Covid-19 News/Discussion

[diehardlionfan]

On 2/3/2022 at 11:11 AM, TVScout said:

Should be free:

Analysis: Americans have lost 13.5 million years of life during the pandemic.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/02/03/covid-omicron-variant-live-updates/

 

A Johns Hopkins study says 'ill-founded' COVID lockdowns did more harm than good.

A Johns Hopkins study says 'ill-founded' COVID lockdowns did more harm than good | Health News Florida (usf.edu)

That study is very, very flawed in my opinion. Free market economists aren’t the individuals that should be conducting these types of studies. There’s a long list of scientists dismissing this study.

[Xenos]

 

[TVScout]

................consider your odds of a fatal Covid case once you’ve been vaccinated.

Those odds can be gauged from a study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health, published by the Centers for Disease Control. They tracked more than 1 million vaccinated adults in America over most of last year, including the period when the Delta variant was surging, and classified victims of Covid according to risk factors such as being over 65, being immunosuppressed, or suffering from diabetes or chronic diseases of the heart, kidney, lungs, liver or brain. The researchers report that none of the healthy people under 65 had a severe case of Covid that required treatment in an intensive-care unit. Not a single one of these nearly 700,000 people died, and the risk was miniscule for most older people, too. Among vaccinated people over 65 without an underlying medical condition, only one person died. In all, there were 36 deaths, mostly among a small minority of older people with a multitude of comorbidities: the 3 percent of the sample that had at least four risk factors. Among everyone else, a group that included elderly people with one or two chronic conditions, there were just eight deaths among more than 1.2 million people, so their risk of dying was about 1 in 150,000.

[WizeGuy]

Connecticut and NJ will be dropping their mask mandates in school. The North East has seeming followed each other with the introducing and removal of regulations, so don't be surprised if NY and other states with diminishing cases follow suit soon.

[minutemancl]

4 hours ago, WizeGuy said:

Connecticut and NJ will be dropping their mask mandates in school. The North East has seeming followed each other with the introducing and removal of regulations, so don't be surprised if NY and other states with diminishing cases follow suit soon.

Someone who knows tell me, is this a good idea? Hopefully we don't see cases spike again.

[TVScout]

The coronavirus appears to increase common pregnancy complications, underscoring the need for women of childbearing age to get vaccinated, according to a study released by the National Institutes of Health on Monday.

Unvaccinated women who were affected by the virus and exhibited moderate to severe infection were more likely to experience Caesarean sections, preterm deliveries and death around delivery time, researchers found in their study of nearly 2,400 pregnant women.

[Xenos]

1 hour ago, minutemancl said:

Someone who knows tell me, is this a good idea? Hopefully we don't see cases spike again.

I also want to know the answer to this question. I get that we need to get to some level of normalcy eventually and that we can’t keep having kids, especially the younger ones, wear a mask all day since it’s not always feasible. But shouldn’t there be some off ramp that leads to this? Like, do we need a certain vaccination level in a district or city before the masks can be removed? I don’t know the right answer but I also don’t want setbacks because we’re tired of the virus.

Edited February 8, 2022 by Xenos

[MWil23]

2 hours ago, minutemancl said:

Someone who knows tell me, is this a good idea? Hopefully we don't see cases spike again.

After 2 years, it's time to look at the laws of unintended consequences. Everyone who is able/wants to get it in 5+, which is the school age, has made up their mind(s) here.

Meanwhile, kids are not participating as much, they are having issues with face reading and societal norms as a result of masking, and they are not drinking nearly as much water as they should be. I'm sure someone out there has done a data workup, but as an educator, I can definitively say that all of these things are true.

...and that doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of the exponential (close to 30%) uptick on mental health and suicide related thoughts/attempts among adolescents since March of 2020.

[WizeGuy]

2 hours ago, minutemancl said:

Someone who knows tell me, is this a good idea? Hopefully we don't see cases spike again.

 

1 hour ago, Xenos said:

I also want to know the answer to this question. I get that we need to get to some level of normalcy eventually and that we can’t keep having kids, especially the younger ones, wear a mask all day since it’s not always feasible. But shouldn’t there be some off ramp that leads to this? Like, do we need a certain vaccination level in a district or city before the masks can be removed? I don’t know the right answer but I also don’t want setbacks because we’re tired of the virus.

