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this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2024
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chapotraphouse
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Ok, seriously, what should be the approach on a societal level? The whole point of masks and isolation was to prevent spreading not in general for the sake of preventing it, but as a way to "flatten the curve" as a way to make people get vaccinated hopefully before catching it for the first time, and to prevent the overload and collapse of the sanitary system.
I'm asking from ignorance because I'm not an epidemiologist, whether it makes sense for individuals to wear masks to slow the spread during normal periods of healthcare not collapsing, and in a scenario where already the overwhelming majority of the population has been exposed to the virus and to vaccines; or whether it's best to let people get immunity through normal exposure to the virus as we've been doing with basically every other seasonal virus in existence (with vaccinations available for at-risk individuals)
Quarantines based on contact tracing, ample sick leave, culture of wearing a mask when feeling sick, easy access to tests, vaccines.
If every country did it, covid would still be around, but getting stuck in quarantine would become a less and less frequent annoyance. Eventually the spread would be low enough that the mutation rate would settle down, and vaccines would start being more effective.
As a non-epidemiologist, this sounds extremely sensible to me. Public campaigns to make people agree to voluntarily use open source, verifiably anonymous contact apps for quarantining, would be very welcome; face masks when having COVID symptoms, ample sick leave, and free access to facemasks, tests and vaccines, sounds amazing. Thank you for your input
exposure to the virus does not grant immunity. notice how it's still raging
It does grant a certain degree of immunity, especially in terms of reduced symptoms and effects upon following sickness, the main thing afaik is that the virus mutates as the flu or the common cold do, so that you don't get full immunity to the newly appearing variants (remember the stuff with Omicron and so on?). Death rates now are much lower than they were at first
That's the neat thing! it's a virus which harms every system!! thank you ACE2 receptors!!!
So then, what's the current epidemiologic strategy that minimises human suffering?
I dont really think thats correct Ulysses
Yeah been lurking i think for a week or so
You can see my comment to some other poster who actually gave an answer, but sure, think whatever you feel like
yea, instead of dying you now develop AIDS and cancer and can't walk 10 yards and lose your sense of taste for 3 years straight
it grants a degree of immunity that is so small in comparison to the virus' effects that it doesn't matter in absolute terms
I'm sorry, but saying that "the degree of immunity doesn't matter in absolute terms" when talking about infection-acquired immunity doesn't hold up to scrutiny. A 2021 study in children and adolescents says explicitly "the effectiveness of naturally acquired immunity against a recurrent infection reached 89% at 3-6 months after the first infection, and declined slightly to 82% by 9-12 months after infection, with a slight nonsignificant waning trend seen up to 18 months after infection". A 2022 study comparing the immunity of non-previously-infected vaccinees with that of non-previously-vaccinated but previously infected people, showed that there's at least 5 times more odds to be infected if you were vaccinated only than if you were previously infected only. With equal sample sizes, 484 of the vaccinated individuals got infected in the study, whereas 68 got infected in the previously infected group.
I say all of this as a 3x vaccinated person who acknowledges the great effectiveness of vaccines, but the studies show that exposure to the virus is in any case even more effective at generating natural immunity. This isn't an argument for not doing anything and becoming spreaders, it's not an argument for stopping facemasks, or for stopping vaccines, I support wearing facemasks when symptoms appear, quarantining when exposed to the virus, ample sick leave, and vaccine availability for everyone at no cost. I just want to be realistic about the science when we talk about these things, and saying that "the degree of immunity is so small as to not matter in absolute terms" simply doesn't match the reality.
If your definition of immunity is "doesn't kill you", sure it doesn't kill you. Usually.
But if you take the typical idea of immunity as "immune to this disease once you've had it" then catching covid does not make you immune at all. With some people catching it within 3 months or less of a previous infection. And given the rising evidence we've seen of how long covid occurs at startlingly higher rates from subsequent reinfections, it's laughable that you would even consider the notion of immunity to covid at all. It has proven to move faster than we can adapt to it naturally or with science.
It's literally the same as with the common cold or with the flu. I'm not claiming that reinfections can't have bad consequences, I'm claiming reinfections are less common if you've been infected recently, which is kinda the definition of immunity (reduced likelihood of being infected after overcoming a previous infection). "Completely immune to the disease once you had it" works for some diseases like measles, but it doesn't for others like flu or common cold, or COVID, that doesn't mean there isn't an immunity boost after infection.
no it isn't please stop concern trolling with technical truths
it spreads asymptomatically, this does nothing and is libshit
Marx, 1850: "lol, saying that wearing facemasks is useful is lib shit. Git dunk'd"
(͡•_ ͡• )
Don't forget -5% lung capacity on average.
Honestly idfk at this point because the numerous mammalian wildlife reservoirs means that even strict quarantine procedures for whatever length of time necessary to stamp it out in human populations means it will inevitably resurface anyway, at some point, somewhere, when bat coughs on a dude or something.
People dont 'get immunity' to seasonal viruses, thats why theres constantly updated flu shot every year. Not enough people get the shot, kncluding me sometimes, but with the flu its mostly just a mild irritation for a few days with minimal lasting effects. Still, less people would get it if everyone would mask up and get vaccinated, as we saw during covid when barely anyone got the flu due to wearing masks. This isnt a complicated social problem, masks protect people from germs of all kinds, and the more people wearing them, especially when theyre feeling sick, the better off the rest of the population will be. Especially since covid can have such lasting effects.