Strypey
In #YoungSheldon s01e13, a TV news announcer says;
"... an unusually bad 'flu season is buffeting the country. Doctor say the strain, originating in China, is particularly severe. Children and the elderly are most at risk."
... and Sheldon, panicking, says;
"We're all gonna die!"
... then his mother Mary says;
"But you need to understand that sometimes the news says those things just to scare people."
Hmmm...
just small circles 🕊
@strypey honestly I'd reconsider that last sentence. It's a bit of the slap in the face to the millions of people suffering long covid or other conditions that are unable to participate normally in society to the present day. For anyone lucky enough to not be in that group there's still risk of contracting long covid with the milder strains that are going across the planet right now.
E.g. there's many FOSS folks that can't attend 'mass spreading' conferences that didn't take proper precautions.
Strypey
The episode starts with Sheldon's germophobia bringing him into conflict with the authorities at his school. Then he escalates to making a bubble boy habitat in the garage. In the end, his grandmother convinces him to come out and face the world.
Sheldon is smart and he's not wrong that there's a real threat to his health. But his reaction is disproportionate, and it gets in the way of both his life and those around him. I want to show this to anyone still banging on about masks and boosters.
Esther Payne :bisexual_flag:
Yes, I'm one of them and I'm incredibly disappointed in you, Strypey for posting that.
You're demonstrating one of the serious issues of community solidarity that FOSS has.
If you aren't for the freedom to interact and contribute for one of us, you aren't for the freedom of all of us.
Thanks for letting me know how you really feel about my need to protect myself and my family from further harm from Covid and other infectious diseases.
Nelson
@onepict @smallcircles Sadly, @strypey has this backwards. Masks, boosters, and other public health measures are how we get to go about our normal activities without interruption.
Instead, bands I want to see cancel tour dates because the band is sick. Friends I want to see are either temporarily unavailable because they have COVID, indefinitely unavailable because they have long COVID, or dead like my grandma who died with COVID. Each infection rolls the dice for new variants that kill & maim.
Kate Nyhan
@onepict @smallcircles
If these folks who think that we go on too much about masks and boosters actually wanted to be in community with us, they'd plan COVID-safer events instead of deciding that "rational" people need to accept preventable infectious disease and that "normal" people need to accept exclusion of people with disabilities.
Kate Nyhan
gnutelephony
@kdnyhan @onepict @smallcircles "reasonable accommodation" is the standard, and it is entirely reasonable to expect a basic accommodation like masking during an outbreak like this.
Manu
@strypey Sheldon's reaction IS disproportionate. But isn't it a false equivalence to compare literally living in a bubble, to wearing a mask at the supermarket?
Rob Bos
@strypey Even if you're not really a fan of masks, there are contexts in which they are absolutely appropriate, and I think there's a VERY strong argument for the use of masks in all medical settings, even if COVID didn't exist entirely.
I agree that masks by the general public in most settings are a hard sell, and *should* have been a temporary measure until health authorities could get proper air filtration and circulation regulations in place, but that didn't happen.
Kate Nyhan
@onepict @smallcircles
Maybe I could live with masks being optional at an event if the conference had great IAQ, capped in-person attendance at 50% of capacity, offered outdoor space for eating, provided everyone with rapid tests and insisted on them being used every day, made symptomatic people stay home, offered no-questions-asked refunds so that sick and exposed people aren't incentivized to come....
clacke
@strypey It's not about trust.
Public health systems happened to be doing the right thing when they ramped up and tried to contain it and people should have gone along with it because it was the right thing to do.
They are now doing the wrong thing downplaying the ongoing strains, the wrong thing ramping down masking etc without the corresponding improvement in e.g. ventilation codes.
They might be doing the right pragmatic thing by easing on mandatory masking rather than antagonize an unreasonable population, but that doesn't mean responsible individuals and organizations can't hold themselves to a higher standard.
Strypey
@bigblen
I find it supremely ironic that it's some of the same people who insisted we follow the lead of the public health response when it was doing border closures, quarantine, and lockdowns (and rightly so), who are now insisting on an unsustainable state of permanent public health emergency. Thus totally rejecting the ramping down of the response by the public health system.
So... do the public health system know what they're doing? Or were the sceptics right not to trust them? Pick one.
Strypey
@bigblen
> masks and boosters aren't disproportionate compared to "making a bubble boy habitat"
You're missing the forest for the trees.
You're focused on the specific actions motivated by the response. I'm talking about the response itself. The zealous belief that life can never return to normal while infectious diseases still exist, and the fervour for converting others to the belief.
