henke on 29/12/2021 at 08:12

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After not being sick for 2 years I got a sore throat just before Christmas. Stayed home instead of visiting family. Been driving past the drive-in test center for the last couple days but always been discouraged by the long line. Turns out all the pharmacies are out of home-tests as well. This morning I finally bit the bullet, got out early and went for the drive-in test. Had to queue for 2 hours before getting through, should have the result in 1-2 days tho. The line behind me was crazy, the people at the back will probably be sitting in their cars all day.

lowenz on 29/12/2021 at 16:30

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Same in Italy.

Starker on 31/12/2021 at 01:40

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So, it's going to be year 3 into the pandemic and I thought I'd review a few things I learned over the past couple years in no particular order.

Branch Covidians popped up to a disturbing degree during the pandemic, saying the whole thing was no worse than a flu and that all the evidence of people dying, etc, was completely made up and fabricated by basically the whole world. Because, y'know, all over the world, hospitals, funeral homes, scientists, doctors, nurses, patients, etc are all in on it. Some of these people walked around in hospital parking lots and foyers, presenting it as a proof that if ICU patients weren't being carted around there, the whole thing must be a hoax. Others argued that the deaths aren't a big deal since it's mostly older people dying. Yet others argued that the deaths are nothing compared to economic losses, and that people should just be sacrificed for the sake of the economy, as if life would continue as usual during a raging pandemic and all the business would come just rushing back when the virus is allowed to spread pretty much unchecked. Ironically, the very same people would often accuse others of politicising the virus. Later in the pandemic, they continued to fight for the unopposed spread of the virus and against any and all public health measures.

Media turned out to be quite scientifically illiterate in this matter and sought more to "tell a story" instead of trying to understand the issue and get to the truth of the matter. And it hasn't really gotten any better, sadly. It's a very complex topic even doctors don't understand and requires heavy specialisation, but for some reason every podcaster and TV pundit is now an expert on this. Luckily, I discovered a podcast called This Week in Virology that had been going long before the pandemic began and it has been really helpful to have a source on this that's mostly based on facts and data.

Governments turned out to really suck at handling a pandemic (some more than others), failed to mitigate the spread of the virus (some more than others), and generally waited as long as possible before taking measures (some longer than others). Ours thought it would be a good idea to keep having sporting events when the pandemic was well under way and was otherwise reacting to things way too late.

Travel bans were (and are) for the most part a stupid kneejerk reaction after the horse had long left the barn and I suspect were done more to seem to be doing something than for anything else. Having your people rush home from abroad, crowding the airports in long lines, is the exact opposite of what you want. And it's especially stupid if the only thing you do with the little amount of time you've ostensibly won with this is just sit and watch the numbers grow higher. That said, it's at least a little understandable when a lot of things are unknown and people everywhere are panicking. Much less so when we have working vaccines and know quite a lot more about the virus.

Lockdowns were seen by some to be the ultimate form of oppression on par with having to wear masks and getting vaccinated. Apparently, the ICUs filling up was quite effective in erecting a Someone Else's Problem field. Of course, a lot of these people didn't want to believe that the ICU's were filling up in the first place. Which is when a lot of the governments finally decided to do a lockdown -- when things were already at their breaking point.

Social distancing -- it turned out that, as an introvert, I've been preparing for this my whole life. Until vaccines were available, I avoided going out as much as possible and took all available precautions, gave classes over Zoom, etc, especially since a lot of people I know are older and at greater risk. Even I got eventually tired of sitting around the house all the time, though.

Doctors and nurses have certainly borne the brunt of this pandemic, having in some cases seen more death during a few months than some of their colleagues will see in their entire career. I've heard lots of stories of people getting PTSD and having nervous breakdowns, having been absolutely stressed to the utmost limits months on end. And then it repeats. And from I've been hearing, it's even harder now that most of the deaths are completely preventable and unnecessary.

R0, or the basic reproduction rate -- I first heard about it from the media and thought it was some kind of an indicator of how infectious a virus is, but later I learned it's nothing more than an estimate that depends a lot on context and human behaviour and the environment. It's more akin to a model predicting whether a song is going to be a hit.

From the (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_reproduction_number) Wikipedia:




Herd immunity was supposed to be our way out, with some pundits even advocating it in lieu of vaccines. I learned later that even with herd immunity, there are still pockets where outbreaks can occur and now we know the virus is in cats and dogs and deer and who knows what other animals. And even wild animals have much more contact with humans than many people realise. I think this week's TWiV podcast is actually going to talk about this, if anyone's interested.

