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Comment by HarryHirsch | Hacker News Reader

Let's be real: what helps the virus is politicians (actually commercial landlords, the politicians are just the mouthpiece) wanting to go back to normal. Proper public messaging would insist on continued social distancing instead of going back to schools and offices in the fall.

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Yes. The economic aspect has figured into calculations but there’s been no transparency around that fact. The news media are the worst in this regard. For those of us with very high risk loved ones who refuse to accept any facts that aren’t broadcast in full force through the usual dumbed down news outlets which I won’t name directly, it’s been a horrifyingly stressful month.

the usual dumbed down news outlets

You mean NPR where recently Atul Gawande was calling the pandemic a "pandemic of the unvaccinated" and urged everyone to take the vaccine?

He's right in a way, being vaccinated keeps you out of hospital, but it won't prevent you that much from catching the disease and developing post-covid syndrome. And you can still spread the virus in your community.

> He's right in a way, being vaccinated keeps you out of hospital, but it won't prevent you that much from catching the disease and developing post-covid syndrome

This is misinformation.

From the data we have available, vaccination prevents at least 80% of symptomatic infections with the Delta variant.

To characterize an 80% reduction in risk as “not that much” is simply trying to get people to give up on vaccines.

You see papers claiming an effectiveness against symptomatic infection against Delta of ~ 50 %, and the rise of cases in Israel as well as the Provincetown outbreak should really make us concerned.

The vaccine still prevents hospitalization and death, so that's reason enough to take it. But on its own it isn't enough to get R_0 below 1. The way everyone is behaving, they are asking for outbreak after outbreak.

Yes, it’s at 47% now if I’m up to date.

Wasn't it up around 75% in Providence RI? Yes, an outlier but it's indicative of the potential.

Guess it’s 42% for Pfizer according to this preprint.[1] That’s July, so presumably even lower now. I thought I saw 47% somewhere more official but can’t find it now.

[1]https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.06.21261707v...

“ However, in July, the effectiveness against infection was considerably lower for mRNA-1273 (76%, 95% CI: 58-87%) with an even more pronounced reduction in effectiveness for BNT162b2 (42%, 95% CI: 13-62%).”

"Pandemic of the unvaxinated" should be relabled "Pandemic of the non-existent leadership." You don't get someone on board by marginalizing and alienating them.

Not naming names, but it’s easy to be left with the impression that if you are vaccinated and wear a mask, and your social circle are all vaccinated, that there is negligible risk. The media as a whole have not done much to rectify this false impression though they’ve chosen their words carefully to avoid being responsible for such misunderstandings. It’s frustrating to say the least. Reminds me of “Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.”

Sweden "went back to normal" a long time ago. Their Covid deaths rate is near zero. The "it's bad so we need to x" reflex, where x is any of masking mandates, social distancing, or especially take kids out of school, is anti-science and anti-human.

Didn't Sweden have a lot more deaths than their neighbours?

Small price to pay for herd immunity and normalcy, if it actually worked.

Spoken like someone who didn't die.

Also ghoulish beyond belief.

So far 99.86% of Swedes didn't die of COVID-19.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/

How many have permanently reduced lung function, vascular disease or are living with long covid?

The death rate isn't the only metric, especially now with the vaccine.

What do you count as a neighbor? Sweden is 39th in the world by per capita death rate. Many other European countries have higher death rates, including some countries that took more extensive pandemic control measures.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

White exurban Atlanta (Randolph County) went back to normal as well, and now they are closing school because of a covid outbreak. I guess there isn't yet enough Delta variant in Sweden to make a difference. That, or the Swedish practice adequate mitigation (social distancing and masking).

I think you probably meant Cobb County, GA.

Randolph County, GA is farther away from Atlanta (~170 miles) than Chattanooga, TN (~120 miles). And as of 2010, Randolph County, GA was 61.8% black.

You are probably right. I mean the one near Marietta.

I'm living in Sweden right now (US citizen). We wear masks. I've been working from home at my employer's request for over a year now. Office buildings are pretty empty, restaurants are still mostly depending on takeout revenue. Our vaccination rate is higher than in the US, and we're still being sensibly cautious to prevent another wave. Sweden isn't the free-for-all zone you've been led to believe.

I was there at the end of 2020. Almost no one wore masks in Stockholm, even coming out of the subway less than 1%.

Things are not normal in Sweden.

https://www.thelocal.se/20210812/in-numbers-covid-19-cases-c...

You can't seriously expect people to continue social distancing. The virus is here to stay. It can't be eradicated because the vaccines aren't fully sterilizing and there are also animal hosts. The vast majority of us will eventually get infected regardless of what infection control measures we take. We'll just have to accept the risk and move on. Fortunately the vaccines are very safe and highly effective at preventing deaths.

It's not that hard to go outside to cafes and still social distance - but people are not doing it. That's the difference.

It's sad how some HN users seem to live in bubbles and are just completely disconnected from the way that most regular people live. Humans are social animals and most won't continue social distancing regardless of the consequences. There's more to life than cafes. Most of us don't even have an outdoor cafe nearby. Also weather is a thing.

You're welcome to complain that this is terrible and it shouldn't be that way. But at some point we have to put aside wishful thinking and exist in the real world.

Sure, base your entire argument on knowing absolutely nothing about me. You can still go to your climbing gym and climb and socialize without sitting 2 feet apart from all your friends. Like we used to do during the pandemic. But people are choosing not to do so now. There's more to life than HN usernames.

Welcome to the actual real world. Where you will eventually have to take responsibility for your choices despite your deep denial that your choosing to ignore social distancing is actually a subconscious reaction to feeling a lack of control or something and an intentional refusal to distance. That's why you politicize it.

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