QP, I believe you are looking in the correct direction.

The two cautions I will add are (1) as already said above, there are people in this world that simply can't take the vaccines.... as well as the populations (blacks mainly) that have logical distrust of all vaccines and (2) we are not done with Covid. There will be mutations and to prematurely "let our guard down" could lead to more bad outcomes.

(1) I will continue to mask indoors. It really isn't inconvenient and may help someone that I am sharing space with whom might be immuno-compromised (and you/we may never know.... but almost assuredly they will also be masked when out in public.)

My wife is vaxxed and has had C19 Delta (and maybe C19 Alpha). She has a compromised immunity due to a lifetime illness. We were happy with her response after catching C19... but are still very cautious about (2) future variants.

With your wife or others that have compromised immunity these are the people we need to focus on protecting now. That may mean proper masks around them and limited contact. We are lucky we live in a society were you can basically live and order anything online like my sister does

Well I heard this on radio today for Quebec , for those saying covid is nothing , regardless of the variants .

Since covid start 2 years ago , 45000 surgeries been miss and need to be reported in the future .
3000 for omicron alone .

The concept covid do not create problems because people don’t die do not make sense to me .

Then people say we have a bad healthcare system because we have to wait to get health services o0.

Problem is that this didn't actually happen. If you remember back to Feb and March 2020 the prevailing wisdom is that standard surgical masks and cloth masks wouldn't be effective against covid, and only social distancing and isolation would be.

Further the vast majority of 'N95' masks are not, in fact, true N95 masks because they don't provide a tight enough fit. As explained earlier a true N95 is custom fitted to the wearer's face and then tested to see if they are able to smell powerful chemicals. So the CDC and NIH didn't want people buying ineffective masks (probably such as the ones you ended up buying yourself) and then thinking those would work to stop covid, when the only weapon they KNEW at the time would stop it was a lockdown. Further they didn't want people rushing out and trying to acquire true N95 masks because that WOULD create a problem for the supply of health care workers, which would in turn endanger the general population. And it would be especially concerning if, upon finding out how hard it was to get actual N95 masks, people started trying to get them from hospitals or clinics and/or buying and selling them on some kind of black market.

This may also apply to the PPE firms that were supposedly begging Trump and Co to make masks for the US. It's unlikely that these would be true N95 masks that are fitted, and if the info at the time was that such masks wouldn't offer much protection, then it would naturally be pointless to order them, wouldn't it? And I am somewhat familiar with this as an issue because in the summer of 2020 I was trying like many to find large supplies of PPE to send around to various government buyers around the world and I found like a lot of people did that the only company that actually made the N95 masks that everyone wanted for their health care workers was 3M, and they were committing all of their output to US healthcare workers.

Later, when more data came in, it was found that masks would help to offer some protection and prevent the spread, and then the guidance was updated. Not only to include paper and even cloth masks, but also the lesser grade KN95 or the unfitted N95 ones that you get from China or wherever.

So the reality is that the CDC was providing people with the best information they had at the time, and updating their recommendations as more information came in. But to the right wing that means lying, so they become liars instead.

Yeah, I'm saying the death numbers are very high and I think in the omicron wave that it could possibly be because the "fully vaxxed" but non-boosted vulnerable are dying.

Thus 98-99% of deaths aren't unvaxxed, vaxxed but non-boosted should be in there

here's a comparison of Covid-19 and influenza

1,200 is More Than 6

So hard to reconcile that with Uk child covid deaths which (up to may 21) were:

5 to 9 - 6 deaths
10 to 14 - 9 deaths (presumably most of those were 12 -14)
https://www.ons.gov.uk/aboutus/trans...sincemarch2020
It may be omicron is worse for kids but i'm struggling to find anything suggesting a big surge in deaths that could close the gap with the usa

That compares to about 12 flu deaths per year in under 15 year olds
https://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...63445313003733

He suggest child obesity may be the issue. Maybe but that needs some serious justification and sounds dubious on the face of it
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/o...gure-jz0d9txvs

He points out that we have lower child vaccination rates in the UK which makes the data even more odd.

Maybe there's a new class of super obese we should be distinguishing or maybe there's some measuring issue (or something else). I'd like to see the excess mortality in children figures as a starting point.

These are the key points that everyone needs to absorb imo. In countries like the U.S. where vaccinations are widely available, effective vaccination rates (taking into account people who don't keep up with boosters, etc.) are probably as high as they are ever going to be. Getting COVID doesn't seem to confer lifetime immunity. In short, community immunity levels are probably as high as they will ever be.