Masks turned out to be pretty damn important, something that East Asian countries had already realised quite a while ago. There was a lot of hesitancy at first around here and I was one of the very few people wearing a mask for quite a while, but after a government mandate was issued, more and more people started wearing them until it suddenly snowballed and they were everywhere.

Infectious surfaces AKA fomites weren't quite as dangerous as was initially assumed. I've been taught to wash my hands to avoid the flu, so it seemed natural that it would also help against COVID. And, at the beginning, there was a lot of talk about how the virus could survive on surfaces for several days in the lab, but people have since failed to isolate viable virus from any environmental samples. Turns out the main way the virus spreads is actually via droplets and aerosol through air. Which is why masks are so important.

Omicron is too good of a story to pass up it seems. Putin notoriously said Omicron is a "live vaccine" and lot of pundits seem to run with the narrative that the variant is less virulent and more transmissible and that it's somehow a good thing. Which it really wouldn't be, even if it was true. The thing is, though, there's no reason to believe this is true. Omicron replacing other variants in some populations probably just means it's more fit, either due to immune evasion or some other property. And people getting a milder version of disease is much more easily explainable by them being younger and/or vaccinated and/or previously infected, which typically leads to less severe outcomes.

Boosters are now a thing. Some people thought they'd be unnecessary for the mRNA vaccines, because they already do what they were designed to do (prevent serious disease and death) at two doses, but somewhere along the line the goal shifted to preventing infection. And that's a much, much more elusive target to achieve, as antibody levels naturally begin to contract over time. So we are in an absurd situation where some countries have stockpiled enough vaccines to vaccinate their citizens 6-7 times over and others lack enough for even one shot. We can't do much about the anti-vaxxers who refuse to get vaccinated -- it's their choice to roll the dice on this, but at least we should aim to get as many people as we can. Still, it looks like getting a booster at least helps to get better results as the longer interval apparently allows (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affinity_maturation) the immune response to mature and produce higher affinity antibodies.

The vaccines, fortunately, turned out to be pretty damn effective. I was fairly skeptical of the mRNA vaccines at first, because some scientists were convinced they would be too unstable to be able to be stored and transported, but apparently it can be done under extremely low temperatures. And they have been a real gamechanger. Even as some monoclonals lose their effectiveness, vaccines are still going strong in preventing severe disease and death in over 90% of cases and quite likely reducing transmission as well. And from what some scientists seem to think, they should work for at least 10 years, though obviously that's not something we can know with any kind of certainty. I think it's pretty much a given that they are the key out of this pandemic. Once children have had the chance to get the shot and a booster, everyone has had the opportunity to get a fairly good degree of protection and life can carry on, especially since we now have effective antivirals incoming and improved treatments available. Some scientists are saying the pandemic should be over in 2-3 years at the rate we're going.


Lastly, I took the time to reread a few hot takes from the beginning of this thread that didn't age all too well. Names removed to avoid unnecessary drama...

SD on 31/12/2021 at 03:19

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Could have pulled you up on a number of things, but this is the most egregiously wrong thing in your post, so let's focus on that.

There is every reason to believe that Omicron is both more transmissible and less virulent. The distinct lack of deaths concomitant with record levels of cases being perhaps the best evidence of its relative harmlessness. Fewer people are being hospitalised and among those who are hospitalised, far fewer are requiring mechanical ventilation and hospital stays are shorter. Recovery from the virus is quicker, and a far higher proportion of infections are asymptomatic or mild. And Omicron is still considerably milder even after adjusting for vaccination status. Omicron has almost completely replaced Delta in a matter of weeks, demonstrating just how infectious it is. The major reason it is so mild compared to earlier strains is probably because it replicates less readily (c10 times slower) in the lungs but much more quickly (c70 times faster) in the bronchus. Serious effects of covid were always associated with infection of the gas exchange surfaces of the lung and mild effects with the conductive airways alone.

Vaccines provide limited protection against infection from Omicron; nevertheless, the vaccine was probably a significant factor in the evolution of Omicron, because the mucosa of the airways are poorly protected by intramuscular vaccines. So, a variant arose that preferentially infects the airways and is far less likely to infect the lungs.

The end of the pandemic, and the two most tedious years of my life, is nigh.

lowenz on 31/12/2021 at 09:20

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The freedom to die.....