Current Events > The US is out of the Covid-19 pandemic phase, Fauci says

(+) Yeah! (+)

Smackems posted...

And yep. Tis what I do

As a corporate shrill market researcher, I forget that people have meaningful jobs lol

Nah don't look at it like that lol

Genuine question for the people that are super concerned about covid, still. How are you living your life right now?

I literally dont know anyone who is not living their life to some degree, across co workers, family members, acquaintances

everyone is going into the office, to restaurants, events, etc. some folks choose to wear masks, if they happen to test positive for COVID they stay home for a while, etc

I understand there are people with health concerns that choose to be more cautious, and thats okay. But for everyone else, I guess to some degree its that Ive resigned to the fact that this is endemic and something well just have to deal with.

what do you think the end goal is?

Covid XD Variant really is laughing at us.

TheGoldenEel posted...

Genuine question

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prw2B_03IzY

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Makes sense to me, but I'm also not very smart lol

Open to suggestions to the contrary about it

And thanks

It's a valid question though

TheGoldenEel posted...

Genuine question for the people that are super concerned about covid, still. How are you living your life right now?

I literally dont know anyone who is not living their life to some degree, across co workers, family members, acquaintances

everyone is going into the office, to restaurants, events, etc. some folks choose to wear masks, if they happen to test positive for COVID they stay home for a while, etc

I understand there are people with health concerns that choose to be more cautious, and thats okay. But for everyone else, I guess to some degree its that Ive resigned to the fact that this is endemic and something well just have to deal with.

what do you think the end goal is?

I actually have mostly the same feelings. I don't know if more extreme with other posts in other threads, but this right here seems like a fairly moderate take

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Im serious dude. I have this discussion with friends too, and I genuinely dont get what you are so concerned about

I had you on ignore for a while and took you off recently because I generally just use that for racists and MAGA types and you seem like a good person

in the world I live in, a bubble perhaps, no one is so concerned about this anymore. And yet there are still people who post about how were fucked in every covid topic

i dont understand what you people want, what you think the world will or should look like moving forward

Yeah I'm still wearing my mask lol haven't caught it yet and don't plan to.

Fauci said we shouldn't be walking around with masks because they don't do anything.

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I mean, Ive had my life impacted in that people I know have gotten Covid, but by and large we were all cautious and got the vaccine once it was available.

I wear a mask when I go shopping. I am back at the office, but wear a mask in the halls and elevators of the building. I visit a few friends that are both vaccinated and take it seriously. I don't eat out or go to events.

do you think it is unreasonable that the majority of people at this point dont think that is how they want to live life indefinitely? Time is not on everyones side. I dont know what your life situation is but things change; people get old, two years until question mark is a big ask of many people to be living that way. Two years of a kid or college age persons life is massive. Two years of an elderly persons life could be the last two years they have. There is obviously a degree of selfishness to it but also, what good do you think it is doing at this point to not be going to events or restaurants or public places when the vast majority of people are regularly, or at least have decided to make exceptions for certain things? Besides, most of us have to work in person anyway

There is only so much caution an individual can practice when the majority of the people around you aren't being cautious themselves. This "oh well, stay home. Who cares if you catch it by random chance and die" attitude towards the disabled is borderline eugenicist.

you act like Covid isnt the only consideration immunocompromised people ever have had to deal with

i always hesitate to compare Covid to the flu, because of the early days of the pandemic they absolutely werent comparable, but that also largely killed the vulnerable and immunocompromised. Those people have always just had to consider how to protect themselves. Covid is more contagious ofc, but we also have a vaccine that works in the vast majority of cases. Ive pointed to how literally every aspect of life has some degree of risk, like driving a car or existing in a US without reasonable gun control laws. I dont think at this point COVID is that different of a consideration given the vaccines is widely available.

There are also tens of millions of kids, who were wrecked by Omicron, that are at risk due to being unvaccinated. There's an outbreak of hepatitis in children in the UK that may be linked to COVID infection as it is one of the few constants seen in their research.

define wrecked

by and large kids were not wrecked, some had long Covid effects and that sucks but most will also be fine in the long run.

https://amp.theguardian.com/society/2022/apr/25/ten-uk-children-require-transplant-amid-surge-in-hepatitis-cases

also this article says the surge in hepatitis cases is linked to kids not being exposed to other viruses because of restrictions, not Covid itself

consider how long two years is for kids, btw. Parents have had to make the tough decision of whether to continue keeping their kids semi-isolated from the world or risk exposing them to a disease that statistically has a negligible chance of killing them but might cause longer term health effects. Thats toughbut also by and large parents are choosing the latter

