Related, I'm curious how long y'all feel it will take for you to be comfortable with what was historically normal.
For example, riding a crowded bus or train, going to a concert, or even going shopping at a big box store seem totally bizarre to me right now. Even after the numbers come down I expect it will be some time before my brain isn't reflexively telling me to wear a mask and avoid crowds.
Not sure what kind of response you expect here, but I’m ready to go back to the old ways today.
Incidently, the way New York and Sweden have tackled the virus have been the most consistent. There was a large first wave, but no second wave (measured in deaths).
On the other end of the spectrum there are countries such as Poland with no initial first wave back in March. But it seems you can only go for so long before the virus turns up.
But it is very hard to do a good response on all counts when you have to do it for 18 months (time from first outbreak until virus is expected).
"According to the new guidelines, which are outlined on the Public Health Agency's website and are effective immediately, everyone in Stockholm, Västra Götaland and Östergötland are strongly urged to:
"Refrain from being in indoor environments such as shops, shopping centres, museums, libraries, swimming pools and gyms. Necessary visits to for example grocery stores and pharmacies are ok.
"Refrain from attending, for example, meetings, concerts, performances, sports training, matches and competitions. This advisory does not apply to sports training for children born 2005 or later.
"If possible avoid physical contact with people other than those you live with. According to the Public Health Agency, this includes for example attending or throwing a party or similar social gatherings."
These were announced two hours ago and are by far the harshest we've had so far in Sweden. They also only cover 43% of the population. (Edit: 57%, also counting the Skåne region's similar recommendations)
> On the other end of the spectrum there are countries such as Poland with no initial first wave back in March. But it seems you can only go for so long before the virus turns up.
Incidentally, the Marshall Islands just had their first case (and from my arcgis dashboard it looks like a second one). If one of the world's most remote islands with a population of under 60,000 can get it within a year, there's little hope to keep it out of anywhere.
How long until tribes like the Sentinelese [1] get coronavirus? (Thankfully many of these tribes are very hostile and it's illegal to even attempt to make contact precisely because of previous transmission during contact)
First of all, Sweden is not done yet, at all. Secondly, every time I look at Sweden's deaths vs cases graph , I get this odd feeling, that it cannot be possible, that their peek deaths is before the peak of the cases. I do not know if I can trust their current stats.
You really can't trust case numbers from almost any country due to widespread differences in testing. Most asymptomatic cases never get tested or counted. Only death statistics are somewhat reliable and comparable.
Swedish skeptic of "the Tegnell/Swedish approach" here: I trust the numbers, but there's a delay in reporting the deaths - it takes at least 10 days to get ~95% of them. There are multiple checks/tests at various stages and it takes time.
Takeaway: Don't trust the latest week's death numbers from Sweden, but trust the ones before that.
The elder care homes etc have gotten a lot better at protecting the people living there.
Having said that, I'm just waiting for things to explode again - and it just takes a few elder care homes to get infected for lots of people to die.
My wife and I have been watching a ton of movies in quarantine and it feels genuinely weird to see images of the old world with huge crowds of unmasked people.
There were a few months when I just didn't leave the apartment at all (outside of very basic tasks generally in the evening). When I finally stepped outside one morning, everything just looked surreal.
I didn’t leave my property (house/yard) at all for a couple months. And even then, as my puppy needed more activity, we never ventured to anywhere with a lot of people. When I had to take her in to the vet last month, in my neighborhood’s little downtown area, I just felt completely unsettled. I have no idea how people who have to be out in public places daily do it.
Along those lines, it's low-key fascinating for me to see unintentional 9/11 imagery in pre-9/11 movies. Look at something like True Lies, which treats a terrorist attack and a plane destroying a building as lighthearted action movie fare.
You never see that kind of imagery treated so flippantly after 9/11. 2000s movies with 9/11 analogues (War of the Worlds, Munich, Cloverfield, etc.) deal with it mostly indirectly and always as deep-set trauma.
