How Is Covid-19 Impacting Life in Your City?

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Why would you say that?

Because he's a nasty person. I just can't imagine his "bedside manner".

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

I now change the channel immediately whenever any news network talks about Covid (don’t feed the troll, after all).

No better term applies than “toxic” and “manipulative” when evaluating the media’s treatment of this disease

Do you refuse to read professional literature on the subject either?

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

Do you refuse to read professional literature on the subject either?

No, but you do.

You are a toxic, germaphobic buffoon. You are dangerous. Go hide in your basement, where you belong.

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by Phil McAvity

I agree but I understand why-because fear sells. What is harder to understand is why governments reacted to covid like it was the Spanish Flu when I figured out about a year ago that this thing is nothing to fear

Just to be clear, the difference between my position and yours is that you belittle the damage Covid has done outright. I don’t.

I firmly oppose and condemn the morons who can’t see the difference between pre-vaccine and post-vaccine Covid. It’s like night and day. But some people are too obtuse, and perhaps have a vested interest in, keeping everybody timid and afraid.

[glowrock]

Originally Posted by Phil McAvity

I agree but I understand why-because fear sells and the media are in the business of selling fear. What's harder to understand is why governments reacted to covid like it was the Spanish Flu when I figured out about a year ago that it's nothing to fear

Wow! All hail Phil McAvity, the only goddamned person on the fucking planet who's figured out that COVID is nothing to fear!



Oh brother. Between you and 10023 I've pretty much lost all faith in the humanity of SSPers. TUP, while I don't necessarily agree with his overall perspective of the seriousness of COVID, has displayed a lot of common sense with regards to getting vaccinated and at least taking things seriously.

Sorry, I know I should never feed the trolls, but I simply couldn't let this snark go uncontested.

Aaron (Glowrock)

[craigs]

Originally Posted by Phil McAvity

The problem was, that your link to those actuarial tables was so subtle I didn't even notice it before as you'd simply underlined the word "here". I'm surprised I noticed it this time. I always just post links like this (not that anyone reads my links anyway): https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html
That way it's hard to miss

Meh, you've got to keep up with the times. This is how people link to off-site sources now.

[SIGSEGV]

well UChicago reinstated its mask mandate on Monday... about 3 weeks after the original mask mandate was removed. Fortunately, as of last week, I have my own office .

[10023]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

This isn't true. The virus has killed people without underlying conditions at every age group. Yes, it's less lethal for younger than older. Yes, you're more likely than not to survive it at any age. But the risk is not zero at any age group or physical condition.

Also... Keep in mind that the virus has disproportionately infected adults, especially in the U.S., and most likely this is because schools were closed for a year. I don't think we have a good idea of what the virus looks like burning through large cross section of the under 18 population.

Umm, what?

And we shouldn’t be looking for “zero risk”. That’s ridiculous. Most things in life entail risk.

The question becomes how much risk is low enough, and the only practical answer to that is how ever much risk remains after vaccination. That’s all we can do. Whatever risk remains to vaccinated people has to be accepted. There is no other way.

[10023]

One thing I’ve noticed walking around London is that people seem to have put on a LOT of weight during the year of lockdowns.

The Brits have long been the fattest people in Europe, and maybe my perspective shifted during all that time in Miami, but it seems almost everyone is at least overweight if not obese. It’s like being in the Midwest.

That it almost certainly going to have a more detrimental effect on public health over time than Covid itself.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by 10023

One thing I’ve noticed walking around London is that people seem to have put on a LOT of weight during the year of lockdowns.

The Brits have long been the fattest people in Europe, and maybe my perspective shifted during all that time in Miami, but it seems almost everyone is at least overweight if not obese. It’s like being in the Midwest.

That it almost certainly going to have a more detrimental effect on public health over time than Covid itself.

I put on about 30 pounds during the pandemic. Been working on losing it, and around halfway there now.

It's really hard when you're stuck with your first-grader all day in online classes not to snack, since there's not really an ability to do much of anything else.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by 10023

Umm, what?

And we shouldn’t be looking for “zero risk”. That’s ridiculous. Most things in life entail risk.

Maybe COVID causes us to see things that are not there. There is context that you missed but, when read, it makes it pretty clear that I never said anything about us achieving "zero risk".

[10023]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Maybe COVID causes us to see things that are not there. There is context that you missed but, when read, it makes it pretty clear that I never said anything about us achieving "zero risk".

You made a point of saying that “the risk is not zero at any age group”.

This is obvious. My point in response is that it doesn’t need to be, and obviously never will be.

