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OT: Coronavirus Resources - and other things to not worry about

Preston said:
What should be a celebration of how well vaccines work has turned into mass minimization of a very dangerous and transmissible disease that is still crowding hospitals around the world. A lot of it is the psychology of people believing what they WANT to believe because they are tired and want their lives back. Understandable! We are just not there yet, even if you believe we're closer.. We're just not. Ask anyone who works in a hospital and they'll tell you the same. Omicron isn't a walk in the park and the concern is that the next variant gets back to Delta-level pathogenicity, or worse.

So while a lot of folks are celebrating the end of the pandemic I think it's worth being conscious that the mutating and new variants are likely going to continue for eternity and it's all random and doesn't have to continue getting milder.
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the scary thing for me is that it's in the non-bat animal population now. like deer etc.
 
Volcanologist said:
the scary thing for me is that it's in the non-bat animal population now. like deer etc.
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There are some theories that this is how omicron emerged; evovled in an animal host. The other circulating coronaviruses do the same thing. They evolve to evade immunity. Some are more severe, some are more mild. Flip a coin. That's what the covid endemic state will be (if we aren't already there).
 
Im still a little pissed about my school forcing me to get not one but TWO hepatitis shots back in 97. And then needing a booster 20 years later before traveling. Phucking big pharma lib controlled nanny state.

sorry, super triggered this morning
 
Don't even talk to me about the fucking annual flu shots. I STILL get the flu in many years (which is a fucking super mild illness; it's just a cold) so WHAT'S THE POINT?!?!?!?!
 
That's because it wasn't a dirty lib thing back then. It was one of those things that people accepted from all walks of life because it's basic science. Now the folks with anger issues associate them with being a lib so they must be bad.
 
Preston said:
There are some theories that this is how omicron emerged; evovled in an animal host. The other circulating coronaviruses do the same thing. They evolve to evade immunity. Some are more severe, some are more mild. Flip a coin. That's what the covid endemic state will be (if we aren't already there).
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I am not sure about this but I am kinda sure that it's not a flip of the coin - the truly dangerous variants are a small minority of the possible variants I think.
 
hockeylover said:
Just anecdotal but I don't remember a single kid who didn't get those vaccines when we were escorted to the library for em back then. There was one kid who was afraid of needles and pissed his pants, but no anti-vaxxer stuff.
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That was me. They called me 'puddles' for years.

Now?

I'm known as 'lake'.
 
zeke said:
I am not sure about this but I am kinda sure that it's not a flip of the coin - the truly dangerous variants are a small minority of the possible variants I think.
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Yeah it is. Mutations do not naturally gravitate to one direction or the other. There's 0 selection for virulence but there's plausible scenarios where it can become milder or more severe.



This looks like it is sorta playing out with omicron tho which is nice. But the next one doesn't have to get milder. Population immunity will likely make it seem milder even if it isn't though, which is way more powerful and sustainable than a milder variant.
 
Preston said:
Yeah it is. Mutations do not naturally gravitate to one direction or the other. There's 0 selection for virulence but there's plausible scenarios where it can become milder or more severe.



This looks like it is sorta playing out with omicron tho which is nice. But the next one doesn't have to get milder.
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she's talking about "selection", though. I think that refers to the arguments we see about viruses not wanting to kill their hosts so self selecting for less deadly variants.

that's not what I mean - I mean that in the history of all variants of all viruses, the truly deadly ones are a distinct minority. ergo, any new variant is more likely not as bad as delta.
 
leafman101 said:
My cousin got the coldvid. Got his results 5 days after the test. Our numbers are way off.
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NS announced that they're not even going to bother trying to accurately report total case numbers. Instead they're just going to focus on PCRs, which are already being reserved essentially for the vulnerable.
 
hockeylover said:
Coworkers having a huge discussion today in the group chat about how there should be no quarantine for anyone at all anymore because it's just a cold.

Is that, like, a common opinion at this point? Feel like I'm taking crazy pills here.
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most folks I speak to who are about my age and East Coasters essentially cancelled their christmases.

but the upper canadians I know, yeah, a lot of them think like this (like our friends who are fucking flying to NS for a previously planned (and impossible to reschedule?) social visit on Thursday. we do not expect to see much (if any) of them...
 
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zeke said:
she's talking about "selection", though. I think that refers to the arguments we see about viruses not wanting to kill their hosts so self selecting for less deadly variants.

that's not what I mean - I mean that in the history of all variants of all viruses, the truly deadly ones are a distinct minority. ergo, any new variant is more likely not as bad as delta.
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But now we're making assumptions on the peak virulence of covid. Why does Delta have to be the "truly deadly one?" The flu varies significantly year to year with severity. Zika, hep B, myxoma, etc. These all took years to evolve to increased virulence and many folks likely "called the top" well before virulence peaked.

I mean I would hope Delta is peak virulence but what evidence is there? If omicron is only 20-30% less virulent because it doesn't thrive in your lungs last past variants, there is clearly a lot of room for that lung bit to change in the evolutionary chain. I hope it doesn't and I hope that increased transmission depends on it being a primarily upper respiratory virus. But that's just a theory based on hope; predicting evolution is hard.
 
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