[HN Gopher] Viruses that were on hiatus during Covid are back, b...
___________________________________________________________________
Viruses that were on hiatus during Covid are back, behaving in
unexpected ways
Author : r721
Score : 169 points
Date : 2022-05-30 13:54 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.statnews.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.statnews.com)
| taeric wrote:
| I am amused that folks seem to think we could eradicate so many
| widespread diseases with just masks. Keeping people away from
| each other? Sure. His long do we reasonably think we can do that?
| (Speaking as someone that lives as a hermit with kids.)
|
| Edit: it seems the best case scenario in the article is that
| these outbreaks were always there, and we are better seeing them?
| Do we expect that to hold up? Or will we start ignoring it again?
| mikhailt wrote:
| Unfortunately, there is a lot of intentional and unintentional
| misinformation going around.
|
| Mask was not meant to "eradicate" anything, that was not the
| intent. The same thing with lockdowns, it was not meant to
| eradicate anything.
|
| The original intent back in the very early stage of the
| pandemic is to slow down the pace of hospitalizations (or as
| they market it, flatting the curve); the best way to do that is
| to slow down the number of people getting sick. What were the
| best solutions?
|
| 1. Be vigilant with cleaning up and avoiding contact with sick
| folks (self)
|
| 2. Stay home if you're sick, wear masks and so on. (self)
|
| 3. Lock down when it was getting out of control. (community)
|
| Also, this can have an impact on reducing the variants by
| having less hosts to infect and to mutate but this failed, so
| we're likely to stick with COVID for a very long time like the
| cold and flu.
|
| People should still be masking up if they're sick and can't
| stay home.
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| > I am amused that folks seem to think we could eradicate so
| many widespread diseases with just masks.
|
| This is a claim that is novel to me.
|
| Masks help limit transmission. The immediate benefit is likely
| reducing transmission between an interaction of random people.
| A secondary, less supported benefit, is the reduction of viral
| load in transmissions - which can help reduce severity of an
| infection.
|
| This is not shocking when you consider the fact that surgeons
| have worn masks for a long time - with nearly the sole
| intention of reducing infection in their patients (albeit, not
| necessarily airborne infections).
|
| -----
|
| IMO, people should be more outraged that the gov't did
| seemingly little to actually increase the healthcare's system
| to accommodate COVID patients. My understanding is mask
| mandates were almost always tied to significant capacity
| restrictions in the healthcare system. The idea of wearing
| masks was to create a buffer for healthcare to catch up.
| nradov wrote:
| Surgeons have primarily worn masks and other PPE to reduce
| the risk of _bacterial_ infections in open wounds, and
| protect themselves against bodily fluids. Protecting against
| respiratory viruses is something quite different.
|
| The mask mandates implemented in most places were always
| pointless pandemic theater. Only a properly fitted (i.e.
| tightly sealed with no facial hair) N95 or equivalent does
| much to block transmission of a highly contagious respiratory
| virus. It was never realistic to get the general public to do
| that.
| maxerickson wrote:
| Who are you talking about thinking that diseases were
| eradicated by masks?
|
| Public health people talking about low incidence of diseases
| being due to pandemic isolation and masking almost certainly
| weren't implying that they were gone, more commenting that they
| were suppressed by those changes to behavior.
|
| I am kind of fascinated that there is so little call to do
| things like improve ventilation. There's some, but people
| haven't seemed to catch on that we could do things to reduce
| disease that cause ~no individual inconvenience. Or like send
| people home when they come to work with a cold, change that
| culture.
|
| For outbreaks, I doubt a few hundred cases of monkeypox
| (outside of the endemic areas) would have been such major news
| a couple years ago. It's largely an attention phenomenon. It is
| certainly something to keep an eye on, but it doesn't appear to
| be spreading uncontrollably. Democratic Republic of the Congo,
| one of the endemic areas, has more cases this year than the
| non-endemic areas.
| argonaut wrote:
| You didn't see many scientists saying this. But early on in
| the pandemic _many_ people were saying Covid would be
| completely over if everyone masked for a month, or if we
| locked down for a month, etc. I saw this a lot within my own
| network of very liberal, twenty-something peers. Some people
| still believe this, albeit probably a small minority now.
| scotty79 wrote:
| > But early on in the pandemic many people were saying
| Covid would be completely over if everyone masked for a
| month, or if we locked down for a month,
|
| It's technically true if every single person on Earth did
| this at the same time.
|
| Which is impossible, so no.
| dv_dt wrote:
| But it was over in multiple nations that did take the
| precautions seriously ... only to come back when they
| somehow were convinced to relax the recommendations.
| rsynnott wrote:
| > I am kind of fascinated that there is so little call to do
| things like improve ventilation. There's some, but people
| haven't seemed to catch on that we could do things to reduce
| disease that cause ~no individual inconvenience.
|
| Some countries are actually putting significant resources
| into this. But if you're in a country that isn't, well,
| realistically, who is going to pay for it? Public health
| experts pretty much everywhere are saying that it should be
| done (mind you, they were saying that before covid, too;
| "proper ventilation would be beneficial" is hardly a new
| idea), but the only way it happens is through state funding.
| Swizec wrote:
| > but the only way it happens is through state funding.
|
| Is it really that expensive to open a window?
|
| I remember even in the dead of winter our school would
| regularly open windows to let in some fresh air. And in the
| hot humid summers we would regularly keep open windows, no
| matter how hot it got outside, 25 kids inside would make it
| way hotter. And smellier.
| rsynnott wrote:
| So in general when people talk about improved
| ventilation, they're _mostly_ not talking about opening a
| window (impractical in many places at certain times of
| year, anyway); they're talking about some sort of
| mechanical ventilation, particularly for large buildings.
| Improving that sort of thing is expensive.
| redisman wrote:
| In (most?) building this would also mean replacing the HVAC
| system and ducts which would take months-years and close
| the building down for the maintenance period. I'm really
| not sure what the pitch is realistically.
| maxerickson wrote:
| How about systematically examining the current
| performance and likely retrofit cost of existing larger
| buildings?
|
| Then the discussion can be about a more specific cost
| (and time) estimate and include better information about
| the changes the updates would bring about.
|
| Or we could just assume it is too expensive and
| inconvenient to be worth looking into.
| jeromegv wrote:
| Even at the height of the pandemic, it was quite frustrating
| to see so little public places taking easy measures like
| keeping the doors/windows open, but focusing so much energy
| on arrows on the floor or non-sense like that.
|
| Increased ventilation even helps with concentrating in
| school, as high CO2 is not good for schooling. I used to fall
| asleep all the time while I was in school, elementary,
| secondary, university, even staring at a computer. Now that I
| work from home, I never fall asleep that way. I was clearly
| just so tired from high CO2.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| You put the arrows down once and the signs up once. Opening
| windows and doors and managing airflow is a constant
| effort. Installing better ventilation can get costly.
| Cheaper to just do the theater.
| toyg wrote:
| In my experience, that sleepiness might also be due to
| forced sleep patterns, commuting, and heavy food - things
| that you likely experienced in school but not now.
| fullstop wrote:
| > I never fall asleep that way. I was clearly just so tired
| from high CO2.
|
| I thought that Mass was just boring in elementary school.
| Perhaps there was more to it than that!
| taeric wrote:
| It is more of a local feel, honestly. Many on twitter and
| around the schools I do go to seem convinced that if the rest
| of the nation had just been as good at masking as we were,
| they would have not had it as bad. And that if we are
| diligent in the future, we wouldn't have as severe of
| outbreaks.
|
| I can't even really say they are wrong. I don't know. My
| weight would be more on our 90%ish percent vaccination rate,
| but I could see both having impact.
|
| Edit: I'm actually somewhat skeptical that ventilation will
| work as well as folks hope. Living in a place that largely
| does rely on outside air, we had just as large of outbreaks
| as anyone else. (That is, it is common to have open windows
| here. The kid's schools are even made to take advantage of
| that, if I understand it correctly.) Again, I am /not/ saying
| it is wrong. I just doubt it weighs as heavily as portrayed.
| dehrmann wrote:
| > if the rest of the nation had just been as good at
| masking as we were...
|
| I'm sure the CCP is saying that about lockdowns right now.
|
| Don't forget that fabric masks were found to be only
| marginally effective, and surgical masks are only somewhat
| effective. At this point, if you're in a mask, it should be
| at least N95 or don't bother. I'm still amused when I see
| people diligent about using masks, but not concerned enough
| to use an N95.
|
| My realization during this has been that it couldn't be
| stopped, it could only be delayed. As soon as you roll back
| restrictions, it _will_ resume spreading until ~everyone
| has immunity. There will always be jurisdictions that don
| 't care as much, so no amount of hard lockdowns work unless
| you can seal your border. There was never a window where we
| could eradicate it with vaccines because delta was already
| circulating by the time vaccine distribution had ramped up
| in April, 2021.
