SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)

Hi People this is going to seem like a really stupid question so apologies in advance.
Down here in NZ the race is on to get a big chunk of the population vaccinated, the reality is this current lockdown will be the last of its type as the population and especially the business community are growing weary of our situation.
So my question is What does living with Covid actually mean in real practical terms for those of you who are doing that already?
Also is it difficult in terms of hospital stress and deaths or has everyone got used to that now?
Cheers. PS its a genuine question and not an attempt to troll etc.
 
Regulus Arcturus Black said:
Flu death rates in Asian mask wearing countries are no different to the West, there’s decades of data, hence the huge mask debate when Covid kicked off.
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Asia is particularly susceptible to flue for a variety of reasons e.g. climate, a large range of different influenza viruses circulation simultaneously and populations density in big cities, so you would exoect them to have a higher death rate than many other places. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7482764/

There is also lots of data showing that flu transmission is reduced by vaccination and almost as much by mask wearing. This study in Japan was in schools and masks work even better with adults than kids (as demonstrated by them working better with older kids). I'm not sure how you would regulated mask wearing but I'd love it if it became a habit that people wore a mask as soon as they get a sniffle.

The fact that flu has virtually disappeared here in Australia strongly suggests that vaccination combined with distancing and masks works incredibly well. Masks help with all respiratory viruses so why should flu be different?
 
Stack said:
Hi People this is going to seem like a really stupid question so apologies in advance.
Down here in NZ the race is on to get a big chunk of the population vaccinated, the reality is this current lockdown will be the last of its type as the population and especially the business community are growing weary of our situation.
So my question is What does living with Covid actually mean in real practical terms for those of you who are doing that already?
Also is it difficult in terms of hospital stress and deaths or has everyone got used to that now?
Cheers. PS its a genuine question and not an attempt to troll etc.
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I'd say watch Australia for your options. Either you eradicate until you have herd immunity (which is probably practical impossible on the time scale needed) or the art is opening up and vaccinating at a rate that doesn't overwhelm your medical/ICU facilities. There is no perfect solution but if you can eradicate long enough to get vaccination to 80 or even 90% of adults before you open up you will be doing well.
 
berbatrick said:
one point was that they don't expect it to become less severe over time like other viral diseases, since in its current state it usually doesn't kill, and transmits before it kills. so that selective pressure to help it spread isn't there.
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I have seen it suggested that this also minimises the chances of vaccination being a driver of "worse" variants.
 
Stack said:
Hi People this is going to seem like a really stupid question so apologies in advance.
Down here in NZ the race is on to get a big chunk of the population vaccinated, the reality is this current lockdown will be the last of its type as the population and especially the business community are growing weary of our situation.
So my question is What does living with Covid actually mean in real practical terms for those of you who are doing that already?
Also is it difficult in terms of hospital stress and deaths or has everyone got used to that now?
Cheers. PS its a genuine question and not an attempt to troll etc.
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Denmark is where you want to look.
 
mav_9me said:
Denmark is where you want to look.
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Aye, great example for New Zealanders. Similar population size, and have been living with it lockdown free for what? 17 months now? as of a few days ago Denmark no longer considers COVID-19 "a socially critical disease” so is now living restriction free.
Excess deaths in Denmark have been 810 since the start of the pandemic so no worse than a bad flu season for them.
I don’t think NZ has much to worry about at all at this point once 80%+ is vaccinated.
 
Kind of a bizarre take to call someone out for participating in spreading diseases pre pandemic and how that means he can’t want to take a few more cautions now. It’s almost like there’s been a life changing event for the best part of 18 months, with constant death updates every day and messaging about the important of practicing good hygiene.
 
Regulus Arcturus Black said:
Aye, great example for New Zealanders. Similar population size, and have been living with it lockdown free for what? 17 months now? as of a few days ago Denmark no longer considers COVID-19 "a socially critical disease” so is now living restriction free.
Excess deaths in Denmark have been 810 since the start of the pandemic so no worse than a bad flu season for them.
I don’t think NZ has much to worry about at all at this point once 80%+ is vaccinated.
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Both of these things can’t be true at once. Denmark has had to make a lot of changes to live with the virus. Including the vaccine passports you’re railing against in another thread. What Denmark has done incredibly well is extraordinarily high levels of compliance with the restrictions and with vaccine uptake. That’s their secret sauce. They’ve only in the last week removed the last of these restrictions.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Both of these things can’t be true at once. Denmark has had to make a lot of changes to live with the virus. Including the vaccine passports you’re railing against in another thread. What Denmark has done incredibly well is extraordinarily high levels of compliance with the restrictions and with vaccine uptake. That’s their secret sauce. They’ve only in the last week removed the last of these restrictions.
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Denmark hasn’t been in lockdown since April 2020, true.
Denmark is now restriction free since 9th September (aside from vaccine passports for travel), true. Vaccine passports for cafes, sports etc are now gone.

