COVID-19 (Coronavirus)
- Thread starter ColePens
- Start date
- Status
Randy Butternubs
Registered User
I've been there twice (from Morgantown) during the summer. Neither time did I see more than a few people taking what I would call "precautions". It was a different world ...
Jaded-Fan
Registered User
Jaded-Fan
Registered User
ColePens
RIP Fugu Buffaloed & parabola
This response is a little bit to @Jaded-Fan and a little bit to @Randy Butternubs and a little bit in general.
COVID precautions and our future are becoming unique. If i'm just going by my observations, I would say the majority of people are at the point where they will not sacrifice their life in a stay-at-home order anymore. And i think that is a vast majority. For those who are elderly or have pre-existing conditions - they are continuing to do the right thing and stay cautious. Most people are in the final leg of this virus no matter how bad people on twitter will scream and make it seem like the end of the world.
This is both good and bad. Good because let's face it.. 20/20 hindsight a complete shutdown for more than 2-3 weeks is BAD. And this comes from someone who remains shutdown due to whom I help take care of. Equally full free reign silliness without taking precautions is equally bad. What i've learned since March is that there is actually a happy medium. Wearing masks, practicing social distancing, washing hands, being aware of your symptoms, being aware of who you are around - these all play into it.
So yeah... I think we are rounding the final corner. Will it still be in play for years? Absolutely. But vaccines/treatment/etc will all be at least up to a reasonable chance to survive. It will be, IMO, around flu numbers for years. But I do see us rounding the bend. If there is one tiny small lesson to learn, I do think long term shutdowns have so many negative issues being ignored and people who claim everything should just go on break until full vaccines are out there were waaaaaaaay wrong.
Just my 2 cents. It means nothing! If you disagree don't get all angry. It's okay to disagree.
COVID precautions and our future are becoming unique. If i'm just going by my observations, I would say the majority of people are at the point where they will not sacrifice their life in a stay-at-home order anymore. And i think that is a vast majority. For those who are elderly or have pre-existing conditions - they are continuing to do the right thing and stay cautious. Most people are in the final leg of this virus no matter how bad people on twitter will scream and make it seem like the end of the world.
This is both good and bad. Good because let's face it.. 20/20 hindsight a complete shutdown for more than 2-3 weeks is BAD. And this comes from someone who remains shutdown due to whom I help take care of. Equally full free reign silliness without taking precautions is equally bad. What i've learned since March is that there is actually a happy medium. Wearing masks, practicing social distancing, washing hands, being aware of your symptoms, being aware of who you are around - these all play into it.
So yeah... I think we are rounding the final corner. Will it still be in play for years? Absolutely. But vaccines/treatment/etc will all be at least up to a reasonable chance to survive. It will be, IMO, around flu numbers for years. But I do see us rounding the bend. If there is one tiny small lesson to learn, I do think long term shutdowns have so many negative issues being ignored and people who claim everything should just go on break until full vaccines are out there were waaaaaaaay wrong.
Just my 2 cents. It means nothing! If you disagree don't get all angry. It's okay to disagree.
Factorial
Registered User
- Oct 7, 2019
- 1,671
- 1,492
Who has been saying this? "...people who claim everything should just go on break until full vaccines are out there were waaaaaaaay wrong."
Jaded-Fan
Registered User
I truly believe that maybe tens of millions of people in this country will be vaccinated within a matter of weeks. Sometime in November. My father, girlfriend, similar will get those initial doses.
However, just like it said in that article that I linked this morning, it will take to the middle of next year to get everyone vaccinated. And the better part of next year and maybe into 2022 until things return to pre-virus normal.
That is the challenge.
Until everyone is vaccinated, and until we get back to normal, we STILL need to social distance. Still need to mask. Still need to continue acting as if this pandemic was still extremely dangerous. Because it will remain so.
