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[ChairmanPoo]

Saying that the virus is endemic is meaningless. It just means that there's a persistent level of infection, doesn't say anything about the severity or deadliness. Right now that level of infection is "huge", and quite severe for many people. I really hope it tones down in the next couple of years (with 6mo boosters of course) because it's not sustainable for society, the healthcare system, or the economy to have huge chunks of the population having a severe respiratory infection every couple of months.

[wierd]

I mention that it is indeed endemic, because it is not going to "Go away". 

It will have to be constantly managed.


The big complaint being made, is that having to "constantly manage" the infection rate of the virus in society (to prevent it from rendering the population in-viable economically, due to bad health and persistent illness) is an onerous economic burden.


I believe I addressed that, in my rather sharp rebuke of our society's dependence upon models and practices that only make sense if there is no such systemic problem to constantly manage. (EG, systems based on global supply infrastructures, systems based on just-in-time delivery of materials or products, systems based on employer's market based hiring, et al.)

In order to prevent a complete implosion of the economy through a public health meltdown, we desperately need to get away from the "high performance drug" addiction we have to those policies and practices, and embrace the reality that constant management is necessary to avoid disaster.

That means accepting that mask use is now necessary, and it wont go away.

That means accepting that big wild parties are not socially responsible, and not hosting them.

That means accepting that covid is a dangerous illness that will fuck up whole populations with persistent and incurable conditions post-infection, for the remainder of the infected person's lifetimes.


Those are all things the general public DOES NOT WANT TO ACCEPT AT ALL, and which government considers TOXIC TO EVEN CONSIDER.

Which is why society is on the trajectory to burning dumpster fire that it is on.



The ones that do not want to accept it, want to think that "It will go away" or "Will become non-issue". 

Current science says that is not what will happen.  The mechanisms by which it causes the systemic illness are directly tied to the infection pathway it uses. It would have to mutate very profoundly to use a totally different coreceptor to stop causing post-covid syndrome.  It is also endemic. You will never eradicate it now.

Combined, the only option is "Constant Management"

[Pwnzerfaust]

You're effectively asking humans to stop being humans.

People are going to be social. We're going to have parties. We're going to meet each other and interact and live our lives. And we're not going to wear masks doing it.

[wierd]

And you will end up with persistent health problems, and break the society's ability to care for the sick and infirm in the process.

[Vector]

OK, next round of lockdown-triggered PTSD confirmed. I better start getting ready again because apparently we're done doing the shit that makes lockdowns less likely 9_9

@Pwnzerfaust, do you really have no friends who are at higher risk for bad COVID? Obese friends? Friends with diabetes? Anyone in your life who is older like an aunt, uncle, or grandparent? Or little kids in your life who are going to have a bad time as experienced older teachers keep quitting the classroom due to inadequate workplace protections?

[ChairmanPoo]

It's really not worth the argument. Not doing jackshit has won. There's not even a pretense of containing covid and apparently most people are a-ok (for now*) with this. We'll have people on sick leave every few weeks, lots of long covid, lots of deaths. So, it's every man for himself now.  I will continue wearing FFP3, so will my loved ones. Specially in public transport and enclosed spaces. I will defo keep boosting as new boosters become available and am more eager for the specific omicron booster than for the steamdeck.


*just like people are not willing to do what it takes I suspect they wont be willing to live alongside mass dying and crippledness. Eventually people will demand something to be done again.. and I suspect we'll get "flatten the curve" half measures again at that point.

PD: I believe the whole "you can't catch it outdoors" meme was something to be taken with a grain of salt at best (less likely is not 0) and I read recently that an aerosol scientist in the RIKEN institute ran some simulations that suggested the odds are far higher with omicron. Be careful out there.

[Pwnzerfaust]

OK, next round of lockdown-triggered PTSD confirmed. I better start getting ready again because apparently we're done doing the shit that makes lockdowns less likely 9_9

@Pwnzerfaust, do you really have no friends who are at higher risk for bad COVID? Obese friends? Friends with diabetes? Anyone in your life who is older like an aunt, uncle, or grandparent? Or little kids in your life who are going to have a bad time as experienced older teachers keep quitting the classroom due to inadequate workplace protections?

I have no atrisk friends, and my grandparents are vaccinated and as unconcerned as I am. They, like I, understand that the risks involved to those of us who are vaccinated and boosted are negligible and no longer worth treating with such paranoia. Living in the bay area and working in tech, all my friends are reasonably fit and healthy and almost all have the same take on this as me.

[wierd]

OK, next round of lockdown-triggered PTSD confirmed. I better start getting ready again because apparently we're done doing the shit that makes lockdowns less likely 9_9

@Pwnzerfaust, do you really have no friends who are at higher risk for bad COVID? Obese friends? Friends with diabetes? Anyone in your life who is older like an aunt, uncle, or grandparent? Or little kids in your life who are going to have a bad time as experienced older teachers keep quitting the classroom due to inadequate workplace protections?

I am with Poo on this one.

What will happen, is that:

Government will DO NOTHING.  It will tell you to go back to work.  It will not acknowledge the debilitating disease that their policies have caused to flourish. They will NOT fix the systemic shortcomings of healthcare-- they will just say that people with covid syndrome have a non-disease, and need to just go back to work. (nevermind that they cant breathe, have multiple organ damage, have alterations in personality and associated personality disorders, and have problems with fine motor control and other maladies. Nevermind all of that. "IT IS NOT REAL, GO BACK TO WORK CITIZEN."