Did you misread my post maybe? I didn’t say they’ve been living with it restriction free, not at all. Confused here pal.

Stacks asked “What does living with Covid actually mean in real practical terms for those of you who are doing that already?
Also is it difficult in terms of hospital stress and deaths or has everyone got used to that now?”

The example is a similar sized country that have been living with it (I don’t consider lockdown living with anything), lockdown free for 17 months, as for hospitals and deaths, they’ve managed to make excess deaths during the pandemic no worse than a bad flu season and now due to high vaccination rates they are basically restriction free.

I know what the secret sauce is, that’s why I said that New Zealand once they get to a similar level of vaccinated don’t have too much to worry about, when taking a similar size population in Denmark as an example.
 
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Regulus Arcturus Black said:
Denmark hasn’t been in lockdown since April 2020, true.
Denmark is now restriction free since 9th September (aside from vaccine passports for travel), true. Vaccine passports for cafes, sports etc are now gone.

Did you misread my post maybe? I didn’t say they’ve been living with it restriction free, not at all. Confused here pal.

Stacks asked “What does living with Covid actually mean in real practical terms for those of you who are doing that already?
Also is it difficult in terms of hospital stress and deaths or has everyone got used to that now?”


I know what the secret sauce is, that’s why I said that New Zealand once they get to a similar level of vaccinated don’t have too much to worry about, when taking a similar size population in Denmark as an example.
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Denmark hasn’t been in lockdown since April 2020. Not true.

I do agree they’re a role model regarding how to live with this. But they’ve managed to keep cases very low over the last few weeks. Which has to be down to more than just the effect of vaccination alone, when you compare them with other similarly vaccinated countries. And that will be the hard part for New Zealand. Adopting all the other behaviours needed to safely live with the virus.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Which has to be down to more than just the effect of vaccination alone, when you compare them with other similarly vaccinated countries.
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Well Denmark has always out done almost every other country on the planet in that regard, with far less restrictions than most.
As I argued for much of last year they (along with Norway) have a smallish but wealthy population, very little in terms of poor neighbourhoods with practically no immigration, and only one true “City” of note.
I’ve lived in NZ and whilst they do have poor neighbourhoods, and more cities, they are also sparsely populated so I see no reason why they need to worry too much if they hit 80%+ vaccinated.

I regret saying it now, as always on here anything positive about how it absolutely is possible to live with a virus (and how NZ will be fine when vaccinated) has always been met with negativity about how everyone should continue to shit their pants and never return to normal.
 
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Stack said:
Hi People this is going to seem like a really stupid question so apologies in advance.
Down here in NZ the race is on to get a big chunk of the population vaccinated, the reality is this current lockdown will be the last of its type as the population and especially the business community are growing weary of our situation.
So my question is What does living with Covid actually mean in real practical terms for those of you who are doing that already?
Also is it difficult in terms of hospital stress and deaths or has everyone got used to that now?
Cheers. PS its a genuine question and not an attempt to troll etc.
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Use common sense. Wash your hands after being out in public. Use a mask when necessary.
personally I also avoid large crowd build up, but that’s down to how comfortable you feel.
 
Regulus Arcturus Black said:
Well Denmark has always out done almost every other country on the planet in that regard, with far less restrictions than most.
As I argued for much of last year they (along with Norway) have a smallish but wealthy population, very little in terms of poor neighbourhoods with practically no immigration, and only one true “City” of note.
I’ve lived in NZ and whilst they do have poor neighbourhoods, and more cities, they are also sparsely populated so I see no reason why they need to worry too much if they hit 80%+ vaccinated.

I regret saying it now, as always on here anything positive about how it absolutely is possible to live with a virus (and how NZ will be fine when vaccinated) has always been met with negativity about how everyone should continue to shit their pants and never return to normal.
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is it any wonder people argue with you? You were the one arguing till you were blue in the face about Sweden’s decision to not lockdown in the original variant
 
Regulus Arcturus Black said:
Well Denmark has always out done almost every other country on the planet in that regard, with far less restrictions than most.
As I argued for much of last year they (along with Norway) have a smallish but wealthy population, very little in terms of poor neighbourhoods with practically no immigration, and only one true “City” of note.
I’ve lived in NZ and whilst they do have poor neighbourhoods, and more cities, they are also sparsely populated so I see no reason why they need to worry too much if they hit 80%+ vaccinated.