I'm personally a supporter of it assuming the metrics (cases & hospitalizations) support it. People also have individual tools to protect themselves if they're fearful (vaccination, high quality masks) + can use their own risk assessment (avoiding large indoor gatherings, etc...).

I believe we should start transitioning to an individual risk assessment as this Omicron wave subsides unless, of course, another crazy variant pops up. But, realistically, there's so much immunity population wide (infection based + vaccination) that I'm hopeful it'll be a while before that happens, though I feel like it's groundhog day since I've said that before.

We also have Pfizer's pill that just needs to become more widely available. Hopefully it is widely available before another VOC starts to spread. 

But, yeah, once a surge ends we should look to ease a lot of restrictions, and continue to monitor variants and transmission within a community to be prepared to act quickly if cases begin to surge again. 

[Xenos]

1 hour ago, MWil23 said:

After 2 years, it's time to look at the laws of unintended consequences. Everyone who is able/wants to get it in 5+, which is the school age, has made up their mind(s) here.

Meanwhile, kids are not participating as much, they are having issues with face reading and societal norms as a result of masking, and they are not drinking nearly as much water as they should be. I'm sure someone out there has done a data workup, but as an educator, I can definitively say that all of these things are true.

...and that doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of the exponential (close to 30%) uptick on mental health and suicide related thoughts/attempts among adolescents since March of 2020.

Or maybe find a middle ground because the point of masking is to prevent schools from shutting down again, and having kids deal with the even bigger social challenges of remote learning again. Maybe it’s time to mandate vaccinations at schools instead unless you have a medical exemption in which case you need to continue to mask up until the vaccination rate is high enough in your district/city.

[///mcompact]

1 hour ago, Xenos said:

Or maybe find a middle ground because the point of masking is to prevent schools from shutting down again, and having kids deal with the even bigger social challenges of remote learning again. Maybe it’s time to mandate vaccinations at schools instead unless you have a medical exemption in which case you need to continue to mask up until the vaccination rate is high enough in your district/city.

Interesting.  Do you have school-aged children? 

 

Edited February 8, 2022 by ///mcompact

[Deadpulse]

55 minutes ago, ///mcompact said:

Interesting.  Do you have school-aged children? 

 

I understand the perspective matters, but I hope you arent ready to dismiss or downplay his opinion if he doesnt as if being a parent magically makes you more or less right in this situation. Parenthood is a skill not all parents have. 

[///mcompact]

11 minutes ago, Deadpulse said:

I understand the perspective matters, but I hope you arent ready to dismiss or downplay his opinion if he doesnt as if being a parent magically makes you more or less right in this situation. Parenthood is a skill not all parents have. 

And after reading your response, I'll ask you the same.   

[Xenos]

1 hour ago, ///mcompact said:

Interesting.  Do you have school-aged children? 

 

No. He’s still in daycare. But not sure why that’s relevant. He still has to get his regular shots before daycare will allow him there. And now that he’s 2, he has to wear a mask.

[///mcompact]

Just now, Xenos said:

No. He’s still in daycare. But not sure why that’s relevant. He still has to get his regular shots before daycare will allow him there. And now that he’s 2, he has to wear a mask.

Thank you or the response.  Those shots/vaccines were/all FDA approved, not EUA.   

What I was getting at is that I've bit my tongue long enough on Social media and even some forums where people are flippant about how we handle this with our kids.   I live in Illinois and we finally had a Judge overturn the Governor's Mask Mandate for our schools.  Now, schools can do what they want (Mask mandatory or Mask Optional), but they can no longer hide behind the "Whelp...Gubner' said mask-up...we just follow orders, bubba".

Our school district?  Mask Optional.  It's only been two days and the same, small but vocal contingent of parents are throwing a complete stink that there isn't a mask mandate.  The loudest ones do not have/no longer have school-aged kids.   No one is stopping anyone from wearing masks or vaxing their kids... go nuts.   At this point, I'm starting to think some of these people that are hard-up for mask/Vax mandates are not doing it out of fear for anyone's health anymore.  If they want to role play, again, go nuts, but when it comes to my kids, I'm not going to step aside.