COVID is forever, avoiding it is pointless

Have you signed up for a vaccine trial? Serious question.

Yes, but I haven't been contacted.

It’s understandable you’re getting frustrated - Don’t give up!

This thing hasn’t even existed for a year. It’s a bit soon to say it will be here forever, or that it’s only a small risk. As a runner you should appreciate that some things take time.

There are much worse things which have lasted much longer.

It’s not forever, but if we’re not really careful for a while it could certainly be around for the rest of our lives.

Precious Roy wrote:

Have you signed up for a vaccine trial? Serious question.

C'mon Roy, we've never developed a successful vaccine for a coronavirus before, or a rhino or norovirus for that matter:

Plus, this particular coronavirus behaves much differently than its predecessors when it deliberately deletes antigens from infected cell surfaces.

A vaccine is a pipe dream and an annual rite of passage now... much better to treat with convalescent plasma therapy. Also, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure as they say. Fisky is on to something with vitamin D. Also, exercise, fresh air, and zinc.

The bottom line is that we can't protect everyone forever until we come up with some unicorn of a vaccine, the deleterious effects of which won't be known for years or decades. The elderly and the immunocompromised need extra protection, sure, and the obese need to start getting into shape. They are already a drain on the medical system and one of the primary reasons why universal healthcare cannot work in the US.

If this virus had a kill rate of 10% instead of 0.3% +/-, then, sure, we would need a Manhattan project approach to a number of different immunotherapy and vaccine strategies. But 95% of the population is just not going to get seriously ill. I'm far more worried about the people you are killing with job loss, depression, abuse, fear of getting treatment for other medical conditions.

Never gonna end wrote:

Give me COVID and let me live.

We didn't shut down the economy for the Hong Kong flu.

Those figures only run up until March 2020, so completely misleading. Do you really think only 6.4K people are dead from COVID? Lol.

track chick wrote:

Those figures only run up until March 2020, so completely misleading. Do you really think only 6.4K people are dead from COVID? Lol.

Current mortality officially is 856K, which moves it ahead of ebola.

If we were to represent fear and societal disruption by size in the diagram, covid would be about the size of smallpox in the graphic.

Covidiocy wrote:

A vaccine is a pipe dream and an annual rite of passage now... much better to treat with convalescent plasma therapy. Also, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure as they say. Fisky is on to something with vitamin D. Also, exercise, fresh air, and zinc.

Fisky definitely knows his vitamin D - he's a great resource. I know I'm stocking up for this winter.

And excercise - you can't beat it for improving your immune system; "Acute exercise is an immune system adjuvant that improves defense activity and metabolic health."

The problem in this country is there are so many obese/overweight people with pre-existing medical conditions that have fragile immune systems. And how many are willing to make major changes with diet & exercise? Probably not many. Could be a bad cold/flu/Covid winter season for thses people.

If Biden wins, then you will be told that everything is being done to handle it, that it is soundly under control and the economy can open up. Then he will be seen as an economic genius saving us from the "Trump Economy".

Why would you say that it is unlikely that we'll ever have a successful vaccine for coronavirus when several vaccines have already been successful at preventing infection in trials?

SummerSlogger wrote:

If Biden wins, then you will be told that everything is being done to handle it, that it is soundly under control and the economy can open up. Then he will be seen as an economic genius saving us from the "Trump Economy".

If Biden wins, federal resources will be immediately applied to solving the problem, getting the vaccines out there, reinstalling a federal program for preventing future pandemics, and we won't have this incoherent on again, off again federal strategy that we've seen with this administration, namely, doing nothing, saying that we should isolate, saying that it'll go away, peddling quack cures, urging re-opening, urging not re-opening (to the Georgia governor when he re-opened too early, but after Trump urged it), etc.

zxczxcv wrote:

SummerSlogger wrote:

If Biden wins, then you will be told that everything is being done to handle it, that it is soundly under control and the economy can open up. Then he will be seen as an economic genius saving us from the "Trump Economy".

If Biden wins, federal resources will be immediately applied to solving the problem, getting the vaccines out there, reinstalling a federal program for preventing future pandemics, and we won't have this incoherent on again, off again federal strategy that we've seen with this administration, namely, doing nothing, saying that we should isolate, saying that it'll go away, peddling quack cures, urging re-opening, urging not re-opening (to the Georgia governor when he re-opened too early, but after Trump urged it), etc.

