Yeah, this is going to go K shaped. Instead of organized lockdowns what we’ll get is occasional surges where employers of white collar workers are going to have rolling office “lockouts” and privileged people will get used to working from home. An inconvenience (to put it mildly) but a new normal that the well off can get used to and work around.
Then there’s everyone else. Unvaxxed idiots and vulnerable older and younger people and poorer workers that are expected to show up no matter what will keep having variants rip through their groups and a bunch of them will die. It has to be this way because there is no political courage in the West to do what is necessary. Chinese global hegemony here we come. I for one welcome our new Sino overlords. As a trusted professional and community leader, I can help them round up others to toil in their underground sugar caves.
I think there are three huge problems with the reasoning:
By construction, the analysis assumes that the only costs and benefits that matter are the direct impacts on the person being vaccinated. But in reality, the vast majority of the benefit to preventing COVID in children is preventing infections that they could spread to others (this is true regardless of how frequently you think kids transmit the virus). The framing bakes a purely selfish viewpoint into the analysis, but most people don’t (and shouldn’t) think that way.
It’s not exactly clear what counterfactual the “benefit” is being computed against. If you only get one dose and then you’re exposed to COVID in three years, how do they handle the risk that you get a symptomatic infection then?
One thing the BBC graphic omits from the actual report is the risk of “paediatric inflammatory multisystem syndrome temporally associated with SARS-COV2 infection” (PIMS-TS), where they estimate that a million second doses prevent 12.67 cases. I don’t know anything about this syndrome, except that some cursory googling suggests it’s extremely scary. Maybe this is the principal source of the 6 hospitalizations that the second dose prevents, but even if so, it’s an apples-to-oranges comparison to quantify the benefit of vaccination as hospitalizations averted and then quantify the cost as cases caused.
Given how effective the filtration system on airplanes is (at least, that’s what I believe was the understanding) it is a little surprising/frustrating that we have mask mandates in airplanes but not in grocery stores. I don’t think that’s an argument for scrapping mask mandates on airplanes, though–it’s an argument for continuing mask mandates elsewhere. I probably mask less than some here but still wear my mask when I go into grocery stores or restaurants. I sat through all of Dune in an IMAX theater wearing a mask and it was fine.
It’s also work noting the political pressures that exist in one arena but not in the other. Mask mandates in public places would result in backlash against the politicians mandating them, so they’re all going to chicken out and continue to allow maskless activities. Airlines can’t get voted out of office and competition is already limited on many routes, so they can all mandate masks and be largely insulated from the backlash, almost cartel-like. Same with movie theaters. They’ll probably lose more customers by discontinuing mask mandates than they do by requiring masks.
Folks in Asian countries have been wearing masks since before COVID, and I’m pretty sure it’s seen as a sign of respect for others. No surprise that a country like America would fail to adopt something like that as a societal standard, since lack of respect for others is a basic requirement for us.
Yeah. And as a putatively left-of-center forum we might do well to remember those poorer workers. Masks have been optional for library patrons here since May 24, but not for the library staff. Good enough for me: as long as they wear masks, I’ll wear them in solidarity. Likewise bus drivers, baristas, bartenders, waitstaff and flight attendants. It seems a small cross to bear.
True, I was aware of that and should have been more specific. That’s part of the respect–I might be contagious and will mask to protect you. I assume it will be more widespread going forward in those countries, even once COVID dies down and becomes endemic, now that it’s become normalized even further.
The other caveat is, and take this with a grain of salt because it is based on the CO2 readings Ive seen posted on twitter and memories of sweltering planes, the filtration system is good while flying but not necessarily while loading/unloading or waiting for takeoff/gates to open.
My issue is the time exposure equation to the same people. If I draw the short straw and sit directly next to an infected I’m going to get a good dose regardless
Agree with the loading comment. Airflow often sucks before the engines kick in.
we are already at the point that masking while traveling will be encouraged for flu and random other seasonal viruses. we are probably only a few years away from being screened for viral variants when we fly.
Depends on your location. Grocery stores around me all require masks still, and have since it was apparent that cases were surging again. Airlines cater to white collar people in a big way, and that demo favors covid precautions.
I’m in an über-blue county and it’s only recommended here, not required. Each grocery trip I’ll see maybe 1 or 2 unmasked out of 30 or so people, so still a very high rate of masking, but I imagine that ratio drops off quite a bit when you move further from the city.
Cases still holding steady in the US, not good. Probably some combination of people being lax, schools opening, and a possible delta-plus strain making the rounds.
TBH, I was surprised with how much maskless time there was on my flights from Chicago → Athens. First there is drink service and everyone takes off their mask. Then there was food service for everyone, so we all once again took off our masks to eat. Then they came around with another drink/dessert service after that, once again all demasked.
Mask mandates, sure. We need them for the foreseeable future, especially in places like airplanes. Lockdowns for anyone but the unvaccinated (and potentially the unboosted) at this point is insanity.
We are almost certainly headed for another wave, although it looks like national aggregation isnt the most meaningful metric, really a series of local/regional waves.
The relative good news is that the case spikes are now weighted towards more vaccinated states so the deaths (which are still declining due to lags) probably dont spike quite as much as this summer.
The bad news is run rate deaths still hanging around 400K a year in the US.
I wish I could be more optimistic there was a way out, but seems likely we are going to be stuck in this rut of waves for awhile. I would be very pleasantly surprised if US COVID deaths for 2022 come in under the 350,000 COVID deaths from 2020.