The immune system still works as advertised.
EDIT: I see someone mentioning Trump below and I can’t reply. Trump was never interested in managing covid-19 or effective border control. This would’ve been the perfect opportunity for him to show why having smart borders was useful. He would’ve received support from within the government. He would’ve managed covid-19 successfully perhaps, and won re-election.
The problem was Trump was a completely ineffective and incompetent leader, who didn’t care at all about the things he claimed to care about. Mandatory quarantines and tests for people traveling to America would’ve been a lot of work and Trump was allergic to that. He was a man who preferred the cheers at his rallies over the difficult work of administrating and governing.
We have known since early summer of last year that being fat or being old are your two biggest risk factors. Beyond that, if you have some serious pre-existing condition that makes you susceptible to all illnesses.
The messaging should have been "Stay home if you are a high risk group. Otherwise live your live." All current data shows areas that have taken that approach are significantly better off today than the places that hid in a hole the past year.
We have let people treat this like it's an end of the world scenario and it's been good for no one.
But, sorry if you think trying to avoid illness, trying to avoid passing on illness to others who don't have the comfort of working from home, passing on the illness to elderly family members, etc, is a waste of time. It's a pretty minor inconvenience for me to be largely isolated for a year, compared to those who are less fortunate than me.
How about a big 'ol [citation needed] on
> All current data shows areas that have taken that approach are significantly better off today than the places that hid in a hole the past year.
You know, a citation that doesn't involve correlation with countries that happened to have extreme lockdowns initially, acceptance of mass testing and screening and social restriction when necessary, etc.
By the way, my wife works in rehab in a hospital, and sees your "low risk" young people whose lives have been, as far as we can tell, permanently altered by the virus that some of us are seeking to avoid.
My uncle is in the hospital in pretty bad shape, on oxygen so far. He was spewing conspiracy shit non-stop on facebook. My father urged him to take the vaccine, then to come to the hospital sooner, he did a CT scan on my uncle, told him, showed him how messed up his lungs were, my uncle refused to be administered in the hospital, made a big fuss that the doctors wanted to kill him in the ICU; two days later he was brought in in an ambulancr.
If he was a stranger, maybe I would have laughed "serves you right", I just cannot understand how an above average intelligence person got himself brainwashed with anti-covid conspiracy theories.
> The districts, large and small, rural and urban, serve more than 2.2 million students across the United States. Of the 74 districts that responded, 74% reported multiple indicators of increased mental health stresses among students. More than half reported rises in mental health referrals and counseling. Nearly 90% of responding districts cited higher rates of absenteeism or disengagement, metrics commonly used to gauge student emotional health
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/health-c... (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26532588)
Source?
I'd argue current data shows that those that showed an overabundance of caution, like New Zealand, are the ones significantly better off than everyone else.
We didn't even shutdown widespread commercial traffic between the US and Canada (although otherwise travel was largely shut down).
???
> We didn't even shutdown widespread commercial traffic between the US and Canada (although otherwise travel was largely shut down).
Why bother? It’s not like any significant number of transmissions are coming via commercial transit with Canada. I don’t pretend to be an epidemiologist but it seems pretty intuitive that a small island nation and one of the largest countries are going to differ.
You mean an island nation with strict control over their ports and borders?
But does that truck driver need to have direct contact with other people to do their job? Why can't they unload their cargo, sleep at a quarantine facility, and then drive a new truckload in the opposite direction, without an opportunity to infect anyone else?
Also, island nations still have internal traffic. What's different about the borders between parts of Australia that allowed them to be closed when European borders had to stay open?
All countries with quarantine facilities I'm aware of are using existing buildings. They don't have to be hermetically sealed, just ensure that people don't come into contact with each other inside.
Australian states' borders aren't like those between New York and New Jersey (or Colorado and Wyoming), or Belgium and the Netherlands. There are a handful of highways that can be and were completely blockaded, and otherwise the borders are completely empty desert. (Even on the highways, there are dire warning signs about having sufficient water/gasoline/supplies in the more remote parts.)
Internal traffic among 4 million people is a much easier problem than traffic among a continent of 800 million people.
> But does that truck driver need to have direct contact with other people to do their job?
I’m sure there are better ways to do things, but truck drivers often unload shipments, confirm receipts, etc and they still need to visit truck stops and restaurants for supplies, food, etc.
> Why can't they unload their cargo, sleep at a quarantine facility, and then drive a new truckload in the opposite direction, without an opportunity to infect anyone else?
Quarantining between shipments would mean drivers are mostly idle, driving the cost of shipping through the roof. Changing supply contracts so drivers exchange cargo at the border requires completely reworking highly optimized logistics networks and isn’t going to happen in a few years, certainly not by fiat from some bureaucrat or politician that has no experience in logistics.
Can you fill in the details of how exactly it is easier?
> Quarantining between shipments would mean drivers are mostly idle, driving the cost of shipping through the roof.
Well, if they don't need to sleep between shipments, I guess they can drive back directly and get their supplies and food at home. I wasn't suggesting a full two-week quarantine if they don't intend to have any contact with locals anyway, just staying for the night isolated from anyone they could potentially infect.
I didn't do it for me.
It's virtuization of fear and little else.
That sounds like crocodile tears to me. I don't see how going to bars and flying commercial would have made the people working in grocery delivery and amazon safer.
And it would absolutely have put the people in my life who are at the highest risk at an even greater risk if I had done so.