Getting people to continue to buy in when we have a vaccine being distributed will likely be nearly impossible. And we may have an appalling number of deaths. Not just in the US, but the world.
i think we need to pump the break on this vaccine hype a bit. the vaccine is not a magic bullet and irrespective of developing a successful vaccine, we are still many months (or perhaps longer) away from fully having a handle on this disease.
in this very thread, we have folks claiming this pandemic is nearly over, or even predicting that the vaccine will go down as one of the greatest achievements in human history (or something hyperbolic to that effect).
we now have therapies for HIV that effectively reduce transmission rates to virtually 0%. yet HIV remains a major health problem and the disease is far from being eradicated or irrelevant.
a vaccine for COVID19 is many, many months away from being mass produced, distributed, and available to a significant portion of the population. and any COVID19 vaccine is certainly going to be less effective at reducing infection rates than the medications we have available to reduce transmission of HIV, so COVID19 will continue to be a major health problem just like HIV/AIDS.
a vaccine is just one component to solving the public health crisis that is COVID19. in addition to a vaccine, getting a handle on this virus will require many months and perhaps years of gritty, difficult, expensive public health work including continued mask wearing, social distancing, education, and significant infrastructure changes to how businesses, schools, etc function.
the director of the cdc said as much last week (before getting scolded by the president), that things won't begin to return to normal until perhaps second half of next year (i am paraphrasing, i forget his exact wording but he indicated we are not close to returning to normal).
you say your father and girlfriend will get the initial doses. can you expand upon that please? why is that? simply because they are health care workers? i've heard that repeated in the lay press, but as far as i am aware there are no specific plans or details about how health care workers are going to be vaccinated so quickly. it sounds nice and is logical for that to happen, but we are not any where near having real plans in place for that to happen. i am on staff at 3 hospitals including mass gen hospital and i have not heard anything about any of these hospitals having vaccines available for physicians in the coming weeks or months.
i am willing to make a friendly prediction that you're father and girlfriend don't actually receive a COVID19 vaccine this calendar year.
i understand the desire for optimism in the face of the worst pandemic of our lifetime, but we also have to be realistic here.
in this very thread, we have folks claiming this pandemic is nearly over, or even predicting that the vaccine will go down as one of the greatest achievements in human history (or something hyperbolic to that effect).
we now have therapies for HIV that effectively reduce transmission rates to virtually 0%. yet HIV remains a major health problem and the disease is far from being eradicated or irrelevant.
a vaccine for COVID19 is many, many months away from being mass produced, distributed, and available to a significant portion of the population. and any COVID19 vaccine is certainly going to be less effective at reducing infection rates than the medications we have available to reduce transmission of HIV, so COVID19 will continue to be a major health problem just like HIV/AIDS.
a vaccine is just one component to solving the public health crisis that is COVID19. in addition to a vaccine, getting a handle on this virus will require many months and perhaps years of gritty, difficult, expensive public health work including continued mask wearing, social distancing, education, and significant infrastructure changes to how businesses, schools, etc function.
the director of the cdc said as much last week (before getting scolded by the president), that things won't begin to return to normal until perhaps second half of next year (i am paraphrasing, i forget his exact wording but he indicated we are not close to returning to normal).
you say your father and girlfriend will get the initial doses. can you expand upon that please? why is that? simply because they are health care workers? i've heard that repeated in the lay press, but as far as i am aware there are no specific plans or details about how health care workers are going to be vaccinated so quickly. it sounds nice and is logical for that to happen, but we are not any where near having real plans in place for that to happen. i am on staff at 3 hospitals including mass gen hospital and i have not heard anything about any of these hospitals having vaccines available for physicians in the coming weeks or months.
i am willing to make a friendly prediction that you're father and girlfriend don't actually receive a COVID19 vaccine this calendar year.
i understand the desire for optimism in the face of the worst pandemic of our lifetime, but we also have to be realistic here.
Jaded-Fan
Registered User
Everything that I have read says front line workers, nursing homes and elderly will be first.
ColePens
RIP Fugu Buffaloed & parabola
Operation Warp Speed, if anyone actually wanted to objectively look into it instead of just hating it because politics, specifically noted the first 100m will go to senior citizens, front line workers, etc.
This method makes perfect sense.
Jaded-Fan
Registered User
A shame.
