Cybargs
Moderated
+2,285|6686

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?
1. yep, caveat is that their vaccine doesnt work and they know it... they dont want to open that can of worms. my in laws in china tell me that their "vaccine is superior to any western ones, but also none of the vaccines prevent infection"
2. yep, but HK has more "eyes" on it due to bizness
3. theyre gonna open up post Olympics, thats what word on the street is
4. the beauty of the hukou system, time to push out some undesirables as well. not to mention shut off of services if you dont have a "green pass" on your phone.
https://cache.www.gametracker.com/server_info/203.46.105.23:21300/b_350_20_692108_381007_FFFFFF_000000.png
Larssen
Member
+99|1857
I once actually wrote a research paper on chinese rural to urban migration and the hukou system way back in uni. It's bizarre.
Cybargs
Moderated
+2,285|6686

Larssen wrote:

I once actually wrote a research paper on chinese rural to urban migration and the hukou system way back in uni. It's bizarre.
ironically its based off ze german "household registration" system. we use the same in taiwan but obviously don't have restricted rights associated with it.
https://cache.www.gametracker.com/server_info/203.46.105.23:21300/b_350_20_692108_381007_FFFFFF_000000.png
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6076|eXtreme to the maX

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.
Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!
Larssen
Member
+99|1857
Dilbert every south east asian country has abandoned zero covid strategies, while all of them initially followed the exact same approach as China.

Is it truly effective, or is the data obfuscated? Kind of odd that there's only 1 country in the whole world that is apparently succesful at implementing this system. More suspicious still considering the absolutely massive and dispersed population that has to be controlled in order to achieve this.

I'm not so sure rural transmission is low. Based on what? There's still tons of traffic within the country, and obviously rural areas often supply lots of necessary goods to cities. There's also tons of city people who have family in rural areas. There's constant internal movement & migration.

Last edited by Larssen (2022-01-10 02:32:19)

SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+634|3689
First day back at work since the 23rd. Double masked.
https://i.redd.it/jv0xdzvnu0t41.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
uziq
Member
+492|3422

Dilbert_X wrote:

uziq wrote:

quarantines never worked for the medieval plagues you talk about. it depends entirely on the nature of the illness. quarantine decidedly does NOT work at eradicating highly infectious diseases. stemming the tide of death, yes; eradicating, NO.
So quarantine is effective at 'stemming the tide of death' yet you're still against it.
Why don't you care about people dying, why is travel more important?
because do you know what's even more effective at preventing deaths?

V A C C I N A T I O N.

appealing to medieval systems of quarantines, back when europe had 1/20th of the people and it took 2 weeks to travel from one capital to another, back when people didn't even know what disease was, nor did they have any notion of modern medicine with which to treat it, is RETARDED.

it DOES NOT work in the modern globalized world. every single nation has abandoned zero covid thru this 'quarantine city' model. only china are persisting, for reasons above, and which are hardly effective. just yesterday they began mass testing another city of 12 or so million people, seemingly with intention to place that one in total lockdown too. it's like whack-a-mole.

how are you so stubborn and dumb on this point?

Last edited by uziq (2022-01-10 05:27:50)

Larssen
Member
+99|1857

SuperJail Warden wrote:

First day back at work since the 23rd. Double masked.
https://i.redd.it/jv0xdzvnu0t41.jpg
i haven't had any time off yet fml
uziq
Member
+492|3422

Dilbert_X wrote:

They do mass testing and crush outbreaks as soon as they appear, this is effective. It would have worked elsewhere, worked fine here.
korea and new zealand adopted this approach for the first 1.5 years of the pandemic. it WAS effective. mass, mandatory testing, trooping entire workplaces and apartment blocks to testing centres, as well as VERY high compliance in the community. whenever a new cluster was reported in the korean media, every single public test centre (and there were 100s even in the seoul area) was SWAMPED with koreans, queuing for hours, to be voluntarily tested.

this, again, in a public health system with VERY different notions of privacy and individual 'data' ownership. koreans pooled that shit and were essentially open books to their govt/contract tracing system.

this contact tracing system, including mandatory testing and self-isolation for anyone suspected of being near an outbreak, did work very well.

until delta. UNTIL delta. more highly transmissible strains arrived and the multiplication factor was out of control. 5-10% 'untraceable' cases per week (i.e. passed on during public transport journeys or other large open and highly dynamic environments) quickly became 30% untraceable community transmission. at this point, no contact tracing system in the world can follow everything up. they became inundated with too many problematic, untraceable cases even after about 2.5k cases a day.

this at the point in the pandemic when new zealand and australia were both attempting 'circuit breaker' lockdowns that couldn't get a handle on the spread of delta cases. weeks/months spent to no avail.

the inevitable consequence? korea and new zealand ABANDONED this strategy. it just doesn't work for delta/omicron/+.

and, again, it clearly wasn't 'working fine' for australia. working fine in rural southern australia, or in relatively small adelaide, perhaps. it clearly wasn't holding water in melbourne or sydney. this discussion is so fucking inane, dilbert. residents in your major cities were getting sick to death of lockdowns that couldn't extirpate the new strains.

