BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 06 Feb 22 - 09:12 AM

I just had a text from our group praitice telling me I was on for a fourth jab ( second booster), and popped into the chemist. I don't know if it's a general thing - I've not seen anything about it - or a local try-out. Reassuring, anyway.

We've all been lucky about side effects in our family, for any kind of vaccinations.   That means we never expect to get them, and I suspect that feeds back and reduces the likelihood of having them..

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Feb 22 - 10:31 AM

Side effects of a serious nature are vanishingly rare. You're more likely to be run over by a London bus in Bude.

I honestly don't understand the reluctance to get the jab. I listened to the articulate, supercilious and utterly wrong-headed young woman on Question Time last Thursday. So wrong-headed that it's hard to know what to say in response to people like that. Every day I'm consuming pesticide residues on my fruit and veg. Every day I breathe in particulate matter from car exhausts. If I get a headache I might take a paracetamol. My telly might be giving off a bit of ionising radiation. The cleaning materials I use in the house might be slowly poisoning me. All that butter... All potentially deadly (we're variously told), but hey ho, life is there to be lived. A jab doesn't hurt (I haven't even felt any of my three). You are not going to be adversely affected. Jabs are safer than all those things I've mentioned, and they work and they help you to protect others, and you won't die or end up in hospital. What's not to like? If you think your body is such a temple, you'd better go off and live alone in the wilderness and consume nothing bar locusts and wild honey. No beer, wine, whisky (heaven forfend!) or shagging (you might catch something).

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Charmion
Date: 06 Feb 22 - 10:59 AM

I'm with you, Steve.

The very same people griping about the possibility of negative effects from vaccines are not at all shy about driving stupid big trucks all over the place in foul weather. Hypocrites, the lot of 'em.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 06 Feb 22 - 11:20 AM

A really good reason for never catching COVID-19 - Long COVID.

"Treatment options for long COVID are not robust, and they’re mainly geared towards treating the symptoms, organ by organ with anti-inflammatories for the lungs, beta blockers for a racing heart rate, etc. Although some innovative options are being explored, their use for long COVID remains unproven until they are studied more widely."

I was a healthy 38-year-old … but now I have long COVID

As a social epidemiologist who deals with big data and knew that COVID cases were on the rise, I was certain it was a false negative. The test itself even carried a warning that false negatives were possible and that clinical observations and patient history should be taken into consideration. But I was sent home, and by the end of March 2020, I thought I was on the road to recovery.

Then, in April, I had a seizure and was rushed to the hospital. At the ER, the doctor reviewed my medical case history and concluded that I had COVID. She said that I was lucky and tests showed my organs did not have lasting damage.

But after the seizure, I lay in my bedroom for weeks with the curtains drawn, because light and sound hurt. I started suffering from tremors, extreme migraine headaches, a feeling that I was walking on rocks, and a pins-and-needles sensation that radiated through my body. There were times that I needed a cane to help me walk, and I knew something was seriously wrong with me.

It was not until months later that I discovered I was a long-hauler — part of a growing group of people who have COVID-19 and have never fully recovered. Later, we would be given an official name of Post-Acute Sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection (PASC), which is estimated to affect between 30 percent and 60 percent of people who become infected with COVID-19.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Donuel
Date: 06 Feb 22 - 12:24 PM

The Lancet published a quack doctor that claimed vaccines caused autism
from the mercury antibiotic.

That started in small part a modern anti vax phenom in America.
I know of no harm done by scientific american. Redundant old folk crumudgeons disagree. So What. I will continue to devour every SA momthly issue since I was 11 no matter what strange strangers say.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 06 Feb 22 - 12:36 PM

I agree Steve. Hard to understand that kind of thinking. I hesitate to call it thinking even.

I remember many years ago when I was by chance at Woodstock Festival talking to one of the people working in the hospital tent - she was saying how weird it was to have kids in who had got problems after gulping all kinds of unidentified stuff but they'd freak out at the idea of medical drugs of any sort , even antibiotics or paracetamol.