It's worse than that. Entire generations have had PTSD because of major events such as this one. For their entire lives.
Edit: How is this being downvoted? It's just the truth, the stress of isolation and the permanent health risk from a pandemic have real traumatic effects. Is anyone denying this?
Probably for "such as this". You might do better by elaborating what events you have in mind and why they were "such as this". Elaborating what traits made them equivalent with this.
I’d be comfortable doing anything I did in December 2019 today. People face wildly heterogeneous risks from this virus and should be allowed to respond accordingly. I’m young, healthy, and haven’t ever visited a nursing home (where 80% of the deaths in my state are) since 2002 when I was six years old. So my response to corona is basically “oh well”. Other people will be in different situations and should make decisions for themselves accordingly. But a one size fits all policy for a virus which varies 1000-fold in severity is nuts.
Then the at-risk should be in isolation, not the low-risk and healthy. It's insane to stop the world because of a tiny percentage of the population. Humans can't live like this, even if it means slightly more deaths over time.
Personally I'm ready to do all of that right now, wearing a mask indoors (and already go to big box stores; concerts are not happening and I don't need to take transit given WFH). I do outdoor activities and it's crowded everywhere, as usual if not more... flying to Red Rocks to climb in a week or two ;)
The pandemic made me really grateful that I live in America, in fact... the freedoms and the culture of liberty
is, most of the time, just an abstraction for someone as privileged and non-prominent as myself, but then you compare the way lockdowns are handled to my native Russia, with draconian and sometimes bizarre enforcement, as well as the stories from Europe, NZ, Australia, etc., and you realize how important both are. I feel the US, even the blue states, are very different in part because the officials realize the enforcement against individuals would cause massive backlash, and not hold up well in court if it came to that. Too bad they have businesses by the balls, so not everything is opened.
> I expect it will be some time before my brain isn't reflexively telling me to wear a mask and avoid crowds.
Then keep wearing a mask. In Asian countries this apparently became part of the general life style after SARS and with generally positive consequences from what you can read.
I live in a country (Thailand) which went on full lockdown, and now has no local transmission. In Bangkok, everyone is still wearing masks when out and about, but nightclubs and restaurants have all re-opened without people being masked, and I've been on the islands for a few weeks where compliance is _much_ more lax and now it feels weird being back in Bangkok where masks are required again. In short: it got back to "normal" pretty quickly once people were no longer worried about transmission, in a country that took it much, much more seriously than Western countries at first -- and in many ways still is (it's veeeery hard to get into Thailand at the moment).
I look out the window and sometimes I feel like a large chunk of the world already seems to be doing activities that are "back to normal". I've been in and still am in my own little bubble right now.
The same amount of time it took me to get used to wearing a mask? I imagine each experience of being around large groups and not getting sick will erode my fears.
Wearing a mask to avoid contracting or spreading illness, to avoid air pollution, or just because you don’t feel like shaving or putting on makeup is common across all of Southeast Asia. If Americans adopted this incredibly rational practice, it would be great for everyone.
I feel pretty comfortable now. My personal risk profile is low. Most of my limitations are due to trying to be a good member of society. That said, I Probably only feel fully comfortable once I get COVID and recover. I know reoccurrence is possible but seems edge.
For ~6 months we were hardcore; no going anywhere around people unless absolutely necessary. Masks anytime people would be within 10ft. Spend as little time indoors (outside of the house) as possible. No visiting friends, no visiting family, nothing.
Recently we've started to very slowly relax things. It's become clear that surfaces aren't really a transmission vector, for one, and that generally if you're outside (or in a well-filtered space) and people use masks you're probably fine. We went to the botanical gardens last weekend. My partner's friends are having a back yard (masked) movie night that we may go to. We're contemplating going to my parents' house for Christmas if we can get everyone to hardcore-quarantine in the weeks leading up to it.
I'm normally an introverted person, but even just the thought of some of these allowances has lifted my spirit dramatically.
