EPTCoronavirus and You - Page 388
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Any and all updates regarding the COVID-19 will need a source provided. Please do your part in helping us to keep this thread maintainable and under control. It is YOUR responsibility to fully read through the sources that you link, and you MUST provide a brief summary explaining what the source is about. Do not expect other people to do the work for you. Conspiracy theories and fear mongering will absolutely not be tolerated in this thread. Expect harsh mod actions if you try to incite fear needlessly. This is not a politics thread! You are allowed to post information regarding politics if it's related to the coronavirus, but do NOT discuss politics in here. Added a disclaimer on page 662. Many need to post better. | ||
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NrG.Bamboo
United States2756 Posts
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Gorsameth
Netherlands22068 Posts
On June 01 2021 10:48 iPlaY.NettleS wrote: So I take it you are in favour of continued (semi) lockdown across the entire country until 2023?Since when did waiting for the safety studies to finish mean someone is anti-vaccine? Fact is the Pfizer long term safety studies aren’t due to report until 2023 Source : https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04368728 Additionally it has emergency use authorisation only, not full approval.We all know that.So a bit nutty to force people into taking it.Just offer it to anyone who wants it, those who don’t want it take their chances.Simple. Because that is the rational alternative to vaccination. | ||
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evilfatsh1t
Australia8794 Posts
On June 01 2021 17:19 Gorsameth wrote: So I take it you are in favour of continued (semi) lockdown across the entire country until 2023? Because that is the rational alternative to vaccination. not that i agree with a no vaccination policy, but australia has already announced that they dont plan on loosening any restrictions even with a vaccinated population, so the QoL benefit of getting a vaccination is pretty much nil anyway. | ||
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Gorsameth
Netherlands22068 Posts
On June 01 2021 17:24 evilfatsh1t wrote: Is Australia in an actual lockdown? From what I understand any lockdown is local and generally there are just some travel restrictions around hot spots. And hot spots should become more and more rare as more people get vaccinated.not that i agree with a no vaccination policy, but australia has already announced that they dont plan on loosening any restrictions even with a vaccinated population, so the QoL benefit of getting a vaccination is pretty much nil anyway. Not to mention Australia's location means its situation is vastly different from places like the USA or Europe. | ||
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evilfatsh1t
Australia8794 Posts
On June 01 2021 18:24 Gorsameth wrote: Is Australia in an actual lockdown? From what I understand any lockdown is local and generally there are just some travel restrictions around hot spots. And hot spots should become more and more rare as more people get vaccinated. Not to mention Australia's location means its situation is vastly different from places like the USA or Europe. australia has infrequent lockdowns centered around hotspots just as you mentioned, but even the most recent lockdowns have all lasted a week or less. the degree of lockdown differed per state but my states most recent outbreak didnt even resort to a lockdown, just a temporary mandate of mask wearing indoors. without the outbreaks some social distancing regulations are in effect but in practice its as if theyre non existent. regardless the government hasnt indicated that they wouldnt relax these regulations with a vaccinated population anyway. so from an australians perspective, we are living almost completely normal lives even with a fairly low vaccinated population. the only huge negatives about the current climate for us is the impact that has already been done to our labour intensive industries, tertiary education sectors, tourism industries and the complete shutdown of international travel. however the government has previously announced that borders will remain closed even with a fully vaccination population and the economy is not going to get any better otherwise, which is why i completely understand why any australian would wonder why they need to be vaccinated at all. the benefit of taking vaccines in other countries are much more pronounced because the damage covid is continually bringing is easily observed. australia hasnt had a major outbreak in almost a year and not a single covid death in 6 months. our day to day lives are almost the same as pre covid and if the only major things that have changed (eg border restrictions) are due to remain the same then why would any australian want to risk getting an AZ shot for example when covid itself is barely a risk factor here? im personally not against getting the vaccine, but im also not lining up to get one either. it isnt my turn yet anyway but even if it was i wouldnt get my shot unless my vaccine proves to be a compulsory requirement for something else (such as international travel). edit: im realising now that you were more likely referring to continued lockdowns vs vaccines in the US/EU, which would make my posts all irrelevant lol. i automatically assumed you were referring to australia because you were responding to nettles who lives in australia. my bad | ||
