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There’s probably more transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in the last 30 days than there had been in any 30-day period in the entire pandemic

You certainly have not advocated policy based on best possible results given the totality of information we have from health experts, psychologists, economists, pediatricians, etc. You advocated public policy that was narrowly focused and damaging.

Wrong
 
Some really weird posturing and flexing because OP posts a story about the current state of Covid-19. Some of you need to separate the story itself from the individual posting. Clearly the world has moved on regarding social mitigation and we’re fortunate that the prevalent strains being passed around now are some of the least lethal so far. There’s no guarantee that will continue so I think we’ve got to be vigilant moving forward and be prepared to respond if things get really bad again. Hopefully it doesn’t turn that direction.
 
Get your primary vaccine shots, a six month boost and then an annual boost just like flu. Or don't, I don't GAF but COVID isn't to slow down our lives anymore. We now know the risks, we have cheap preventivite treatments (vaccines), and expensive post infection treatments for those who experience more severe illness (pills).

Its over, just stay up on you vaccine. NVAX coming soon for those worried about MRNA side-effects, no more crying about being scared of vaccines.
 
For me it's all about hospitalizations and death count. Those numbers seem very manageable right now, and those who do get Covid aren't dying at the rate they once were. So yes, I'd say we just live our lives as best we can. At some point this will move from pandemic to endemic and we'll live with it like we do the flu and other viruses.
I can't speak to deaths but at UIHC we had 14 adult and 1 ped Covid inpatients. UIHC is averaging about 30 self reported covid cases a day. Not sure how many are unreported. Whats weird is we have a mask mandate so you'd think there wouldn't be many covid cases. oh wait....
 
I’m not a psychologist, but I believe the correct diagnosis is bat shit crazy.
Huh that’s weird that he hasn’t been banned then. What did the NC poster do? Must have been wild, everyone here keeps accusing me of being him.
 
I can't speak to deaths but at UIHC we had 14 adult and 1 ped Covid inpatients. UIHC is averaging about 30 self reported covid cases a day. Not sure how many are unreported. Whats weird is we have a mask mandate so you'd think there wouldn't be many covid cases. oh wait....
my sister is a respiratory therapist just outside of Atlanta. During the worst of this she was coming home crying every day and ready to quit as it was just too much. Things are much, much easier where she's at now. They still have some covid patients, but not the onslaught of non-stop dying that she had before and spending all day long covered head to toe in the Covid wards.

I don't know if it's the vaccines, natural immunity, or just the virus evolving a bit, but people aren't dying in rapid rates or requiring intense long term hospital stays now. Most people, unless they have a lot of big co-morbidities are coming in for a day or two and going home. Not nearly as many are needing ventilators.
 
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Huh that’s weird that he hasn’t been banned then. What did the NC poster do? Must have been wild, everyone here keeps accusing me of being him.
Give up the act. Nobody is buying it. I don’t care who you are, but you most certainly are an alt handle. Not worth any more of my time.
 
He didn’t say hospitalizations and deaths were up compared to the beginning of the year. He said there are relatively few deaths this time, so the death rate is getting closer to something people are used to seeing with flu.
The fact that hospitalizations are a fraction of what they were just 5 months ago belies the notion that there has been more transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in the past 30 days than in any previous 30-day period since the beginning of the pandemic.

The fact that daily deaths are down more than 90% from what they were just five months ago belies the notion that there has been more transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in the past 30 days than in any previous 30-day period since the beginning of the pandemic.

If you want to make the case that we're not out of the woods yet with regard to COVID-19 then you have a valid point. If you want to make the case that another wave could flare up then you have a valid point. But claiming that there has been more transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in the past 30 days than in any previous 30-day period since the beginning of the pandemic is just silliness.
 

Have Public Health Officials Just Given Up on Covid-19?

We’re now in a very weird pandemic phase. On Twitter, doctors such as Eric Topol sound five-alarm warnings about the latest subvariants of omicron. Offline, even in blue states, people are back to parties, bars and restaurants — and will soon be flying around the world with no testing requirements to return to the US. Things feel as if they’ve lost any coherence. There’s no discernible strategy or guidance on what Covid precautions we should still be taking.

Danish social scientist Michael Bang Petersen, of Aarhus University, told me that familiarity with Covid is changing people’s attitudes. Many stopped fearing the virus once they contracted it and recovered. In Denmark, he said, studies show 80% of the population has been infected. Here in the US, a similar study showed about 60% had had Covid as of last February — before the latest wave started.

And people are taking cues from those around them. Social signals are really important, he said, so it’s very difficult to keep your guard up when others are going back to normal. Behavior can change in a cascading way. People wonder why they should bother if nobody else is. “That’s straight out of basic psychology of collective action,” said Bang Petersen.