|
| There's a slight chance the omicron mRNA vaccines will have
| sterilizing immunity as good as the original vaccines and
| the original variant, but there's no reason to think a new
| variant won't evade the new vaccine.
|
| > And that if we are diligent in the future, we wouldn't
| have as severe of outbreaks.
|
| If you're willing to do continue restrictions indefinitely,
| sure.
| nradov wrote:
| The mRNA vaccines never provided durable sterilizing
| immunity even against the original wild type virus
| variant. That wasn't even a goal, or a primary end point
| for the clinical trials.
| maxerickson wrote:
| What is your definition of "work"?
|
| Of course better ventilation won't outright stop diseases
| from spreading, the point is that it will reduce the spread
| with reasonable cost and little downside (like another
| commenter mentions, if the existing ventilation isn't
| keeping up with CO2 concentrations, there can be other
| benefits).
| taeric wrote:
| From what I saw with our schools.... it didn't really cut
| the spread. Estimates are that the school had just as
| high of spread as elsewhere. And that is with near 100%
| vaccination of the kids in said school.
|
| I should note I'm not against trying. It seems a low
| hanging fruit to reach for. Just, evidence has shown that
| this particular disease goes for saturation fairly
| effectively.
| jeromegv wrote:
| Which evidence? You just quoted absolutely zero evidence
| beside your own personal anecdotes.
|
| It's an airborne disease. Better aeration definitely
| helps with airborne diseases, multiple studies prove it.
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17257148/
|
| But of course, COVID spreads so easily that this can
| reach the limit (especially Omicron) and in an
| environment where kids will interact together in all kind
| of ways, but this would have definitely helped a lot more
| in the first few waves (pre-omicron) without needing to
| shut down schools entirely.
| nradov wrote:
| There was never any need to shut down schools at all.
| Some countries such as Sweden left primary schools open
| throughout the pandemic (without mask mandates) and they
| did fine.
| taeric wrote:
| That does bring in an interesting case to look at to try
| and counter my point. If I am right that schools were one
| of the largest vectors of all of the other sicknesses
| that have been heavily suppressed in the past couple of
| years, than I would expect that in Sweden this
| suppression was not as pronounced.
|
| Any chance you know of where to look for that data?
| taeric wrote:
| The personal evidence of my kid's schools. Three kids,
| three schools. So, yeah, small N.
|
| I'm confused on the particular study you picked. The main
| claim for positive evidence "supports the use of
| negatively pressurized isolation rooms for patients with
| these diseases in hospitals" but it goes on to basically
| acknowledge we still need more information in larger
| environments. Specifically, in the abstract, "However,
| the lack of sufficient data on the specification and
| quantification of the minimum ventilation requirements in
| hospitals, schools and offices in relation to the spread
| of airborne infectious diseases, suggest the existence of
| a knowledge gap."
|
| I'm all for more studies. And, again, I expect and hope
| we learn more.
| Izkata wrote:
| > I am kind of fascinated that there is so little call to do
| things like improve ventilation. There's some, but people
| haven't seemed to catch on that we could do things to reduce
| disease that cause ~no individual inconvenience.
|
| People still think SARS-CoV-2 spreads by droplets, so in
| their minds things like that wouldn't do anything.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| There are also other, novel things we could do to fight
| infectious diseases that get pretty much no traction. Far-
| range UVC lights immediately come to mind. These kill viruses
| and single-celled organisms quickly while not harming humans.
| Just imagine this installed in all public, closed spaces!
| Schools, offices, restaurants, public transit all could be
| heavily reduced in how well any infectious diseases gets
| spread there. Yet, this is almost entirely absent from public
| discourse.
|
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-67211-2
| nradov wrote:
| Beware of unintended consequences. Humans evolved with
| constant exposure to pathogens. Living in overly sterile
| environments seems to be a risk factor for autoimmune
| disorders.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| I wonder if we could address this by not activating the
| lights everywhere all the time. Always on in hospitals
| and other places with vulnerable people. Only on in
| restaurants and public transit during time of increased
| thread like a pandemic or maybe flu season, since that in
| fact kills a lot of people.
| [deleted]
| ajross wrote:
| > I am amused that folks seem to think we could eradicate so
| many widespread diseases with just masks.
|
| Sorry, who "seems to think this?". I haven't seen this claim,
| or anything like it, anywhere.
|
| The point many were making was that the overwhelmingly
| successful _suppression_ of all these other diseases was clear
| proof that "masks work" to suppress disease, and by extension
| that we should wear them to effect the suppression of a much
| more dangerous pandemic. So when there's a largely uncontrolled
| pandemic happening, you should wear a mask.
|
| Now, general immunity seems to have reached a point where the
| pandemic is at least reasonably controlled without mitigation
| strategies. Covid of mid-2022 is now a worrisome endemic
| disease, comparable to (but yet rather more dangerous than) the
| worst flu seasons we've seen in the past century (since 1918).
|
| So... we can take our masks off now (most of us, admitting that
| some people have different levels of risk tolerance, etc...).
| The calculus changes because the facts on the ground have
| changed.
|
| None of that is an argument that you shouldn't have worn a mask
| in late 2020. You absolutely should have, and it remains
| horrifying to me that so many of us didn't.
| taeric wrote:
| Oddly, you are making the claim I question here. This "proof
| that masks work" is likely more just proof that not having
| kids in schools cuts a lot of spread. I really cannot
| underscore enough how much more sick you will get when you
| have kids in school than when you don't.
|
| And homeschool isn't really an answer here, sadly. It is
| fairly well documented that kids that come out of homeschool
| and finally enter a workforce or other social environment are
| at a heightened risk of sicknesses that the general populace
| just doesn't notice.
|
| Edit: I hasten to add that I agree this is not an argument
| that masks don't work. And I don't understand why some folks
| still insist on fighting not to wear them.
| superkuh wrote:
| Before we can have a debate about "masks" we have to define
| what masks are.
|
| It's undeniably clear that wearing actual respirator N95 or
| ffp2 masks that are fit to the face work in preventing
| infection and spread. That's just physics. But when most
| are only wearing a partial covering "mask" that just blocks
| spittle of course it's not going to prevent infecting or
| infection by an aerosol spread disease.
|
| The real problem with "masks" was that our governments'
| intentionally lied about the need for them at the start of
| the pandemic. The messaging never recovered from this and I
| imagine even if government health institutions stated the
| truth today, that face fit respirators are required, it'd
| just be ignored. The problem wasn't ever actual masks, it
| was people lying about them and people not wearing them.
|
| Sure, unfit "masks" might have some mitigation potential
| and it's better than wearing nothing. But masks, in the
| context of an aerosol spread infection, have to mean fit
| respirator masks.
| taeric wrote:
| I think you also need to consider direction of spread. It
| is easy to see how spread from an individual is cut with
| masks. Spread to the individual is almost certainly
| affected, but to really cut it down, you almost certainly
| need gloves and a ton of hand washing going on.
|
| But, again, I am /not/ arguing against masks. I fully
| agree that if you are sick, stay home and wear a mask
| when you do go out. My point is that much of the
| reduction is more easily explained with "stay home" than
| it was "a lot of folks were wearing masks." I further
| agree that both had an likely had an impact. But, just as
| having a more streamlined car will give you better gas
| mileage, if you are trying to make a bigger impact, you
| are almost certainly better focusing on buses than you
| are personal vehicles.
| ajross wrote:
| > This "proof that masks work" is likely more just proof
| that not having kids in schools cuts a lot of spread.
|
| It is? I mean, something worked. You think the fact that
| flu deaths dropped to essentially zero for two years was
| exclusively due to school closures? Is there any evidence
| for _that_?
|
| I'll admit to some individual dithering on the evidence for
| any given mitigation strategy. But _clearly_ , on the
| whole, societal mitigations for covid worked very well to
| control disease. You admit that much, right? People freaked
| out about school closures too. They freaked out about
| distancing. They freaked out about travel restrictions.
| (also covid-specific rules like testing requirements, and
| vaccination programs). And it was, overall, the same people
| arguing against all this stuff that was, again, _clearly
| working_ as evidenced by its effect on influenza and et.
| al.
|
| So why did people argue so hard against exactly those
| (working!) mitigation strategies?
| jdminhbg wrote:
| > You think the fact that flu deaths dropped to
| essentially zero for two years was exclusively due to
| school closures?
|
| More likely due to nursing home closures I would think.
| ajross wrote:
| Is there any evidence for _that_? This again seems like
| the kind of whataboutism designed to deflect and not
| engage.
|
| Clearly what we did worked vs. the flu. So arguments that
| "what we did" was not effective vs. covid seem prima
| facie wrong. Right?
|
| It's OK to argue at the margins about what the most
| effective strategies were, and I'm happy to engage on
| that. But almost everywhere I see this argument, it seems
| more like an attempt to paper over a historical refusal
| to accommodate any mitigation at all.
