tgo
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Post by tgo on Jan 5, 2022 21:49:47 GMT -5
Terrible policy and decision making are still terrible whether they are clear and up front in their reasoning or not.
Not trying to start a fight Rusky but at first blush, your comment reminds me of a battered wife who was happy that she didn't get hit tonight, only yelled at. Admittedly hyperbolic but the fact that GU never gives any info about any decisions shouldn't give them a pass on how they have willfully destroyed the lives of current Hoyas. I read that article by Dr. Makary and listened to an interview with him, he uses GU as the poster child for what is wrong with university covid policies both times.
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DFW HOYA
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Post by DFW HOYA on Jan 5, 2022 21:59:21 GMT -5
Not trying to start a fight Rusky but at first blush, your comment reminds me of a battered wife who was happy that she didn't get hit tonight, only yelled at. Admittedly hyperbolic but the fact that GU never gives any info about any decisions shouldn't give them a pass on how they have willfully destroyed the lives of current Hoyas. I read that article by Dr. Makary and listened to an interview with him, he uses GU as the poster child for what is wrong with university covid policies both times. Can you describe, much less define, how GU has "willfully destroyed the lives of current Hoyas"? If this is so, they should withdraw immediately. Just go. If not, that excerpt is cut out of whole cloth.
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RusskyHoya
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Post by RusskyHoya on Jan 8, 2022 23:09:08 GMT -5
Terrible policy and decision making are still terrible whether they are clear and up front in their reasoning or not. Not trying to start a fight Rusky but at first blush, your comment reminds me of a battered wife who was happy that she didn't get hit tonight, only yelled at. Admittedly hyperbolic but the fact that GU never gives any info about any decisions shouldn't give them a pass on how they have willfully destroyed the lives of current Hoyas. I read that article by Dr. Makary and listened to an interview with him, he uses GU as the poster child for what is wrong with university covid policies both times. That's a pretty distasteful comparison, not just because it downplays the seriousness of domestic violence (orders of magnitude more lives are destroyed - metaphorically and literally - by domestic violence each year in the U.S. than there are Georgetown students period, much less ones who have suffered serious harm due to restrictions), but because it is inapt. Domestic violence has no legitimate purpose as its end - even deadly violence can be justified within Just War Theory, but there is no such thing as Just "Battering Your Wife" Theory. What the University is confronted with is a series of painful tradeoffs that have to be made in the face of competing legitimate needs and demands, which the pandemic has put into tension with one another. In this current situation, we have skyrocketing infections in the greater DC community, which is putting major strain on the health case system (see, e.g., "DC Hospitals Ask for State of Emergency Declaration: D.C. Hospital Association says strain is greater now than at any time in the pandemic). The University has a legitimate interest in helping to mitigate that strain, rather than adding to it... especially since it is itself part of that healthcare system. Dr. Makary's factual points are fair enough as far as they go. It is true that PCR tests are very sensitive and can detect virus weeks after one is infectious (that is why you don't have to test negative on a PCR test to be free of quarantine, and a set number of days is used instead). It is also true that current Georgetown undergrads - most of them with minimal-to-no comorbidities, many of them already boosted, and all of them fully vaccinated under the expiring definition - as a rule face very low individual risk. But pandemics are a public health crisis, and so undergrads' individual risk is not the only - or even primary - consideration at play. The Omicron variant's seemingly extensive vaccine escape capability when it comes to transmission means that there is significant risk of leakage from the very-low-personal-risk undergraduate community to higher-risk members of the Georgetown community, and to those that broader community interacts with, which can be even higher-risk. A real-world example of this is reportedly playing out right now: The reality of sharing a small, dense campus with a major medical center in a highly urbanized area is one that folks would do well to keep in mind, especially when comparing Georgetown's choices with those of rural land grant schools spread out over ten times as many acres (or more!). With all that said, I have zero desire to downplay the impact of restrictions on students, and I find myself deeply frustrated with those who have for some reason decided that 'taking the pandemic seriously' - or, worse, signaling to others in their social circle that they 'take the pandemic seriously' - requires minimizing the costs of any and all NPIs. The costs are real, and decisions about NPIs must take them seriously when doing the (highly imperfect, but you have to do the best you can) cost-benefit calculations. And from where I sit (which is not on campus, so I am in no way the wife in the distasteful analogy), I am confident that the tradeoffs *are* being taken seriously. University leaders are not hysterical over-reactors, much less malicious student-haters. They have not had their critical faculties warped by getting all their information from clout-chasing Covid panic-mongers. They are smart, well-intentioned people trying to chart the least bad course through a very bad situation.
