Well, “burn itself out” doesn’t mean disappear, it means herd immunity, which is what we are now reaching with vaccines (at least in the UK). Even with herd immunity there will be cases and deaths, but at a manageable level.

You only offered a death sentence, not a solution. :D

Your youngest kid is what, 4?

13 years in suburban "hell"

Better than the "hell" of worrying whether your kids will have to e-learn in perpetuity

With the delta variant, most scientists agree “herd immunity” cannot occur until a portion of the population much smaller than the number vulnerable to death by covid are immune. Hence vaccines are the only way to reach it without killing off millions of people.

13 days would be beyond insufferable. ;)

How many millions?

You are presumably aware the Biden politicians are applying thevsame pressure on the FDA to approve vaccines for 5 to 11 year olds that Trump did to get them approved before last year’s election. We’ll see if it works bettter this time.

Meanwhile, if you saw Randi Weingarden on TV last Sunday, she has evidently knuckled under to her Democratic allies and now wants kids and her union members in school and wants everybody vaccinated. So things are moving your way.

well, i dearly hope that message eventually trickles down to the dipshits running the CTU, but i won't be holding my breath.

For our school district (like pretty much all of suburban Chicagoland) there isn't even the slightest doubt about learning in schools, the only area of contention is mask versus no mask. And that issue was resolved by a Governor mandate requiring masks in school for everybody for the time being

They just announced the start of the school year was delayed by two weeks here. However, this wasn't due to COVID, but because the district cannot find enough bus drivers and 6,000 students still lack transportation options.

that's a bummer.

one of the few things that CPS does right is that it operates its K-8 elementary schools on a neighborhood model, and students who live within 1.5 miles of school (the VAST majority of CPS elementary students) are ineligible for bus service.

and most high school students are on their own (ie. walk, bike, or CTA) for transportation to school.

That's the way it was when I was in school. The only way I could ever catch a school bus was to walk AWAY from the school until I was outside the 1.5 mile limit and I sometimes did that since it was actually a shorter walk than to walk to school.

From NPR:

The State Of Arkansas Has Only 8 Empty ICU Beds, As COVID-19 Cases Resurge

August 10, 20212:08 PM ET

Arkansas, among the states hardest-hit by a new wave of coronavirus cases linked to the highly contagious delta variant, says it is down to eight unoccupied ICU beds statewide with which to care for COVID-19 patients.

Gov. Asa Hutchison, in a tweet on Monday, said the latest report highlighted "startling numbers."

"We saw the largest single-day increase in hospitalizations and have eclipsed our previous high of COVID hospitalizations," the governor wrote. "There are currently only eight ICU beds available in the state."

"Vaccinations reduce hospitalizations," he added.

Hospitalization of COVID-19 patients jumped by 103 to 1,376, the report cited by Hutchison shows. It's the biggest daily jump and total in the state since the start of the pandemic.

"This is unlike anything that we experienced before during the COVID-19 pandemic," says Dr. Cam Patterson, who serves as chancellor of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, which includes the UAMS Medical Center hospital in Little Rock.

Hospitals are seeing younger patients than before. A year ago, the average COVID-19 patient was over 60 years old, Patterson tells Morning Edition. Now the average age is 40.

Nearly half of the people in the hospital's ICU are there because of COVID-19. About 20% of COVID-19 patients have been pregnant people, Patterson says, some of whom have lost their babies because of the disease.

A year ago, the health system's children's hospital usually had one or two COVID-19 patients. Now there are 22. Many of these patients are eligible for vaccines but haven't been vaccinated, he says.

Medical staff are overwhelmed and exhausted.

"I heard from a nurse who said that she cries in her car before she comes into work now," Patterson says. "We've had nurses walk off in the middle of shifts because they can't take it anymore."

About 17% of nursing positions at the hospital are vacant, which increases the load on the current staff.

"They're taking care of more patients than they're used to and they're just flat worn out," he says.

Arkansas has among the lowest vaccination rates in the country, with fewer than 43% of adults fully immunized.

"It's difficult to come into work and to deal with these challenges when you know that there was an antidote to this, the vaccine that people have chosen not to take. And it's difficult not to become angry," Patterson says.

In April, Hutchison signed into law a statewide ban on further mask mandates. However, in a news conference last week, the governor said he regretted signing the measure, which has complicated his state's efforts to control the spread of the virus.

"In hindsight, I wish that it had not become law," he said. "But it is the law, and the only chance we have is either to amend it or for the courts to say that it has an unconstitutional foundation."

Last week, a court temporarily blocked the law from being enforced.