But no: despite all that I have no intention of sitting down for a meal at a restaurant anytime soon, much less going to a big box store when I could simply order a delivery. The risk/reward just doesn't work out there until there's a vaccine and it works.
I’m not bothered by it now. The IFR for me is around 3x10-5. I live in a city in the top 10 of per-capita homicide rates in the country. Just living here is more dangerous than SARS. The risk of getting thrush from my mask also bothers me.
The mask pressure will be a lot less after the election, so I wouldn’t worry.
I would be happy for handshakes to go away. Disease aside, some people approach them as obnoxious dominance exercises, others are creepy about them, etc.
Honestly - without a vaccine - I'll never be comfortable again. If I happenstance get covid, recover with no damage, develop immunity, and can't pass it onto others - I'd feel fine.
One of the big reasons is that I do a lot of social dancing. Washing your hands and what not isn't sufficient there. You're getting full body contact with a lot of heavy breathing. Sadly - I think social dancing will be dead for the next few years because this. Might be fine - it'll probably get a lot of the weirdos out of the scene.
I am comfortable right now. I never stopped being uncomfortable with those things because for me personally the risk is miniscule. I can understand how others in high risk groups are concerned, but the reality is that the baseline danger level going forward is always going to be a little higher than in was in 2019. Not even a vaccine will change that reality so we're eventually going to have to get over our fears.
If I'm vaccinated I'm going right back to what I was doing before. I don't care if the train is sardines again if I'm immune. Everything hinges on vaccination. I'm pretty confident my employer will innoculate me not long after the vaccine is available, probably months before the general public.
I am fortunate enough to wait out anther year, I hope herd immunity would have kicked in by then. Not sure about these rushed vaccines will wait for six months after they are released.
I’m ready to go right now. We know a lot more about this disease than we did 8 months ago. First and foremost, the strong correlation between severe illness and Vitamin D deficiency, now demonstrated in numerous cohort studies in multiple nations. Combine that with the blood antibody program and we’re actually more prepared for handling this virus than the seasonal flu.
I was done being scared of the virus in April when I saw all the lies and scams piling up. I've been back to normal life as much as possible. Most of my family and friends are the same way. That includes some who are over 60 years old. On the list of things I worry about, coronavirus is not even on the top 10. As soon as the restrictions are lifted, I will return to every normal activity.
I still obey the law, and I wear a mask around others who feel fear, because I respect them as people and want them to feel comfortable around me. I understand that some people feel hatred or resentment towards me because of my lack of fear of coronavirus, but I do not reciprocate their feelings.
You shouldn’t wear masks to “make people feel comfortable”. You should wear masks because even asymptomatic people can spread the disease. You could unknowingly catch and help spread the disease to someone who is vulnerable. Someone you might not even know.
You’re right not to fear COVID for yourself; statistics support that view. But common, non-medical masks are not for personal safety. They’re for preventing community spread.
It's a virus, of which we have cured maybe 2 in history, last I checked. There have been viruses chronically infecting people for many years. So, we could be looking at 30+ years of covid, unless it puts enough impetus on us to cure it, and perhaps more virii.
However, if not, perhaps we do treatments, to make survival rate high enough so no one worries, but is merely wary to get checked. Or, perhaps we have 30 years where even if a single person gets it, the whole community needs to shut down for weeks, and people become suspicious and grow animus toward neighbors, being spiteful and lashing out more frequently, through rudeness or worse.
Or, there's Sweden's route, which I'm kind of envious now. I'm surprised I haven't seen more countries jump in with both feet.
What other options am I missing? Or which of these would you strike?
We are looking at 30 years of covid insofar as we are looking at 30 years of Measles, 30 years of Polio, or 30 years of Cholera. The point is, if you get your vaccinations, you can live a "normal" life and worry about catching covid as much as you worry about catching measles.
Making the virus extinct is unlikely, but that's more than required to return life to "normal". What's required would be for its annual death toll to drop out of the top 10, such that it looks more like the kinds of ordinary ways people die at random (car crashes, cancer, etc.) and less like taking unnecessary risks.