When someone says “young people aren’t at risk from Covid”, they probably don’t mean that no young person ever will suffer long term consequences or death. They probably mean (or at least I mean) that the risk faced by young people is well within the bounds of acceptable, part of the general risk that one must accept in life, and therefore does not merit any special precautions.

If I wanted to avoid any risk that I could, then sure, I would wear a mask indoors like Pedestrian even though I’m vaccinated. I also wouldn’t cycle in London traffic (sometimes without a helmet), or snowboard or surf ever again, or drink alcohol, or take an occasional legal or illegal drug, or ride in a car with a friend who’s had a few beers, or eat street food in Africa, or rent a Vespa in Rome, or…

Hopefully that clears up the point.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by 10023

You made a point of saying that “the risk is not zero at any age group”.

This is obvious. My point in response is that it doesn’t need to be, and obviously never will be.

When someone says “young people aren’t at risk from Covid”, they probably don’t mean that no young person ever will suffer long term consequences or death. They probably mean (or at least I mean) that the risk faced by young people is well within the bounds of acceptable, part of the general risk that one must accept in life, and therefore does not merit any special precautions.

If I wanted to avoid any risk that I could, then sure, I would wear a mask indoors like Pedestrian even though I’m vaccinated. I also wouldn’t cycle in London traffic (sometimes without a helmet), or snowboard or surf ever again, or drink alcohol, or take an occasional legal or illegal drug, or ride in a car with a friend who’s had a few beers, or eat street food in Africa, or rent a Vespa in Rome, or…

Hopefully that clears up the point.

I don't think there's a lot of disagreement here, but there's a part of the risk that you're not accounting for: we don't know the longterm effects of COVID yet. It could be nothing and hopefully that is the case. It could also be something that will burden people who were infected for years.

I'm vaccinated and I do agree that most people in rich countries have been presented with a solution, the vaccine, and beyond that we can't really expect more to be done. But that isn't an option for a lot of children because they're not yet eligible to be vaccinated.

[10023]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

I don't think there's a lot of disagreement here, but there's a part of the risk that you're not accounting for: we don't know the longterm effects of COVID yet. It could be nothing and hopefully that is the case. It could also be something that will burden people who were infected for years.

I'm vaccinated and I do agree that most people in rich countries have been presented with a solution, the vaccine, and beyond that we can't really expect more to be done. But that isn't an option for a lot of children because they're not yet eligible to be vaccinated.

We can make a very educated guess that they are usually negligible. This isn’t the first virus of its type to infect humans, and while it has its unique characteristics it’s really just a tiger with different stripes.

“Long Covid” is a great attempt at re-branding but generally sounds like it is variously post-virus syndrome and/or the usual after effects of pneumonia (which Covid causes if it hits the lungs badly, though I would think this would result in hospitalisation and not normally affect young people). So yeah, bad viral infections can cause fatigue and body aches for weeks of months, and if you have inflammation in your lungs it can take a period of time to heal and become 100%.

Young or youngish people tend to heal eventually. I almost certainly did more lasting damage to my lungs by smoking (usually when I drank) for 10 years than even a bad Covid infection (at least relative to my asymptomatic one).

So yes, there is what I would consider a tail risk that there is something really different about this virus compared to others, but I wouldn’t bet on it, and I still don’t think that all of the panic, lockdowns and continuing disruption was worth it.

[homebucket]

Originally Posted by 10023

One thing I’ve noticed walking around London is that people seem to have put on a LOT of weight during the year of lockdowns.

The Brits have long been the fattest people in Europe, and maybe my perspective shifted during all that time in Miami, but it seems almost everyone is at least overweight if not obese. It’s like being in the Midwest.

That it almost certainly going to have a more detrimental effect on public health over time than Covid itself.

I've been able to lose fat and gain muscle (my body fat % is at an all time low), and maintain my total body weight thanks to my shelter in place home gym build. Makes it easy to work out at home in between meetings.

[sopas ej]

Originally Posted by Phil McAvity

Not according to the head of the CDC, Rochelle Walensky, who said that covid is more dangerous to young people than the flu yet the CDC's own numbers proved that wrong and showed that the seasonal flu killed 3X as many young people as covid. Don't you hate those pesky fact-checkers?

So is this not true?

https://usafacts.org/articles/how-many-people-die-flu/

[Kngkyle]

Originally Posted by sopas ej

So is this not true?

https://usafacts.org/articles/how-many-people-die-flu/

In what way does this refute his point?