Link: https://www.npr.org/sections/coronav...covid-19-surge

It's not fear-mongering, it's reporting the number of ICU beds left. My county has none left, and with that statement does it mean I am fear-mongering? If so...:shrug: I will put it in bold for my next post. I'm not scared of the article either, so I don't consider it fear-porn or whatever. Just a tame article.

Meanwhile, back here on earth...an entire state has only 8 ICU beds left. That's not fear mongering, that's simply reporting a pretty sobering reality. Imagine having a heart attack, car accident or be involved in some other emergency and having to deal with this shit.

New study suggests Moderna may be nearly twice as effective at stopping breakthrough infections of Delta than Pfizer.

Found Pfizer only provided 42% protection in Minnesota once Delta became dominant, while Moderna provided 76% protection.

Its called reality. We have no ICUs available in Austin. Facts.

Prioritize those other people and not unvaccinated Covid patients.

Some of these southern States are indeed getting slammed hard.

Meanwhile, in northeastern Illinois we are certainly seeing a bump in cases (duh...so many people are living normally again) but deaths and hospitalizations are up only a bit. That's the effect you would expect with broad vaccination.

Now sure, do we have Howard Hughes types like Pedestrian who still view that as "the world is ending! Go back to your basements!" ? Yes, but luckily they are increasingly sounding like crazy hecklers and are mostly ignored.

the rate the southern states are going, they will reach natural herd immunity fairly soon anyway. The non-vaccinated population will be hitting natural immunity fairly quickly.

The Northern states will probably see one more Winter wave starting around October among the vaccine hold-outs. Probably not as severe as the Southern states because of higher vaccination rates but still notable.

I expect that to be the end of the pandemic as far as hospitalization and deaths go.

What was that about herd immunity?

From Yahoo! News:

The developer of the AstraZeneca shot says the Delta variant has made herd immunity impossible because vaccinated people can still transmit the virus

Marianne Guenot
Wed, August 11, 2021, 4:48 AM

Andrew Pollard, British immunologist and vaccinologist:

-Achieving herd immunity is "not a possibility" with the Delta variant, Sir Andrew Pollard said.

-That is because the variant can be transmitted by vaccinated people, he said.

-"We don't have anything which will stop that transmission," he said.

The Delta variant has changed the equation for achieving herd immunity, the developer of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine has said.

Speaking at a UK parliamentary meeting on Tuesday, Sir Andrew Pollard, a professor of pediatric infection and immunity at the University of Oxford, said that achieving herd immunity is "not a possibility" now that the Delta variant is circulating.

"We know very clearly with coronavirus that this current variant, the Delta variant, will still infect people who have been vaccinated, and that does mean that anyone who's still unvaccinated, at some point, will meet the virus," Pollard said.

He said it was unlikely that herd immunity will ever be reached, saying the next variant of the novel coronavirus will be "perhaps even better at transmitting in vaccinated populations."

Vaccinated people can still get the Delta variant, albeit as a milder case

Some experts had hoped that herd immunity could be reached with COVID-19, as was the case with measles, which is also highly infectious.

Many countries have achieved herd immunity with measles by vaccinating 95% of the population against it, such as the US, where endemic transmission ended in 2000. That is because once a person is vaccinated against measles, they cannot transmit the virus.

With COVID-19, vaccines still fulfill their primary role: protecting against severe disease. According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, vaccinated people who catch the Delta variant are 25 times less likely to have a severe case or die. The overwhelming majority who do catch it will have mild or no symptoms.

But growing evidence suggests that, with the Delta variant, fully vaccinated people can still transmit the virus.

"We don't have anything which will stop that transmission to other people," Pollard said.

Israel is a good example of this: COVID-19 cases dropped in the country after it vaccinated about 80% of adults - prompting some to hope that it had reached herd immunity - but the Delta variant has since brought another surge of cases.

Link: https://www.yahoo.com/news/developer...114837457.html

^ But this is just academic.

If vaccinated people, or those with prior infections, can still carry the virus but don’t get very sick, that’s as good as it’s going to get. Everyone can be a carrier but once everyone has had the vaccine or the virus, then the risk of serious illness drops to a manageable level.

Otherwise what’s the alternative? We aren’t going to stamp out the virus completely (always obvious) and we aren’t going to do “social distancing” or wear masks forever.

You already have the ability to protect yourself as much as practicably possible by getting vaccinated. That’s the endgame.

Oh for fucks sake. You can argue whether Covid is dangerous or not all day. If you're going to try and argue that not having a single ICU bed left in the state is somehow a non-factor, than just leave this thread finally.

