COVID-19 - On the Ground

[shindig]

My firm has a rigid vax requirement for coming into the office. For anyone - lawyers, clients, whoever.

I think it's going to move this way. We had a department event at our suite at Kauffman and in the email, it stated that only those that are vaccinated are able to participate. One guy, I don't know, replied back to all, including Executives, "THIS IS DISCRIMINATION", in all caps. I didn't go because I already had plans that Friday, but thought it was an "awkward" email for the dummy to reply all.

Career Suicide?

Probably a Mizzou grad! So yeah.

[PhDhawk]

PhD: I’d argue that one of the biggest components to our getting a handle on HIV infections was “behavioral changes” in addition to the medical advances. People incorporated safer sexual practices, not sharing needles, testing of blood used for transfusion, etc.

There’s a considerable similarity to the current pandemic in that altering behavior (masking, washing hands, distancing/isolation) will be a huge component in addition to the vaccines.

That's a very good point and only further illustrates, that you can't just sit by idly and assume a pathogen will "go away".

For some viruses, it may be beneficial to them (in terms of replication and re-infection) to become less virulent. You can imagine this with ebola. If you get ebola, you're symptomatic before you are contagious. No one's going to work or riding the bus if they're bleeding from the eyes, so if there was an ebola virus that evolved through mutation to have less severe symptoms, it might spread better and become the most common strain.

The classic example of this is the myxoma virus in rabbits. Rabbits were an invasive species in Australia, and they tried to control the population with the virus, but over time the virus became less lethal (those mutations were selected for through evolution because reducing virulence made them more likely to become transmitted) dropping from >99% lethal to something like 75%.

The problem with SARS-CoV-2 is that infected individuals are contagious for days before symptoms develop and there are asymptomatic carriers. I don't see how there would be a competitive advantage for the virus to become attenuated. Instead what we've seen is the selective pressure is for virus strains that are more infective, if similarly or slightly more virulent. The delta variant binds to its host receptor, ACE2, much more strongly than the previous strain and therefore is more effecient at causing an infection.

So, there's no obvious benefit to the virus to become attenuated, and the precedent for which variants become dominant does not seem to suggest the virus will become attenuated either.

I think the best bet is a largely immune global population. And of course people who were previously infected contribute to that. But the problem is, you can vaccinate a larger population of people much faster than waiting for everyone to get infected. (Never mind the numbers of people who die and get terribly sick from infection).

If you're too slow to get to that threshold for herd immunity, (And this happens if you wait for infection or if you have a large portion of the population that won't get vaccinated) the virus will just continue to evovle. There are too many susceptible hosts, and it becomes simple math. By the time say, 85% of the population has been infected you might be up to the Omega variant, and the people who were infected early on may have very little immunity to the new strain.

Both infection and vaccination provide immunity, but only infection provides an opportunity for viral mutation. So, the best strategy is to slow the spread, by social distancing mask wearing, hygeine, etc. while vaccinating as many as possible.

[jfish26]

My firm has a rigid vax requirement for coming into the office. For anyone - lawyers, clients, whoever.

I think it's going to move this way. We had a department event at our suite at Kauffman and in the email, it stated that only those that are vaccinated are able to participate. One guy, I don't know, replied back to all, including Executives, "THIS IS DISCRIMINATION", in all caps. I didn't go because I already had plans that Friday, but thought it was an "awkward" email for the dummy to reply all.

Career Suicide?

Trumpy brainworms are a disease.

[ousdahl]

for the professionalism thread but fwiw I’ve been getting out of work meetings for years by replying all to emails with BUT MAH RIGHTS

[randylahey]

To all the "but mah rights" people that think its a joke people are standing up for their rights, id love to see you go live somewhere else for a few years where you dont have protections as a citizen. And you dont have those guaranteed rights. See how much differently life is for a lot of people who don't have a bill of rights protecting their freedoms and maybe you'd stop taking it all for granted lol

[randylahey]

there is a reason people week asylum in this country and not vice versa

[Overlander]

To all the "but mah rights" people that think its a joke people are standing up for their rights, id love to see you go live somewhere else for a few years where you dont have protections as a citizen. And you dont have those guaranteed rights. See how much differently life is for a lot of people who don't have a bill of rights protecting their freedoms and maybe you'd stop taking it all for granted lol

Have you?

[twocoach]

To all the "but mah rights" people that think its a joke people are standing up for their rights, id love to see you go live somewhere else for a few years where you dont have protections as a citizen. And you dont have those guaranteed rights. See how much differently life is for a lot of people who don't have a bill of rights protecting their freedoms and maybe you'd stop taking it all for granted lol

There is a difference between not having certain rights and not understanding what your rights are and are not. People tie this argument to their "rights" because they feel it is something like religion that you aren't allowed to argue with, not because their actual rights are being violated.