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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Acrofales
Spain18199 Posts
On June 01 2021 18:45 evilfatsh1t wrote: australia has infrequent lockdowns centered around hotspots just as you mentioned, but even the most recent lockdowns have all lasted a week or less. the degree of lockdown differed per state but my states most recent outbreak didnt even resort to a lockdown, just a temporary mandate of mask wearing indoors. without the outbreaks some social distancing regulations are in effect but in practice its as if theyre non existent. regardless the government hasnt indicated that they wouldnt relax these regulations with a vaccinated population anyway. so from an australians perspective, we are living almost completely normal lives even with a fairly low vaccinated population. the only huge negatives about the current climate for us is the impact that has already been done to our labour intensive industries, tertiary education sectors, tourism industries and the complete shutdown of international travel. however the government has previously announced that borders will remain closed even with a fully vaccination population and the economy is not going to get any better otherwise, which is why i completely understand why any australian would wonder why they need to be vaccinated at all. the benefit of taking vaccines in other countries are much more pronounced because the damage covid is continually bringing is easily observed. australia hasnt had a major outbreak in almost a year and not a single covid death in 6 months. our day to day lives are almost the same as pre covid and if the only major things that have changed (eg border restrictions) are due to remain the same then why would any australian want to risk getting an AZ shot for example when covid itself is barely a risk factor here? im personally not against getting the vaccine, but im also not lining up to get one either. it isnt my turn yet anyway but even if it was i wouldnt get my shot unless my vaccine proves to be a compulsory requirement for something else (such as international travel). edit: im realising now that you were more likely referring to continued lockdowns vs vaccines in the US/EU, which would make my posts all irrelevant lol. i automatically assumed you were referring to australia because you were responding to nettles who lives in australia. my bad Sounds like your government likes their power a bit too much, and thinks covid is an excellent scare tactic to get away with instating their police state crap. Not opening borders again even after your population achieves herd immunity sounds like a particularly weird stance unless you want to enact some kind of xenophobic policies and just needed an excuse. | ||
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evilfatsh1t
Australia8794 Posts
On June 01 2021 22:13 Acrofales wrote: Sounds like your government likes their power a bit too much, and thinks covid is an excellent scare tactic to get away with instating their police state crap. Not opening borders again even after your population achieves herd immunity sounds like a particularly weird stance unless you want to enact some kind of xenophobic policies and just needed an excuse. a very accurate analysis of the complete shitfest that is our government. lost case monkeys who prefer to have a war on immigration and foreign investment now than focus on the real problems | ||
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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Lmui
Canada6221 Posts
On June 02 2021 00:57 JimmiC wrote: A interesting article about all the possible benefits and other uses for the mRNA vaccine technology. Will be pretty cool to see all the other healthcare benefits of the massive effort put forth to combat covid. https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/01/health/mrna-vaccines-covid-future/index.html Working from home, cycling and mRNA are the best things to come out of the pandemic. The carbon footprint from commuting has dropped by a lot and worldwide, cycling got a gigantic boost from the pandemic. I wanted to buy a new bike this year and those plans have been thrown out the window because entry level bikes went up by 15% if you could find them in stock, and carbon road bikes (what I've been trying to find) went up by 20%. I have a crappy old hybrid that's ok for this year though, so I'm willing to wait it out til supply normalizes over the winter. Edit: Looking at this chart: https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/coronavirus-vaccination-tracker-how-many-people-in-canada-have-received-shots-1.5247509 It looks like some of Canada's provinces have begun hitting the limits of first dose acceptance (Alberta/Saskatchewan/Manitoba) around 55% population vaccinated because their first doses are tapering off and second doses are ramping a little. The big 3 (BC, Ontario, Quebec) don't seem to have hit a wall yet at 60%, so hopefully it's still a ways off. A first dose administered is somewhere around 4-6x more effective at stopping transmission than a second dose at a society level, so the more first doses you give out, the faster covid gets eliminated. As case counts drop too, our contact tracers are more and more effective at breaking chains of transmission because we've had enough contact tracers for 800 cases/day, and now that we're at 1/3rd of that, they can spend a lot more time on each person to really dig in and break chains of transmission. | ||