Politics on both sides is causing needless deaths. From those saying 'if they are for it I'm not doing it' to the people not wearing masks and not social distancing to the anti-vaccine crazies on both sides.
and yet there are no actionable plans in place at MGH, which is considered by many to be the best hospital in the united states (independent of us news and world report rankings, which fluctuate year to year) for this vaccine to be administered to these "front-lines workers" in the next several weeks. has your girlfriend or father heard of any real plans to get the vaccines from their employers? have emails gone out to staff about how/when/where to get these vaccines? i don't think that they have.
there are major logistical hurdles and planning that needs to take place for vaccines to be administered to health care workers, and i have heard of no real plans about this being done. just vague talk about health care workers getting the vaccine. nothing tangible and no actual on the ground planning for this.
do you stand by your prediction that your girlfriend and father will get a coronavirus vaccine in november (administered by their employer/government/local public health department. i am not referring to them getting any sort of vaccine from a clinical trial)? i'm very skeptical, and i am happy to revisit this topic in november. i could wrong, and will happily admit i was incorrect.
similarly, do you still think that "operation warp speed may go down as one of the GOAT achievements in history", as you have previously stated?
if so, what makes you think that? i'd love to hear your reasoning.
Jaded-Fan
Registered User
ColePens
RIP Fugu Buffaloed & parabola
I think it's on pace to legit be one of the GOAT. Absolutely. So... I'll elaborate and it legit has zero to do with politics. I just think this stuff is beyond genius and nobody wants to give any credit because they are blind with hatred.
1) It is 100% how money talks. They are gambling FOR the health of Americans not gambling ON the health of America. They are "gambling" by fast-tracking all the things you don't think of. It specifically states it's a financial risk, not health or product risk. The intent is basically to speed up all the things you need to make this work.
2) They PREPARED. They knew they needed products and they needed it faster than the vaccine could be made to basically have everything prepped to go. So we have the manufactured goods we need to produce before we ever get the f***ing vaccine. THAT, my friend, is playing chess while others play checkers. That is looking 3 steps ahead. THAT is understanding that not only do we need a vaccine, we need the next 3 steps of distribution. This is genius in a time where everyone was reacting, they were being proactive. That was remarkable.
3) Support: We are supporting the companies who can make this and follow the guidelines accordingly. So they aren't forcing anything like the media wants to tell you. That are supporting the process to be as quick and efficient as possible for human health.
4) This is where business comes into play. Development really was out of the hand of what government can do. They can't do anything about that. But they CAN focus on anything manufacturing and how/who we are going to distribute to. And to honestly have the vision to see this in a time of panic is just beyond remarkable. This is legit going to save so many lives it isn't even funny. And nobody will ever give credit for it.
It's just my opinion. I dont really care if anyone disagrees because I would just respect their opinion. It's not worth arguing. I think this is just objectively good. I think in such an uncertain time with panic panic panic, they are doing an INSANE job being proactive. I understand why people can harp on the things that are said by government (both left/right), but the actions taken from shutting travel down to operation wrap speed are just vastly going unnoticed.
you aren't answering my questions. a link to a fairly bland "draft proposal" lacking any sort of details doesn't help your argument.
i am not doubting that the vaccine will first be distributed/administered to health care workers. i am doubting that the vaccine will be available to those workers in weeks, as you have claimed.
has your father and girlfriend received any information from their employer about receiving a potential coronavirus vaccine? i have a family member that works at upmc, and they have not. nor have i been notified about this. one would think if the vaccine was close to being available to these health care workers, there would be significant planning at medical facilities/hospitals/academic institutions taking place right now and that doesn't seem to be occurring to a degree that would make vaccine administration feasible in the next few weeks.
again, do you stand by your prediction that your girlfriend and father will get a coronavirus vaccine in november (administered by their employer/government/local public health department. i am not referring to them getting any sort of vaccine from a clinical trial)?
and the link you provided simply provides a "draft proposal" for how a vaccine would be distribute "if and when" one is approved. it contains absolutely no specifics about how the vaccine is going to be distributed to health care workers. what specifically in that article makes you think health care workers such as your father and girlfriend are weeks away from getting the vaccine?
Jaded-Fan
Registered User
My weeks estimate is from every thing that I have linked for months now about a vaccine by the end of the year. November often cited. Look through this thread to find at least 30 links saying just that.
thanks for the detailed response.
1) i don't really understand what this means in a practical sense. of course a presidential administration and organizations like the CDC/NIH/etc are working to quickly and safely produce a vaccine to a pandemic that has killed hundreds of thousands of citizens. that's the most basic duty of a government, to protect its citizens from harm. it would be a complete dereliction of duty to not seek a vaccine aggressively. any and every prior administration would do the same.