^LOL!

zxczxcv wrote:

SummerSlogger wrote:

If Biden wins, then you will be told that everything is being done to handle it, that it is soundly under control and the economy can open up. Then he will be seen as an economic genius saving us from the "Trump Economy".

If Biden wins, federal resources will be immediately applied to solving the problem, getting the vaccines out there, reinstalling a federal program for preventing future pandemics, and we won't have this incoherent on again, off again federal strategy that we've seen with this administration, namely, doing nothing, saying that we should isolate, saying that it'll go away, peddling quack cures, urging re-opening, urging not re-opening (to the Georgia governor when he re-opened too early, but after Trump urged it), etc.

Man you don't drink.. you CHUG the Kool Aid. What else did Joe tell you that you believe?

It's a virus. There's no cure, there's no vaccine and there won't be a vaccine that will "cure" it. (we haven't cured the flu yet.) At best it will make it "less bad". This virus is going to run it's course; all the crap (masks, social distancing, blah blah) that just delays the infections and the inevitable deaths.. it doesn't stop them. You're just kicking the can down the road.

If you are old, have underlying health conditions this can be really bad for you. It probably will be really bad for you if you don't take care precautions. The rest of us need to hurry up and get our infection percentages UP so we can get on with life.

Unfortunately the ridiculous shut downs are going to leave many business bankrupt, many people unemployed, while at the same time needing a huge tax increase to pay for the bail outs.

be patient wrote:

It’s understandable you’re getting frustrated

It’s not forever, but if we’re not really careful for a while it could certainly be around for the rest of our lives.

What does this even mean

It reads like horsesh1t

Obama-Biden had a taskforce and funds to prevent such pandemics, which Trump shut down, so that what I said is in the realm of fact, not right wing paranoid fantasy.

Vaccines work. Flu vaccine reduces the severity and prevents thousands of deaths every year. It's not 100% but it is pretty good for something that mutates far more rapidly than Coronavirus, so rapidly that it's not even really the same flu often by the late season as it was when they were formulating the vaccine the previous spring. COVID-19 so far has barely mutated. 9 vaccines are in Phase 3 large scale efficacy tests right now, while another 14 are in Phase 2 expanded safety tests.

Here's one key candidate:

A vaccine in development by the British-Swedish company AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford is based on a chimpanzee adenovirus called ChAdOx1. A study on monkeys found that the vaccine provided them protection. In May, the United States awarded the project $1.2 billion in support. Their Phase 1/2 trial revealed that the vaccine was safe, causing no severe side effects. It raised antibodies against the coronavirus as well as other immune defenses. The vaccine is now in Phase 2/3 trials in England and India, as well as Phase 3 trials in Brazil, South Africa, and the United States.

In August the European Union reached an agreement for AstraZeneca to deliver 400 million doses if the trials yield positive results. AstraZeneca has indicated they might be able to start delivering emergency vaccines as early as October, depending on the outcome of the studies. The company has said their total manufacturing capacity for the vaccine, if approved, stands at two billion doses. India’s Serum Institute has already produced millions of doses to be used in trials.

See

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/science/coronavirus-vaccine-tracker.html

facts and reason wrote:

Never gonna end wrote:

Give me COVID and let me live.

https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2020/03/17/13/26072646-8120631-image-a-2_1584451979767.jpg

We didn't shut down the economy for the Hong Kong flu.

This is another problem. Now that we've overreacted to this pandemic, we're going to have to overreact to every pandemic, and they are not particularly rare.

Are we going to eradicate Covid like we eradicated smallpox? No.

Does that mean vaccine is useless? No.

Does that mean taking some precaution until vaccine becomes available is meaningless? No.

It is all about risk management. I want to minimize my risk at reasonable cost.

zxczxcv wrote:

Obama-Biden had a taskforce and funds to prevent such pandemics, which Trump shut down, so that what I said is in the realm of fact, not right wing paranoid fantasy.

Not so. It was a routine re-org; characterizing it is "shutting down" proves that you did in fact chug the koolaid.