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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Belisarius
Australia6233 Posts
On June 01 2021 22:13 Acrofales wrote: Sounds like your government likes their power a bit too much, and thinks covid is an excellent scare tactic to get away with instating their police state crap. Not opening borders again even after your population achieves herd immunity sounds like a particularly weird stance unless you want to enact some kind of xenophobic policies and just needed an excuse. To be clear, that's hyperbole. He's quoting the Australian Fox-style tabloids. The current government is more than happy to aggregate power to itself while blaming foreigners, but their policy is not to keep borders closed indefinitely. The current target is mid 2022 because our rollout is a tire-fire. This is a national embarrassment but not really an authoritarian power-grab. The BBC has a pretty solid article on the situation from a week or so ago. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-57224635 + Show Spoiler + Languishing behind The government now also faces mounting pressure over how it plans to handle the next phase of the pandemic. Prime Minister Scott Morrison - who faces an election next year - has announced Australia won't re-open borders until mid-2022. The exact timing and just how that will happen are unclear. But the budget announcement was a shock extension to previous forecasts of an opening-up to occur slowly at the end of this year. The main reason for the delay is vaccination. Australia's immunisation programme has been beset with delays, and lags well behind other developed nations such as the UK and US. That's dealing a heavy blow to sectors like tourism and higher education. Australia's strong migration programme - relied on to address skills shortages and population growth - has also been cut almost completely. Ernst and Young, an accounting firm, estimates that Australia's economy is losing A$7.6bn (£4.18bn; $5.9bn) a month from the closed borders. Life in Australia has been pretty much back to pre-covid since the end of 2020, and well before in many smaller states. The two main differences are the restrictions on international travel, and the risk of local snap lockdowns whenever it jumps out of quarantine. Both of these have been widely accepted so far as the backbone of Australia's strategy. Border closures have something like 80% support in polls, for example. However, as it starts to dawn on people that the US and Europe will soon have our level of normality without either of those downsides, pressure is beginning to build. The federal government has largely been able to swan through the pandemic collecting credit for decisions made at state level or by popular decree, but the two biggest pressure points, quarantine and the vaccine rollout, are both in the federal domain. Both have been appallingly managed in terms of both capacity and execution, and we are now paying the price. For now, federal support is still high, but imo the longer we have to watch the rest of the world party from inside our cage, the more they will feel it. | ||
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Lmui
Canada6221 Posts
On June 02 2021 07:25 JimmiC wrote: It feels so good to see the active cases plummeting instead of climbing. We went from a peak of 800 per 100k a couple of weeks ago down to now 130 and it is dropping lots every day. The rest of Alberta is not falling as fast but is as well. I'm feeling very hopeful about the summer being near normal. It is amazing how much the lockdown of only 2 weeks (and people were still going to work) along with the vaccinated numbers have just crushed it! I tend to look at the %s of the eligible instead of total as I think that gives an idea of who will also get their kids vaccinated when the time comes. It is sad we have slowed here but we are getting closer to the 70% mark which I believe will put us at or near herd immunity. I wonder how many of the people who have not gotten the vaccine have some immunity from having covid? Kenny seems like he really wants the Calgary stampede to happen, I hope if they do they somehow leverage it to get more vaccinated, maybe free entry or midway rides for those who have or something? As far as active cases dropping, BC's been on a linear drop for active cases for pretty much a month now. It's remarkable how straight the line is (If it continued at this rate, BC would hit 0 at around Jun. 18) ![[image loading]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E21D5WYVgAc1nRD?format=jpg&name=large) I'm pretty sure no matter what the stampede is going to happen. Cases are plummeting everywhere, and by first dose %, even the prairies are around the top 20 states by first dose %. https://www.mayoclinic.org/coronavirus-covid-19/vaccine-tracker Given a little time, the vaccines will take effect and finish off covid by late June even with loosening restrictions | ||
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evilfatsh1t
Australia8794 Posts