COVID is not going away in my lifetime. Future variants cannot be prevented. The risk that we are trying to address with mitigation measures isn't going to drop significantly (other than seasonally). "We just have to do X, Y, and Z for the next six months" is no longer a supportable approach imo. People need to start thinking about what measures they want to be in place for the rest of their lives and what level of risk that they are willing to tolerate for the rest of their lives.

Though here in Alberta that number is 60,000 but they were already 35,000 behind before Covid. We may have Universal Healthcare but we have limited ICU capacity. I am sure the numbers in Quebec are similar

The problems are lockdowns have increased suicides , drug addiction and more mental issues. Though as well so many folks are not getting routine physicals or surgeries that are needed and dying .

I don't write them off callously. I acknowledge that society, at some point, has to stop treating them like children and saying we will continue to protect you from yourself whether you like it or not.


You can hold a different view that 'no, we will continue to protect them and force measures on them whether they like it or not as that is the humane thing to do' but we will not agree on that.

As a skydiver, bungee jumper, etc, I accept the risk and say piss off to the people who think those things should be banned as they are just unnecessary risk and there are a lot of people I have talked to who feel that way.

So considering that, then driving health protection measures to protect that subset is asinine and wrong, by my world view. In my world view you have to look at those who want the measures and the impact then of covid on that group and once they are protected you move forward.


But yes, if a health care system begins to get compromised THAT is a reason for measures. You are protecting the system and not directly the people who do not want your protection even though indirectly they benefit too by those actions.

I understand those and factor that in.

I have vulnerable people in my family too. You ensure they always have a supply of quick covid tests available to them and you make sure they are aware of the Pfizer anti viral and its efficacy.

Whether it is your family or mine, all of society cannot reduce itself down to a point of limitations to protect the most vulnerable amongst us.

Some may act as if that is cold but if you do not agree with me then we need to start getting rid of every food and drink that someone is deadly allergic too. Just stop producing and selling it because we have vulnerable amongst us.

Is that hyperbole? No, not one bit.

And if within the population of blacks (of which I am one) they say 'we hear what you are saying and choose another path' then you cannot ask society to wait forever for them to 'catch up'. We cannot wait forever for the Truckers to 'catch up' and just let them dictate life for the rest of us either. the minority cannot dictate to the majority what will be acceptable.

That is the most dangerous growing belief in America right now. That no measures can or should be imposed and society should not be allowed to move forward until the derps agree. The very derps who dismiss all science as bogus because they don't trust scientists, are arguing that THEY should dictate the highest levels of protections a society can impose in a pandemic. The Derps should dictate those response limits.

Whether it is Derps or just vulnerable populations, you do as much as can reasonable be done and then you have to move forward. Pragmatism is a thing. Absolutism is not an answer.

I am not wasting my time on this spin when we have Fauci in his own words. Youtube has removed all of this to protect Fauci so I cannot find any video to embed her but here is the original video.

Almost everything Fauci says in this video is wrong.

FLASHBACK MARCH 2020: Fauci Says "There's No Reason To Be Walking Around With A Mask"


And I don't have any issue with him being wrong and then updating later. it is this spin that 'he knew what he was saying was wrong but did so to protect the supply of masks for healthcare workers' that I take issue with.

That is spin and a lie to try to make it look 'noble'. He lied for a bigger and better purpose and that is false. Because if it was true then they CDC would have been actively trying to secure the mask supply in the US and not allowing it to be shipped back to China on US State Department planes.

OK if you want you can also say it was just pure incompetence. that is possible. That Fauci told the noble lie to protect the supplies for the US front line workers, but then the CDC never thought to actual acquire those supplies or make sure they never left the country nor to place any order with the Texas company.

There is no option 3 here.

Sure.

No one is arguing that was not historically true.

it is funny seeing certain people now switch to a view of "Science is static and does not change' showing that both sides (not just the derps) are so willing to use that when convenient to their arguments.


This is one of the saddest examples of where people are that they purposely try to distort the changing science to deliberately blend in prior data to undermine what is the new data today because they have an agenda.

Sure and I don't fully disagree.

But that then begs the question of how much measures do we keep in place to address unknowns like 'future variants'.

The flu has variants and future more dangerous variants are possible. We may see another mass death wave from a flu variant before we do from a new covid variant.

I don't think we can answer these questions other than to say we have to hope we can adapt at that point in time and our science is up to the challenge.

TO me, the unacceptable answer is to say 'we are concerned about the future thus we will limit, by maintaining these precautions, in the present'.