I regret saying it now, as always on here anything positive about how it absolutely is possible to live with a virus (and how NZ will be fine when vaccinated) has always been met with negativity about how everyone should continue to shit their pants and never return to normal.
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Nobody is advocating that anyone “shit their pants”. The fact remains that every country that’s lived with this virus for the last 18 months has had to change the way we live. Yes, even Denmark. They’re not radical changes. Some of them should have been made ages ago. Like not coming into work when you’re snotty and coughing with a viral illness. Or being a lot more flexible about allowing employees work from home. This has given the rest of the world a head start on New Zealand when it comes to living with the virus. And that’s the learning curve that is still ahead of them.
 
golden_blunder said:
is it any wonder people argue with you? You were the one arguing till you were blue in the face about Sweden’s decision to not lockdown in the original variant
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I'm really not sure what he's said wrong here. He answered a question stacks asked and then was given an incredibly pedantic response that he had to clarify.
 
Regulus Arcturus Black said:
Aye, great example for New Zealanders. Similar population size, and have been living with it lockdown free for what? 17 months now? as of a few days ago Denmark no longer considers COVID-19 "a socially critical disease” so is now living restriction free.
Excess deaths in Denmark have been 810 since the start of the pandemic so no worse than a bad flu season for them.
I don’t think NZ has much to worry about at all at this point once 80%+ is vaccinated.
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I do worry about one thing and it was an important point Pogue mentioned a bit back and thats while we will get up to 80% vaccinated we wont also have the added protection of a certain portion of the population immune due to having had the virus. 80% vaccinated here still means 1 million people not vaccinated and thats a decent number of people not protected. The largest group of at risk are our Pacifica population and they mostly live in our biggest city of 1.6 million people. They have large extended families and often have more than 6 people per household. I think we might see some significant hospitalisation once we are mostly vaccinated and start to open up.
 
Massive Spanner said:
I'm really not sure what he's said wrong here. He answered a question stacks asked and then was given an incredibly pedantic response that he had to clarify.
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Not just addressing that post on its own.
He’s incredibly argumentative when it comes to lockdowns, restrictions, passports etc but all makes sense when people think back to his original stance. Hence I’m not sure why we even bother replying
 
golden_blunder said:
is it any wonder people argue with you? You were the one arguing till you were blue in the face about Sweden’s decision to not lockdown in the original variant
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Oh was he the one people kept using this gif in reply to?

VacantThoroughBluebird-size_restricted.gif


I miss those times. Always brought a chuckle
 
golden_blunder said:
Not just addressing that post on its own.
He’s incredibly argumentative when it comes to lockdowns, restrictions, passports etc but all makes sense when people think back to his original stance. Hence I’m not sure why we even bother replying
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A lot of people are incredibly argumentative in this thread, though. Wibble and Pogue are just as argumentative when it comes to lockdowns and restrictions being a positive thing as Regulus is towards the opposite end. I think the problem is that the former is seen by the masses as the only solution because it is the ultimate way to avoid deaths whereas the latter focuses on managing society being open to an extent and allowing a manageable level of deaths. I'm not saying he's right but he does have a point that it is difficult to try argue anything other than "lockdowns good everything else baaaad" in here!
 
Massive Spanner said:
A lot of people are incredibly argumentative in this thread, though. Wibble and Pogue are just as argumentative when it comes to lockdowns and restrictions being a positive thing as Regulus is towards the opposite end. I think the problem is that the former is seen by the masses as the only solution because it is the ultimate way to avoid deaths whereas the latter focuses on managing society being open to an extent and allowing a manageable level of deaths. I'm not saying he's right but he does have a point that it is difficult to try argue anything other than "lockdowns good everything else baaaad" in here!
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The poster generated a lot of reports from other posters and a lot of mod time discussing it.
whether intentional or not, he rubs people the wrong way so hopefully he reads this and takes it onboard
 
Regulus Arcturus Black said:
Oh ffs Pogue, “practically closed down” from December 25th until January 3rd”.

So yeah, like most other bloody years in Scandinavia.

I’ll rephrase then, “aside from 10 days over Christmas, Denmark has been lockdown free since April 2020.”
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Bit dishonest, this. Sweden’s definitely not closed down between the 25th and 3rd every year, and suggesting that to win an argument is cheap.
 