2) giving them credit for preparation is quite debatable. the prior administration established a pandemic response team after their relatively successful handling of the ebola crisis in africa. the current administration disbanded that team claiming it was for streamlining/reorganizing the national security council, but those claims are rather dubious.
you're also giving them credit for planning for vaccine distribution, an extremely obvious thing to do. that is bread and butter drug company and public health practice. it doesn't take any particular foresight to recognize that a pandemic will require a lot of planning to produce and distribute a vaccine. it's practicaly BIO101. obviously you need to have a distribution network to safely produce vaccines (things like chemical reagants, cell cultures/media, pipettes, syringes, cold storage units, etc). drug companies spend billions of dollars on basic science research and clinical trials testing medications and vaccines every single year. this is no great feat to plan for this. hell, companies do this on a large scale every single year with the flu vaccine, as each years requires a new vaccine based on that years' likely strains of the virus.
3) again, i don't really know what this means in a practical sense. obviously the government supports the development of the vaccine. they are spending billions to do so. but they spent billions prior to the pandemic on vaccine and medication research. i guess you could argue the scale/magnitude of this process is greater than typical vaccine/medication research, but we haven't actually seen anything widely distributed to the population yet, and that's what actually matters.
4) again, i just don't see anything remarkable about having the "vision" to prepare to widely distribute a vaccine for a virus that that has killed 200k+ U.S. citizens. it's pretty obvious stuff. of course it's going to take a partnership between the public and private sector to develop and roll out a vaccine, like it does virtually every other vaccine/medication. do you think prior administrations would not have had the foresight to rapidly develop a vaccine and prepare for distribution?
i think it's also odd to praise this vaccine effort to the extent you are doing when the U.S. has declined to participate in multi-lateral global efforts to coordinate vaccine development with other countries. if the current administration's main priority was developing a safe and effective vaccine, it would seem logical to coordinate this response with other countries.
a global pandemic requires a multi-lateral global response, just as took place during the ebola crisis. yet the U.S. has decided to go it alone.
you are using these hyperbolic words to praise these vaccine efforts, but any competent administration would be doing this same basic stuff, while also coordinating with international partners with significantly less political interference into the scientific process.
one last time.
1) has your father and girlfriend received any information from their employer about receiving a potential coronavirus vaccine? one would think if we were weeks away from them getting the vaccine, then health care workers and hospitals/institutions/academic centers would be making plans to administer the vaccine.
2) do you stand by your prediction that your girlfriend and father will get a coronavirus vaccine in november (administered by their employer/government/local public health department, not from a clinical trial)?
Jaded-Fan
Registered User
What a straw man line of questioning. Of the 'do you beat your wife?' variety.
Of course they don’t have any personal knowledge. They are an amazing nurse and doctor. Between them tens of thousands of people would swear that they are alive today because of the job that they do day after day. I have people come up to me all the time and tell me just that.. My father for sixty years. My girlfriend for over forty years.
But they are no more special than thousands of others in the area. No special knowledge, although both are special.
My saying confidence in a vaccine by the end of the year, likely several, is from having read, and linked, dozens of articles from experts who ARE in the loop and who say just that. I linked one just this morning.
Of course they don’t have any personal knowledge. They are an amazing nurse and doctor. Between them tens of thousands of people would swear that they are alive today because of the job that they do day after day. I have people come up to me all the time and tell me just that.. My father for sixty years. My girlfriend for over forty years.
But they are no more special than thousands of others in the area. No special knowledge, although both are special.
My saying confidence in a vaccine by the end of the year, likely several, is from having read, and linked, dozens of articles from experts who ARE in the loop and who say just that. I linked one just this morning.
this may be an informational thread, but scientific information needs context when it is being presented to lay people.
for months now you have consistently posted "facts/figures" that create a rosier picture of the pandemic than is accurate, and you also consistently question and try to parse the words of physicians that have devoted their lives to serving public health, while failing to mention the numerous outright lies that other public officials routinely speak. you post studies that seem to suggest low rates of infections from certain events, but never follow up those posts with later studies showing different results. you post tweets with theories that originate from qanon supporters. taken together, there is a narrative here you are creating, that is not accurate.
there is a reason hospitals have "morbidity and mortality" conferences. no one has ever heard of a "mortality" conference. and that's basic morbidity and mortality go hand in hand, they cannot and should not be viewed independently.
i'm not making this personal by bringing up family. let's stick to the topics being discussed. i hope your family is doing well.
- Status