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RusskyHoya
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Post by RusskyHoya on Jan 19, 2022 18:11:35 GMT -5
More anecdata for the proposition that social cohesion - already fraying in many parts of American life - is unraveling at an accelerated rate under the stress of the pandemic. Even in a relatively 'high-trust' environment like the Hilltop.
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hoyaguy
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Post by hoyaguy on Jan 19, 2022 18:30:59 GMT -5
More anecdata for the proposition that social cohesion - already fraying in many parts of American life - is unraveling at an accelerated rate under the stress of the pandemic. Even in a relatively 'high-trust' environment like the Hilltop. If a student not only refuses to go into isolation per the rules they agreed to and have harassed care navigators as said above like this they deserve to be suspended full stop period and if the parents come just tell them they should've raised their children better
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Bigs"R"Us
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Post by Bigs"R"Us on Jan 19, 2022 22:31:23 GMT -5
Is the school afraid of lawsuits? Otherwise, suspend the kids.
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DanMcQ
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Post by DanMcQ on Jan 20, 2022 11:36:02 GMT -5
The school could be taking a more dangerous approach...
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SDHoya
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Post by SDHoya on Jan 20, 2022 12:38:36 GMT -5
The school could be taking a more dangerous approach... Seems like a recognition of reality. “With our Harvard community’s near universal vaccination, the majority of infected individuals in our community are having no symptoms or mild symptoms that resolve quickly,” Nguyen wrote. So--if Harvard believes the risk of serious illness from covid/omicron for most triple vaccinated 18-25 year olds is along the same lines as the risk of serious illness from the common cold, the stricter policies and disruptions (from back when the variant du jour was much more dangerous and vaccines less prevalent) are less justifiable. And as I read it, Harvard's updated covid policy (which I expect will soon be followed by numerous other institutions) leaves plenty of room for greater protections for high risk individuals and even those students who simply prefer additional protection. Dan--I know you have been regularly pointing out to those of us not in the medical community just how much of a strain the omicron wave has put on the health care system, and I don't think that anyone (sane) intends to minimize what you and others in your field are going through. Between staffing issues and unvaccinated dummies, I have no doubt this has been far from ideal. But its also seems apparent that, by a mix of vaccinations and less virulent variants, covid is not the existential threat it once was. So, when does it become acceptable for society to start viewing covid as more "endemic" than "pandemic", and to treat it like other seasonal illnesses? When are the risks manageable enough that the disruptions we have put up with for the past two years no longer worth it? And by the way, the one policy I hope does remain even after the omicron wave is fully past, is anything that strongly incentivizes vaccination.
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hoyaguy
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Post by hoyaguy on Jan 20, 2022 12:39:45 GMT -5
The school could be taking a more dangerous approach... Civic responsibility is not even a concept anymore…I guess maybe the right donors pushed enough that they just ignore possibilities of long covid and just spreading it more in ya know the big city they are in Edit: Sorry Dan wishing you and the medical community strength to get through this dark winter and hope it’s the last with covid
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Bigs"R"Us
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Post by Bigs"R"Us on Jan 20, 2022 12:55:15 GMT -5
What happens when the first student dies after being infected by a Covid-positive roommate? Lawyers will have a field day.