That girl on Question Time was very irritating, so smug and self satisfied.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Feb 22 - 01:24 PM

"I know of no harm done by scientific american. Redundant old folk crumudgeons disagree."

Tell us what you really think. Name those crumudgeons [sic]. I'm sure they won't mind.

As a matter of fact, I know of no harm done either.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Charmion's brother Andrew
Date: 06 Feb 22 - 05:56 PM

Donuel, that is an "adjuvant" that you're thinking of.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Feb 22 - 06:43 PM

Something to google (sorry...)

"Vastly unequal US has world’s highest Covid death toll – it’s no coincidence..."

It's a lengthy piece in the Guardian and it makes for a very sobering read about how the US is handling the pandemic badly.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 06 Feb 22 - 09:11 PM

Agreed, always check the source for anything that seems very surprising. You don't have to understand the scientific language much toget a sense of whetherwhat's been asserted is consistent the original paper.

The same goes for a eprt that isnmt particularly surprising if it is about something that matters. There's nothing improbable about that a variant fungal infection could get badly out of hand, or indeed that a catastrophic asteroid had been spotted heading fot earth, but you'd want to check the source.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 06 Feb 22 - 10:41 PM

From a New York Times editorial today:

The Covid Policy That Really Mattered Wasn’t a Policy

You know what’s better than a vaccine mandate? A society that doesn’t need one.

We began this pandemic by asking the wrong questions, and thus we got the wrong answers. Rewind to October 2019. The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and the Nuclear Threat Initiative release the Global Health Security Index. It ranks 195 countries on their pandemic preparedness. Each country is judged on prevention policy, on detection capabilities, on response infrastructure, on health system capacity, on international cooperation and on underlying risk. The news is reassuring, at least if you live in the United States: We’re No. 1!

Then, only months later, we get an actual, once-in-a-century pandemic. The United States fails the test. We have more infections, more deaths, more pain and suffering and division and grief. Our performance doesn’t just fall short of rich countries like Germany and Denmark. It falls short of far poorer countries, too. The Global Health Security Index was measuring the wrong things. The researchers later noted that tucked inside the report was a finding about the United States that would prove more predictive of our response: “It had the lowest possible score on public confidence in the government.”

But that leaves the question: What were the right questions? What did we miss?

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Donuel
Date: 07 Feb 22 - 07:24 AM

Handling the pandemic badly began with China misinforming and hiding the truth for 20 days until over 80,000 cases spread wildly.
Up until then they claimed no human transmission cases. They could have released the virus code by week one.
Most countries made the same early mistakes and made a health issue a political matter. Madness, but human.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Donuel
Date: 07 Feb 22 - 07:44 AM

You may recall the first mention of Covid on this forum in January 2020. It was called the The coming global pandemic that I wrote. Nigel was the first to respond mentioning I had overestimated fatalities by a factor of 3. He was eventually correct.
The thread was closed.

I am not predicting a fungal pandemic but I do warn the biggest mistake we can make is not sharing science information regarding pandemics, not being transparent, accusing each other of crying wolf and witholding any information for social reasons.

In the next pandemic there will be obvious repeats of social science failures. We don't lern 2 good imo.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 07 Feb 22 - 12:47 PM

We'll let Kevin have the last word on the selection and treatment of popular science journals, shall we, and move on?

Meanwhile, according to the Wall Street Journal Two Years Into Pandemic, Shoppers Are Still Hoarding
Bulk-buying habit is expected to stick as people eat more at home, supply remains uncertain and inflation rears up. Retailers and producers are shifting operations as a result.

People are still practicing hoarding behavior that started with the pandemic.

Alexis Abell recently walked out of a BJ’s Wholesale Club outside Buffalo, N.Y., with 24 boxes of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, a box of 50 frozen mozzarella sticks, a 40-pound bag of basmati rice and a 12-can pack of garbanzo beans.

“I don’t want to be in a position again where I can’t get something,” says Ms. Abell, a 41-year-old mother of five, who was laid off from her retail job at a quilt shop in 2020 and decided not to return to work.

