I don’t really care as much about reducing cases. I do care about reducing hospitalizations and deaths. The two are related, but the realistic goal should be measures that change the ratio of cases to hospitalizations and make COVID more like the flu rather than just trying to minimize cases.
I mean I’m not changing what I’m doing but R0 of ten plus what we are currently doing even in “cautious” US states and, yeah, reality is it is gonna burn through like 40 percent of society. I can of course come up with policies to change that, but I don’t think the 200th time I say we should all wear N95s is gonna change that 2 percent uptake rate. The CDC is like a week away from “fuck it just go to work sick”. The die is kinda cast on this one. Yeah Id suggest being uber cautious individually if you don’t want to catch COVID, but helping on a societal level, that ship sailed here for this wave. All those interventions from 2020 post lockdown are gone and there’s almost no chance they are coming back in the next week or so, after which time we will be at well over a millions cases a day in the US even with mass undercounting.
Just look at the cases on here. Yeah people are less cautious then a year ago, but picture 80-90 percent of the US being less cautious and just paint the path to where we aren’t going to burn through.
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I’m definitely in this camp, and I think that most people are. The problem is that the two are related. More cases=more spread to vulnerable people=more hospitalization and death.
So, everyone cares less about cases than hospitalization/death. The only difference among us is how much less.
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I’d be interested to hear what you and @NotBruceZ would suggest as measures, because I don’t think there’s really a way to do this.
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My post had nothing to do with any potential actions that we could or should be taking. It was just a value judgment. If you could, in some sort of theoretical vacuum, ask people which of those things people cared about more, everyone would say hospitalizations/death. Everyone would say that they cared about cases also, but probably not as much. The only difference between people is how much less they cared about cases. It’s not possible to describe the optimal amount of caring less, since “amount of caring” is difficult to quantify.
Seemed like a natural continuation of your post, and I would have been interested to hear if you have any ideas. I’m certainly not of the mind that it’s 100% impossible.
I’d go with the first option.
JT that’s generalized measures, which was not what was being discussed.
Wish CN and JT would lay off for a bit.
if R0 is 10, the best we can do is slow this down to avoid overcrowding hospitals, there’s no way this doesn’t eventually find its way to everyone.
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Would love some input on our family conundrum. Here’s our details:
Trip scheduled to California for 1/6 to 1/17, to visit my brother that I haven’t seen in months. Two flights and a one-hour layover. We obviously scheduled this before Omicron was a thing.
Wife+me, both 3x Moderna.
4-year-old son with kn95. Obviously unvaxxed.
9-month-old daughter. Wife was pregnant with her when originally vaxxed and continues breastfeeding.
My family’s mental health would pretty clearly benefit from going, but is cancelling the LDO obvious answer here? Omicron is so contagious that I’m kind of resigned to my son getting it before he’s vaxx-eligible regardless, but it seems like the socially-responsible thing is to wait until this is past-peak before we take contribute to any potential viral spread.
FWIW my most-likely action without any feedback is to cancel and then use that same vacation time to drive my family somewhere warmer than the -0 temps we have here.
I really wouldn’t want to fly right now, so I think you’re making the right choice (as painful as it is).
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I think you and me and JT and CN are all in agreement about this, but one of them will phrase it in a way the other slightly doesn’t like so it’ll turn into a 200-post pissfest.
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To prevent hospitalizations but not cases? There’s a super simple one. Mandatory vaccinations and boosters for everyone. That would prevent hospitalizations.
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Not answering your question at all, but if your son can pass for 5, I’d just lie about his age and get him vaxxed. But that’s me.
i think everyone is about that, but not sure what else can be done realistically.
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As someone who had a trip planned (MIL wedding), went ahead anyway, and ended up positive isolated in a room alone for 5+ days - I would postpone a couple months until spread calms down. Especially if I had an unvaxxed kid.
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This sounds like the situation with me and my wife.
Id live life/plan as if hospitals, and perhaps other basic services, are going to be unavailable for much of January.
Thanks man. Best of luck getting healthy and out of quarantine ASAP.
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