BF2S Forums Pandemic thread

I once actually wrote a research paper on chinese rural to urban migration and the hukou system way back in uni. It's bizarre.

Larssen wrote:

Dilbert, the Chinese situation has some important considerations which you're not mentioning.

1. Hospital administrators and local governments are punished for covid outbreaks. This incentivises extremely harsh lockdowns and underreporting of cases.

2. The government has thrown its strategy in a political narrative of china vs the west, which means that giving up its zero covid strategy would be admitting it is 'wrong'. Obviously impossible for the CCP, so you'd have to ask yourself how this situation of total lockdowns against outbreaks will ever end in the face of Omicron, or if restrictions are progressively worsened.

3. The near total ban on international arrivals isn't just a pragmatic 'solution' to the pandemic. The CCP is both increasingly fascist and narrative-controlling. Foreign nationals and esp. journalists are unwanted influences & prying eyes to them. It's likely the borders will remain shut to keep the rest of the world out. Meanwhile they can 'do as they wish' with Xinjiang, HK etc.

4. I'd like to re-emphasise point 1. China's covid reporting is obviously very suspicious. A country of 1,3 billion without a single outbreak vs a disease that is fundamentally characterised by slow-onset of mostly mild symptoms & even asymptomatic transmission? How are they even getting proper testing infrastructure in rural and poorer china? We also know they obviously underreported the initial covid outbreak too. Who knows how many people have died under this normality-on-the-surface?

They've gone for zero covid from day one, apparently it did crush the initial outbreak.

They do mass testing and crush outbreaks as soon as they appear, this is effective. It would have worked elsewhere, worked fine here.

I'm sure in rural areas transmission is very low. Even so I'm sure they are able to routinely test.

I'm sure 10 times as many people have died as has been reported, and their vaccines don't prevent infection just as ours don't.

First day back at work since the 23rd. Double masked.

SuperJail Warden wrote:

First day back at work since the 23rd. Double masked.

i haven't had any time off yet fml

First class is a little light on kids but not much. The ones here haven't gotten an ounce more careful regarding masking. Kid next to me is mask off. I told him a few times to put it on but like a minute later it is off again. Such is a ADHD.

I am going to get sick from these kids. Inevitable it seems.

Good luck mac, keep up on your boosters.

Pfizer is already manufacturing a Covid vaccine targeting the Omicron variant, which it expects to be ready to distribute by June, its chief executive, Albert Bourla, has said.

“This vaccine will be ready in March,” Bourla told CNBC. “We (are) already starting manufacturing some of these quantities at risk.”

The need for a Omicron-specific coronavirus vaccine has been questioned, not least by Anthony Fauci, the White House medical advisor, who has said that booster doses of existing vaccines are sufficient to counter the variant.

Nonetheless, Bourla said that there are governments who want an updated vaccine as soon as possible.

Bourla said: “The hope is that we will achieve something that will have way, way better protection particularly against infections, because the protection against the hospitalizations and the severe disease — it is reasonable right now, with the current vaccines as long as you are having let’s say the third dose.”

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Last edited by uziq (2022-01-10 08:20:46)

Larssen wrote:

Didn't the most recent data indicate booster effect mostly wore off after week 10

I am going to die?

Not the greatest statistic though. I'm hopeful there will be a vaccine that provides more lasting protection but I'm also of the opinion that we should be a little careful with the approach to the public. The booster rates are lower everywhere, and I'm seeing an increase in conspiracy theories accusing big pharma of turning the world population into its cash cow.

i.e. uptake of the next version may be lower than the boosters even. We're hitting a point in diminishing returns wrt public belief in the argument that it's necessary and good.

I just care about vaccine uptake and the best way to achieve this. You can reasonably expect at least 10-15% of the population to refuse no matter what you do, but rates dropping to 60-50-40% is problematic to everyone and probably indicates deeper rooted political/social issues. Be it a Trumpist government or increasing dissemination of conspiracies, lack of trust in authorities etc.

Last edited by Larssen (2022-01-10 15:56:57)

my god you still literally don’t understand anything.

having a more effective spike protein doesn’t mean it’s ‘more killer’. it’s not the spike protein that causes damage to you. ‘attacking cells’. wow what a way to get your metaphors mixed up.

omicron is a mild illness. the fact it is well adapted to replicating doesn’t mean anything negative for us. two things determine the lethality of covid: viral load and, as we are now seeing, the type of cell in which it proliferates.

the virus can become as good as it wants at spiking its way into throat cells. it can’t seriously harm us as much that way. omicron’s ‘more dangerous’ mutations are actually a boon to us. why don’t you get this?

any future variants which are better adapted to the genuinely dangerous areas, like our deep lungs, have to outcompete omicron. how would a variant in the deep lungs be more transmissible than one which hangs out in our upper respiratory tract? are you this thick?

vaccines 2.0 are already here and yes. they really do make the biggest impact out of any measure we have at our disposal. social distancing and lockdowns work in a local and temporary fashion, but they aren’t our way out of this thing. they can’t be.

it’s funny you mention low compliance with vaccines but don’t mention the very equally evident fact: COMPLIANCE WITH YOUR PREFERRED MEASURES IS VANISHING TOO. no matter how many times you insist that australians are ‘happy living in a protected bubble’ forever, and citing me fucking polls from world’s end WA, that’s just not the case. behaviourism is an important variable in epidemiology and people are sick of near-arbitrary restrictions that have no measurable impact on the disease’s progress. it’s no good ranting about the ‘stupidity’ of the people in sydney, melbourne, NZ, etc, at length who couldn’t perfectly maintain and observe a zero covid bubble. it’s year 3 of ‘emergency’ measures.

for the 17th time this week: please outline your exit strategy, seeing as my emphasis on annual/biannual vaccines is seemingly so barmy. what’s your 1yr/3yr/5yr plan, genius man? ANSWER the question. if you mention ‘fauci’ or ‘if only china’ one more time i’m digging up that block script and perma-muting you.

Last edited by uziq (2022-01-10 23:23:21)

It's been described by an expert as a lockdown in NSW without public health orders.

Although the country's most populous state has few COVID-19 restrictions in place, businesses around NSW have been forced to close due to virus-induced staff absences.

Spending data analysed by ANZ last week indicated economic activity plummeting to levels lower than any other time during the pandemic.

"We're now facing economic situations that are worse than if we'd had an actual lockdown," said economist Jim Stanford, director of the Centre for Future Work.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-01-11/ … /100749102

Amazing