A decent vaccine (say, 80%+ effective) would lower the transmission rates enough for that. People in high-risk groups may continue to wear masks for the rest of their lives, along with other real changes, but most people could treat their lives as "normal".
The odds of that are very good. There are multiple vaccines in process, with good reason to expect them to work, and preliminary evidence that they work fairly well. That may not suffice to eliminate the virus, but it's good enough for people to stop building their lives around it.
I'm not necessarily advocating to remove the lock downs and instead simply throwing our hands up and going "oh well!", but I can't help but wonder whether there is something better than the current system. I hate this virus, I hate what it's done to the world, I hate that I'm completely powerless to do anything about it. Instead, I'm left with a chorus of desperate screams where my thoughts once were, with no one to listen and no prospect of change anytime soon.
There has to be a better solution than this, doesn't there?
"Normal" is a terrible word to describe any future state. Many things have changed that won't go back to the way they were before ever (and that's entirely a bad thing): more working remotely, more grocery delivery, less retail shopping, etc.
I think the only way to get universal mask use is to do away with social distancing. Open everything up but mandate masks. Otherwise, pandemic fatigue will demoralize people and the majority won’t comply. This second lockdown is already meeting extreme resistance
> Although 44 vaccines have made it to clinical trials, it might not be clear which works best -- or if any work at all -- until they have been authorized and distributed to many people, a team of experts said Tuesday.
This is so different from Hollywood but so similar on how as as software engineer I solve problems. For complex problems, you find a few reasonable solution and you try them out. As you find that one is not feasible or too costly, you move to the next.
> Until a vaccine is available, experts say social distancing, wearing masks and staying in your select bubble of people are crucial to helping quash this pandemic.
I cannot imagine how live is going to be to 13-14 years olds that will live their most formative years in this situation. The world would go back to normal, we will forget about the pandemic, but for a few people it may always feel that is not how they grew up.
The main reason why we won't know which vaccine works best is because they're being tested in separate studies against placebos, rather than in combined studies against each other. This is partly by design, because getting the various pharma companies to actually work with each other was deemed infeasible.
It's also because the only way you know your vaccine works is if more people in the placebo group get the disease than in the vaccine group, for the appropriate measure of statistical significance. If you test two effective vaccines against each other, you have a much harder time knowing if they were effective because you can't measure the cases that were avoided in a reliable manner, so it takes much longer to get a reliable positive result.
The idea is doing a multi-arm study with multiple vaccines plus control. You need more people than in a two-arms study but less than in multiple two-arm studies. The problem is that it's also more difficult to organize than multiple two-arm studies.
How long did the pandemic of 1918 last? More than one year? We didn't do/know much in those days and it went away on its own but of course with a lot of dead people.
The pandemic started in 1889. There is strong circumstantial evidence that it was caused by the emergence of OC43 but we can't really prove it. Killed about a million people.
I pushed my wedding back to 2021 already, at this point we're probably just going to cut our losses and invest in a house or something. The fact that so many Americans are willing to pick up a gun and lay down their life for this country, but wouldn't wear a simple mask for that very same country is shameful.
I'm a veteran (US Army OIF II ~2003-2004) and wear a mask to protect you as much as to protect myself + my family. There are plenty of stupid people in the world, being a willing to serve in the military doesn't mean you're one of them.
The parent commenter may not have been referring to those in the military.
There are many non-military citizens that love guns (that by itself isn't a problem), but do have a sick fascination/desire of being in a firefight and who frequently talk about being willing to lay down their life for America....all while being incapable of wearing a mask. They may be referring to that hypocrisy.
Indeed there are plenty of those individuals. I always ask them if they are so willing why they never signed up to serve in the military. Uncle Sam has always needed help. They weren't willing then, and they aren't willing now. All talk with no action.
We opted to slash&burn our guest list (~150>20) and do a very small ceremony in September for this reason. We didn't want the stress of dragging out, and as cases were spiking in August we didn't feel confident 2021 was even going to be an option.
