Coronavirus and You - Page 477

On September 22 2021 00:35 Dingodile wrote:
What about black death which happened at year ~1300? Or it was a very different virus? It killed about ~30% of the world population.

On September 22 2021 01:51 RKC wrote:
Without any objective metric, discussion on what's 'better' or 'worse' will be left to subjective determination. Also, recency bias tends to blur our views.

Is COVID bad? Maybe I'm lucky enough not to be critically affected. But I definitely wouldn't want to exchange living during COVID than, say, in the middle of WW1 or WW2 battlefields. COVID is bad, but things can always be a lot of worse. Let's appreciate our blessings, rather than always curse our luck.

The answer is not determined yet, you would need to at the very least wait until this is over and put estimated vs estimated.

On September 22 2021 22:15 JimmiC wrote:

Completely, the sad part is that people think about themselves, or their country, or their state, or their city, or their family, over everyone and short term it benefits them so that behavior continues and is pretty universal (but a spectrum). Where as thinking global about everyone in most cases also benefits the individual more, tide rises all boats and all that. This is even more true in a pandemic like this where the entire west could have everyone 100% protected about all the current covids, and new mutation could happen in Afghanistan (insert country) and none of that would matter.

The distribution of the vaccine should have been based on who can effectively get it out to the most people. In Canada we extended the duration between the first and second shot to get more people first shots, it both worked out better for stopping spread and it looks like the efficacy and longevity has also improved.

At the very least once the west started having a supply issue instead of a demand issue they should have been prioritizing getting the vaccine out. The cost of the vaccine, shipping and all that is a drop in the bucket compared to delta or the next one (please let there not be a next one).

On September 22 2021 22:03 Magic Powers wrote:
Thinking it over again and again, my conclusion is that the FDA has made the correct decision. More first and second doses should go to countries that desperately need them. We shouldn't let doses expire, but they should also be distributed smarter in the first place, and honestly I think more humanely. It will also likely help end the pandemic sooner.
I think the Biden administration should have a very deep think about this.

On September 23 2021 11:58 RKC wrote:
It's up to every country to decide on booster shots (despite WHO pleading for a moratorium to enable distribution to poorer countries).

But since US thrives on open borders and free trade, their long term national interests may be better served in focusing on distribution. Contrast this with smaller, insular and self-reliant countries like Israel.

While there's surely some way to calculate the risks on both approaches using statistical modelling, ultimately it's a decision based on politics and economics (and morality, or so governments and politicians would preach).