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DanMcQ
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Post by DanMcQ on Jan 20, 2022 14:49:48 GMT -5
The school could be taking a more dangerous approach... Seems like a recognition of reality. “With our Harvard community’s near universal vaccination, the majority of infected individuals in our community are having no symptoms or mild symptoms that resolve quickly,” Nguyen wrote. So--if Harvard believes the risk of serious illness from covid/omicron for most triple vaccinated 18-25 year olds is along the same lines as the risk of serious illness from the common cold, the stricter policies and disruptions (from back when the variant du jour was much more dangerous and vaccines less prevalent) are less justifiable. And as I read it, Harvard's updated covid policy (which I expect will soon be followed by numerous other institutions) leaves plenty of room for greater protections for high risk individuals and even those students who simply prefer additional protection. Dan--I know you have been regularly pointing out to those of us not in the medical community just how much of a strain the omicron wave has put on the health care system, and I don't think that anyone (sane) intends to minimize what you and others in your field are going through. Between staffing issues and unvaccinated dummies, I have no doubt this has been far from ideal. But its also seems apparent that, by a mix of vaccinations and less virulent variants, covid is not the existential threat it once was. So, when does it become acceptable for society to start viewing covid as more "endemic" than "pandemic", and to treat it like other seasonal illnesses? When are the risks manageable enough that the disruptions we have put up with for the past two years no longer worth it? And by the way, the one policy I hope does remain even after the omicron wave is fully past, is anything that strongly incentivizes vaccination. To your questions, we are not there yet. Though COVID in wastewater is headed down as are daily new case counts, we are still running a huge census of cases in hospital, we have no room to do elective surgical cases (which includes some cancer surgeries) and our ER is overwhelmed. We are not unique. Unvaccinated people admitted to hospital are overwhelmingly getting just as sick as those with prior variants with similar death rates and this is somewhat similar in vaccinated people with severe immune compromise. Despite the clear proof that vaccination protects strongly against death, we are not much over 50% vaccinated in this country and far less in many areas of the world. While the omicron situation in the northeast is beginning to improve, it is just taking off in vast areas of the US where misinformation from "leaders" and bad actors have convinced a large proportion of the population not to get vaccinated. We are still at risk from those areas for things like the next variant. Short answer: I'm not dumb enough to predict the answer because I will probably be wrong. In regards to the Harvard approach: I agree that contract tracing is likely useless at this point - much better to use something like COVID in wastewater from dorms to find out where cases may be and then do targeted testing. Having an infected person sleep in the same room as a noninfected one is just stupid and asking for disaster. Sure, the average 18-22 healthy year old may only have a 1-2% chance of death from omicron, but tell that to the parents whose child acquired it that way and ends up 100% dead.
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SDHoya
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Post by SDHoya on Jan 20, 2022 16:09:21 GMT -5
Seems like a recognition of reality. “With our Harvard community’s near universal vaccination, the majority of infected individuals in our community are having no symptoms or mild symptoms that resolve quickly,” Nguyen wrote. So--if Harvard believes the risk of serious illness from covid/omicron for most triple vaccinated 18-25 year olds is along the same lines as the risk of serious illness from the common cold, the stricter policies and disruptions (from back when the variant du jour was much more dangerous and vaccines less prevalent) are less justifiable. And as I read it, Harvard's updated covid policy (which I expect will soon be followed by numerous other institutions) leaves plenty of room for greater protections for high risk individuals and even those students who simply prefer additional protection. Dan--I know you have been regularly pointing out to those of us not in the medical community just how much of a strain the omicron wave has put on the health care system, and I don't think that anyone (sane) intends to minimize what you and others in your field are going through. Between staffing issues and unvaccinated dummies, I have no doubt this has been far from ideal. But its also seems apparent that, by a mix of vaccinations and less virulent variants, covid is not the existential threat it once was. So, when does it become acceptable for society to start viewing covid