Some friends of ours lost massive deposits on theirs in 2020, then rescheduled for 2021, and are starting to panic again.
It turned out to be a great excuse to uninvite a large swath of extended family we didn't really want to include anyway, and the small ceremony with only our closest friends & family was wonderful.
> The fact that so many Americans are willing to pick up a gun and lay down their life for this country
I don't think they are. The motivations behind those who go to war are not clear cut. Some are noble honest giving people; others less so. For some that's simply the "best" choice for career/etc.
Those that go to war purely from the kindness of their heart is smaller than implied - imo - and wearing a mask most aligns with a simple kind ask, perhaps a much smaller percentage of the gun supporters.
I will say that for my wife it was mixture. She's patriotic, and it was also the best choice to get her life started after high school. I imagine it's probably some combination for most people.
Side note, she's furious every time she catches a Trump rally on TV and sees blue-lives matter desecrated American flag.
My wife and I just went down to the courthouse with my parents and got married this September. God knows when this will all be over, we’ll have some kind of ceremony then.
I delayed my wedding from July to a much smaller wedding in February 21, to a courthouse ceremony sometime this winter followed by a big first or second anniversary party (whenever the coast is clear).
If you want to avoid crowds, the two busiest days for the courthouse we got married in are Thanksgiving Friday and the last Friday in December. There were six judges on the day we went - typically it’s handled by one judge. (That was 2018, who knows how it’s going to be this year. Might even get shut down in some places.)
Well we had the very visible example of the Navy Seal who allegedly killed Osama doing just this. Not only refusing to wear a mask but suggesting that those of us who do are "pussies".
But outside of the military we have the people buying up guns to protect america from a mostly imagined antifa threat, who will not wear masks to protect against a very real viral one.
People have never been good at thinking though, similar stuff happened in 1918. oh well.
> but wouldn't wear a simple mask for that very same country is shameful.
There aren't as many of those as you think. The media likes to find all cases of people doing that and reporting on them.
Instead the media should do some polling and get statistics on mask wearing. But they won't, because in general most people are wearing masks, and that goes against the narrative.
I wear masks and have been wearing one since the "experts" were claiming they were not needed. It just seemed so odd to hear them say that when at the same time the doctors and nurses were screaming that they didn't have enough.
There have been so many mixed and misleading messages I understand why some people doubt the efficacy of masks.
Remember "Don't touch your face"? What happened to that?
I think if the communication people had just come clean and admitted they mislead the public in order to secure the PPE the healthcare system needed and prevent hoarding (Like what happened with TP), there would be far less anti-mask rhetoric.
Unfortunately these politicians doubled down and tried to differentiate between medical and non medical masks. Totally a CMA attitude that understandably has been met with a degree of mistrust.
There was a big screw-up on masks that the public health establishment has not come out and apologized for. And they wonder why people don't trust them...
Hasn't apologized, but has admitted that the reason Americans were initially discouraged from using them is because there was a shortage. From a Fauci interview with The Street:
“We were concerned the public health community, and many people were saying this, were concerned that it was at a time when personal protective equipment, including the N95 masks and the surgical masks, were in very short supply,” Fauci told The Street. "We wanted to make sure the people, namely, the healthcare workers, who were brave enough to put themselves in harm's way to take care of people who you know were infected with coronavirus, and the danger of them getting infected. We did not want them to be without the equipment they needed."
After watching people's behavior, which varies from selfish, bizarre, or sociopathic, they weren't wrong to be concerned. Especially when it appears the Federal government would have been logistically incapable of, or unwilling to, securing a good supply for healthcare workers, if they did tell the truth and provoke a mask buying panic. The list of shameful actions this year is going to be longer than a CVS receipt for a single package of Tylenol.
What about "don't touch your face?" Who is advocating to start touching your face? If you don't have to touch your face, don't do it. I've heard that advice well before covid and all throughout the pandemic.