Lockdowns would require shutting down the economy, and NO, WE WILL NOT DO THAT CITIZEN. COVID IS NO BIG DEAL. GO BACK TO WORK. CONSUME. HAVE YOUR PARTIES. EVERYTHING IS FINE.


Except it's not.  It will continue to kill people directly. It will continue to fuck people up. It will continue to make people sterile. It will continue to cause rampant miscarriages.

We just wont do a goddamn thing about it, and people intent on trying to mitigate the harm, will be maligned as chicken little.

When the collateral damage of that refusal to acknowledge and do what is necessary to manage the problem reaches a head, and global fertility rates drop below replacement EVERYWHERE, and the economy starts to implode, people will wake up from the happy delusion, and demand action.

But it will be too little, too late by then.


Analogy:

You are a pretty woman with very lovely breasts.

You notice a lump.

Your doctor says you need a double mastectomy, because you have very aggressive breast cancer.  You refuse, because "MY TITTIES!" (You DO NOT understand Doctor! My breasts are a part of my identity as a woman, and you CANT just CUT THEM OFF!)

Things seem OK and fine, while you ignore your doctor.  Until you get metastatic cancer, and have multiple organ failure, and debilitating pain everywhere, and your life is shit.  You think back on your choices, and wonder if maybe you should have followed his advice.

But its too late now. You are terminal stage 4.

[JoshuaFH]

I think Pwnzerfaust is just highlighting the largest discrepancy in personal philosophies that pervade society at large. There's obviously a huge number, but I think the two most relevant ones can be summed up:

"Compassion and Conscientiousness are prerequisites to civilized life. Individuals should be ready to make personal choices and personal sacrifices for the greater good."

And then

"Death and pain are normal parts of life, and shouldn't be feared, or even resented. Attempts to avert them means encroaching on personal freedoms, which is a greater evil than the thing being averted."

Now, as to what philosophy is pragmatic enough that it will stand the test of time, I suppose history will bear that one out eventually.

[Starver]

Whether or not this relates to the above (it's not intended to, but the connections are easy to make, your choice), the news is that Prince Charles has had to cancel an engagement as he has tested positive (for a second time, the first being an early variant, no news if this is omicron, and despite being triple-vaccinated).

He'll probably be Ok (knock on wood), and whoever inadvertently passed it on to him will probably be Ok. Camilla tested negative, apparently. His mother, in her mid 90s, would be most at risk (based on age) but that would depend on whether he's been meeting her since the possibility of passing on the infection.

It would be nice to be able to be sure one wasn't going to pass on an infection to people who might pass the infection onto others who might be the ones to unfortunately infect the more vulnerable. Just this week, though, Boris Johnson suggested that the mandate for positively-testing individuals to self-isolate (as imperfect as that might be, in itself) might be ended a month earlier than it was due to. Probably as a Bread And Circuses 'reward' to hoi poloi, to make them ignore the political bother he's in for breaking his own limitation of contact rules last year (possibly because, having already had Covid, and vaccinated almost as soon as possible, he "wouldn't have it again"...). Certainly under pressure from the many of his own MPs who never wanted to wear masks in Parliament, etc, who refused to back other elementary precautions even in the midst of prior waves, 'because'.

Ok, so this became a localised political rant, but I was trying to stay away from the specifics of the last page or so of argument. Maybe the initial royal news is similarly uninteresting to you lot, as an international audience, as the fuss in Westminster (where people can provably lie and disseminate without apparent penalty yet it is a procedural offence to directly call that person a liar).

[Loud Whispers]

Now, as to what philosophy is pragmatic enough that it will stand the test of time, I suppose history will bear that one out eventually.

You forgot option 3: "I have tested positive for a deadly infectious disease. Now I must take business trips. I will trample on many lives, and easily could have stopped this. I regret nothing"

[scriver]

Elon Stink: I travelled halfway around the world to attend a party in Sweden and got sick. It's Sweden's fault

[Vector]

@pwnzer: I grew up in the South Bay, I understand what environment you're talking about. My first boyfriend was a tech bro. Unfortunately I have to tell you that there are still vulnerable people in your community and they don't deserve to die because you want to have fun. Not even chasing all the homeless people over the county line will actually remove everyone who is at risk. There are refugees living in Palo Alto.

The parties where they bus in women from other places because of the gender imbalance in tech companies are also not a good look


(OK, I'm done poking the bear guys. Sorry!)

[Pwnzerfaust]

JoshuaFH's interpretation is pretty insightful and accurate. I hold pretty strongly to the philosophy espoused by Benjamin Franklin when he said: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

[Rolan7]

That's why I refuse to wear pants.  I wish I could wear them but people keep insisting that I have to.  Where would it end?

Private businesses do have a right to throw me out when I keep defecating on their floors, but I wish they'd be more considerate of my own rights.  It's like they don't want my money.

It's definitely not that I have a irrational problem with pants and am falling back on "personal liberty" because I can't defend my anti-pants position. 
_{oh wait you already claimed masks don't work haha, keep Franklin's words out of your bare mouth}