| jdminhbg wrote:
| There's exactly as much evidence for that as there is for
| any other mitigation, which is to say none because the
| CDC has spent approximately 0 dollars trying to study any
| of them seriously. We're all just guessing.
| taeric wrote:
| I did not mean my point to be that it was only school
| closures. My guess is that it was a combination of all
| items. I would just wager that school closures are the
| dominant factor.
|
| I cannot underscore enough just how sick families get by
| having their kids in schools.
|
| To your last point? I got nothing. At large, we were
| trying to make a bad situation better. The vehement
| arguing and digging in on not doing anything seems like
| it is really only going to make things worse.
|
| I will also throw under the bus that it was a single
| thing that worked. Even my "I think it was largely the
| school closures" is banking that it is one of the largest
| factors, but I don't think it was large enough that it
| alone could accomplish what we did see.
| glofish wrote:
| Alas even today there is no RCT on masks. Why?
|
| Countries and states with strict mask policies did not do
| better than those without these policies (see US States for
| an example).
|
| So do mask work?
|
| It is like a religious belief system, you would get the same
| reaction when questioning if God existed and asked
| parishioners and atheists. Everything is evidence for those
| that want to believe.
|
| Studies that claim to "prove" that masks work turn out to be
| shambolic messes - yet are published in the most selective of
| journals, see for example:
|
| _Effect size is significantly more important than
| statistical significance._
|
| http://www.argmin.net/2021/09/13/effect-size/
| maxerickson wrote:
| You say:
|
| _Studies that claim to "prove" that masks work turn out to
| be shambolic messes_
|
| Do you have a list of the 10 or 20 studies on high
| filtration masks that you found to be better than the
| others that you evaluated?
| glofish wrote:
| "Revisiting Pediatric COVID-19 Cases in Counties With and
| Without School Mask Requirements"
|
| https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=41185
| 66
|
| > We failed to establish a relationship between school
| masking and pediatric cases using the same methods but a
| larger, more nationally diverse population over a longer
| interval. Our study demonstrates that observational
| studies of interventions with small to moderate effect
| sizes are prone to bias caused by selection and omitted
| variables.
|
| If you look at the plot - there were more cases when
| masks were required!
| maxerickson wrote:
| So what? We know that well fitted masks are able to
| filter virus particles, we don't have to do a randomized
| controlled study on school children to prove it.
|
| It's weird that people arguing against masking as a
| policy intervention go after the masks rather than the
| obvious problem, which is compliance. When someone tells
| you that you have to have a mask on to be in a building
| and then pulls their mask under their nose (happened to
| me last week), the effectiveness of masking isn't being
| evaluated, it's the effectiveness of masking as a policy
| intervention that is being evaluated.
| glofish wrote:
| What do you mean "so what"?
|
| Read the paper. There were more cases per student when
| masks were required.
|
| Look at the paper and their plot when they talk about
| cases overall.
|
| We do not understand what masks do and what people do
| when masked with these silly measures. Putting on and off
| a mask cannot be good for you.
|
| The mask proponents "think" simplistically and that it
| "ought" to work. "Logically it MUST work.
|
| There is no such thing "I know it works", so no need to
| do it. Anything we "know" is because we ran solid tests
| and collected clear cut evidences many many times. None
| of which are true for masks.
| maxerickson wrote:
| So read the way you wrote your first post. This article
| talks about mask mandates (a policy), you mostly talk
| about masks.
| frenchy wrote:
| How would you ethically design an RCT on masks (as a method
| of reducing COVID-19 transmission obviously)?
| glofish wrote:
| How would you "ethically" design a vaccine study?
|
| There is your answer.
| everyone wrote:
| "during Covid" Is Covid over now?
| rossdavidh wrote:
| As 'over' as it's ever going to get.
| Sargos wrote:
| Where do you live? Everywhere I've been this year have all been
| post-Covid. The only places that still seem to be having
| problems are places with authoritarian governments.
| scotty79 wrote:
| I think it will be back in the Autumn.
| cachecrab wrote:
| The hepatitis outbreak seems to be related to strawberries [0]
|
| [0]
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/05/30/hepatitis-a...
| graeme wrote:
| Wrong kind of hepatits
| protoman3000 wrote:
| What I wish I would have read in an article written by somebody
| who "covers issues broadly related to infectious diseases,
| including outbreaks, preparedness, research, and vaccine
| development":
|
| > Could the worldwide inoculation with fairly new mRNA vaccines
| be an impacting factor in this development? "No, that is
| unlikely" says [Renowned authority in immunology], "because
| [plausible reasons]"
|
| What I instead got regarding this direction was:
|
| > (null)
|
| Don't get me wrong, I am fully vaccinated and still recommend it
| to everybody.
|
| But I do see the tendency of distrust against the new vaccination
| techniques rising in my surrounding since everybody is getting
| sick all the time now. Especially since this development didn't
| show in the first opening after the first (or second for some)
| wave before vaccinations were available for wide audiences.
|
| Please, tell them it's not the vaccines. Discuss it, convince
| them, give them the truthful impression that their choice to
| trust in science and the government was not bad. Their doubts are
| honest and it must be allowed to doubt and to demand to see
| convincing evidence. Don't write doubters off as heretics.
|
| This must be talked about and refuted.
| ouid wrote:
| If it helps you, inflation is also not caused by mRNA vaccines.
| frenchy wrote:
| You're right that this should get talked about, simply because
| it's the sort of thing that some people will wonder about. That
| said, I'm pretty sure "everybody getting sick all the time" has
| basically been the expected outcome of since about winter 2020
| or earlier.
|
| After the lockdowns where started, rates of non-covid-19
| respiratory diseses dropped, and the flu in particular was a
| lot less common, dispite a poor flu vaccine and uptake. Ever
| since the winter of 2020, the doctors in my country have been
| warning us that the flus could be particularly nasty as people
| stopped social distancing/masking/etc.
| [deleted]
| zmgsabst wrote:
| I would enjoy an explanation of the rise and timing of excess
| "all cause" mortality in Australia.
|
| I'm happy not to believe this website, but I need more than
| "shut up, conspiracy theorist" to get there.
|
| https://metatron.substack.com/p/australia-begins-to-reap-wha...
| tomComb wrote:
| So we have to disprove the claims of any random blog?
| throwaway5752 wrote:
| No, please let's not raise the idea that
| metatron.substack.com's non-expert interpretation of data
| is a waste of valuable expert time!
|
| Wait, I should look at the author's (Joel Smalley) self-
| described qualifications before getting snarky:
|
| _Pro bono COVID data analysis for legal challenges and
| independent media seeking the truth (e.g. Dr Tess Lawrie 's
| letter to the MHRA - https://bit.ly/3FZxpU7 and Robert
| Kennedy's book - https://amzn.to/3nMd2mK), shared publicly
| "for the greater good"._
| https://substack.com/profile/30382446-joel-smalley
|
| Yes, it is a waste of time. A reasonable presumption is
| that people are morons or liars unless shown otherwise.
| [deleted]
| zmgsabst wrote:
| I got it: you can only make _ad hominems_ , not address
| facts about Australia's death numbers.
|
| > A reasonable presumption is that people are morons or
| liars unless shown otherwise.
|
| Is that confirmed when the only argument those people
| offer is _ad hominems_?
| [deleted]
| zmgsabst wrote:
| When that blog makes a claim based on official death data,
| yes.
|
| That's how science works:
|
| - Person A makes claim X
|
| - Person A then points to data consistent with that claim X
| and which seems to contradict claim Y
|
| - Person B who supports claim Y needs to explain how that
| data doesn't contradict claim Y
|
| In this case:
|
| Claim X -- COVID vaccines were not safe
|
| Claim Y -- COVID vaccines are safe
| soared wrote:
| That author just put a line on a time series graph and
| said the event that occurred somewhere near that line is
| the cause of the change. Thats not a claim based on
| official data, thats not even a valid attempt at
| analysis.
|
| Let me plot a time series of temperature by day. Now I'll
| draw a line where we see firework sales increase
| massively. Then after that point, temperature increases
| consistently. Science, official data, etc. No lies here.
| But now lets claim.... shooting off fireworks increases
| the temperature of the Earth causing the temperature to
| rise until the fall/winter. Now you need to expend
| resources disproving me.
| zmgsabst wrote:
| You used that example, but it's not accurate:
|
| If you excluded the reverse, that temperature caused the
| spike (as they did by showing the COVID curve didn't
| account for the excess deaths), then that would be an
| argument worth refuting.
| pronlover723 wrote:
| In a world where the virus kills and the vaccines work what
| would you expect to see otherwise? In other words, for me, if
| the vaccines work and the virus kills I'd expect to see the
| same graphs.
|
| Also, you can look at other countries and see if your theory
| holds up.
|
| Here's Australia
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/excess-mortality-raw-
| deat...
|
| Here's USA
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/excess-mortality-raw-
| deat...