She estimates her family is now spending about 25% more a week on food and staples than before the pandemic, and she is buying more than twice as much of some staples and household supplies. . . .

After more than 20 years of steady but slow sales growth, sales at bulk retailers Costco Wholesale Corp., Walmart Inc.’s Sam’s Club and BJ’s Wholesale Club Holdings Inc. rose 26.6% in dollars and 18% in volume during the fourth quarter of 2021 compared with the same quarter of 2019, according to IRI, far greater than any other type of retail including dollar stores, grocery, drugstores and mass merchants.

I've quoted a bit since the WSJ has a fairly robust paywall.

I realized I had more stuff in the freezer here than usual, and have tried to change my routine. My shopping entails replacing things I've run out of and fresh produce as I draw down frozen and canned foods. There is an extra package of toilet paper in my hall cupboard; usually I buy multi-packs that go under the sink in each bathroom. That spare one does go back to early COVID.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Feb 22 - 06:16 PM

There's a bit of a groundswell in the UK ( and several other countries in Europe) that we are getting on top of this, that cases are falling and that we should relax, just a little. That we don't need restrictions forced on us (we can make up our own minds). I did a load of shopping in Truro today. I guesstimated that around a third to a half of people have ditched their masks, just a week after the mask mandate was lifted. We haven't got the best vaccination rate in the world, but we do have a pretty good rate. Who knows what's around the corner, but worrying about that is no way to live our lives. I have a hospital appointment tomorrow and I have to wear a mask to go in there. Last week at my first appointment, the chap in the medical assessment unit told me to take it off after I'd complained how hot his room was. We're making progress (except that he was, unfortunately, a Man U supporter). The way forward is to get vaccinated and to keep on testing. Our lateral flow test kits are still free and easy to get, in boxes of seven at a time. In our house we are using about six test kits per week, extra ones before visits to hospitals and the elderly. A very welcome development is that fewer and fewer people seem to be worrying any more. If you're jabbed and boosted, you won't end up in hospital because of this virus and you won't die of it. That'll do me!

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Donuel
Date: 08 Feb 22 - 06:33 AM

Out of 100,000 people, 8 unvaccinated will die of covid.

Out of 100,000 Vaccinated people .01 will die of covid.
Yep its less than 1 person.
When millions of people are infected we see 2000 a day die of covid.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 08 Feb 22 - 10:30 AM

Alas, we're still seeing high death rates. 2,739 people died in the US (documented cases) on February 7, 2022. The equivalent of 5⁺ packed-full super-sized jetliner crashes in one day.

Our World in Data (Oxford University)

Coronavirus in the U.S.: Latest Map and Case Count (New York Times)

The UK hit quite a spike over the holidays (according to the Oxford site) but the US has the lead in daily deaths right now.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 Feb 22 - 11:44 AM

Not comparable unless we're all measuring daily deaths the same way. And even if we could agree on the method, it could still be the wrong way. Anyway, your relatively high death rate is a function of the patchy coverage of your vaccination programme. If you're fully vaccinated, you don't die *of* covid-19.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 08 Feb 22 - 01:45 PM

Scaling up figures is never too trustworthy, but the official UK figures work out as about 1,600 at the size of the US, whilr the New York Times gives UK daily rate as around 1000.

Whatever, it's clear a lot of people are dying who shouldn't be dying.

True enough, fully vaccinated, the chances are good we won't die even if we catch Covid. But there is still a chance, and that gets worse for those of us in a more vulnerable group.   Or for any unvaccinated person who catches it from us.

Panic time is over, but it's too early to ease off completely. I'm still wearing a mask in company, and prefer the company of people who do the same.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Mrrzy
Date: 08 Feb 22 - 01:55 PM

What is covid breeding humans for?

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 Feb 22 - 03:37 PM

"True enough, fully vaccinated, the chances are good we won't die even if we catch Covid. But there is still a chance..."