On June 02 2021 08:45 Belisarius wrote: To be clear, that's hyperbole. He's quoting the Australian Fox-style tabloids. The current government is more than happy to aggregate power to itself while blaming foreigners, but their policy is not to keep borders closed indefinitely. The current target is mid 2022 because our rollout is a tire-fire. This is a national embarrassment but not really an authoritarian power-grab. The BBC has a pretty solid article on the situation from a week or so ago. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-57224635 + Show Spoiler + Languishing behind The government now also faces mounting pressure over how it plans to handle the next phase of the pandemic. Prime Minister Scott Morrison - who faces an election next year - has announced Australia won't re-open borders until mid-2022. The exact timing and just how that will happen are unclear. But the budget announcement was a shock extension to previous forecasts of an opening-up to occur slowly at the end of this year. The main reason for the delay is vaccination. Australia's immunisation programme has been beset with delays, and lags well behind other developed nations such as the UK and US. That's dealing a heavy blow to sectors like tourism and higher education. Australia's strong migration programme - relied on to address skills shortages and population growth - has also been cut almost completely. Ernst and Young, an accounting firm, estimates that Australia's economy is losing A$7.6bn (£4.18bn; $5.9bn) a month from the closed borders. Life in Australia has been pretty much back to pre-covid since the end of 2020, and well before in many smaller states. The two main differences are the restrictions on international travel, and the risk of local snap lockdowns whenever it jumps out of quarantine. Both of these have been widely accepted so far as the backbone of Australia's strategy. Border closures have something like 80% support in polls, for example. However, as it starts to dawn on people that the US and Europe will soon have our level of normality without either of those downsides, pressure is beginning to build. The federal government has largely been able to swan through the pandemic collecting credit for decisions made at state level or by popular decree, but the two biggest pressure points, quarantine and the vaccine rollout, are both in the federal domain. Both have been appallingly managed in terms of both capacity and execution, and we are now paying the price. For now, federal support is still high, but imo the longer we have to watch the rest of the world party from inside our cage, the more they will feel it. i dont think it was hyperbolic at all. the federal governments goal was to have a fully vaccinated population by october. even if you delay that a few months theres still absolutely no basis for them to continue border restrictions for another 6 months on top of that. prior to covid the federal government has slashed immigration numbers yearly and foreign investment (more specifically chinese investment) has been incorrectly identified as the root of our housing problems. its no coincidence now that during covid the government has allowed 600,000+ temporary visa holders to leave the country and is in a war with china for reasons that are hard to justify. theyre absolutely trying to use covid as an excuse to moderate all foreign influence and fulfill another agenda. instead of taking responsibility for lack of foresight and action with infrastructure theyre deflecting and essentially doing what trump did. just blame everything on the immigrants and foreign money | ||
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RKC
2848 Posts
Third, and perhaps most importantly, there's a slight disconnect between such a zero-risk policy and vaccination program. So the government doesn't open borders until everyone is vaccinated (or until a high herd immunity target is reached), and sets a faraway deadline in 2022. Also, a lockdown is imposed whenever there's just a few cases, and little or no exemptions are given to vaccinated people. So what's the rush to get vaccinated then? Not saying that people are morally right in thinking so. But there's a sense of logic in their 'wait-and-see' approach, even if it's a selfish one. | ||
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Slydie
1929 Posts
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DarkPlasmaBall
United States45238 Posts
On June 02 2021 17:52 Slydie wrote: Does anyone know why a rapid increase in cases is usually followed by an equally dramatic decline? You mean, as opposed to a more gradual, less steep, decline over a longer period of time? My guess is that some sort of very serious, significant action or announcement is the cause for the abrupt inflection point + dramatic decline (e.g., "total lockdown right now, because things are getting out of hand, and drastic times call for drastic measures" or "vaccines are finally here, gogogo!"). | ||
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Silvanel
Poland4742 Posts
Edit: I also second the opinion that governamnt actions + media reports create a feedback loop. Changing both people attitude and behaviour. Incresing the steepnes of both rise and fall in infiections. | ||
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Slydie
1929 Posts
On June 02 2021 18:39 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: You mean, as opposed to a more gradual, less steep, decline over a longer period of time? My guess is that some sort of very serious, significant action or announcement is the cause for the abrupt inflection point + dramatic decline (e.g., "total lockdown right now, because things are getting out of hand, and drastic times call for drastic measures" or "vaccines are finally here, gogogo!"). No, I don't think it is all about the measures, there is math to it. It smoothes out eventually, but there are a lot of spikes, regardless if the measures changed dramatically or not. | ||
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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