|
| Here's Japan
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/excess-mortality-raw-
| deat...
|
| Here's South Korea
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/excess-mortality-raw-
| deat...
|
| Here's Taiwan
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/excess-mortality-raw-
| deat...
| [deleted]
| zmgsabst wrote:
| What am I supposed to be seeing in that data?
|
| There are strange surges in US, Aus, and Taiwan, but not in
| the other two -- but they undertook different vaccination
| campaigns.
|
| > In other words, for me, if the vaccines work and the
| virus kills I'd expect to see the same graphs.
|
| Well no -- that doesn't explain why the "all cause"
| mortality surges in Australia disconnected from the COVID
| deaths.
|
| Even if we were undercounting the COVID deaths, we'd expect
| the phase of the waves to match, which is disputed by the
| first graph on that website (which compares COVID and all
| cause mortality across all sexes/ages.)
| jah242 wrote:
| Just in case you are asking in good faith.
|
| If you look at the same data release, the excess deaths are
| almost entirely in cancer and dementia in old people (with
| the exception of a spike in diabetes at the same time as the
| spike in COVID infections likely due to it being a
| significant comorbidity).
|
| So whilst I m sure the higher excess deaths in Australia is
| difficult to explain (as there is probably a multitude of
| factors). The theory that somehow the vaccines give people
| dementia or cancer (which have not been associated with COVID
| or the vaccine) AND these usually relatively long term
| diseases go on to kill them within a 2-4 month period AND
| this only happens to old people for some reason AND other
| countries have not observed a similar pattern despite the
| vast number of vaccines given, seems highly unlikely.
|
| In addition, assuming the author is referring to the UK ONS,
| our public health body does release excess mortality
| estimates on a weekly basis - and unsurprisingly they
| correlate with the waves of COVID infections, not the
| vaccination program.
|
| https://app.powerbi.com/view?r=eyJrIjoiYmUwNmFhMjYtNGZhYS00N.
| ..
| justsee wrote:
| Interesting.
|
| An increase in dementia and cancer is exactly what
| contrarian scientists and researchers fear as potential
| long-term side-effects of breakdown of spike protein in the
| body (amyloid plaque deposits), and dysregulation of the
| immune system due to mRNA treatments (host immune system
| not fully-functioning results in ineffective disease
| suppression across the board).
|
| An emerging thesis explaining diverse pathology in post-
| covid / post-vax (let us call it post-spike exposure) is
| that breakdown of spike protein results in beta-amyloid
| plaque deposits in the body, which leads to Alzheimers,
| systemic amyloidosis, fibrogenesis.
|
| Other mainstream research is now also converging on this
| idea. [1]
|
| One of the original researchers who appears early on this
| discussed it in the last few days with one of the DRASTIC
| researchers Jay Couey: "Amyloidogenesis of the Spike
| Protein" [2]
|
| Jay has an interesting 10 minute monologue just prior to
| the interview which is also worth viewing. [3] He
| summarises the industry dogma (and why it's flawed) in a
| succint way: "Seroprevalence to an epitope is taken as a
| correlate of immunity to a pathogen on which that epitope
| is found. And if this mechanism is part of immunity, it is
| a small fraction of the total immune response..."
|
| In terms of UK all-cause mortality data, Fenton's analysis
| has been very interesting. Also interesting to see him
| suddenly cast out of respectable society once he decided
| something was very off with the statistical analysis going
| on. [4]
|
| [1]: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-05-discovery-
| mechanism-m...
|
| [2] https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1310649065?t=0h34m9s
|
| [3] https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1310649065?t=0h23m58s
|
| [4] http://www.eecs.qmul.ac.uk/~norman/papers/inconsistenci
| es_va...
| zmgsabst wrote:
| > If you look at the same data release, the excess deaths
| are almost entirely in cancer and dementia in old people
|
| This doesn't explain the correlated surge in the 45-64
| bucket, the last two charts in the link I posted.
|
| > unsurprisingly they correlate with the waves of COVID
| infections, not the vaccination program
|
| Do you have a source?
|
| What you linked takes me to some generic description of the
| dataset.
| jah242 wrote:
| > correlated surge in the 45-64 bucket, the last two
| charts in the link I posted.
|
| Correlated surge is an absurd way to describe something
| that basically fluctuates around 0 over the course of a
| year, which makes me think this definitely isn't good
| faith.
|
| > What you linked takes me to some generic description of
| the dataset.
|
| I recommend clicking the buttons on the side, it's a
| dashboard.
| kirykl wrote:
| > No, that is unlikely" says [Renowned authority in
| immunology], "because [plausible reasons]"
|
| You would like to see your preconceived conclusion in print
| without any evidence for its proof yourself ? I'd prefer
| evidence either way regardless of the conclusion
| wardedVibe wrote:
| Presumably [plausible reasons] involve things like studies
| and data.
| ODILON_SATER wrote:
| Also keep an eye on the rise of auto-immune diseases in the
| following years. Two years of lockdown will give rise to a lot
| more children developing peanut allergies, asthma, hay fever,
| diabetes type 1, etc.
| null_object wrote:
| > Two years of lockdown will give rise to a lot more children
| developing peanut allergies, asthma, hay fever, diabetes type
| 1, etc
|
| What would be the mechanism of lockdown leading to peanut
| allergy?
| IX-103 wrote:
| That would be the hygiene hypothesis
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hygiene_hypothesis), which
| says that early exposure to certain microorganisms helps
| prevent allergies.
| rpmisms wrote:
| It's common country knowledge that chewing on a little dirt
| is good for toddlers.
| mrtri wrote:
| [deleted]
| progre wrote:
| Swedish way wins again
| Marazan wrote:
| Sweden who shut down non-EU flights for 2 years?
| progre wrote:
| Who didn't close schools and daycare.
| 87982570983 wrote:
| Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think Sweden imposed any
| restrictions on flights beyond what was required by the EU.
| Marazan wrote:
| They restricted flights from outside the EU in March 2020
| and only removed those restrictions on the 1st of April
| this year.
|
| https://www.government.se/press-releases/2022/03/sweden-
| to-l....
| null_object wrote:
| > Swedish way wins again
|
| I have no idea what you're talking about. The facts totally
| contradict your comment, which is unfortunately typical of the
| way Swedes and the Swedish authorities have tried to rewrite
| the actual outcomes at every stage of the pandemic.
|
| Sweden was hit by a historically severe RS-virus wave in the
| autumn of 2021[0].
|
| Here's a deepL translation of one section of the citation
| below:
|
| "In the 2021-2022 season, Sweden has been hit by a historically
| severe epidemic. Paediatric care in several parts of the
| country has reported a strained situation. The peak of the
| spread of infection usually reaches its highest levels in
| March, but already in the summer of 2021 many cases were
| reported to the Public Health Agency."
|
| [0]https://www.sanofi.se/sv/om-oss/rs-rapporten
| graeme wrote:
| Anthony Leondardi has posited that covid reduces naive T cells
| and leaves people more vulnerable to new infections by aging the
| immune system
|
| He's been right on a lot of things. Time will tell if this
| prediction is also right. If the respiratory diseases are this
| bad next year the immunity debt theory will have to be discarded.
|
| Has China got an epidemic of respiratory viruses? Did Taiwan have
| one before they let covid rip? We have control groups we could
| investigate
| dehrmann wrote:
| > Has China got an epidemic of respiratory viruses?
|
| Have face masks seen widespread use in China before the current
| surge? If they have, China isn't a great control.
| graeme wrote:
| I've seen social media images of chinese kids in masks, but
| googling now can't seem to find any official statement or
| news article past 2020.
| carlivar wrote:
| It is RSV immunity debt that worries me. I think it's an example
| of our poor capability for risk analysis. I talk to so many
| parents here in California that are terrified of covid for their
| kids. So they still limit activities. But statistically kids have
| very, very low risk. RSV, and even flu, on the other hand are
| more dangerous for kids and any immunity debt may make that
| worse.
|
| It reminds me of how few parents realize the statistical risk of
| kids in cars versus how rare abduction is (if kid walks alone to
| school as an alternative to a car, for example). Again it is
| emotional/anecdotal thinking rather than data.
| chinathrow wrote:
| > RSV immunity debt
|
| What is this exactly supposed to mean?
|
| There is no vaccination for RSV where I live so the only way to
| get it is via child care or other contacts with toddlers.
| argonaut wrote:
| The article mentions that mothers give toddlers antibodies
| from exposure to viruses during pregnancy.
| chinathrow wrote:
| I do not understand the term "immunity debt". What is this?
| carlivar wrote:
| To quote this article, "extended periods of low exposure to a
| particular pathogen."
|
| https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4.
| ..
|
| As I understand it, just being out and about in the world
| gives an immune system (whether a baby or its family members
| indirectly) some practice.
| graeme wrote:
| But the child gets it eventually. Is RSV substantially
| worse to get at 3 vs 2?
|
| Should we be coughing on children? Lots of kids in
| countries with more ventilation have fewer respiratory
| pathogens and seem to do fine.
| carlivar wrote:
| I'm not sure about fine. Probably just undiagnosed?
| According to this, RSV kills 100k babies and kids between
| 0-5 per year. 97% of them are in low and middle income
| countries.
|
| https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS014
| 0-6...
| graeme wrote:
| Well, this paper suggests I'm wrong and that lower and
| middle income countries get more infections and more
| death.
|
| So....why again would avoiding infections be bad? The
| added infections appear to increase deaths.
| CalRobert wrote:
| The car thing is very frustrating. It's the most dangerous
| thing most parents do with their kids (myself included) but for
| the most part we're blind to it.
|
| Of course, pedestrian deaths have shot through through roof in
| the US and that makes it harder to justify walking to school.
| smt88 wrote:
| In the US, firearms are more likely to kill your child than
| car accidents are[1].
|
| 1. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2201761
| gedy wrote:
| That's teen gangs blasting each other in certain hotspots.
| Not kids accidentally being killed by firearms in average
| homes.
