not going to happen, so ... instead it's just going to be this same thing year after year, another new variant or three, mainly because we won't release the IP and/or ship doses to poorer countries in sufficient numbers, where it keeps reorganizing its genes and coming right back at us.