Stack said:
I do worry about one thing and it was an important point Pogue mentioned a bit back and thats while we will get up to 80% vaccinated we wont also have the added protection of a certain portion of the population immune due to having had the virus. 80% vaccinated here still means 1 million people not vaccinated and thats a decent number of people not protected. The largest group of at risk are our Pacifica population and they mostly live in our biggest city of 1.6 million people. They have large extended families and often have more than 6 people per household. I think we might see some significant hospitalisation once we are mostly vaccinated and start to open up.
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Population wide, 80% take-up would be a massive success and with luck any covid outbreak would be self-limiting and sporadic. Whereas 80% of over 16s would just give you a natural retardant to a sudden rise in cases, but you'll see a lot of cases.

It's at that moment where your mindset has to change - do cases matter or are they just an early warning for hospitalisations and deaths.

Wide availability of testing can help - the NZ population are already used to the social solidarity argument, so stay home if you've got symptoms and get a test should be an easy sell. Provided it's backed with sickpay and other provisions (like home working or care leave) of course.

In terms of hospitalisations and deaths - the crunch is how close to 100% vaccination of the most vulnerable you can get. In this context 90% adult take-up is twice as good as 80%. But 98%+ uptake in the over 70s is even more essential.

Sounds obvious given what we know about age and covid risk? Not every country can do it, and not every country seems to be chasing it. Here's Hong Kong:
 
jojojo said:
Population wide, 80% take-up would be a massive success and with luck any covid outbreak would be self-limiting and sporadic. Whereas 80% of over 16s would just give you a natural retardant to a sudden rise in cases, but you'll see a lot of cases.

It's at that moment where your mindset has to change - do cases matter or are they just an early warning for hospitalisations and deaths.

Wide availability of testing can help - the NZ population are already used to the social solidarity argument, so stay home if you've got symptoms and get a test should be an easy sell. Provided it's backed with sickpay and other provisions (like home working or care leave) of course.

In terms of hospitalisations and deaths - the crunch is how close to 100% vaccination of the most vulnerable you can get. In this context 90% adult take-up is twice as good as 80%. But 98%+ uptake in the over 70s is even more essential.

Sounds obvious given what we know about age and covid risk? Not every country can do it, and not every country seems to be chasing it. Here's Hong Kong:
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Good point on the vaccination of the most vulnerable. There is a massive push on vaccinations underway right now and so far a very high uptake so if we do succeed in vaccinating a high percentage of our most vulnerable maybe it wont be as bad as I fear when we open up.
 
Massive Spanner said:
A lot of people are incredibly argumentative in this thread, though. Wibble and Pogue are just as argumentative when it comes to lockdowns and restrictions being a positive thing as Regulus is towards the opposite end. I think the problem is that the former is seen by the masses as the only solution because it is the ultimate way to avoid deaths whereas the latter focuses on managing society being open to an extent and allowing a manageable level of deaths. I'm not saying he's right but he does have a point that it is difficult to try argue anything other than "lockdowns good everything else baaaad" in here!
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That’s a pretty outrageous distortion of my views in this thread.
 
Anustart89 said:
Bit dishonest, this. Sweden’s definitely not closed down between the 25th and 3rd every year, and suggesting that to win an argument is cheap.
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It’s pedantic city in here today. Tell me what schools are open for me to drop my daughter at? What theme parks? Universities? Do I imagine the cities absolutely emptying? Museums? Swimming pools? Sports? Do I imagine everything being closed 24th, 25th, lots of stuff closed 26th and everything on the 1st and tonnes of cafes and shops being closed even for mellandagarna?

Norway and Denmark are even worse for what it’s worth, couldn’t tell you on Finland.
So yeah, not closed, but running at a fraction of normal, to make the pendantic ones in here happy today.
 
Massive Spanner said:
Apologies if I got it wrong but you've generally been very supportive of lockdowns throughout as a way to deal with the virus, no?
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When they’re necessary, they’re necessary. When they’re not, they’re not. And there are so many different variables between countries no one approach will work everywhere. I certainly don’t think the decision to lock down has been taken lightly anywhere it’s happened. It’s an incredibly unpopular and expensive decision for a government to make.