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| yes. Texas and Florida have the highest gun deaths in the
| country.
| pronlover723 wrote:
| Double false. First's it's not true. #1 and #2 are Texas
| and Californa
|
| Second, unless you at least divide by population the
| comparisons are meaningless. A state with 1 person in it
| is going to have less death in general than a state with
| a million people
|
| Dividing by population the top 10 are
| Mississippi Louisiana Wyoming
| Missouri Alabama Alaska New
| Mexico Arkansas South Carolina
| Tennessee
|
| Texas is 26th, Floria is 29th
|
| Source:
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/firearm_mortali
| ty/...
| kosherhurricane wrote:
| The bottom 7 are California
| Connecticut New York Rhode Island New
| Jersey Massachusetts Hawaii
|
| I wonder if the strong gun laws in California and NY, NJ
| have anything with them being at the bottom.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| I'd bet that (like damn near every other violent crime)
| it correlates stronger with income than anything else.
| mbrubeck wrote:
| To elaborate, it's around 65% homicide, 30% suicide, and
| 5% accidental or undetermined.
| orangepurple wrote:
| Compare _homicide_ rates
|
| FIGURE 8: Male Gun Death Rates by Race/Ethnicity, 2020
|
| A Year in Review: 2020 Gun Deaths in the U.S
|
| https://publichealth.jhu.edu/sites/default/files/2022-05/
| 202...
|
| Live map of Chicago: https://heyjackass.com/
|
| Scroll down and look at who the real victims are (it's
| sad)
|
| 2022 Race of Victim/Assailant
| https://heyjackass.com/?p=382
| toyg wrote:
| That last link is so upsetting. Not just because of the
| racial composition, but also because of the
| assailant/victim ratio being 25/220, which means an
| average of 11 victims per assailant.
| dotancohen wrote:
| 9, not 11. But that is still significant.
| toyg wrote:
| The loss of math abilities is probably a side effect of
| the bout of COVID I'm currently experiencing. Probably.
| concordDance wrote:
| That is just where assailant's race is known and
| recorded.
| maxerickson wrote:
| Regarding the "your", I bet vehicle collision related
| deaths are more randomly distributed than homicides and
| unintentional shootings of children (and probably firearm
| suicides too, for that matter).
| monocularvision wrote:
| If you take out 18 and 19 years old, that is no longer
| true.
|
| We have way too many firearm deaths in this country but the
| way these studies choose their age ranges always feel like
| folks are in search of the conclusion they desire.
| GenerocUsername wrote:
| CalRobert wrote:
| Firearm deaths and vehicle deaths, particularly vehicles
| killing pedestrians, both are more likely to befall poor
| people, which is correlated with certain ethnic groups in
| the US. Though a well-designed city is nearly the safest
| you can be in terms of places to walk.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| The majority of poor people in the US are white.
| macintux wrote:
| The majority of people in the US are white, so that
| statistic alone doesn't mean much.
|
| Per Statista, 1 out of every 5 black USians are living in
| poverty, more than twice the rate of whites.
|
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/200476/us-poverty-
| rate-b...
| boppo1 wrote:
| Hush! Racism will not be tolerated!
| ibejoeb wrote:
| That article also includes suicides.
| grayclhn wrote:
| Not really a discussion I particularly want to get into,
| but many people think "an increase in suicides" should be
| counted as a negative consequence of firearms.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| Regardless, from the POV of day to day risky things, none
| of this crap matters.
|
| All of these "average risks" people are slinging back and
| fourth like idiots are dominated by outliers who are
| engaged in specific behaviors that have a strong causal
| link to that means of death. Said outliers drag up the
| average making it completely unrepresentative of the
| typical person's risk.
|
| Don't drive drunk, don't pedestrian while drunk, don't
| get involved in drug industry business disputes and don't
| let mental illness go untreated and you will almost
| certainly not get killed by a car or bullet.
| godelski wrote:
| I think we can be more nuanced and discuss casual
| relationships for suicide and those for homicide and
| recognize that there are many differences. If we
| aggregate the two we will likely have bad policy and be
| inefficient at fixing either.
| refurb wrote:
| But the US has a lower suicide rate than countries with
| fewer guns?
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| Does shooting up some place count on the suicide figures,
| almost always it's going to be a decision to die (you
| might not die, but surely death of an 'active shooter' is
| the expected outcome).
| google234123 wrote:
| No but it wouldn't matter if it was
| godelski wrote:
| The US has a pretty high suicide rate, especially for
| developed countries
|
| https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-
| rankings/suicide-r...
| jayd16 wrote:
| US isn't the highest but there are certainly countries
| with lower rates.
| concordDance wrote:
| Depends if those lives were genuinely a net negative due
| to suffering.
|
| How many people suffer longer than they should due to
| lack of access to suicide? I suspect the answer is "fewer
| than commit suicide due to temporary and fixable chemical
| imbalances and an easily available gun" but the question
| should be asked and evidence gathered.
| noduerme wrote:
| As it happens, a large scale experiment is underway..
|
| https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-is-canada-
| euthanisin...
| teakettle42 wrote:
| There's no evidence of correlation or a causal link
| between guns and suicides.
|
| In countries with guns available, men use guns for
| suicide.
|
| In countries without, men use hanging.
|
| Either way, it's intentionally misleading to lump suicide
| in with murder and accidents.
| taeric wrote:
| This somewhat begs the question that there are the same
| rates of suicides in the two areas you are mentioning.
| So, no, it is not intentionally misleading, but it does
| need more data to show it is meaningful.
| teakettle42 wrote:
| > This somewhat begs the question that there are the same
| rates of suicides in the two areas you are mentioning.
|
| It's not hard to find examples; Japan has a _much_ higher
| rate of suicide. No guns.
|
| Almost universally, men use guns or hanging, depending on
| what's locally available.
|
| > So, no, it is not intentionally misleading
|
| They're juking the stats to be able to make proclamations
| like "guns are the leading cause of death for children".
|
| When most people hear that, panic bells start ringing.
| They assume this means school shootings are killing an
| incredible number of children each year. This is a
| _crisis_!
|
| People don't realize that to manufacture that number,
| activists had to extend "children" to 19 years old, and
| include "suicide".
|
| It's intentionally misleading.
|
| If only they'd dedicate the same energy to exploring why
| our educational and cultural institutions are failing
| teenagers so spectacularly that they're suiciding at
| unprecedented rates.
| glandium wrote:
| > Japan has a much higher rate of suicide.
|
| Maybe it was _much_ higher a very long time ago, but it
| has been on a downwards path for a long time. And the
| US's on an upwards path... for so long that it has
| actually past Japan. So not only is Japan's suicide rate
| not _much_ higher, but it has been, for a few years,
| slightly lower.
| taeric wrote:
| I'll grant it can be misleading. I don't think it
| necessarily is. I say this as someone that has had gun
| suicides in the family. I also have Saturday Night
| Special running through my head, now...
|
| I don't understand the fixation that counting kids as up
| to 19 and including suicide is somehow a concern. Seems
| generally alarming that people under 21 is that high for
| this statistic, period.
|
| Edit: Per https://www.nationmaster.com/country-
| info/compare/Japan/Unit... no, Japan is not much higher
| than the US. It isn't even higher. (I'm confused, do you
| have a better source?)
|
| Edit2: Ok, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countrie
| s_by_suicide_r... has it higher, but doesn't look "much"
| higher. Though, I grant that is a subjective term.
|
| Edit3: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-
| sheets/detail/suicide is an interesting source on this. I
| find it amusing that they are able to have articles that
| mention limiting access to pesticides as an effective way
| to reduce suicides, but don't look at limiting access to
| guns. It is listed in the top three methods. (Sadly, I'm
| stepping away from computer for a while now. Will be
| delighted to engage more on this later, but will probably
| be a day or so before I remember to check back here.)
