Just got another #covid booster, BC is calling in everyone 60 & up. Also, although they’re not advertising this, anyone 18 & up with a special reason to worry.
This thing is not over… wear a mask when you’re in a public enclosed space unless you’re happy with the separation & ventilation.
@timbray Separation is meaningless for aerosols.
"If they were smoking, could you smell it?" If the answer is yes, you're at risk from them.
Something like 40% of Canadians in the "older" bracket have had COVID with no symptoms from the blood data. No symptoms does NOT mean you weren't contagious. So prudence requires an assumption that everyone is infected and contagious.
10+ complete air changes per hour reduces your risk by about four-fifths, but you still need to stay masked inside.
My issue is that you seem to treat “at risk” as a binary proposition. I am at risk when I walk down the street, even with a well-fitted mask etc etc. And when I bicycle across town, even with a helmet. That risk cannot be reduced to zero. It can however be reduced significantly.
It’s like computer security. You can never have an absolute defence against attackers. All you can ever do is drive their cost up and the likelihood of disaster down.
There are only ever partial victories.
@graydon There's a very real risk that someone reads your note and says "See, here's this smart guy who says that masks are useless and so is physical separation, so why bother?”
@timbray All victories are transient, try.
("Not infected today" isn't especially partial, it's just temporary.)
The point to the survivability onion is to use as many layers as you can get, and the best thing you can get for each layer.
Not being there is the best thing/outermost layer.
Physical separation IS useless for an airborne aerosol pathogen. It got pushed when people thought it was primarily droplet spread.
COVID evolves. What was quite sensible in spring of 2020 isn't today.
@timbray Ever read "The Lives of Christopher Chant"?
My working hypothesis is that everybody gets some number of survivable COVID infections. You can't know that number ahead of time but insidious neurotropic vasculitis that causes plausibly permanent immune dysregulation wouldn't be something to mess about with if you could expect to get entirely better (which, with COVID, you can't.)
Will there be a sterilizing vaccine? Not impossible. This year? No.
@graydon @timbray The problem is whether we are talking in terms of public health or personally avoiding infection. From a PH POV, if we actually managed 10ACH in every place that people gathered, AND also managed widespread vaccination, AND had mask use in places like mass transit, AND GIVEN widespread additional partial immunity from prior infection, virus levels might fall. Once they're low, yay, risks are low. But if we don't do PH, we're stuck with masks for personal protection.
Apr 7, 2023, 3:26 PM@dr2chase @graydon @timbray This is never going to happen in a meaningful way due to (the lack of) home ventilation.
There is absolutely value to better ventilated public spaces to reduce risk for the immunocompromised, so we should continue doing it, but at a macro level the virus is going to forever have a fairly high baseline.
Given high wastewater numbers, the low case rates today are due to levels of immunity more than anything else.
@janakj @dr2chase @timbray
Today's low case rates are an artefact of not testing or reporting, not reality.
The extant housing stock is not fit for purpose in the Anthropocene, what with being dependent on combustion energy technology in some way, not being designed for the expected winds, and not being suitable provided with drainage.
It all needs to be replaced.
We might as well manage the ventilation requirements while we're at it. This won't be the last significant airborne pathogen.
Apr 7, 2023, 3:40 PM@graydon @dr2chase @timbray I agree case rates are not useful, but *both* test positivity and hospitalization metrics are steadily trending down as well. This means many people now likely “have” COVID as evidenced by their waste, but the immune system is keeping things in check.
Yes, everything needs to be replaced (higher insulation+ventilation) but my point is it’s not happening. I wish it were different, but the economic incentives aren’t there.
@janakj @dr2chase @timbray
RAT tests don't work reliably with current variants. Hospitals are very dangerous now and people don't go. Follow the excess deaths estimates.
Think about this for a second; "the economic incentives aren't there". To prevent something that's burning down the population life expectancy and will in time disable everyone.
The economy is something we made, it's not charge or momentum. We should consider that we're doing it wrong.
Apr 7, 2023, 1:02 AM@timbray The most positive news I manage to share about the covid situation where I live is "at least it's not as bad as the peak of omicron in january 2022".
Apr 7, 2023, 3:28 PM@timbray *will never be over. There are animal reservoirs and everything now.
I suspect this will be another OC43 (which likely was the cause of the 1889 pandemic), where the youngest generation will experience COVID many times as a cold. It’s going to be a tough story for older folks for a while, though, which is unfortunate.