as more "endemic" than "pandemic", and to treat it like other seasonal illnesses? When are the risks manageable enough that the disruptions we have put up with for the past two years no longer worth it? And by the way, the one policy I hope does remain even after the omicron wave is fully past, is anything that strongly incentivizes vaccination. To your questions, we are not there yet. Though COVID in wastewater is headed down as are daily new case counts, we are still running a huge census of cases in hospital, we have no room to do elective surgical cases (which includes some cancer surgeries) and our ER is overwhelmed. We are not unique. Unvaccinated people admitted to hospital are overwhelmingly getting just as sick as those with prior variants with similar death rates and this is somewhat similar in vaccinated people with severe immune compromise. Despite the clear proof that vaccination protects strongly against death, we are not much over 50% vaccinated in this country and far less in many areas of the world. While the omicron situation in the northeast is beginning to improve, it is just taking off in vast areas of the US where misinformation from "leaders" and bad actors have convinced a large proportion of the population not to get vaccinated. We are still at risk from those areas for things like the next variant. Short answer: I'm not dumb enough to predict the answer because I will probably be wrong. In regards to the Harvard approach: I agree that contract tracing is likely useless at this point - much better to use something like COVID in wastewater from dorms to find out where cases may be and then do targeted testing. Having an infected person sleep in the same room as a noninfected one is just stupid and asking for disaster. Sure, the average 18-22 healthy year old may only have a 1-2% chance of death from omicron, but tell that to the parents whose child acquired it that way and ends up 100% dead. Dan--I'm with you in parts, but I'm confused by some of the numbers you have thrown in there. First, although vaccination rates in the US are far lower than they should be (i.e., 100%)--the vaccination rate in the US is well over 50%. Not taking into consideration boosters, which are still at a lower uptake due at least in part to previously inconsistent messaging from the White House and other agencies about whether it was even desirable to give people boosters, per the CDC 80% of eligible individuals in the US (i.e., 5 years or older) have received at least one dose, and 67% have received two. Importantly, the vaccination rates skew heavily in favor of the higher risk groups--95% for one dose, 88% for 2 among the 65 and older crowd. The rates for the under 18 crowd significantly bring down the overall numbers, which is extremely unfortunate and must be corrected including by school mandates--but that is also the age group least likely to suffer from severe illness (only 0.08% of total USA covid deaths are in this demographic). See--https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccinations_vacc-total-admin-rate-total and www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm#SexAndAgeNext is your statement that "the average 18-22 healthy year old may only have a 1-2% chance of death from omicron". Perhaps the numbers are higher for unvaccinated individuals, but this is a question of how vaccinated college students are likely to fare against an infection. I am not aware of any data showing that even unvaccinated 18-22 year olds have that high of a death risk (from my recollection, the mortality rate for everyone pre-Omicron averaged around 1%, with younger demographics much less at risk), but certainly among vaccinated college students the rates are significantly lower. As to Omicron--since January 1, 2022, There have been about 600,000 recorded cases per day in the US--or about 12m total (although probably the real count much higher). Roughly 60% of the US population is age 45 or younger. Assuming the 12m covid cases have been roughly evenly spread by age group, let's assume that 60% of the cases, or 7.2m are in the 45 and under group. Per the CDC, there have been 466 covid deaths in the US in 2022. (see--https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/covid19/mortality-overview.htm ) Understanding deaths are a lagging indicator so the number will rise, the death rate for the under 45s with omicron infection currently sits at 0.006%. On a quick scan, I can't seem to find the break down for the 18-22 group (nor for vaccinated), but it is assuredly much lower. Harvard's decision making was likely based on a similar analysis. Even Fauci has said that vaccinated and boosted people without comorbidities have a miniscule risk of serious illness (let alone death) from Omicron. Where you and I are in 100% agreement Dan, is that the unvaccinated are needlessly damaging our system and pushing you and your colleagues to the brink. But for the near universally vaccinated and young Harvard community, which is decidedly NOT putting a strain on the health care system--why must they play by the rules of April 2020?