If you catch Covid and you've already got something else, sure. There's a massive difference between dying with covid and dying of covid. That must impact the numbers. If you're fully jabbed, your chances of dying of just covid are next to nil. However, when you're dead you're dead I suppose, so for us wrinklies who are already suffering from this, that or the other we should worry just a little, but there's little reason for a fully-vaccinated person to worry ore about covid than there is for them to worry about complications from flu. We are on the brink of more or less normal lives now, and I for one want to embrace that. No more shutting kids out of schools or university. No more poverty-stricken families trapped in their flats with their stir-crazy kids for weeks on end. No more bans on meeting loved ones. No more abandoning Christmas. No more economy-wrecking lockdowns. No more assaults on people's mental health. The vaccines have changed everything.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Donuel
Date: 08 Feb 22 - 05:24 PM

US estimates we have more people who have had covid {80%}
than folks who are vaccinated (65%).

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 Feb 22 - 05:30 PM

Two things. Vaccines don't stop you from catching it. And millions caught it before there were any vaccines.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 08 Feb 22 - 06:03 PM

I think the distinction between "Dying with Covid. And "dying of Covid" is not particularly relevant.

"Dying with Covid" can mean someone who is dying anyway who catches Covid on their deathbed. But in most cases it means someone who had some existing condition which did not in itself threaten life, who catches Covid, and who dies.

That's a death that wouldn't have taken place without Covid just as much as that of someone who was in perfect health until they caught Covid.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Donuel
Date: 08 Feb 22 - 06:40 PM

The entropy of death begins around 21 for most people and for some much earlier. Death in all its forms can not be simply catagorized. Death only seems rational and always attributal.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 Feb 22 - 06:50 PM

Hmm. One case considered at a time, I'd rather say. In the same sense as "everyone in the graveyard votes the same," it doesn't matter to the unfortunate person who has joined the choir invisible what got or didn't get him or her, that much can't be gainsaid. I was merely casting doubt as to how the covid death numbers are arrived at and how the methods of gleaning those numbers might vary from country to country. Before the vaccines, a death ascribed to coronavirus was hard to contest. Things are nowhere as clear these days. Note how the nightly death numbers are now given with the caveat "though some of these deaths may have been by other causes."

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 Feb 22 - 06:53 PM

"The entropy of death begins around 21 for most people and for some much earlier."

I see death as a discrete event at the very end of a person's life. Decline and death are not the same thing.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Mrrzy
Date: 08 Feb 22 - 09:41 PM

My uncle died with covid, but not of covid. He died of old age. He ought not have been counted in the covid nursing home deaths, but I think he was.

These distinctions do matter.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 09 Feb 22 - 04:25 AM

Agreed. And, of course, statistics are highly vulnerable to abuse and misuse.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 09 Feb 22 - 06:02 AM

Old people die, but they don't die "of old age".

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 09 Feb 22 - 07:44 AM

"Die of old age" is a catch-all phrase which (having seen my mum gently fade away in October 2020) I find perfectly acceptable. Sure, a couple of contributory, long-term conditions were mentioned on the death certificate, but I knew that she had had multiple issues for years that had sent her weakening body on a downward spiral which were not mentioned. She was 91, she was overweight and she'd smoked for 70 years. All sorts of things. There was nothing controversial and when I'm asked what she died of I'm quite happy to say that it was old age, rather than list a plethora of conditions that may have contributed.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 09 Feb 22 - 08:32 AM

It's what people say, and it's not offensive, but it's not strictly accurate. And it can be used inappropriately, where some old person who is in fair health and could be expected to live for years dies because something has happened that shouldn't or needn't have happened.

Being infected with Covid is an example. Or, as more is learned, catching Covid and not getting the right treatment.

There are better expressions that have dropped out of use. "Died at a ripe old aged" "Full of years". Of course there is still "Had a good innings". Though I don't think Americans say that - their innings in baseball are pretty short affairs. What is their equivalent saying?

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 09 Feb 22 - 08:50 AM

"All remaining Covid restrictions in England - including the legal rule to self-isolate - could end later this month, Boris Johnson has said."