| tshaddox wrote:
| Would that offer some consolation to the parent?
| mschuster91 wrote:
| _Every single child_ (and people under 18 are just that:
| _children_ ) dying because their parents couldn't be
| arsed to follow even the most basic gun safety laws is
| one too much. Toddlers shooting themselves with the gun
| that their reckless father left under the pillow? Even in
| countries with _very_ liberal attitudes to guns such as
| Switzerland don 't have that problem.
|
| Not to mention, the cutoff at age 18 is obvious because
| most people have finished education at that age - and the
| most shootings happen at high school.
| orangepurple wrote:
| This is almost universally due to gang activity and not the
| kids picking up weapons from friends and family and
| shooting themselves or others.
| laurencerowe wrote:
| > This is almost universally due to gang activity and not
| the kids picking up weapons from friends and family and
| shooting themselves or others.
|
| This doesn't seem to be accurate. Research [1] looking at
| data from a few years back (before firearms became the
| leading cause of death for children in the US) found:
|
| Firearm deaths in children were 53% homicide, 38%
| suicide, 6% unintentional.
|
| Of homicides in older children (13-17) the leading
| circumstances were argument (40%), precipitated by
| another crime (31%), and gang related (21%.)
|
| [1] https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/140/1
| /e20163...
| y-c-o-m-b wrote:
| It's a purely emotional response about what a parent can
| control. Driving the kids to school, you have some control
| over the situation; e.g. you can swerve out of the way of a
| potential accident. When they walk alone to school, there is
| nothing you can do to help them or prevent accidents from
| happening and that lack of control opens up the imagination
| to all sorts of scary things.
| danamit wrote:
| It has to do with at what percentile of wary and being good
| drivers we think we are. Also abduction is not the only
| risk for children.
|
| I believe that often than not people do the right thing, if
| it something done in mass there is a reason for it and it
| is just hard to pin point the reason.
|
| There can be social reasons for it, also we don't know if
| there is some implicit higher chances of getting abducted
| for kids who get drove to school. Like them walking to
| school will increase the chance of them abducted.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| Why can you swerve out of the way of a car, but you can't
| jump out of the way?
|
| It's EXTREMELY uncommon for cars to Grand-Theft-Auto-style
| run people down walking on the sidewalk.
|
| ~80% of pedestrian deaths happen when it's dark.
|
| There's about ~19 pedestrians that get killed by cars per
| day. Only ~4 during day time.
|
| You have a higher chance being in a random mass shooting.
| Worrying about getting killed by a car in broad daylight is
| silly.
| danenania wrote:
| It being all about control is spot on.
|
| While it's possible and maybe even likely that I overrate
| my own driving ability, I've never been in an accident in
| 20+ years and drive in a paranoid, defensive, assume-
| everyone-is-crazy style that I feel must push the
| statistics in my favor quite a bit.
|
| So despite statistics I tend to worry more about other
| things. I also have a hard time with my 3 year old
| daughter being driven by others unless I've seen their
| driving firsthand. There are people I know who I flat out
| won't allow to drive her and it has created some awkward
| situations. I will also only let her go in an Uber/taxi
| if there's no other option.
| dieselgate wrote:
| Your numbers and statements seem logical but can you
| provide any datasets to support? I'm slightly surprised a
| random mass shooting would be a higher likelihood than
| something automotive related.
| karaterobot wrote:
| I didn't check your pedestrian deaths during the daytime
| statistics, but ~4 per day would be ~1400 a year. I did
| check the number of mass shooting victims, and in 2019
| (the most recent year for which data is really
| meaningful) the total was 180 (~.5 a day), of which 71
| were deaths (~.2 a day)[1], or about 20x less likely than
| getting killed by a car during the daytime.
|
| That's pedantic, but I just wanted to clarify because
| mass shootings are also in the news.
|
| [1]https://www.statista.com/statistics/811504/mass-
| shooting-vic...
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| There's different measures for mass shootings.
|
| By some measures (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of
| _mass_shootings_in_th...) - this year there are ~1.8 per
| day.
|
| So you're about twice as likely to die.
|
| Your point stands. I overestimated.
| wardedVibe wrote:
| I tried to explain the fact that covid risk comes in many
| levels to someone I'm living with by referencing the risk we
| take on by driving, and she just immediately jumped to drunk
| driving. I guess people find it uncomfortable to live with
| the fact that there's a small but nonzero chance of dying.
| timcavel wrote:
| thraway3837 wrote:
| Lots of comments on kids getting covid and it not being lethal.
| But it's not as binary (life vs death). There are lots of
| reports of permanent lung scarring, reduced cognitive
| abilities, changes in breathing patterns, the list is long.
|
| If you can avoid these things, it's for the better.
| rco8786 wrote:
| This is the exact attitude that OP is talking about. Kids are
| at very, very, very low risk for all of those issues, and
| it's highly likely that the overprotection/overconcern from
| the exceedingly small chance of them happening is having very
| real second order effects that are net worse than covid. RSV
| in particular is way more dangerous for kids than covid. Plus
| it's a huge PITA, I had to nebulize my ~4mo old multiple
| times a day for weeks.
| nradov wrote:
| You can't avoid these things. There are lots of endemic
| respiratory viruses, including SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19). Unless
| you live as a hermit, you should expect to get exposed. It's
| better to catch those infections when we're young and our
| immune systems are most effective; the resulting cellular
| immunity then protects us as we age.
|
| https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/vinay-prasad/94646
| dv_dt wrote:
| As far as I've read, there is no effect of immunity debt. On
| the other hand, there are Covid interactions with reduction or
| destruction of certain classes of immune cells. This can have
| the effects which appear to be common viruses out of control.
| One example is the serious liver hepatitis cases with kids.
| woliveirajr wrote:
| Daycare: and then you have this:
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4100471/
|
| > Epidemiologic studies indicate that infections in early
| childhood may protect against pediatric acute lymphoblastic
| leukemia (ALL).
| choko wrote:
| Did you know that children in daycare have almost a 100% chance
| of contracting RSV within the first year of attendance (even
| pre-pandemic)?
| carlivar wrote:
| No, but that doesn't surprise me. So if daycare is
| inevitable, the child needs to go in "armed" with antibodies
| (including from the mother during pregnancy). Should pregnant
| women isolate? Does not seem like it.
|
| Our family dog probably does a good job diversifying
| antibodies as well (I think there are studies showing the
| immunity advantages certain pets provide).
| chinathrow wrote:
| > No, but that doesn't surprise me. So if daycare is
| inevitable, the child needs to go in "armed" with
| antibodies (including from the mother during pregnancy).
|
| Not sure how this works. Where to you get "armed" with
| antibodies if not from a vaccination (unavailable for some
| viruses) or prior infection? Antibodies from the mother
| vane over time as far as I recall.
| carlivar wrote:
| From the article here:
|
| "And babies born during the pandemic may have entered the
| world with few antibodies passed on by their mothers in
| the womb, because those mothers may have been sheltered
| from RSV and other respiratory pathogens during their
| pregnancies, said Hubert Niesters, a professor of
| clinical virology and molecular diagnostics at the
| University Medical Center, in Groningen, the
| Netherlands."
| graeme wrote:
| Those antibodies are transient. Baby doesn't produce them
| itself, they just protect it while nursing.
|
| Nursing ends well before preschool
| carlivar wrote:
| Daycare does not end before nursing. And I'm not so sure
| about preschool either... perhaps you haven't lived in
| some, er, "crunchier" areas.
| graeme wrote:
| I was incorrect, it isn't through nursing. The antibodies
| last about a year
|
| https://www.nhs.uk/common-health-questions/childrens-
| health/...
| treis wrote:
| There's also a bit of herd immunity for the new kids.
| Kids that have lots of prior exposure to a virus are less
| likely to bring it to daycare if they're exposed outside
| daycare. Also less likely to be a link in the infection
| chain for intra daycare spread.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| Pets. More family members. Even natural birth shows gut /
| immune positives over C Section.
| nmfisher wrote:
| I've been tussling with my wife about putting our kid into
| daycare when he's 6 months old. I feel it's way too early,
| partly due to concerns about contracting a virus (though from
| the perspective that it would cause more hassle for us,
| rather than concerns about him getting sick per se, which I
| figure is inevitable).
|
| That being said, I hadn't even thought that RSV would be a
| bigger problem due to the pandemic.
| leetrout wrote:
| Its a real concern. Kids going in to daycare will be sick a
| ton based all the anecdata.
|
| It SUCKS having to keep paying $250+ a week to keep them
| home while you or a partner are missing work on top of it.
| semi-extrinsic wrote:
| Solution: move somewhere else where workers are not
| treated as cattle by big corporations. Like, say,
| anywhere in Europe.