If COVID was still as deadly as the early strains, sure. But it's not, or govts would act accordingly.
Eliot B
@strypey ... to confirm that masks and boosters aren't disproportionate compared to "making a bubble boy habitat"
clacke
@strypey I see people explaining why on rational grounds they are excluded from events and asking people to please take measures to include them.
@alienghic @bigblen @onepict @nu @smallcircles @rbos @kdnyhan
Strypey
@clacke
> individuals and organizations can hold themselves to a higher standard
Sure. I have no problem with people evaluating their own risk and responding accordingly. I do have a problem with people trying to bully everyone else into sharing their evaluation, or guilt-tripping them for not choosing the same level of response.
There's plenty of both to be seen just in the replies to the OP, illustrating my point nicely.
@alienghic @bigblen @onepict @nu @smallcircles @rbos @kdnyhan
Strypey
@clacke
Let me summarise this position;
I only agree with the public health system's evaluation of risk when it agrees with mine. Exactly the logic of those who who rejected lockdowns, quarantines, vaccinations etc.
I have chosen to trust the public health authorities to do what is necessary. At the moment, they don't seem to think epidemic response measures are necessary.
@alienghic @bigblen @onepict @nu @smallcircles @rbos @kdnyhan
clacke
Strypey
@clacke
> I see people explaining why on rational grounds
I don't agree the grounds are rational.
> they are excluded from events
... in the same way Young Sheldon was excluded from school, or eventually everwhere outside his garage bubble habitat.
@alienghic @bigblen @onepict @nu @smallcircles @rbos @kdnyhan
clacke@libranet.de is my main
I understand why my city is lowering its defenses. It's fatigue and it's adaptation to an international economy where everyone else lowered their defenses.
If we didn't gave the last three years of history and the current strains were hitting the city right now, in the current numbers, the city would be closing its schools like it did in 2020 and like it did in 2018 when 100 people died of the seasonal flu.
The only difference between now and 2018 is that now is worse and that ironically is why the regulatory response is weaker.
clacke@libranet.de is my main
@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz Immunocompromised people are not Sheldon and Covid is not household germs.
You're downplaying a virus that is claiming lives like a bad flu or worse, plus spreading more effectively, plus lowering people's immune defenses, plus giving people long covid.
I'm lucky to have no long-term consequences after two infections, while being careful, while in a city where people are careful, but each time is a roll of the dice.
I'm sorry, but your position is not a good look here.
@clacke@libranet.de
clacke
@strypey In Russian roulette, is the game harmless if you survived the first round?
Your anecdata is compatible with 90% of cases getting out of it just fine.
> At least 65 million individuals around the world have long COVID, based on a conservative estimated incidence of 10% of infected people and more than 651 million documented COVID-19 cases worldwide; the number is likely much higher due to many undocumented cases. The incidence is estimated at 10–30% of non-hospitalized cases, 50–70% of hospitalized cases and 10–12% of vaccinated cases.
nature.com/articles/s41579-022…
This article is from early this year and is a summary of the current view, referencing a number of studies and meta-studies. 10% is the lowball figure used in other contexts as well.
Strypey
@notclacke
> I'm lucky to have no long-term consequences after two infections
You're handwaving away two inconvenient facts;
1) you got COVID.
2) It wasn't a big deal.
This is also true of everyone I know who's had COVID, which is most of them. Many of them 2 or more times.
If this anecdata was contradicted by research data, I trust that the public health authorities would be acting accordingly. But they're not.
Can you show me the peer reviewed data you
Implicitly claim they're ignoring?
clacke
Strypey
@clacke
> In Russian roulette, is the game harmless if you survived the first round?
Are you suggesting that someone who gets mild flu symptoms from one COVID infection could get killed by a later one? I see no reason to think that's true. AFAIK the people killed by COVID were killed by their first infection.
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clacke
@strypey Most cases resolve within 1–1.5 years. That's a long time to be potentially not able to work.
Again: Not a cold, not a flu, a flu with this severity and spread would normally be cause for an enhanced health and security response, and there are long-term effects beyond what any cold or flu has.
Even if the government response has been lowered due to fatigue it is not fair to label calls for enhanced
safety at conferences as unfounded, deluded, disproportional or otherwise divorced from reality. Reality is that the health environment is *not* the same as in 2019 and people with underlying conditions are justified in being extra cautious.