[ousdahl]

Compared to other developed countries with mah rights for citizens, isn’t Merica getting their butts kicked in terms of vaccination rates?


(among other metrics)

[zsn]

Compared to other developed countries with mah rights for citizens, isn’t Merica getting their butts kicked in terms of vaccination rates?


(among other metrics)

Exactly. If FREEDUMB!!!! includes spray painting street signs and vandalizing public property then Singapore isn’t for you. BTW, I assume randy doesn’t fly because it involves the gubmint looking through his personal property

[jfish26]

To all the "but mah rights" people that think its a joke people are standing up for their rights, id love to see you go live somewhere else for a few years where you dont have protections as a citizen. And you dont have those guaranteed rights. See how much differently life is for a lot of people who don't have a bill of rights protecting their freedoms and maybe you'd stop taking it all for granted lol

Again with the straw man stuff.

No (serious) person that makes fun of the "but mah rights" crowd takes the rights afforded by the Constitution for granted. What people make fun of is the (disturbingly widespread!) decoupling of those rights from responsibility/accountability.

[Wiff]

That's a very good point and only further illustrates, that you can't just sit by idly and assume a pathogen will "go away".

For some viruses, it may be beneficial to them (in terms of replication and re-infection) to become less virulent. You can imagine this with ebola. If you get ebola, you're symptomatic before you are contagious. No one's going to work or riding the bus if they're bleeding from the eyes, so if there was an ebola virus that evolved through mutation to have less severe symptoms, it might spread better and become the most common strain.

The classic example of this is the myxoma virus in rabbits. Rabbits were an invasive species in Australia, and they tried to control the population with the virus, but over time the virus became less lethal (those mutations were selected for through evolution because reducing virulence made them more likely to become transmitted) dropping from >99% lethal to something like 75%.

The problem with SARS-CoV-2 is that infected individuals are contagious for days before symptoms develop and there are asymptomatic carriers. I don't see how there would be a competitive advantage for the virus to become attenuated. Instead what we've seen is the selective pressure is for virus strains that are more infective, if similarly or slightly more virulent. The delta variant binds to its host receptor, ACE2, much more strongly than the previous strain and therefore is more effecient at causing an infection.

So, there's no obvious benefit to the virus to become attenuated, and the precedent for which variants become dominant does not seem to suggest the virus will become attenuated either.

I think the best bet is a largely immune global population. And of course people who were previously infected contribute to that. But the problem is, you can vaccinate a larger population of people much faster than waiting for everyone to get infected. (Never mind the numbers of people who die and get terribly sick from infection).

If you're too slow to get to that threshold for herd immunity, (And this happens if you wait for infection or if you have a large portion of the population that won't get vaccinated) the virus will just continue to evovle. There are too many susceptible hosts, and it becomes simple math. By the time say, 85% of the population has been infected you might be up to the Omega variant, and the people who were infected early on may have very little immunity to the new strain.

Both infection and vaccination provide immunity, but only infection provides an opportunity for viral mutation. So, the best strategy is to slow the spread, by social distancing mask wearing, hygeine, etc. while vaccinating as many as possible.

"nuh-uh" - Randy

[randylahey]

Seems like we could have been better off not taking any precautions at all. No masks no distancing no nothing. A lot of people would have died (a lot did anyways) but everyone would've been exposed and developed natural resistances. The sick/weak/vulnerable would have died off, strengthening our gene pool and natural resistances. And we wouldve put an end to all these games, and given the virus less chance to linger and mutate

[randylahey]

Covid is something that poses zero threat to our species but is a threat to weakened individuals. Is it worth changing our whole system for that

[MICHHAWK]

years from now, we will certainly look back on this episode and scratch our head. The worlds greatest clusterphucque of the last 100 years. They will wonder wtf.

[jhawks99]

You know who else killed off the weak? Hitler.

[MICHHAWK]

the dt/jb years will be the biggest $#it stain skid mark of the last 100 years for this great country.

2024

[Deleted User 863]

Cases are down 30% over the last 2 weeks (according to NBC). Hopefully that was the last really bad surge we see. The vast majority of our population has been vaccinated and/or been naturally exposed to covid, so that should help moving forward.

[sdoyel]

Seems like we could have been better off not taking any precautions at all. No masks no distancing no nothing. A lot of people would have died (a lot did anyways) but everyone would've been exposed and developed natural resistances. The sick/weak/vulnerable would have died off, strengthening our gene pool and natural resistances. And we wouldve put an end to all these games, and given the virus less chance to linger and mutate

You are a fucking moron, man. JFC.

[randylahey]

Humans aren't doing themselves any favors trying to pretend we are removed from nature. Instead of allowing it to run its course at little risk, we are setting ourselves up to be more and more dependent on artificial medicine