One reason only for this announcement. Boris would do anything to try to hold on to hid job.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 09 Feb 22 - 09:00 AM

Well I agree with him.

As for dying of old age, I'd known my mum's multifarious conditions for donkeys' years, had taken her to countless hospital appointments and helped her to manage the seven or eight different medications she was taking. Two conditions were mentioned on the death certificate, but any of several others could easily have been. The busy doctor who signed it had hardly known my mum at all. Had he written "old age" on the certificate I'd have been OK with that (do they ever write that?). It's only words, and they're fairly gentle ones.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 09 Feb 22 - 10:44 AM

Very reasonable to accept "old age" in the case of your mother, Steve, and in many other cases. But less so in others. If there is reason to suspect an old person has not been given proper medical or physical care it would not be right to accept a cause of death to be "old age".
……..
Easing up restrictions as things get better is right, and in time ending them entirely. But, to abolish entirely the requirement to self isolate when infected, is not appropriate at a time when hundreds of people are still dying everyday. I doubt very much whether that this was done at the recommendation of the medical experts, and see the timing of this as very much Boris playing politics.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 09 Feb 22 - 11:36 AM

The requirement might end but the emphasis should be on transitioning to personal responsibility instead. Let's face it: millions of people either don't know that they've got it or aren't willing to admit that they've got it. Like countless others, I deleted the COVID-19 app when I realised that I could be ordered under pain of sanction to self-isolate whilst others who didn't have the app could stay under the radar. Ludicrous. I doubt that the self-isolation rules, for these reasons, made an awful lot of difference. So lifting the restrictions will make no difference to me. If I test positive (and we are using a whole box of test kits up in our house every week), I'll self-isolate, my own decision, end of. I'd like to think that the government will relay that message in no uncertain terms to everyone.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 09 Feb 22 - 01:07 PM

I suppose there are three categories of people - those who do the right thing whatever the guidance or the law, those who do what they are told to do, only so long as they are told they must do it, and those who go there own way regardless of any effect on other people.

You fall in the first category, as any responsible person must, and the last lot I would say are beneath contempt.   But there are an awful lot who fall into that middle category, and they are the ones this policy will affect.

And that's why I think it is premature and irresponsible.

I would never regard anything Boris Johnson says as a reliable guide to anything.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Mrrzy
Date: 11 Feb 22 - 10:02 PM

I've gotten undeployed for the Covid hotline, as nobody calls anymore, or hardly anyone, and the people there can handle it.

A good sign.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Senoufou
Date: 12 Feb 22 - 04:53 AM

A very good sign Mrrzy!
I was chatting to my sister-up-in-Scotland yesterday on the phone, and she told me she is almost back to normal after the (very!) long Covid of two years' duration. But she told me a few things I didn't know about the side effects. Her hair fell out and she had large bald patches, which have now regrown with a different sort of hair - very fine and fluffy! Also, her gums became inflamed and bled all the time. But her dentist (she had a check-up last week) said they had calmed down and were back to normal. Her upset stomach episodes have also now ceased.
Now, I had no idea that these problems can occur with this blasted virus. But as she's a (retired) doctor, she knows what she's talking about, and apparently many many people have suffered in the same way.
Gulp!

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Donuel
Date: 12 Feb 22 - 06:30 AM

We are not all in this together. There are the people who stayed home and the people brought the food to them. That would include the truckers who are demonstrating this seperation of the essentials from the non essentials. Canada then in the US nd western Europe the trucker demonstrations will come

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 12 Feb 22 - 10:12 AM

I think most lorry drivers over here are quite happy about getting vaccines, the same way as most people generally.   Anti-vaxers, while they can be noisy, are generally seen as a bit weird. Which of course they are.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Donuel
Date: 13 Feb 22 - 10:50 AM

Its more complex than pro or anti anything. No one likes having to be subserviant to a beaurocratic manager or the ass hole with more money.
Even the Covid rescue money went to rich corporations like 10 million to a law firm but 10 grand to restaurant workers. Rescue rules have never been fair. Wall St got huge bail outs but those who lost houses lost homes in the gambling practice of criminal mortgage bundleing.