I've heard it well before too, but when is the last time you heard it? But thats besides my point. We were mislead about masks in the beginning, even Fauchi was not advocating mask wearing in the beginning, yet there were stories about nurses being forced to ration and re-use theirs. I'm not saying it wasn't what needed to be done but it had consequences, one of which is a certain level of skepticism when the message is changed from "Masks are not" to "Masks are"
This is just general common sense advice for literally an illness. It's not COVID-specific. If you touch your eyes, nose, and mouse, you're more likely to get infected by whatever's around.
I agree, not arguing with You. The point is I watch people on the news everyday adjusting their masks, pulling them under their nose, scratching their foreheads etc... yet I honestly have not heard a word regarding face touching for the past 2 or 3 months. Can you honestly say you have? I wasn't arguing for face touching so don't get all virtuous and preachy about my comment.
It also frustrating that the same “experts” are sowing FUD on the vaccine effort. Of course they’ll eventually chastise people who now have their fears confirmed and become suspicious.
If you don’t want to get sick or get someone you must see (eg elderly parents) sick, then wear a mask and/or hide inside. Let the rest of us do what we want. People my age have a 99.9% survival rate. My parents’ age, 99.x%. There is no evidence that the long term effects are actually any more severe or prevalent than with, e.g. particularly nasty flu years. We choose to get on with life.
I’m definitely not letting the government tell me whether I can have a family party or not. If you’re scared of the virus, stay home.
This pandemic will end like almost every other pandemic in the history of the human race: enough people get sick and acquire permanent/temporary immunity and the virus stops spreading. The question is whether in the process, we freak out to the point of skyrocketing suicides, economic stagnation, and becoming joyless.
Edit: not bothered by the downvotes but I am amused by the petty people who went and downvoted my other posts too. lol!
The problem is that you don’t know what someone else’s needs are. Wearing a mask doesn’t protect you, it protects the people around you.
You choosing not to wear one puts everyone else at risk, even if they’re wearing one. And if someone is a caretaker/family of a person with elevated risk, they still have to go outside sometimes (groceries, pharmacy, etc). If you’re a carrier of covid and are unaware of it, and you choose not to wear a mask, that person is helpless to your spit droplets that you’re spraying everywhere.
Sapping joy from the world and the prosperity of future generations in the name of a year or two of extra life is wrong. That is basically what we’re talking about here. If all the old-but-independent had food dropped off at their doorstep for two months while the rest of us just let ourselves get sick, this thing would have been over very quickly with not that many deaths.
Instead, young healthy people are hysterical and irrationally think they are going to die from this.
If your family is all being smart and doing the right things, you may be able to have small family gatherings (easy access to fast, accurate testing would make this even safer). The problem is that this virus is very contagious, so while your age group may be fine, it's easy for you to pass it onto to someone who will not be fine.
I'm also so tired of this fake dichotomy of either live your life like there is no pandemic or hide inside. There is a huge gradient between the two with varying levels of risk.
> I’m definitely not letting the government tell me whether I can have a family party or not.
It's sad that so many people have forgotten what it means to be a good neighbor or citizen. Instead it's all about 'me', and screw everyone else.
Family members can leave their medications and food on their door step and walk away. People can get groceries delivered. Nursing homes have extensive precautions.
Cuomo said his ultra lockdowns would be justified “if they saved even one life” (lol!). Maybe we’ve just become a little too uncomfortable with our own mortality. Life is a bitch and then you die. Get over it. Almost all the deaths are in the extremely old, a massive percent already in hospice. This virus is small time stuff, mostly taking out the already dying. But between TDS and hysterical media coverage in general, so many young and healthy people are TERRIFIED. It’s a disgrace.
It’s not inconvenience. Millions of people’s lives are on hold. This is awful for our happiness, our culture, our productivity. Children are kept home behind a computer screen, or even worse, sent to schools that have become more controlled and joyless than prisons, screamed at for playing with their friends. This is evil.