There is no "end goal." There is working with the tools we have and ensuring hospitilzations don't overwhelm our health systems over and over. Allowing COVID to spread unchecked results in this happening every wave we see in the US and other countries. It also allows for further mutations--which the rate we are seeing as mind blowing.

but the most recent wave was only linked to overwhelmed hospitals in specific areas (e.g undervaccinated places). It was barely a blip in others and hospitalizations definitely did not track with cases the way they did previously. Consider that hospitalizations did not reach previous peaks despite quadrupling case rate over previous peaks in the US

Our hospitals are run by people, human beings. And guess what? They are quitting faster than they are being replaced. So what do you think will happen to our health care in the next, say, five years? Do you even understand that there were multiple times throughout the last two years that if you--or your family, friends, etc.--needed emergency health care, the level of care could have either been drastically impacted by overworked, understaffed caregivers or even non-existent at all?

I want you to take a minute and truly think about that. You could have broken a limb, cut yourself on glass, gotten into a car crash. And had you needed an ambulance or a hospital bed or surgery, there were times where you would be getting it. And if you do happen to make it to the packed ER, you likely just caught COVID.

as above, we are not at that place anymore in the majority of areas in the US. Perhaps that means those specific places should be stricter about mandates but we know they wont because by and large they are red states/counties with antivaxxers

"Living with COVID" means your average person will catch it twice a year, 250k deaths a year, and God knows how many more job shortages. On top of it all, the long COVID.

it no longer means that worldwide, because vaccines are working at preventing death. Places like, idk, Florida that are undervaccinated have continued to sees a stronger correlation of cases to deaths to this day which goes back to localized restrictions (that we know wont happen)

Going back to this:

Pointing out:
-we are still experiencing high levels of community spread
-vaccine and natural immunity are waning
-variants are mutating to possibly be more virulent
-long COVID risks for everyone

And then stressing that we should still be taking caution isn't saying "we're fucked." It isn't saying the sky is falling. It's saying that we are still in the midst of a pandemic and our continued disregard for additional mitigation efforts in favor of personal freedom and personal responsibility is costing us lives, giving people bodily damage that we have yet to understand fully, allowing more and more mutations, and will absolutely leave us "fucked" in the long run.

i honestly dont think your average person is super concerned about long Covid or whatever. Im sure it sucks but Id wager if Covid, from the start, didnt kill anyone but caused long Covid symptoms at the same rate, nothing would have been shut down. Its an unfortunate side effect but I dont think most people would trade an indefinite number of years of personal freedom to prevent being tired for a few months or whatever

re: variants, its important to remember that variants arent coming out of any specific place. To truly combat this would require a coordinated global shutdown which is simply impossible. Weve seen with e.g Australia which had extremely low case counts due to strong government response, have an explosion of cases as soon as they reopened. Clearly as long as there is a place for the virus to spread, it will, and as soon as that well opens up to the outside it will spread more

idk dude. Im not like, happy about it all, but I think choosing to live with it is ultimately what everyone is going to
have to do sooner or later

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no dude, its a that sucks, but fucking everyone wants to live their lives and that is reflected by the entire world relaxing their covid restrictions while a small minority of vocal people on the internet shift the goalposts to stay on their high horse so much that theyre now trying to discredit the things Fauci says

what is your background, btwwhy do you think youre some authority on this?

also, interestingly not addressing that you were just flat out wrong about the UK hepatitis stuff

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Not really sure how that's invalid when your ideal solution talks about stripping an indefinite number of years from kids' childhoods, elderly peoples' last remaining years, college years... Why is that just handwaved away like it's nothing?

inb4 a bellend asks "Gawrsh, why is GregShmedley being so dismissive / antagonistic to these two users who continually shitpost in every Covid topic?"

After seeing this back and forth, I am 90% on TheGoldenEel's side. Greg, you seem to be the one in a bubble, a self-imposed one of an extreme introvert.

I need to live my life and want my kids to as well, but we have done everything we can with vaccines and masking. I wish things were different, but they're not. We have to live with this virus.

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read the next two paragraphs my dude and consider what the word if means in the part you quoted

A strain of adenovirus called F41 is so far looking like the most probable cause, according to the U.K. Health Security Agency.