And NPR does. Here you go: 2 Coaches Charged With Murder After A High Schooler Suffered Heat Stroke And Died

But uh, since this is a thread about COVID... see my point?

I don't watch/listen to FOX; did they not report about the ICU bed shortage in Arkansas?

COVID is dangerous, and you must accept before it's too late. The fear porn is working in reverse...it has made you fear the vaccine even harder.

Can you believe that a news organization would choose to focus on that when they could have put an article out about how the sky was blue?

Didn't Hannity plead with his watchers?
That's it. I declare COVID is dangerous and Hannity is my source.

Yes, Antoine. There are germs out there (they exist!) and people who don't want to end up under your unpleasant care are trying to avoid them by every reasonable means like wearing a mask.

Fox is reporting the same news and all their "personalities" I've seen are advocating vaccination including Hannity. The difference is that they are clearly opposed to MANDATORY vaccination and make that pretty clear whenever the subject comes up. But at the same time they think people would be wisest to choose vaccination.

The flaw in this reasoning, of course, is the fact that vaccination (and wearing a mask for that matter) isn't just about self-protection. If it were, we should all be for them both being voluntary. But both are about protecting others for whom you are also making the choice. If you don't wear a mask and you don't get vaccinated you are doing a lot of negative things that effect others:

- You may well be clogging an ER and taking up a hospital bed that someone with a heart attack or who's been in a car accident needs.

- You are spreading the virus to people who can't be vaccinated or for whom vaccination may not work so well like people with cancer or HIV or numerous other conditions

- You are facilitating viral replication and, as a result, viral mutation that could result in even more vaccine-resistant strains.

So I think Fox is wrong in their strong support for volunteerism (just like I think 10023 is wrong to think locking away all the vulnerable is a good policy), but they are certainly reporting the delta wave and even advocating for voluntary vaccination (and all their TV hosts are acknowledging they've been vaccinated).

Some maps for today (8-11-2021)

Florida is wining. Mississippi seems to be trying to catch up. Louisiana! Holy crap!

Big props to Germany! France and Ireland not doing well.


https://aws1.discourse-cdn.com/busin...c942d45d6.jpeg


https://aws1.discourse-cdn.com/busin...201d615c6.jpeg

^^I don't believe developing world figures. There's very little testing in places like Mexico and these numbers represent confirmed cases . . . confirmed by testing.

I don't know if I believe Romania either... Romania has excellent vaccine availability but very poor uptake due to all sorts of misinformaton floating around...

^ Ding ding ding ding ding.

Exactly.

Get used to COVID, it's going to be here

4

Eva

Ok, Mr. "I will never ride mass transit or take an Uber again"

I just hope that I won't be dry humping my basement couch in my elder years.... :haha:

Been riding transit since mid June. I also got sick in late June and worked from home for 10 days and then went back. Not sure for certain where I got sick, but suspect the gym I had just started going back to. Anyway, never got tested since this was just before we heard about vaccinated people getting covid. It felt like a bad head cold with one night of night sweats and I assumed it was just a bad cold at the time. Knowing what I know now, I am not so sure, but hope I had it and it was Delta. Anyway, in late July when I got tested because house mates on vacation tested positive I came back negative.

My neighbors' son, who is 50 and had no known health problems, is very ill and it isn't clear yet whether he will survive. He's an anti-vaxxer, as are his children but not his wife. One of his daughters just became ill this week. If he had been vaccinated, the chances of infection would be lower but still possible. And if he had been vaccinated and did get infected, it would be unlikely that he would be as sick as he is. He was at my neighbors' home the other day doing some work (they are in their 80s), so we're all hoping they will be ok. They're vaccinated, but again breakthrough infections do occur. They're in poor health, so it could be bad for them if their son infected them. They've otherwise been extremely careful.

My nephew is an anti-vaxxer. He has 3 young children and a wife (she got both shots). He's 40 and thinks he's invincible, although many of the unvaccinated in his age group are extremely ill (or worse) with the delta variant. The family has talked to him but he won't listen. His family doesn't have good insurance, and talking to him about financial ruin goes right over his head. They have a beautiful home and a good life for once. We're just hoping he gets through his game of Russian roulette. Based on his history, he'll expect the rest of the family to bail him out if he gets very ill and loses his shirt. I don't believe the family will bail him out this time, from what I can tell.

You make all the right points, which so many people refuse to acknowledge. I've been especially interested in the concept that people who refuse the vaccinations facilitate viral replication, and as a result, viral mutations that could result in vaccine resistant variants. At some point, a variant could develop that none of us would have resistance to, and that would be it for many of us.