I'm questioning it. See my post above #6332

Either that data is deeply misleading or the UK data is deeply misleading or there's some something odd going on that differentiates the USA and the UK which I'd like to understand (or I'm making a silly mistake)

I dotn know which but it seems kinda important.

What a silly idea.

Starting at the end
That was always the direct reason for the measures in the uk. The core of the message from March 2020 when emasures started has been "Protect the NHS"

I'm very happy for the obvious but indirect reason being to protect people.

I simply dont write them off. I reject a comparison with activities like bungee jumping which should and would simply by banned with no controversy if it couldn't made sufficently safe with regualtions.

There is obviosuly a tension between restrictions and freedom. This makes for some very hard choices That's as far as I get with agreeing with your sentiment. Ultimately it's only the numbers of deaths/serious hospitialisations goign down that allows the protective measures to ease. Science/medicine is the main game but the benefits of working with the vaccine relunctant is massive and must continue.

I am not arguing that the durability of COVID or the inevitability of variants means that any particular measure is required. I am arguing that it is dishonest to sell whatever measures we deem necessary now as temporary (taking seasonality into account). In other words, it is dishonest to tell people, "if you only do X this winter, then you won't have to do X next winter because the risk will be lower." If the prevailing variant in February 2023 has a similar risk profile to Omicron, then I think the intrinsic risk in February 2023 will be about what is now -- not significantly lower than what it is now. Based on your other posts, I would expect you to agree with me.

In sum, I am arguing that now is the time to adjust to COVID as a background risk rather than an acute, transient risk. The measures that we take as society to mitigate a background risk depend on our risk tolerance. Law and regulation is all about making these sorts of decisions with respect to disease, air travel, building safety, gun violence, and a million other things. Now we have to make those decisions with respect to COVID.

My personal risk tolerance re COVID is relatively high.

Sorry I should have been clearer in my broad assertion as I was not referring to anything to do with the specifics of his data.

What I was asserting that posting data from the start of 2020 to now to make the case that covid is still more dangerous than the flu, for the vax'd is not what is in question.

Historically we do accept (at least I think you do) that the original version and Delta were more worse, especially since we are comparing a pre vaccine covid to Flu with vaccine back then,

I hope you agree and that is not sarcasm as taking down unedited 60 Minutes footage so people can actual deal in the truth and facts instead of just everyone jus giving their own narrative only feeds into the right wing derposphere.

If people make mistakes, that is fine. Don't deny it and then try and remove all evidence so it can come down to 'who do you trust more in narrative'.

we seem to agree but you seem to be trying to carve a distinction that I don't think exists.

We both agree 'system preventing measures are justified'.

I think we both agree that if the system is not at threat that these measures being kept in place to protect the derps from themselves would be wrong.

I think we agree that for the tiny percent of vulnerable who cannot take the vaccine we should find other measures, than these types of shut down measures, to help them, such as giving them a free supply of covid test kits and be ready with a prescription for the Pfizer antiviral or whatever other therapeutics we can provide them.

I don't see anything i really disagree with nor that disagree's with much of what i said prior.

the only thing I would add is that i think the Pfizer anti viral is a game changer. It may be even a bigger game changer, in some ways than the vaccine as those who refuse to take the vaccine and end up catching covid at least now have a second lifeline. For those who have taken the vaccine and are still vulnerable due to comorbidities, this is what saves most of them.

And it is works on ALL variants, at least thus far.

So knowing that, if in Spring 2023 we have a new variant, that lets posit is as lethal as Delta with the spread profile of Omicron and that poses a massive risk to society, we know that a mass gov't effort to get home testing kits to everyone, who will use them, and then have stock piles of Pfizer anti viral ready to proscribe, as soon as someone is shown to have the new variant, should stop the new variant in its tracks.

Now we can all doom play scenarios that it does not play out that way, but CURRENT science and reality tells us we currently have that back stop and it only takes some planning and execution to deal with the next wave in this way.

I think in terms of selling things, it was right to be very cautious pre vax and a little cautious after it was found the vaccine wasn’t as great as hoped at stopping infection with new variants. But given serious illness has been robustly protected against across variants there isn’t any need for temporary measures and people/industries can decide their own tolerances. Of course that’ll change if a variant comes where vaccines stop preventing serious illness against. But I agreed until then any precautions you take now seem likely to be permanent.

I dont accept anythign regardign 'derps' I think the dehumanisation is awful both morally and politically.

We should be trying to protect the NHS/etc and prevent people dying or becoming seriosuly ill by taking the measures needed given the fact of the numbers.

Ok. I am hoping someone will address that data and why it paints a totally different picture to the Uk data.