|
| Seriously, we pay $380 per month for childcare and _each
| parent_ gets 20 days of paid your-child-is-sick leave, on
| top of the 20 days of regular sick leave and mandatory 25
| days of holidays each year. All of the above is according
| to law and applies to everyone, whether you work in tech
| or you 're the school janitor. I have never seen a
| hospital bill above $100, and I have a chronic autoimmune
| disease. With a population larger than Alabama we have
| never had a school shooting _in the entire history of
| firearms_. I can keep going like this, but you get the
| picture.
| [deleted]
| robswc wrote:
| When the rubber hits the road, people prefer the money.
|
| You see lots of people from Europe moving to the US for a
| better life. Rare to see the opposite. Not sure which
| country you're referencing but I've looked at jobs in
| Europe (seriously too) and the salaries were honestly a
| joke. At least for SDE. $30-40k in Spain for a qualified
| SDE. Made more than that as an intern.
| google234123 wrote:
| You will get paid 1/2 to 1/8 as much as an software
| engineer in Europe.
| [deleted]
| Teever wrote:
| Is that really a solution though?
|
| Like you're advising people to just pack up and move
| across countries and continents without having any idea
| whether or not that's feasible.
|
| Are you really trying to offer a constructive solution or
| are you just trying to brag about living in Europe?
| carlivar wrote:
| It also assumes an income level where this is possible.
| Unsurprising with the tech crowd here but not at all
| generally realistic.
| nradov wrote:
| Kids are all going to catch those viruses eventually. Might
| as well get it over with.
| DANK_YACHT wrote:
| We put our kid into daycare around 7 months old. Obviously
| every kid is different, but we're happy we chose that time.
| Around 7 months, our child had developed an understanding
| that we leave and come back, but was still young enough
| that separation anxiety wasn't a problem. The kids who
| start daycare at 1 or 2 seem to really struggle. She does
| get sick all the time, but it's becoming less frequent over
| time. It's annoying at the time, but her immune system is
| getting stronger and that is a good thing in the long term.
| choko wrote:
| We had to put ours in at 6 months. About a week in, she
| caught her first cold, then it was continuous illness
| (for all of us!) of one kind or another for about 2
| months. Things have gotten much better since.
| ac2u wrote:
| >rather than concerns about him getting sick per se, which
| I figure is inevitable
|
| It _might_ be better to be exposed to immunity-challenging
| activities before a child is one year old in order to
| prevent the most common childhood leukaemia which is
| theorised to occur due to a combination of genetics and the
| lack of an immune-priming event in the first year of life.
|
| https://www.icr.ac.uk/news-archive/leading-uk-scientist-
| reve....
| gnicholas wrote:
| We put our then 2-year-old in preschool last fall. Even
| though the whole classroom was supposedly masked (toddlers
| are not great at this, though our child is actually very
| consistent), she got RSV within a couple months. It cannot be
| avoided.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| The problem with kids is, again, statistics. When you have,
| say, 5 million children and all of them get covid because that
| is what happens when a virus races on unimpeded, even a 0.1%
| severe/long term complication is 500 kids with a ruined life -
| ME/CFS is not a joke.
|
| And then you have the kids with geriatric parents. It is no
| rarity to have 10 year old kids with 60-70 years old fathers
| and 50 year old mothers these days, and both with diabetes or
| smoking-associated COPD on top of their advanced age which is
| both known to be a massive increase in risk. Or they're already
| fighting some sort of cancer. For these kids, the knowledge
| that politicians do nothing to prevent them from catching covid
| while at the same time they have to worry about their parents
| is incredibly stressful.
| taeric wrote:
| It really has been hard explaining to fellow parents that their
| unvaccinated kids are still way lower risk than they are with
| their vaccines.
|
| Edit: Leaving the original wording, but the "they are with the
| vaccines" is referring to the parents. Not the kids. I agree
| that vaccinated people are better off than unvaccinated, other
| items equal.
| Broken_Hippo wrote:
| _Edit: I have misread the comment. The poster and I agree
| fully. (Original comment follows)_
|
| This is just false. The risk of vaccines is _lesser_ than the
| risk from the diseases they prevent.
| _Microft wrote:
| I had to re-read GPs comment several times but I think they
| want to say that even unvaccinated kids are at lower risk
| than vaccinated adults.
| christophilus wrote:
| He's saying, that unvaccinated kids are at a lower risk for
| serious COVID than is a vaccinated adult. It's true as far
| as I can tell. So far, COVID has proved to be quite low on
| the list of things that kill kids. The ratio of fear to
| danger is / was way out of whack vs other things on that
| list.
| HarryHirsch wrote:
| _COVID has proved to be quite low on the list of things
| that kill kids_
|
| The leading causes of child mortality are accidents,
| homicide, suicide, cancer and congenital diseases.
| Children are not supposed to die, we are trying to
| control these factors, they won't let you take your
| newborn home from the hospital unless you show them car
| seat. There is law enforcement, counseling for parents
| and children, genetic counseling and all that.
|
| But when it comes to COVID we are told not to worry, the
| risk is low. It doesn't make sense.
| nradov wrote:
| The risk to children from COVID-19 is much lower than
| most of those other things you listed. It's basically
| just a cold for children who don't have serious co-morbid
| conditions.
| IdEntities wrote:
| The risks to children from the action necessary to
| prevent Covid infection -- namely, social isolation --
| are well understood and far higher than their risks from
| COVID itself. Vaccines and masks are being mentioned a
| lot in this thread but neither are very effective at all
| in preventing infection.
| taeric wrote:
| Apologies on the easy to misinterpret post. The "they" at
| the end was the parents, not the kids.
| Broken_Hippo wrote:
| Thanks :) Sorry about the mixup there.
| nvahalik wrote:
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Your comment still remains unclear. My interpretation, with
| major changes in (parentheses):
|
| "It has been hard (for me) to explain to fellow parents that
| (the parents') _unvaccinated_ children have a much lower
| Covid infection and consequence risk than (the parents
| themselves) do from any Covid vaccine. "
|
| Unstated: that the parents' risks of a Covid infection and
| long-Covid consequences are also much higher, with infection
| via their children being a highly likely route.
|
| TL;DR: Vax, boost, mask in public.
| taeric wrote:
| I did not mean any risk from the vaccine. I was only
| talking about the risks with the vaccine. If that makes
| sense.
|
| I am in no way arguing against vaccinations and booster
| shots. Do that. If you are sick, please stay home. Don't
| refuse to go to the park with your toddler because they
| aren't vaccinated yet.
| pronlover723 wrote:
| Every kid I know that caught COVID brought it back and gave
| it to the entire family. Mom, Dad, Grandma, etc....
|
| It doesn't matter that the kids are ok. It matters that they
| spread it
| taeric wrote:
| Irrelevant when the parents are doing what they can to
| reduce the risk for their kid. As soon as you are willing
| to let them go to school, you have increased the risk to
| them more than getting them vaccinated will reduce it.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| Are you trying to suggest people should not vaccinate
| because school is a higher risk to health than
| vaccination is a reduction of risk to health?
|
| Maybe life is not only about survival but the upside to
| school is on balance worth the added risk, but not
| vaccinating is not worth the added risk (complications
| from vaccination are pretty small -- though I certainly
| don't advocate vaccination without any consideration of
| the risks).
| taeric wrote:
| Emphatically no. Get vaccinated. Take boosters if you
| have them available.
|
| I'm more just weary of the doom and gloom about my 5 year
| old not being vaccinated yet.
| carlivar wrote:
| What's your control group? Are you assuming none of these
| people would have gotten COVID if not for the kid?
| jfoster wrote:
| > But some scientists theorize that this virus may have always
| been responsible for a portion of the small number of unexplained
| pediatric hepatitis cases that happen every year.
|
| This doesn't feel like something that needs to be theorized
| about. Were the hepatitis instances depressed during covid? If
| integrating since the start of covid until now, do the current
| cases push the hepatitis caseload beyond the comparable average
| in preceding years?
|
| Articles like this are frustrating. Obvious questions unanswered.
| No information as to the identify of "some scientists".
|
| I think such unclear reporting triggers conspiracy theories by
| making people feel as though information is being hidden. I don't
| doubt that this is incompetence rather than malice, but damn,
| humanity needs to fix the journalism problem.
| [deleted]
| lampshades wrote:
| I've been sick 5 times this year so far with colds, each one
| seemingly worse than the previous. I'm not convinced that COVID
| wasn't a biological attack on our immune systems.
| scotty79 wrote:
| You are just doing 2 years worth of infections in few months.
| halfjoking wrote:
| I had longcovid 14 months until June 2021. Over the last year I
| haven't been sick once.
|
| I'm not convinced the VACCINE wasn't a biological attack on
| your immune system. All my family who took it get sick
| repeatedly, I'm exposed to the viruses they have and don't get
| sick.
|
| All that is anecdotal, but it also jives with what Kirsch and
| others have been saying about the mRNA shots:
|
| https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/the-pfizer-vaccine-reprog...