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DanMcQ
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Post by DanMcQ on Jan 20, 2022 23:18:01 GMT -5
SDHoya - they said there would be no math ;-)
Your % vaccinated numbers are likely more accurate than mine, which was jotted down in haste in between work activities. That said, the only important numbers are those fully vaccinated (a full series of 3 doses). Even with that, there is somewhere between a 30-40% chance of getting infected with omicron especially the farther out one gets from the last dose. The rates in college students are also important for the downstream effects of elders and immune compromised people they might infect. It’s not without risk especially when it’s your kid.
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RusskyHoya
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Post by RusskyHoya on Jan 22, 2022 0:44:25 GMT -5
SDHoya - they said there would be no math ;-) Your % vaccinated numbers are likely more accurate than mine, which was jotted down in haste in between work activities. That said, the only important numbers are those fully vaccinated (a full series of 3 doses). It cannot be true that percentage of people who received three doses is the *only* important number, given that two doses confers substantial protective benefits. Yes, boosted is better than unboosted, but it is neither accurate nor good messaging to essentially say that it's "3 or nothing." 2 is not nothing. 1 is also not nothing, for that matter. Also, jokes about math aside, this... Sure, the average 18-22 healthy year old may only have a 1-2% chance of death from omicron... ... isn't just off, it is *several orders of magnitude* off. Pretty much every reported CFR/IFR for that cohort is down in the hundredths or thousandths of a percent, not 1-2%. Even with that, there is somewhere between a 30-40% chance of getting infected with omicron especially the farther out one gets from the last dose. The rates in college students are also important for the downstream effects of elders and immune compromised people they might infect. It’s not without risk especially when it’s your kid. Here, I think, we get to the crux of the matter: it seems increasingly pointless to keep an extremely low-risk population of fully-vaccinated college students under an extremely strict isolation regime... while everyone else is free to do pretty much as they please. I made the point earlier in this thread about downstream effects and transmission chains, and it is a valid point during a situation of high community spread, high stress on the medical system, etc. But we're in a place now where we are tightening screws on a handful of low-risk populations who are either unable (school-age children) or largely unwilling, whether due to coercion or otherwise (college students) to resist stringent measures... while everyone else is free to live their lives with relatively few restrictions - and transmit Covid accordingly. What percentage of Covid transmission is being driven by fully-vaccinated college students? What about school-age children? The evidence suggests to me that it is rather low (not zero, but few things in life are zero - there's no way to insulate your kid or anyone else's from all risk)... but we're willing to clamp down on them in a way that we are not on bars & restaurants or most other vectors of transmission because The Spice Must Flow, i.e., the economy's gotta keep running. Our inability to target non-pharmaceutical mitigation measures at the things actually driving transmission, as opposed to the politically easiest targets, does not bode well for any number of things, including our long-term management of endemic Covid.
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DanMcQ
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Post by DanMcQ on Jan 22, 2022 7:00:01 GMT -5
3 doses Is the relevant number on a population level. Getting sick is much more likely with only 1 or 2 doses which permits continued spread to others. In addition, the farther away one gets from dose 1 or 2 without a booster(s) the more chance there is of serious disease and death. Very few vaccines give lifelong immunity thus virtually all need boosters on some schedule.
The terminology being used currently for the third dose is incorrect: the third dose of mRNA vaccines is not really a booster, we now know that they are vaccines that require a 3 shot primary series for maximum efficacy. Any additional shots would be boosters.
Finally, as a parent I don’t care how low the percentage of death may be. For the few such preventable deaths may occur it’s a 109% tragic event for the child and the child’s family. We haven’t talked about the incidence of MIS-C and long COVID, which is orders of magnitude higher than death in this age group. Both occur even in minimally symptomatic cases.
To your last paragraph, American society is sadly filled with a large proportion of others who don’t give a crap about the greater good of others and only care about themselves. It’s truly astonishing and sad. Many of these have bought the line from would-be autocrats that these interventions are attempts to restrict and control independence.