[Pedestrian]

Wondering what it might be like if you get "breakthrough covid"? These are among the first unslanted descriptions I've read and, all in all, are pretty reassuring:

These Bay Area residents got breakthrough COVID. Here's what they have to say about the experience
Photo of Ryan Kost
Ryan Kost
Aug. 6, 2021
Updated: Aug. 6, 2021 2:32 p.m.

In early July, as COVID-19 case numbers fell across most of the nation and the end of the pandemic almost seemed at hand, Justin Robinson, 40, flew from San Francisco to New York City to visit a friend. The city was alive and Robinson and his friend “were having a blast.”

This was the closest he’d come to anything like pre-pandemic living, and he remembers, very specifically, the thrill of once again sitting at a bar with a drink before him. “It’s random that that was exciting, but to actually be in a bar, at a bar ...” he says. Simple things, long deferred, sometimes have an unexpected weight.

After his time in New York was up, Robinson flew home to the Bay Area and noticed his allergies seemed to be acting up. That tended to happen any time he traveled, though. So, he went about business as usual, until a few mornings later he woke up feeling like “I’d swam on my side for a while, and my head had filled with water.”

Later that day, Robinson found out he was one of the now tens of thousands of fully vaccinated Californians to experience a breakthrough COVID infection . . . . In the end, he, like most who have dealt with post-vaccination infections, mostly experienced COVID as a series of cold symptoms — loss of energy and a congestion that seemed to come and go — for about a week . . . .

For the most part, JR Miller, 32, says he’s been living a “pretty basic life,” even as Bay Area counties relaxed their rules. If he’s not working at his Oakland home, then he’s working at outdoor cafes. He goes to the gym a few times a week, but hasn’t been out to a club in a year. When friends — all vaccinated — have visited from out of town, they’ve mostly spent their visits hiking or in wine country.

So, two weeks ago, when he started to feel sick, he was caught off guard. “We had literally started to return to life as normal, so the idea I could get infected was hard to accept,” he says.

It felt like “a bad cold,” which was still worse than he had expected. “I’m double vaxxed and I’m a vegetarian and I go to the gym and I drink lots of water,” he says. “By no means did I think I needed to go to the hospital, but I was uncomfortable for a couple days.”

He’s since bounced back, and last weekend, he went on a hike outside Redwood City.

The top five symptoms of breakthrough COVID infections, according to the ongoing ZOE COVID Symptom Study done in conjunction with King’s College London, are headache, runny nose, sore throat, loss of smell and sneezing, something not previously associated with the virus. Essentially, Chin-Hong says, the virus seems to be staying localized in patients’ noses and throats. (Those with breakthrough cases can still transmit the virus, and research is ongoing as to what percentage of breakthrough cases may lead to long-lasting illness also known as long COVID) . . . .

For the past couple weeks, Jessica Lefebvre, 50, a homeless outreach coordinator who lives in West Oakland, has been working from bed. It wasn’t until she coughed for the first time that it occurred to her she might have COVID. Getting a test was a challenge — it’s easier, she says, to find a vaccine. Finally, though, she came across a Walgreens with at-home tests in stock.

Her breakthrough infection has hit her in waves. It started as allergies and then grew into headaches and trouble sleeping. For a while she thought she was on the mend, only for the body aches — worse even than her recent recovery from a surgery — to start up again. “It’s just been a roller coaster" . . . .

Lois Hirsch, 78, a retiree living in Noe Valley, doesn’t know how she caught COVID. Maybe it was the baseball game she went to. Whatever the case, getting sick wasn’t ideal — she wound up with a fever and cough. Her doctor prescribed her an antibiotic for “a little bit of pneumonia.” And, in the end, she had to miss a wedding full of family and friends, something she’d been looking forward to.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/health/a...a-16369775.php

[10023]

Originally Posted by homebucket

I've been able to lose fat and gain muscle (my body fat % is at an all time low), and maintain my total body weight thanks to my shelter in place home gym build. Makes it easy to work out at home in between meetings.

I got in better shape too, but that’s because I made a point of it. And there wasn’t much else to do (like when Mike Tyson went to prison and got jacked). But most people didn’t do that, they watched Netflix, ordered delivery and drank on their sofa.

[10023]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

Wondering what it might be like if you get "breakthrough covid"? These are among the first unslanted descriptions I've read and, all in all, are pretty reassuring:


https://www.sfchronicle.com/health/a...a-16369775.php

So… nothing.

But let’s lock down again just to be safe, so this 78 year old lady doesn’t miss a wedding.