| Izkata wrote:
| This also just came out, first time I'm aware of OAS being
| mentioned in the news (though not by name, that would give
| too much credit to conspiracy theorists):
| https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/328102
| rossdavidh wrote:
| Well, the vaccines (plural) were of course going to have an
| impact on your immune system, that was the point, but I
| wouldn't call it an "attack". It's more like a wargame,
| preparing for an enemy you expect to attack in the future;
| there is risk, but it's a lot less than going into the
| eventual war without having done any wargames.
|
| We all get exposed to viruses frequently, all the time. If
| your immune system suppresses them without much effort
| required, you don't feel sick. If your immune system
| overreacts, it suppresses them even better, but you will feel
| sick (from the fact that your immune system is going into
| overdrive). If your family's vaccination is causing their
| immune systems to give a stronger reaction to normal viruses,
| that is annoying, but it doesn't mean the vaccination wasn't
| a good idea. It's taking on an increased risk of an immune
| system making you feel sick for a couple days because it
| overreacted to a normal virus, in order to get a reduced risk
| of getting hospitalized because your immune system did not
| take a virus (covid-19, in this case) seriously enough, soon
| enough.
|
| The immune system is a tricky beast, no question, and
| unexpected results can happen. But just because your family
| gets sick, and you don't feel sick, from a normally
| circulating virus (e.g. perhaps one of the four non-covid
| coronaviruses that cause 'colds'), that doesn't mean the
| vaccine isn't working correctly. It just means they're
| trading a higher risk of a small problem for a lower risk of
| a much bigger problem.
| Arubis wrote:
| Anecdotally, I have two young kids in daycare, and everyone's
| been sick more often than not since January. Frequent Covid swabs
| all come back negative.
| redisman wrote:
| Same except since.. September
| treis wrote:
| My anecdata is similar. A constant 2 week cycle of getting
| mildly sick, recovering, and then getting mildly sick again. Dr
| said there's a ton of it going around.
| benibela wrote:
| Recently I went back in the office, and got sick within a
| week
|
| Then it took a month to recover
| y-c-o-m-b wrote:
| Yep, we are also on a 2-3 week cycle. My family is currently
| sick in fact. We've yet to test positive for covid, ever. I'm
| at this weird place now where I just want to get it over
| with, but at this point it's like we can't catch covid even
| if we tried, due to the queue of other crap the kids are
| coming home with.
| TurningCanadian wrote:
| I don't think you can "get it over with" in any sort of
| permanent way. Antibodies acquired through vaccination or
| previous infection helped with Omicron, but they wane
| significantly over a few months. Similar things are
| happening with newer variants.
| Izkata wrote:
| What you want is to provoke a T-cell response, so your
| body can make new antibodies as needed, and it doesn't
| matter if they fade.
| floppydiskette wrote:
| Exact same anecdote for me. I've been sick every two weeks,
| then one week recovered, and repeat for the past 3 months or
| so. I've been sick more in 3 months than in 5 years. It's
| very odd. Never tested positive.
| fullstop wrote:
| I'm well past the elementary school (and younger) age, but
| this wasn't uncommon when my kids were that age.
| treis wrote:
| Like the sibling comment I've also been sick more often
| these last few months than I have in recent memory. Kiddo
| has been at daycare/preschool for a couple years now.
| AFAICT it's a real phenomenon.
| yojo wrote:
| Exact same pattern here - 2 pre-k kids, wave after wave of
| illness since January, still yet to see a positive covid test.
|
| I guess it's good that their immune systems are getting a
| workout, but all this illness and accompanying missed school
| has been a major slog.
| cpuguy83 wrote:
| This is very much a normal thing pre-pandemic.
|
| Get used to it, kids are gross, do gross things, don't wash,
| snot everywhere, etc.
|
| - Parent of 3
| cshokie wrote:
| Us too. We actually pulled our toddler from daycare for the
| summer just to not be sick for a while. He was in school 2 of
| 5 weeks prior to that with the other 3 home sick. It's
| exhausting.
| pqs wrote:
| Same here. We have had everything since December. In
| December, we had Covid-19, in April what seemed like the flu,
| and we also had different types of cold and stomach viruses.
| I have been almost permanently ill and tired since December.
| Now I feel much better! It seems we upgraded our "antivirus
| software". ;-)
| thatjoeoverthr wrote:
| Same situation. Child is just short of five. For last half
| year, she is consistently out sick at least half the time. The
| whole family is sick constantly. It is an exhausting and
| challenging time.
| fullstop wrote:
| Half of my office is/was out with COVID. My youngest has told
| me that the teachers, and students, are frequently absent in
| the middle school because of COVID infections.
|
| I don't think that it's impacting daycare too much but it's
| definitely racing through offices and schools here. (Eastern
| Pennsylvania)
| evanmoran wrote:
| Same as well with two kids 4 and newborn. Tons of colds coming
| through Preachool that aren't Covid, according to the constant
| testing the school requires.
|
| Also for those wondering there was a massive spike in RSV in
| early December. I would guess it infected the school and my
| family in days. Just unbelievably infectious, and with a baby
| RSV is quite scary as it's the leading cause of infant
| pneumonia and is much more dangerous than people realize (we
| need a vaccine for RSV!)
| TheGigaChad wrote:
| thenerdhead wrote:
| Sounds about right. I had Covid in January 2021. Had long Covid
| for what felt like a year. Everytime I'm sick(because of kids), I
| can't test positive for Covid but the flus feel a bit stronger
| than they did previously. Usually to the point of knocking me out
| for a week. Used to be only a couple days. Hopefully my immune
| system is getting stronger each day.
| null_object wrote:
| A lot of these articles (seeing many in the same vein) seem to be
| implying that viruses are all making some vengeful comeback after
| the caution (some of us) exercised during the pandemic, but I'm
| not sure what scientific basis they are built on?
|
| Some of the patterns we're seeing are surely just a statistical
| anomaly - the general dip in these infections when people weren't
| as exposed to each other's germs over the last couple years is
| now mirrored by a modest increase.
|
| And naturally the news organizations want to pump every possible
| scenario that might lead to more doom-scrolling and eyeballs on
| ads.
| aaron695 wrote:
| scotty79 wrote:
| I think this article was fairly careful to not do that.
|
| I could read it thinking that no more people will get sick next
| season then would get sick through three usual seasons anyways.
| And the danger comes more from piling up the cases not from any
| increase in severity of the diseases or number of people
| getting sick altogether.
| blenderdt wrote:
| One problem is that a lot of people in the field are very
| specialized in just one part of the spectrum. For example
| Marion Koopmans knows a lot about virusses but doesn't know a
| lot about immunology. That is totally ok, but also means that
| her view is limited and is very focused on viruses.
| dehrmann wrote:
| > I'm not sure what scientific basis they are built on
|
| The article mentions the flu. Flu cases have been _way_ down
| for the last two years, so it 's reasonably to assume our
| collective immunity to it is also down.
|
| You might be right about Monkeypox and the hepatitis we're
| seeing in kids. Those could just be random, but the immunity
| debt hypothesis also fits.
| taeric wrote:
| No doubt a lot of it is reverting to the mean actions in place.
| But, that generally portrays as a rebound on low values, so I
| can see why it is seen as a "vengeance."
|
| The article does a decent coverage of the different mechanisms
| that could be at play, as well.
| null_object wrote:
| > The article does a decent coverage of the different
| mechanisms that could be at play
|
| I thought the 'scientific' mechanisms were clutching at
| straws tbh: "And that increase in susceptibility, experts
| suggest, means we may experience some wonkiness as we work
| toward a new post-pandemic equilibrium with the bugs that
| infect us."
|
| In addition I think it'll always be possible to find
| 'experts' who will supply a handy quote to reinforce the
| essential nature of their particular area of expertise.
| taeric wrote:
| Oh, to be clear, I agree it was clutching at straws. But it
| did a good job of listing all of the straws that it could,
| and studies/time will hopefully let us know which ones
| mattered.
| scotty79 wrote:
| Can we please start making mRNA vaccines for all those stupid
| "harmless" seasonal diseases?
|
| I'm really sick of getting anti-bodies to them by undergoing full
| fledged illness.
| 99_00 wrote:
| COVID-19 continues to impact us. Has there been any progress on
| determining the origin of the virus and how to prevent a future
| outbreak?
|
| Are efforts underway? I don't see any, but maybe the media isn't
| highlighting them.
|
| Seems like an important thing to look into. SARS outbreak was in
| 2003. SARS 2 20019. Given the increase in travel and
| environmental encroachment is there any reason to believe the
| next one will be in fewer than 15 years?
| nradov wrote:
| There has been no substantial progress on determining the
| origin of the virus. It could have been a natural zoonotic
| transmission, or could have originated in a lab. The Office of
| the Director of National Intelligence released a declassified
| report in 2021 and it remains accurate as far as we know
|
| https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/reports-publications/...
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