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RusskyHoya
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Post by RusskyHoya on Jan 31, 2022 0:55:40 GMT -5
3 doses Is the relevant number on a population level. Getting sick is much more likely with only 1 or 2 doses which permits continued spread to others. In addition, the farther away one gets from dose 1 or 2 without a booster(s) the more chance there is of serious disease and death. Very few vaccines give lifelong immunity thus virtually all need boosters on some schedule. Based on our understanding of this virus's behavior, it certainly makes sense - at present anyway (there's a significant caveat there we can save for another type around the likely future emergency of a variant with very high vaccine escape) - that the less severe the disease, the less likelihood of transmission to others. Thus, as additional doses reduce severity of disease, they also reduce transmission. Reduce, but do not eliminate. When you say "only 1 or 2 doses which permits continued spread to others," that implies that 3 doses does not permit continued spread to others. But that's clearly not the case. ("Booster breakthroughs happen too... With breakthrough infections, the viral loads are similar to those who are unvaccinated. That means such infections among fully immunized patients could be transmitted to others who are unvaccinated or have compromised immune systems. Source: AMA). What we have instead is a gradient of transmission. Now, would universal vaccination push us so far down that gradient that it would push R0 down below 1? Maybe. But that's not going to happen anytime soon, certainly not a planet-wide level, and even then you've got animal reservoirs that will presumably also produce variants with different levels of infectiousness and vaccine/immunity escape. So... on a population level, it does make more sense to think about it as a spectrum, rather than "3 or bust," not least because "3" does not equal "completely non-infectious." The terminology being used currently for the third dose is incorrect: the third dose of mRNA vaccines is not really a booster, we now know that they are vaccines that require a 3 shot primary series for maximum efficacy. Any additional shots would be boosters. This is an area where... it seems like there's still some disagreement. Not so much on whether a third dose provides a boost to immunity in some/many cases - seems pretty clear that this is the case - but whether it the cost/benefit calculus shakes out in such a way that it truly does become a three-dose minimum series. Here's the current WHO guidance (updated 1.21.22): Is a booster dose recommended for this vaccine?
A booster dose may be considered 4 – 6 months after completion of the primary vaccination series, though this is mainly recommended for the higher priority-use groups, in accordance with the WHO Prioritization Roadmap.
The benefits of booster vaccination are recognized following increasing evidence of waning vaccine effectiveness against mild and asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection over time.
The need for, and timing of, booster doses for children aged 5-11 years has not yet been determined. Finally, as a parent I don’t care how low the percentage of death may be. For the few such preventable deaths may occur it’s a 109% tragic event for the child and the child’s family. I mean, you can say that, but it would be bizarre if this were true, since that's not how we deal with any other risk to children or anyone else. To use an example that is most relevant to college students: sending your kids of to college hugely increases their risk of death and or other adverse effects from bacterial meningitis, taking it from infinitesimally, vanishingly low to merely extremely low. And yet people (including you, presumably?) send their kids off to college each year despite meningitis and many other risks besides. Everything is a cost-benefit calculation. All deaths from winter sports are preventable by never going skiing or snowboarding. Just about all deaths from drowning are avoidable by never going anywhere near the water. That those deaths are both preventable and 109% tragic when they do occur says little about whether we should forego all winter and water activities in the name of prevention. And that's before we get to the true major risks we accept daily when it comes to youth: car crashes, suicide, substance abuse, domestic violence, etc. (the last several of these, incidentally, are correlated with disruption to socialization - something worth keeping in mind when assessing the costs of various NPIs) I may not be an infectious disease doctor, but I am a risk management professional, and I recognize when there is a discontinuity between people's typical approach to risks and how they deal with something novel and especially something that has become caught up in a broader cultural dynamic. Climate comes to mind as another example, but there are plenty of others. We haven’t talked about the incidence of MIS-C and long COVID, which is orders of magnitude higher than death in this age group. Both occur even in minimally symptomatic cases. Orders