The idea that I straight up think lockdowns are a positive is, obviously, ridiculous.
 
golden_blunder said:
is it any wonder people argue with you? You were the one arguing till you were blue in the face about Sweden’s decision to not lockdown in the original variant
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When everyone said Sweden would be fecked, healthcare would break down and we’d have the worst numbers in Europe, feck yeah I argued that was OTT drivel. 18 months in with no lockdown and no masks and that never happened.
I also argued that tonnes of early successes would be simply kicking the can down the road and end with similar or worse figures, that also happened all over Europe in particular. You have to go a loooong way down this list to find that “fecked” country that were so wrong, past many that “had it right” and hell, can you even find a European country with a similar population and lower numbers per capita? Even Greece has flown past now.

And all I’m saying now is that New Zealanders can seek solice in a similar sized population that was an early success and has remained that way (something I was very wrong on), there’s no reason New Zealand can’t get to 80%+ and never have Covid as a huge problem to live with. The vaccines coming so early (another where I was waaay off) and being so efficient looks to have seen to that.
 
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Massive Spanner said:
A lot of people are incredibly argumentative in this thread, though. Wibble and Pogue are just as argumentative when it comes to lockdowns and restrictions being a positive thing as Regulus is towards the opposite end. I think the problem is that the former is seen by the masses as the only solution because it is the ultimate way to avoid deaths whereas the latter focuses on managing society being open to an extent and allowing a manageable level of deaths. I'm not saying he's right but he does have a point that it is difficult to try argue anything other than "lockdowns good everything else baaaad" in here!
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Difficult? It’s nigh on impossible.

Any suggestion that a restriction or lockdown went too far, maybe wasn’t necessary or maybe went on too long is met with a schoolyard level of bullying in here :lol:
 
Case numbers show early signs of levelling off, maybe indication spread among younger people is down due to vaccine push in July and August?
 
There’s always going to be a reason to argue for the indefinite implementation of restrictions

Let’s wait for the boosters

Let’s get winter out the way

Let’s wait for schools to break up at Easter

Let’s wait for the warmer weather

Let’s wait for the summer holidays

Let’s wait for the boosters

Let’s get winter out the way…

There will never be a time when restrictions won’t seen logical as long as the virus exists and nobody thinks it’s going anywhere. We’ve also gone from a position where zero covid was accepted largely as not achievable to arguments that it existing in the community is a reason why we need restrictions.
 
Regulus Arcturus Black said:
It’s pedantic city in here today. Tell me what schools are open for me to drop my daughter at? What theme parks? Universities? Do I imagine the cities absolutely emptying? Museums? Swimming pools? Sports? Do I imagine everything being closed 24th, 25th, lots of stuff closed 26th and everything on the 1st and tonnes of cafes and shops being closed even for mellandagarna?

Norway and Denmark are even worse for what it’s worth, couldn’t tell you on Finland.
So yeah, not closed, but running at a fraction of normal, to make the pendantic ones in here happy today.
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Not really being pedantic, but yeah, there are bank holidays around Christmas. However, the 25th is the biggest homecoming celebration of the year with everyone and their dog usually going out clubbing with friends, and then the 27th through 30th is spent in shopping centres by people who are free from work due to prices being slashed ahead of the new year. Hardly comparable to a lockdown, which is why I called your argument dishonest. Just because you can’t drop your kids as a school doesn’t make it comparable to a lockdown of society.
 
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stw2022 said:
There’s always going to be a reason to argue for the indefinite implementation of restrictions

Let’s wait for the boosters

Let’s get winter out the way

Let’s wait for schools to break up at Easter

Let’s wait for the warmer weather

Let’s wait for the summer holidays

Let’s wait for the boosters

Let’s get winter out the way…

There will never be a time when restrictions won’t seen logical as long as the virus exists and nobody thinks it’s going anywhere. We’ve also gone from a position where zero covid was accepted largely as not achievable to arguments that it existing in the community is a reason why we need restrictions.
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That’s not true. With every week that goes by more and more people are exposed to the virus or the vaccine and get some protection. It won’t be long before everyone, everywhere has either been infected or vaccinated. The tricky bit is knowing how close to that end-point we can get back to fully “normal” life.
 
But that won’t be the case the argument will then shift to waning immunity. I’m sure back in spring people then arguing that over summer we would be able to lift restrictions due to level of vulnerable people vaccinated are now arguing for continuing restrictions despite that threshold being met. There will always be an argument why restrictions make sense for some. They’re not wrong at all but some do appear to be in position where you wonder if there’ll ever argue any different.

Over last 7 days the number in hospital with COVID has increased by 594 to 8256. But in that period over 6049 have been admitted with the virus showing that even for those hospitalised they do not seem to be staying very long in the main
 
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