Fyi, I never said I wouldn’t take Uber. I take it all the time. I consider it much safer than transit. As long as I live someplace with 6% test positivity, no, I’m not getting on a packed city bus or train. Go ahead if you are comfortable doing that but I’ve gotten many colds after feeling the spray on my neck from someone coughing or sneezing in the seat behind me so, unlike you, I know germs are real.

Why would you dry hump a couch? Are you admitting some irrelevant fettish?

The problem, of course, is that “killer variant” is most likely to arrise in some developing world backwater with a very low vaccination rate than in even the most stubborn parts of the US. I’m already wondering why there’s not yet a “Haitian variant”.

Sadly, the odds aren’t good. I’m with those who think this delta strain is going to hit most unvaccinated people except the few who really are hiding in their basements. In fact, it probably already has and, like last year, some people right now have asymptomatic infections, some are incubating what will become serious disease and, of course some are already in the hospital. I’m holding to my prediction we will see the peak hospitalization rates within the next 2 weeks and the peak death rates as the month ends.

Then what? If people still don't get vaccinated and kids are back in school, aren't we just setting ourselves up for another wave?

I suspect any future waves will be much smaller UNLESS the virus mutates significantly.

Scott Gottlieb, whom I have great respect for, estimates that 30% of Americans have been infected with coronavirus. Taking the national average of nearly 60% having had at least one shot (and most of those will hopefully get the second) and adding 30% of the unvaccinated 40%, we reach a national average of 72% (including kids who can to yet be vaccinated) with some immunity. It's probably getting to be more by the day and the people now getting infected with delta, whether vaccinated or not, many have better immunity, at least to that strain, than those of us vaccinated to the original strain.

Adding people vaccinated between now and fall--and we are still giving over 700,000 shots per day--plus people infected between now and fall, we could reach numbers that border on genuine "herd immunity" before the end of the year, especially if we start vaccinating many of the 5-11 year olds.

Nobody's sure exactly what percentage need immunity to have "herd immunity". The standard for a highly infectious virus has been measles and the required percentage for that has been considered 95%. Again, with those vaccinated plus those infected plus newly eligible younger kids getting vaccinated, I could see numbers approaching 90%. So we'll be close.

If we get close enough, possibly no more waves or very shallow ones.

That's my hope.

Of course it would be ruined by a new variant against which the vaccines we've all taken have almost no effect. We'd essentially have to start over and in the face of a lot of "vaccines don't work" propaganda.

I don’t understand why vaccinated people who get a “head cold” feel the need to get tested for Covid. If I get sick I would do what I’ve done my entire life: rest, take Tylenol, fluids, and move on.

The whole purpose of the vaccine is to allow us to not think about Covid. That message was obviously lost. The media doesn’t want that to happen (fear and views means $$), and of course our in house Howard Hughes is having a love affair with his basement couch, so we wouldn’t want to disrupt that either.

Okay, so you just confirmed by this post that you are an irrational germaphobe. Howard is an apt nickname for you.

Meanwhile, you call me Antoine for NO reason because Antoine was an anti-vaccine guy and everybody here knows I’m a huge vaccination advocate. Hell, I just vaccinated my 12 year old son 2 days after his birthday!

Given a vaccinated person with mild COVID can actually spread it to others, it's the responsible thing to get tested, so you can quarantine and not inadvertently kill some antivax idiot...or do your normal business with a head cold.

The issue is the government tracking all "cases" of COVID in the same manner, not the testing.

Mexico does a great job at testing American tourists!

The good thing is that 99.1% of Floridians over the age of 65 have received at least 1 shot. The bad thing is that 15% under the age of 18.

Mississippi: 65+ 84.4% - under 18: 8.5%


Idaho: under 18 - 0.2%!!

But… who cares?

If 99% of Floridians over 65 are vaccinated (and if they’ve gotten one shot there’s no reason to believe they won’t get the second), then the overall risk is manageable. Sure there is risk to the middle-aged, but presumably vaccination rates don’t drop from 99% straight down to 15% for under-65s. The under-18s are at more risk from traffic accidents.

I feel like a lot of people in this thread have a hard time distinguishing between personal, individual risk and societal risk.

On one hand, it's true that individual children have very low risk. Even with delta, the risk of hospitalization among children is no higher than 2%, and may be much, much lower.

On the other hand, if you have enough people being infected simultaneously, you can have all of the children's hospitals/pediatric beds in a state fill up.