of magnitude increase of a very small number is still a very small number. In any case, all viral sequelae are worth study and monitoring. Good news on both those fronts, fortunately. With MIS-C, evidence appears to suggest that vaccination effectively mitigates this risk. Here's a nationwide study out of France, which found 107 cases of MIS-C among hospitalized children over a span of 2 months (Sept-Oct 2021), with not a single case in a fully vaccinated youth: jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2787495With Long Covid, we are similarly seeing evidence that vaccination brings this constellation of symptoms down to baseline (one of the confounding things here is that it is a rather high baseline - lots of people who, as best as we can tell, have never had Covid are reporting Long Covid symptoms). This is still pre-print, but looks very solid and squares with what I'm seeing elsewhere (including from people I know who have been vaccinated subsequent to developing Long Covid symptoms in 2020): www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.01.05.22268800v2To your last paragraph, American society is sadly filled with a large proportion of others who don’t give a crap about the greater good of others and only care about themselves. It’s truly astonishing and sad. Many of these have bought the line from would-be autocrats that these interventions are attempts to restrict and control independence. On one level, I can't disagree. It's certainly, uh, not great that the #1 comorbidity for Covid in 2022 is Being Hardcore MAGA. It is also not great that there are plenty of others who are vaccinate hesitant when it comes to themselves or especially their eligible children due to a constellation of idiosyncratic reasons, ranging from committed anti-vax ideology (extant on the left as well as the right) to people with extremely high mistrust of American institutions to those who simply have a poorly-calibrated risk assessment and cost-benefit methodology, one that is often combined with an ignorance (far more understandable) of how the FDA approval process operates and why the vaccines are still under EUA only for kids. On the other hand, while the public health establishment is certainly free to blame the public for bad outcomes - much as lawyers, accountants, or consultants can blame their clients and coaches can blame their players - the reality is that you go to combat the hazard with the public you have, not the public you wish you had. Lord knows this is something we're well-acquainted with at FEMA: the L goes on your record regardless, even if you think you got everything right and the problem is that the dumb idiot public messed everything up. It's not so long ago that the public health establishment - mirroring the American people writ large - took the approach that the way to stop AIDS was for gay men to simply stop engaging in intimate contact. After all, there's no compelling procreative reason for it - it's just a desire for "selfish" gratification, right? Throw the injectable drug junkies in that mix too. The most recent past CDC Director was a central player in that, ironically. We've learned a lot since then, and so it worries me greatly to see the harm reduction baby constantly at risk of being swept out with the partisan bathwater.
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DanMcQ
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Post by DanMcQ on Jan 31, 2022 1:36:51 GMT -5
Don’t have time to respond point-by-point but US and WHO recommendations largely agree yet there are differences, many of which reflect their constituencies. Suffice it to say a full 3-dose mRNA vaccine series is much easier to accomplish in the US than in most of the rest of the world. That doesn’t impact its much better sustained protective efficacy than less doses nor does it negate the fact that one vaccine dose is better than none. If one could ensure one dose in 90% of everyone worldwide we might be on to something.
Public health is woefully under resourced (funds and people) in the US and worldwide. It’s one of the reasons we are in this mess.
CDC Directors are political appointees, the prior one was a solid scientist but miscast in his job except for his willingness to allow the last administration to alter and undercut CDC scientific guidance to suit political aims. Let’s just also say his view of issues surrounding HIV etc have a decidedly MAGA bent as well.
All of this is fixable. The will to do so must be there.
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madgesiq92
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Post by madgesiq92 on Aug 25, 2022 8:14:07 GMT -5
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Elvado
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Post by Elvado on Aug 25, 2022 8:32:06 GMT -5
Shine on alma mater… Good grief…
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hoyaboya
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Post by hoyaboya on Aug 26, 2022 8:53:51 GMT -5
I am embarrassed by more than just the basketball program at my alma mater - complete joke leadership.
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