Strypey
@clacke
> At least 65 million individuals around the world have long COVID
This is a legitimate problem and needs publicly-funded research and health care. But let's be clear on what it is;
"...the continuation or development of new symptoms 3 months after the initial SARS-CoV-2 infection, with these symptoms lasting for at least 2 months with no other explanation."
https://www.who.int/europe/news-room/fact-sheets/item/post-covid-19-condition
In other words, those numbers include all the cases that resolve themselves within a year.
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clacke
@strypey And if we had mass spreading of these conditions I hope we would take it as seriously as I wish we'd take Covid.
Strypey
@clacke
> Most cases resolve within 1–1.5 years. That's a long time to be potentially not able to work
Sure, but this is not new. It's well known that viral infections like Glandular Fever and Hepatitis can lead to similar conditions. Research into Long COVID has led to theories that pre-COVID conditions like Chronic Fatigue Syndrome are actually post-viral complications too, potentially caused by a bad flu.
So a bad flu is precisely what it's become. Life goes on.
Jens Finkhäuser
@clacke @strypey You might be lucky and get through this faster than others. But you will have suffered damage. To the brain, to your lungs.
I mean, people also *smoke* and survive for a long time, but these days few people think that's a good idea.
Jens Finkhäuser
@clacke @strypey It's not a cold at all, it's a virus that, aside from producing cold-like symptoms, causes cardiovascular damage (primarily, as is normal for these things, in the smaller blood vessels like those powering your lungs and brain), and which leaves the immune system to deal with a persistent irritant, which produces a long term immunoresponse.
Please stop calling it flu-like. What looks flu-like are just the outward symptoms of our immune system going under extreme load.
Jens Finkhäuser
@clacke @strypey Research also goes in the direction that long COVID, MS, Crohn's and others are all caused by viruses, because they seem to share things. We may actually be closer to treating some because of COVID. Which is nice...
... but you know, it's also a class of illnesses causing disability, so it's a bit of a dick move to try and downplay it.
clacke
This is an astonishing claim that we're really going to need a reference for, given that the vaccine schedule is based on epidemic data that immunity tapers off in 6 months and that vaccines work.
Strypey
@jens
In other words, the very majority of mask wearing is health theatre. So pressuring potentially traumatised people to mask up, or constantly justify why they're not, is cruel and unnecessary.
The same applies to most of the other "enhanced safety" measures people are demanding. Most of them (including perpetual vaccine boosters) demonstrably don't work.
Just like Young Sheldon's garage bubble solution. Thus the OP.
(3/3)
Strypey
@jens
Demanding that they everyone wear masks all though a conference can be catastrophically triggering for such people. Excluding us from participating.
That might be the lesser evil if mass mask wearing was effective at preventing viral spread. But I did a first aid course in 2021, that had a whole module on COVID precautions. It explained that anything less than hospital grade mask protocols makes it pointless to wear a mask, unless you're coughing or sneezing.
(2/?)
Strypey
@jens
> it's a bit of a dick move to try and downplay it
Maybe, but you know what else is a dick move? Ignoring the mental health side of post-COVID disability.
A lot of people had their lives turned upside down by the pandemic response. Or had legitimate medical reasons for mask exemptions, and spent months having to justify their masklessness and getting shouted at by people who thought they were doing it for contrarian reasons.
Some of us now carry huge burdens of trauma.
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clacke
@strypey I am dead serious. You are wilfully ignorant on the efficacy of the vaccines.
Again your anecdata doesn't match the available statistics, and I'm talking epidemic data by government agencies, not trials by manufacturers.
If you look at hospitalizations, even in countries where 90% are vaccinated, the majority of hospitalizations are the unvaccinated, a vast overrepresentation.
♲ libranet.de/display/0b6b25a8-1…
Strypey
@clacke
> vaccines work
🤣
Wait...are you serious? Almost everyone I know whose had COVID (again, most of them) had been vaccinated, almost all of them 2 if not 3 times. I got it immediately after getting the first booster.
Now that only reflects on the Pfizer vaccine, which was the only one widely available here. But asking me to supply proof it doesn't work is reversing the burden of proof. As always, the burden of proof belongs on those promoting for-profit medical treatments.
clacke
> implies preventing infection and thus spread
@strypey A vaccine works if it has effect and there's a point in taking it.
Flu vaccines have been said to work for decades, even though it's well known that they're anywhere from 20% to 80% effective against recorded infection depending on season and vaccine, because vaccinating the most sensitive members of society reduces suffering and death among those vaccinated, and vaccinating people who can probably get away with a few days of symptoms maintains productivity and reduces spread to those who would suffer worse.