Getting to the heart of the problem in pandemic times has many pre existing lies, theft and death by gun legislation; Gore v. Bush, Iraq war, vaccines cause autism, a fast and loose FDA, Corporate corruption of government through money, enforced poverty by enhanced systemic racism etc.
The mendacity of the bull shit system casts the pandemic in dark amoral diseased shit. Morality is mocked for being mere virtue signaling. Thats my arguement that the problem is bigger than vax or no vax. Truckers have their reasons to demonstrate for many reasons they may not be able to articulate. Taking action is the one thing they can do.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Feb 22 - 11:02 AM

Actually I think there are quite a lot of people who do like to be told what to do.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Feb 22 - 11:13 AM

And there are lots of people who do what they're told to do in spite of not liking it. The heroes of the pandemic, after the care workers and NHS workers, have been the British people, who have overwhelmingly complied with the rules. Unlike their shabby rulers. That's why I think we can now move to putting responsibility for safe behaviour back in the hands of the people, no more rules, thanks.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 13 Feb 22 - 12:22 PM

”David Nabarro, a special envoy on Covid-19 for the World Health Organization, also highlighted the uncertainty of how future variants might behave: “There will be more variants after Omicron and if they are more transmissible they will dominate. In addition, they may cause different patterns of illness, in other words they may turn out to be more lethal or have more long-term consequences.”

Nabarro urged authorities to continue to plan for the possibility that there will be surges in numbers of people who are ill and need hospital care. “It would be prudent to encourage people to protect themselves and others consistently. An approach that does not do this would be a gamble with potentially severe consequences. I cannot see any upsides to such a gamble. The pandemic has a long way to go and – as is the case since it started – people and their leaders will influence its long-term impact through actions they take now.”

Extract from yesterday’s Guardian article on the possible consequences of the inevitable next Covid-19 variant.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Feb 22 - 01:08 PM

Ontario and Ottawa are arresting protestors. Finally. A New York Times article today talked about how inarticulate the protestors are for their reasons to be there - the vaccination status was never really that big a deal - but behind the scenes the social media is full of racist and anti-science irrational speech. When the money from other haters (probably in the US) dried up I suspect a lot of the protestors lost interest since their reasons for being present were mostly pecuniary.

Recent bickering posts have been removed. All parties should walk away from the computer for a few minutes before hitting "Submit message" and consider if you really need to send it or if it will simply derail the conversation.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Feb 22 - 08:03 PM

Well I did read that Guardian piece. It's true that there could be variants around the corner that could make life difficult. The thing is, since the dawn of mankind we've lived with the threat of diseases just around the corner. In the past, we've had neither the understanding of the pathogens involved, the medicines needed, nor the vaccines. But now we have those things. Keep on arguing if you like that we must keep restrictions in place until we make the virus extinct. Keep on arguing that we must keep restrictions in place because there are millions of vulnerable or immune-compromised people. Thing is, we will never make the virus extinct unless (like SARS) it decides to make itself extinct. The vulnerable people were here long before COVID-19 and, whilst we must take all reasonable steps to protect them, we need to get back to where we were, very likely with a greater understanding of their needs than before, in order to enjoy the freedoms that come with living in a democracy (in other words, no edicts, no mandates but with pressure on everyone to take responsibility for the wellbeing of all of us). If you believe in mandates and laws, then your responsibility is to say when that will stop. It's a responsibility that is almost always flunked.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Mrrzy
Date: 13 Feb 22 - 08:17 PM

It decides to make itself extinct?

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Feb 22 - 08:48 PM

Well put it this way: it became extinct without interventions from us. There was never a vaccine, for example.

Subject: RE: BS: New news on the pandemic COVID-19
From: Donuel
Date: 13 Feb 22 - 09:05 PM

Small pox did not make itself extinct nor will covid but we can take advantage of weaker variants if and when they happen. Globally speaking 2 more years is a possibility. Or these are the good ol days.
Oh and thanks for your omnipotant permission Steve.