Of course, some people are still being cautious and still have not caught Covid, such as epidemiologist Michael Osterholm of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy.

He wears an N95 mask in public, limits his social contacts, sometimes asks guests to test first, and avoids restaurants. “There’s probably more transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in the last 30 days than there had been in any 30-day period in the entire pandemic,” he said.

He admits this is based on his own anecdotal observations. The important point is that nobody has a good idea how many cases are occurring out there because we’re seeing only a fraction of the tests that have been done. Many people are testing at home, and others may not be testing at all.

And that means it’s hard to adapt our behavior to the situation — the way public health officials urged us to do during previous waves. Osterholm added that compared with previous surges, there are relatively few deaths this time, so the death rate is getting closer to something people are used to seeing with flu. “We don’t really know for certain how to act,” Osterholm said. We’ve never been expected to change our everyday lives because of influenza. But that might all change again if the next variant is more dangerous.

Reporters at a Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Health press briefing this week wanted to know whether the pandemic was over. The answer, given by Tom Inglesby, MD, director of the Center for Health Security, was no. The other critical question was whether it still made sense to try to curb cases. Inglesby said it did — but stopped short of recommending universal masking or social distancing. He did stress ventilation, which could suppress superspreading events, as well as making sure high-quality masks are available for those who want them.

Bang Petersen said that, going forward, public health authorities need to acknowledge that those and other pandemic restrictions were costly, and not just in economic or educational terms. “We know from research that social isolation is something that has a number of costs in terms of well-being.” It’s bad for our mental and physical health. And constant mask-wearing is isolating. It’s hard to hear, to connect, to communicate with others.

That’s a point that often gets lost on scientists and public health experts. The fact that people are socializing again, without masks, doesn’t mean they’ve stopped caring about their health or the health of older, more vulnerable people. Socializing for many people isn’t something frivolous. It’s vital for their mental health.

So there’s hope for a more coherent future, Bang Petersen said, as long as public health officials take the social and emotional costs into account, and impose only rules or recommendations that have a substantial, science-backed benefit. That means pushing for better ventilation in buildings, creating more compelling booster campaigns, and issuing clearer guidelines to help older and more vulnerable people avoid unnecessary risks. And be prepared for future variants — by continuing to do the genetic sequencing needed to find them and planning for action if something more deadly crops up.

The pandemic’s end is not playing out in the jubilant way it was supposed to last year when the White House had planned to declare independence from Covid on July 4.

“I think people are just psychologically done with Covid,” Osterhom said. “If you look back at the 1918 experience … In 1918 and 1919, there were multiple waves, it wasn’t just 1918. And people were quite compliant with public health recommendations, limiting public gatherings, etc. By the spring of 1920 when it got just past a second year, people said, “Ah, forget it, you know, we’re going to move on.”
shivering in my boots!
 
The fact that hospitalizations are a fraction of what they were just 5 months ago belies the notion that there has been more transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in the past 30 days than in any previous 30-day period since the beginning of the pandemic.

The fact that daily deaths are down more than 90% from what they were just five months ago belies the notion that there has been more transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in the past 30 days than in any previous 30-day period since the beginning of the pandemic.

If you want to make the case that we're not out of the woods yet with regard to COVID-19 then you have a valid point. If you want to make the case that another wave could flare up then you have a valid point. But claiming that there has been more transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in the past 30 days than in any previous 30-day period since the beginning of the pandemic is just silliness.

Many experts believe Covid cases are at an all time high or close to it. Here’s another

 
Many experts believe Covid cases are at an all time high or close to it. Here’s another

Total confirmed new cases, May 13 through June 12 - 3,069,597
Total confirmed new cases, January 1 through January 30 - 20,179,269

Even if we assume that 210,000 confirmed cases extrapolates to over a million actual cases, that means we're assuming a multiplication factor of 5x. There were more than 6x the number of confirmed cases in January than what we've seen in the past 30 days. And that doesn't even consider the fact that many people were testing at home then too. The number of actual cases in January was undoubtedly several times higher than the 20 million confirmed cases.

Again, you can make a legitimate argument that we might be on the cusp of another wave. But the idea that there has been more transmission in the past 30 days than there was in either December or January is just comically absurd.
 
So after 3 shots, since it’s been 5 months, I’m now considered unvaccinated. That makes for a lot of people “unvaccinated” who haven’t received their 4th shot. Only 16.3M have received their 2nd booster. That’s a lot of people “unvaccinated”.
Why do they even use the term vaccinated? You aren’t vaccinated!!! That in and of itself is the biggest misinformation out there regarding the virus that is touted every damn day. Just say you have received immunotherapy for Covid or your are immunocompromised. That is a little more accurate than saying you are vaccinated.
 
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