Coronavirus (San Diego, Campbell, Freedom: unemployment rate, school districts, university)

[joosoon]

Originally Posted by goodheathen

Vaccine as a ticket to live freely, with scant testing, therefore is perpetuating the pandemic.

That's an entirely wrong way to look at things.


The reliance on testing dropped off as vaccination rate climbed. But it still has it's place, even as a preventative measure. For instance, this time last year I was still doing biweekly testing since it was available for staff. That expanded to weekly onsite testing in the Spring. So over the course of a year, I've been doing regular testing as a preventative measure in spite of now being vaccinated with all possible doses. That testing opened up to all students at the beginning of the year too. Further, the state is making available two self-tests kits per student to be used after Winter break. Our district is sending these home with precise dated instructions on when to use them.


Your belief that testing is "scant" is inaccurate. There's more testing options now than ever before.

[joosoon]

Originally Posted by goodheathen

I never said I think it will evolve to be more lethal,

Maybe, but you just denied that the normal course for a virus is to become denatured through mutation, not more virulent. You claimed that was a myth.

[goodheathen]

Originally Posted by joosoon

That's an entirely wrong way to look at things.


The reliance on testing dropped off as vaccination rate climbed. But it still has it's place, even as a preventative measure. For instance, this time last year I was still doing biweekly testing since it was available for staff. That expanded to weekly onsite testing in the Spring. So over the course of a year, I've been doing regular testing as a preventative measure in spite of now being vaccinated with all possible doses. That testing opened up to all students at the beginning of the year too. Further, the state is making available two self-tests kits per student to be used after Winter break. Our district is sending these home with precise dated instructions on when to use them.


Your belief that testing is "scant" is inaccurate. There's more testing options now than ever before.

More options != more testing. It's nice to hear that schools, at least in San Diego, are still testing, which of course they should with unvaccinated children, but there is plenty of spread that has nothing to do with minors. I would guess that millions of vaccinated adults haven't been getting any testing. Now that is changing for international travel, but otherwise it remains freedom without any responsibility (except masks for some of them) and to be fair government doing nothing to encourage and bankroll routine testing.

[goodheathen]

Originally Posted by joosoon

Maybe, but you just denied that the normal course for a virus is to become denatured through mutation, not more virulent. You claimed that was a myth.

No, I said that going from clearly harmful to nearly, innately harmless is a myth (and if they cause much less harm, it's thanks to science or because the vulnerable were wiped out). I don't know if they generally become "denatured" instead of more virulent. If that's true, it probably is because there are biological limits on virulence.

War of the Worlds, anyone? Between Americans generally not being readers and Black Plague not much taught in schools, people in 21st-century America don't understand that the humble virus is the living organism most dangerous to humans. Probably followed by rodents, as carriers. The cavalier attitude about viruses is why we are where we are, stuck.

[ThinkingOutsideTheBox]

Originally Posted by goodheathen

If the government has any sense, it won't let you live as much as you like. Not until there are better vaccines at least

The example from the article is this, which even now isn't harmless and likely is held in check by coronaviruses that spread more easily.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_coronavirus_OC43

Viruses don't evolve to kill. That's self-defeating. They 'want' to spread. Humans used to be isolated enough into tribes and such that nastier viruses would tend to die off eventually (taking much and sometimes all of those tribes with them).

Even if nasty types typically did mutate into mild, it looks like that takes years and maybe almost always many years. I want to live life, too (masks unpleasant but okay to an extent, if they flip some activities into safe, not often enough now). What's needed is medical advancement, better leadership, and a more compliant public.

The same government that encouraged months of violent BLM riots during the summer of 2020 right after 3 months of a hard lockdown and claimed thousands of strangers screaming shoulder to shoulder didn’t spread Covid but allowing tranquil in home social gatherings of friends and family is not safe (and still illegal in CA for most 2020 even for people who live alone essentially punishing them with months of solitary confinement if they actually followed the SIP orders) and punishes hard working business owners and not looters cannot have any sense.

[Exitus Acta Probat]

Finally got over the 'rona. Took me nine days -- very annoying to be down for that long. I have to thank:

1. Kirkland vitamin C.

2. CVS generic pain killer.

3. Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. With God, all things are possible.

Merry Christmas and God bless to all my fellow Christians.

[Social Democrat]

Originally Posted by Exitus Acta Probat

Finally got over the 'rona. Took me nine days -- very annoying to be down for that long. I have to thank:

1. Kirkland vitamin C.

2. CVS generic pain killer.

3. Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. With God, all things are possible.

Merry Christmas and God bless to all my fellow Christians.

That's good news and Merry Christmas to you too.

[CA4Now]

Originally Posted by sav858

Most virologists tend to agree, suspecting that SARS-CoV-2 will follow a similar evolutionary trajectory to the four endemic coronaviruses that cause the “common cold”, prosaically called 229E, HKU1, NL63 and OC43.

The coronavirus could end up mild like a common cold

That article is nearly a year old, which is an eternity in COVID-19 research.

There’s this assumption that something more transmissible becomes less virulent. I don’t think that’s the position we should take,” says Balloux. Variants including Alpha, Beta and Delta have been linked to heightened rates of hospitalization and death — potentially because they grow to such high levels in people’s airways. The assertion that viruses evolve to become milder “is a bit of a myth”, says Andrew Rambaut, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Edinburgh, UK. “The reality is far more complex.”

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-03619-8

[joosoon]

Originally Posted by CA4Now

That article is nearly a year old, which is an eternity in COVID-19 research.

The article was published a year ago, but the information isn't specific to covid nor is it now out of date. The nature of viruses in general hasn't suddenly shifted in the last twelve months. As I said before, polio has been with humans for aeons and it never morphed into super-polio along that timeline. There's no reason to suspect that covid19 is going to break that natural pattern because a virus is a virus is a virus no matter what.


Yes, we need to be mindful of variants and the named ones get the attention they deserve from scientists (that's why they're named and tracked). But the fact remains none so far have raised the level of alarm enough to fall into the 'vohc' category, including omicron. We're obviously not out of the woods, but we're trending in the right direction because of the existence of the vaccines. That was and still is the game changer and regardless of uniformed people's opinions on the interwebs, they're still working and protecting the population.

[joosoon]

Originally Posted by goodheathen

More options != more testing. It's nice to hear that schools, at least in San Diego, are still testing, which of course they should with unvaccinated children, but there is plenty of spread that has nothing to do with minors.

Just the other day you said schools were what we had to watch out for. You literally said something along the lines of "if this gets into schools, we're done for". And for the record, lot's kids I work with are now vaccinated and most of those are in the under 12 category (this is anecdotal, yes). AND they test.

I would guess that millions of vaccinated adults haven't been getting any testing. Now that is changing for international travel, but otherwise it remains freedom without any responsibility (except masks for some of them) and to be fair government doing nothing to encourage and bankroll routine testing.

So, how often are *you* getting tested? Just wondering...
It's not like there aren't plenty of free opportunities to do so.