Though it had been raging in full force in various parts of the world for many weeks, one year ago today was the day that COVID-19 really hit the United States' psyche. Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson announced they had "coronavirus" (as it was then known), the NBA and NHL shut down, Trump announced the European travel ban (which I remember watching in utter gloom, knowing it was too little, too late), and the American experience of the pandemic was on.
Yesterday was the 14th day since my second (Pfizer) vaccine shot. Virtually all of my family and friends are either vaccinated, had COVID or are young and healthy enough to not be worried. No doubt the pandemic will still be in the news for a while, but at least as far as my life is concerned, the erstwhile raging monster is now a purring cat.
I don't want to get overly political here (I'll do that on Twitter, perhaps), but I do want to make a few points:
1. I will never take mainstream media reporting on public health issues at face value again. Unfortunately, I watched too much CNN last March and it came close to driving me stark mad. I was socially distancing from my own wife and children. I was wearing masks while walking in empty parks. I lost 5 pounds in 3 weeks because I couldn't look at food without envisioning little coronaviruses swimming around in them. All because CNN told me this thing was 10 times as dangerous as it actually was and because it completely ignored risk tiers in its panic-porn reporting style. I'm using CNN as a proxy, of course; and Fox's insistence that you didn't need a mask because of *FREEDOM* was possibly even worse.
2. The development, industrialization and distribution of the MRNA vaccines is one of the great mobilizations of applied science in the history of humankind. Still, whomever decides on medical ethics rules ought to consider whether the dismissal of the idea of challenge trials on the vaccines was really a good idea. In restrospect, if they had done challenge trials in June after Phase 1 had demonstrated safety and antibody production, a couple of hundred thousand lives could have been saved.
3. All primary schools should have been opened by summer, 2020. If that meant better ventilation and other safety features, well, then they should have been done. My kids have been in in-person camp and then school since June 29, so I can't really complain, but my heart truly bleeds for those kids (especially city kids with few open spaces) who have been stuck on Zoom "learning" for a year. The day of judgment is coming for those who sacrificed the children's mental, emotional, social and educational health at the Altar of a slightly increased safety margin for themselves and they will never be forgiven by the generation that they sacrificed.
The post that was quoted here has been removedThough I have no way of knowing for sure, I'd guess that the Sinovac and Sputnik vaccines are also quite effective (though probably not to the same level as the MRNA ones) and the decision to start administering them early was a very good one in retrospect.
@moonbus said"lack of a coherent pandemic policy and lax compliance from the public" is really a separate issue from school closings. You want to rip those things too, go ahead. But opening primary schools is a concrete thing that should have been done (and was done in many places).
@sh76
re item 3. Several hundred thousand people lost a parent or some other loved one due to lack of a coherent pandemic policy and lax compliance from the public. It’s easy to make up a lost year of school. You can’t get back a dead loved one.
===It’s easy to make up a lost year of school. You can’t get back a dead loved one.===
First, it's really not easy to make up a lost year of school. It's not just the education; it's also the social development. I watched my kids suffer terrible social regression during the weeks of isolation in the Spring, which is why I couldn't wait to allow them to go have friends again and go to day camp/school when they could, even if that means increasing risk (which it barely did, in any case).
Obviously you can't get back a dead loved one, but you also have to look at the numbers. Elderly people typically don't have school-aged children in any case. If a vulnerable parent (due to health issues) feels the need to keep their children at home to minimize their risk, that's their call. I would never judge a parent who made that call for his or her own family.
But I cannot accept the position that 10,000 children must miss a year of their childhood development to save one life. And if you honestly tried to measure the increased risk of *death* to healthy parents of primary school aged children by virtue of their children attending school, I think it would be less than 1/10,000.
@moonbus saidwhat is and who made the policy that is in place now that is ending the virus?
@sh76
re item 3. Several hundred thousand people lost a parent or some other loved one due to lack of a coherent pandemic policy and lax compliance from the public. It’s easy to make up a lost year of school. You can’t get back a dead loved one.
@sh76 saidIf a child loses a grandparent prematurely, that also deprives the child of a kind of development. Missing a year of math and geography can be made up easily. Losing the warmth and wisdom of a grandparent is forever.
"lack of a coherent pandemic policy and lax compliance from the public" is really a separate issue from school closings. You want to rip those things too, go ahead. But opening primary schools is a concrete thing that should have been done (and was done in many places).
===It’s easy to make up a lost year of school. You can’t get back a dead loved one.===
First, it's reall ...[text shortened]... aged children by virtue of their children attending school, I think it would be less than 1/10,000.
“Look at the numbers” you say. “Your Meemaw died so 10,000 other kids could go back to school early.” Is that really what you’re going to say to that family at the funeral? Would it have been worth it to that family if it were only 9,999 kids? Or 4593? Where’s the break-even point in your calculation, I wonder, what a grandparent is worth to any given family.
@moonbus
Nobody's Meemaw's death is directly traceable to anyone going back to school. If Meemaw doesn't live with Johnny and Janey, then Johnny and Janey didn't have to go visit Meemaw. If Meemaw does live with Johnny and Janey, then that family has to make its own informed risk decisions.
The idea that a single life has infinite value and that there can be no societal setoffs that justify the risk of one extra death is untenable in real life, as much superficial moral appeal as it might have.
@mott-the-hoople saidIf you're looking for the answer that Operation Warp Speed might be the single most important contributor to the ending of the pandemic, I will be happy to provide it.
what is and who made the policy that is in place now that is ending the virus?
If you're looking for me to say that Trump's over-all handling of the pandemic was competent, I will not be able to provide that statement.
@sh76 saidThen it isn't a matter of looking at numbers at all. It's a matter of principle.
@moonbus
Obviously, I can't give you a specific number as a cut-off point, but that doesn't lead to your conclusion that the number is infinite.
My grandfather was called upon to put down fascism in Europe. My uncle was called upon to fly fighter planes out of the Aleutians to reclaim islands from the Japanese. They endured hardship as a matter of principle. This generation is called upon to home school. Is that too much to ask of people who have come to think of Netflix and smartphones as entitlements? What a pathetic lot of wusses Americans have become.
@moonbus saidI look at it exactly the opposite way.
Then it isn't a matter of looking at numbers at all. It's a matter of principle.
My grandfather was called upon to put down fascism in Europe. My uncle was called upon to fly fighter planes out of the Aleutians to reclaim islands from the Japanese. They endured hardship as a matter of principle. This generation is called upon to home school. Is that too much to ask ...[text shortened]... nk of Netflix and smartphones as entitlements? What a pathetic lot of wusses Americans have become.
This generation's 20-, 30- and 40- somethings were called upon to sacrifice by slightly (very slightly) increasing their COVID risk to support the health of the next generation.
I look at the people who closed schools to decrease their risks of death by 0.01% as the wusses.
@sh76 saidActually it was about 10 times worse than your predictions early on, at least in number of dead.
Though it had been raging in full force in various parts of the world for many weeks, one year ago today was the day that COVID-19 really hit the United States' psyche. Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson announced they had "coronavirus" (as it was then known), the NBA and NHL shut down, Trump announced the European travel ban (which I remember watching in utter gloom, knowing it was too ...[text shortened]... safety margin for themselves and they will never be forgiven by the generation that they sacrificed.
@no1marauder saidI'm referring to fatality rate, obviously. Not raw numbers.
Actually it was about 10 times worse than your predictions early on, at least in number of dead.
My "predictions" were simply copy and pastes from the IHME model.