Last edited by uziq (2022-01-10 05:42:28)

SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+634|3689
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.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
uziq
Member
+492|3422
get a booster before you start term. it will help. the way things are going, it looks like in 2-3 months delta will be nudged out of the picture entirely and it'll be omicron/omicron+. even the short-term protection of a booster will help eke it out until that point.

multivalent/polyvalent vaccines are coming this year. we'll have a new generation of vaccines 2.0 that will hopefully bury this frequent-booster thing.
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6741|PNW

Good luck mac, keep up on your boosters.
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+634|3689
I got boosted in October or November. One of those.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
uziq
Member
+492|3422
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.”

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

Larssen
Member
+99|1857
Didn't the most recent data indicate booster effect mostly wore off after week 10
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+634|3689

Larssen wrote:

Didn't the most recent data indicate booster effect mostly wore off after week 10
I am going to die?
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
uziq
Member
+492|3422

Larssen wrote:

Didn't the most recent data indicate booster effect mostly wore off after week 10
down to 40% against omicron, which is a substantially weaker variant of the virus than any heretofore. /shrug.

at this point the vaccines are badly out of date, yes, but they still have a measurably positive impact. much better than advocating for medieval systems of quarantine, anyway.
Larssen
Member
+99|1857
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.
uziq
Member
+492|3422
stupid is as stupid does.
Larssen
Member
+99|1857
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)

Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6076|eXtreme to the maX

uziq wrote:

V A C C I N A T I O N.
Sounds great but:

The pig people of the Balkans don't seem likely to exceed 50% vaccination.

The jews aren't going to exceed 60% vaccination

I'll bet Africa never sees 50%, maybe not 30%

So all these places will spit out new variants faster than the vaccines can keep up, not that they do an awful lot anyway - great vaccine which allows you to get sick and spread the virus.

What is stupid is your obsession with relying on only one control, like not wearing a seatbelt because you think your airbag will protect you in all eventualities.

I'm getting tired of hearing about these ever less effective boosters. We have no idea if there is some side effect down the track and new medical technology without an unforeseen side-effect affecting some proportion would be unique.

down to 40% against omicron, which is a substantially weaker variant of the virus than any heretofore
40% is shit, and Omicron isn't 'weaker' its a whole lot better adapted to attack human cells, it just goes after the throat instead of the lungs - which is extremely lucky.

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2022-01-10 18:22:32)

Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!
uziq
Member
+492|3422
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)

Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6076|eXtreme to the maX
Australians are sick of covid being let into the country and restrictions being relaxed carelessly.
Take a look at the overwhelming negative opinion against Jerkovich and his dishonest selfishness putting everyone at risk.

People are fucked off with Johnson and Perrotet and their libertarian nuttery.

Vaccinate people to 90%, keep the borders shut as far as practicable with 14-21 day quarantine in remote sites for necessary travel, keep the economy largely open and give some subsidy to sectors badly affected - probably not higher education which made itself over-reliant on foreign students and started paying themselves excessive wages, airlines will have to take a hit also.
We can keep this up indefinitely.
Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6076|eXtreme to the maX
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
Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!
uziq
Member
+492|3422
right, just as i thought. 'we can keep this up indefinitely'. no, 95% of the world's population really cannot.

very glissando with the details there.

'vaccinate people to 90%'. erm i thought your whole perplexity was that this figure is supposedly impossible? and that vaccines are useless? and that they're possibly dangerous and everyone might get fatally ill at some undefined-yet-threatening point in the future?

'keep the borders shut as far as is practicable'. ah, the devil is in the details, dear boy! 'practicable' is doing an awful lot of work in that sentence. you do realize that new zealand's uncontainable delta wave came from 1 - one, uno, eins - case leaking through their rigorous testing+quarantine system, right? one leak can create a wave that defeats the whole point of a costly, restrictive, societally stressful system. but oh well, yes, dilbert has this figured out ... 'let's just, er, keep the borders shut as far as is practicable, chaps'. get on it!

subsidize all the sectors of the economy which are strangled by 'indefinitely' extended measures, meaning hospitality, night life, SMEs ... 'indefinitely'. sounds very feasible chap. you might have to dig up a lot more coal to pay for all of this ...

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