I really hope this generation is never asked for actual sacrifice. People who lost their jobs are the ones who have it really bad right now. For everyone else, it's an inconvenience. Using words like 'evil' and 'joyless prisons' shows a complete lack of perspective.
Because it's not all about the mortality rates. Just because the bug doesn't literally end your life doesn't mean you won't be left with long term (expensive) complications or handicaps, that could very well kill you years after you get over the virus.
Per the CDC [1]:
>Among patients with COVID-19, 76.8% had respiratory complications, including pneumonia (70.1%), respiratory failure (46.5%), and ARDS (9.3%). Nonrespiratory complications were frequent, including renal (39.6%), cardiovascular (13.1%), hematologic (6.2%), and neurologic complications (4.1%), as well as sepsis (24.9%) and bacteremia (4.7%); 24.1% of COVID-19 patients had complications involving three or more organ systems. Among COVID-19 patients, nine complications were more prevalent among racial and ethnic minority patients, including respiratory, neurologic, and renal complications, even after adjustment for age and underlying medical conditions.
This isn't the fucking flu, and at this point, it is intentionally dishonest to downplay the effects of the virus.
That’s hospitalized patients, which are a small fraction of all patients that get Covid.
And the CDC literally has a webpage that calls out all the similarities between the flu and COVID-19. Including the risk of long term complications from the flu.
We're all aware of the mortality rate, but not everyone finds sacrificing hundreds of thousands of sick and elderly to be viable just because the denominator is sufficiently large.
It's the same reason we don't tell wheelchair users to "just stay home" if they can't deal with a world that only has stairs.
We're trying to be a more advanced civilization with structures to ensure quality of life for as many as possible, not only the young and healthy. We're evolving beyond the raw survival of the fittest that determined who lived and who died when we were essentially animals.
Many of us spend most of our lives healthy enough not to need help, but either we care that others do, or else we selfishly recognize that we could find ourselves needing help someday for unexpected reasons outside our control. So it's in our best interest to invest in these social structures.
We all die. Let that idea sink in. Even you will one day cease to live and the important thing won’t be the extra year or two you lived by sapping the prosperity of future generations. Life isn’t worth extending at all costs.
I'm young and healthy myself, and feel the temptation of that mindset on a base emotional level.
But I'm also smart enough to realize that someday I might be 62 and benefit from living in a society that doesn't give up on addressing a pandemic that can be mitigated by something as simple as wearing masks. Should ideology not get in the way.
I could have 20 quality years of life ahead of me before attempts to keep me alive become needlessly heroic.
Based on the Dr. Christakis interview with Sam Harris, we won't be back to truly normal until 2024. Vaccines won't be widely taken until the end of 2022, 2023 will be a sobering up phase where people aren't quite used to social gatherings again. By 2024 election, we'll finally be having big rallies and big concerts again.
If all COVID19 related treatments and on-going care were covered under a form of universal health care in the US, I'd be willing to participate in the larger economy and pick up my daily routines again. Those who are high risk or older would need to exercise caution to limit exposure of course and universal masks would still be a good idea, but I do feel like things could largely get chugging again. At some point the isolated living just isn't viable or worth living anymore.
However the risk of financial ruin to any given individual or family from a 3 week COVID stay in the hospital, even if you survive without complications, is just too great a risk to "go back to normal". In the US such a stay likely means you end up unemployed and facing massive surprise bills from out of network "contractor" doctors, coinsurance, etc. It was already bad before, but the economy (the "real" economy) really wouldn't survive the obscene amounts of medical bill bankruptcies.
Is there a reason why Fauci has been in charge for so long, and that leadership doesn’t cycle? He doesn’t seem particularly impressive or accurate. I don’t see why public health needs a face. Just give us the most recent science, admit when you are wrong, and most importantly admit how confident you are with your predictions.
For example, riding a crowded bus or train, going to a concert, or even going shopping at a big box store seem totally bizarre to me right now. Even after the numbers come down I expect it will be some time before my brain isn't reflexively telling me to wear a mask and avoid crowds.