The idea that a vaccine doesn't work if someone got vaccinated and later was infected anyway is a misinformation campaign directed against sensible public health policy and I am sad to see it repeated here.
Strypey
@clacke
> If you look at hospitalizations, even in countries where 90% are vaccinated, the majority of hospitalizations are the unvaccinated, a vast overrepresentation
This is a much narrower claim than...
> vaccines work
... a ludicrous overgeneralisation that implies preventing infection and thus spread, as promised when they were being heavily promoted.
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clacke
@strypey Yes, confounding variables
are accounted for. E.g. the elderly end up more commonly in the hospital, but they have high vaccination rates too and it's the unvaccinated that are the majority.
Communities like immigrant communities with lower trust in government and ideological communities like anthroposophy have lower rates of vaccination and corresponding higher rates of infection.
Strypey
@clacke
> I'm talking epidemic data by government agencies, not trials by manufacturers
That does the data more convincing. But is it corrected for confounding variables?
Like the unvaccinated being predominantly from segments of the population who are more likely to be hospitalised for COVID anyway. Eg because they're older, indigenous, or have chronic health problems that have led them a 'natural health care' discourse, including vaccine scepticism.
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clacke
It's clear from observations that vaccination against the right SARS-CoV-2 strains makes a beneficial difference, i.e. works.
Pfizer and friends are of course happy to earn money on their products, but the reason social democratic governments are buying them and vaccinating people is because it saves hospital cost compared to letting people get sick at higher rates.
Jens Finkhäuser
@strypey @clacke The question of which masks to use is one of the size of particles you want to capture. Since COVID is airborne, you should absolutely go for the best filters available; some masks mostly capture droplets.
But that doesn't stop the masks from being effective. See e.g. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abi9069 for a study that focuses on effect rather than mechanism. The likely conclusion, then, is that droplets contain more of the virus and are more infectious, but that's also a given really.
Jens Finkhäuser
@strypey @clacke I'm aware of the psychological issues mask wearing can cause. But it's also something you can get through. This isn't supposed to minimize the effect, it's merely stating that it is treatable. Long COVID is not, not yet.
You cannot compare the two. In particular, because the exact same arguments you raise against masks can be raised for masking. Long COVID sufferers or other immunocompromised folk face the same pressure and exclusion if they wish to participate in life.
So...
Indieterminacy
Yes, targeting an existing regulatory approach is apt, given it targets contagion from further afield (something more significant) and reduces duplication.
Also, modern standards of ventilation of the event hall(s) is worthy of bringing up. There is no point us tearing into eachother if it distracts us from the improvements to the physical environment (which is an old divide and rule game).
Strypey
@indieterminacy
> For conferences test rather than mask attendees
That seems reasonable. A negative test is still required for air flights yes? So it's also consistent. Which is important, because constantly moving through different COVID response regimes is stressful, and makes compliance with any of them much less likely.
Indieterminacy
@strypey @jens @clacke At the height of the pandemic the lack of masks in highly dense public transport systems was a disgrace, all the more clearer given that many of those refusing to wear a mask had the hypocrisy to have one under the chin.
It seems to me there was not only ignorance but moral hazard, *im alright jack* type behaviour and socialising risks.
In all likelyhood many environments dont need mandates (and the data should arbitrate).
For conferences test rather than mask attendees
clacke
@strypey The point is twofold:
- These communities are small and yet provide evidence for vaccine efficacy.
- They are still larger than the group of people who will not vaccinate due to medical reasons, making that group a vanishingly small confounding factor.
I do not have a study to reference for this and I will not be digging for it soon. I will be satisfied with saying that peer review and other professionals have not pointed this out as something that undermines epidemiological studies on efficacy.
Strypey
Me:
> unvaccinated being predominantly from segments of the population who are more likely to be hospitalised for COVID anyway Eg because they're... indigenous, or have chronic health problems that have led them a 'natural health care' discourse
@clacke
> Communities like immigrant communities with lower trust in government and ideological communities like anthroposophy have lower rates of vaccination
Seems we agree on this point?
(2/2)
Strypey
@clacke
> confounding variables
are accounted for
I don't think this means what you think it means.
> the elderly end up more commonly in the hospital, but they have high vaccination rates too
I'll take your word for it.
> it's the unvaccinated that are the majority
This doesn't exclude the small proportion of unvaccinated older people from being a high proportion of the hospitalised unvaccinated. Where we can reliable figures to find out?
(1/2)
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