Information gathered through our investigations increasingly suggests that this rise in sudden onset hepatitis in children is linked to adenovirus infection. However, we are thoroughly investigating other potential causes, Meera Chand, UKHSAs director of clinical and emerging infections, said.

My father died of covid and now my grandparents have it. I really fucking hope it's over.

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So maybe more precautions make sense for your neck of the woods, and fewer precautions make sense for others

i think thats what fauci means here when he says its no longer a pandemic

if an outbreak doesnt lead to overwhelmed hospitals in my area, fewer precautions make sense

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I really don't want to get involved in an argument because I really struggle with this. But I can see that my youngest daughter is behind the others developmentally due to a lack of social learning. And my friends and family are having mental illness issues from the isolation.

To be clear, I usually do mask up indoors and my kids always do. But I also go to restaurants, breweries and movies and have gone to a karaoke bar a couple times. I don't see an end in sight, so I will live my life, but I will get every booster the instant I can.

Also, I am in a liberal area with 75% vaccination rate.

Democrats are polling poorly. People are sick of this nonsense. Half of the US has been infected, the current variant is generally associated with mild symptoms.

Emphasis should be on general health and therapeutics, not on masking and vaccination.

Happy to see that very few people adhere to masking in my (blue) area, and that "booster" rates are low and stagnating.

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you portray it as may be in your post while the articles portray it as probably isnt but were investigating just in case, and you use it as an example of a problem caused by let it rip mentality

Tbh I think its a better example of how lockdowns can cause harm to developing children than anything

Fauci seems like a clown that people listen to because they are desperate to know what to do. People who just wanna do what they want listened to Trump. And people that wanted to do what they could feel good about while not being too limited listened to Fauci. They're both extremely soft tho. Telling people what they wanna hear instead of what they need to hear

Fauci is wrong

So....WE BEAT COVID!!!

https://youtu.be/5xZXioHJWrw?t=32

All hail Lord Fauci, He has spoken

TheGoldenEel posted...

I understand there are people with health concerns that choose to be more cautious, and thats okay. But for everyone else, I guess to some degree its that Ive resigned to the fact that this is endemic and something well just have to deal with.

what do you think the end goal is?

This is how I feel pretty much.

COVID ain't going away, ever. We didn't win and vanquish it, but also we have enough scientific knowledge and medical technology to combat it and neutralize most of its effect on society. At this point, current variants actually, finally seem to be 'bro it's just the flu' territory. And we don't broadcast flu/common cold cases every day, nor do we specially accommodate the minority of people who are at higher risk for illness.

Here on CE, its a little bit of an echo chamber between introverts and homebodies who can be content staying home for years at a time. But out in the wild, whether you want to acknowledge it or not, the vaaaast majority of people have mostly gone back to how life was prior to 2020.

I always get the feeling Greg's concern over covid isn't completely genuine and largely about himself.

LostForest posted...

This is how I feel pretty much.

COVID ain't going away, ever. We didn't win and vanquish it, but also we have enough scientific knowledge and medical technology to combat it and neutralize most of its effect on society. At this point, current variants actually, finally seem to be 'bro it's just the flu' territory. And we don't broadcast flu/common cold cases every day, nor do we specially accommodate the minority of people who are at higher risk for illness.

Here on CE, its a little bit of an echo chamber between introverts and homebodies who can be content staying home for years at a time. But out in the wild, whether you want to acknowledge it or not, the vaaaast majority of people have mostly gone back to how life was prior to 2020.

Hell, I'm extremely introverted and spent the entire first year of the pandemic in complete lockdown mode (which I think I handled relatively well), and even I'm sick of it all at this point.

We have the vaccines and booster shots. The current variants are weak. We are never, ever going to eliminate COVID, so we're gonna have to start living with it and getting back to normal at some point. Given that almost no one is wearing masks or taking any other precautions at this point, we might as well start doing that now. It's been two fucking years.

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Just some guy that thinks you like the idea of being some authority on covid, fighting misinformation -- when you're just some random chach on the internet arguing with other random chaches on the internet.

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Just one question: How long do you think we should continue doing that kind of thing? I'd say you come off as "the bad guy" because you seem to think people who haven't gotten to do many of the things they like to do -- the things that make life worth living -- for two years now should keep avoiding them indefinitely. It's not just about "spending money on entertainment"; it's about living life and getting to enjoy it. Since COVID is never going away, do you seriously think we should just never gather in crowds or go out to eat ever again?

Covid would probably have gone away if people followed advice, isolated all that jazz very early on. They didn't so we're still stuck.