COVID-19 Megathread 6: Return of the Omicron

[pbrower2a]

There isn't a cure for the common cold and never was that's why we still in this Covid Recession, but people are taking it to the extreme, Doctors cannot cure the Common cold when you are at the Hospital, going to hospital over Covid, doesn't solve your problem

It has to do with your A1C level, high sugar levels maintain fevers

That's why injections and protein shots that are in the freezer and meds bring down your A1C levels to eradicate the virus

The same meds they use in IVs is I'm the Covid shot, so stop going to ICUs, I went one time and that was it

This is abstruse medical information, and if so it surely has peer-reviewed material documenting that.  It does not make sense. I see much deprecation of sugars and starches as food sources for sundry reasons.

It would obviously be tempting to give sugars to people with colds to fend off the lethargy... but note well that protein shots are not vaccinations.

As soon as COVID-19 became a threat I made sure to get a flu shot so that I would not have a flu that might cause me to have a hospital stay in a time in which hospitals might become slaughterhouses for COVID-19. I know well how many stupid people are out there. Think of alcoholics, dopers, smokers, and speeders.

Give credit where it is due to the pharmaceutical industry for developing safe and effective vaccines fast... and to government for ensuring that people don't even have the excuse of cost or inconvenience for not getting inoculated. Side effects? I got flu-like symptoms, chest pains, and diarrhea after my first inoculation in February, which indicated  that

(1) I had done a good job of avoiding COVID-19,
(2) I would have had a rough time with COVID-19, and
(3) getting the inoculation was a very good idea.

I have a pre-existing condition in an auto-immune disorder, even if it is 'only' psoriasis.

[pbrower2a]

You never know what viruses are mutating in the bodies of people to refuse to do even the easiest thing to prevent the spread and contraction of COVID-19.

[pbrower2a]

https://twitter.com/propublica/status/1418973616608268289

It has to be one of the most depressing lines of work in America. If one bonds with one's elderly clients because they have tales to tell, one sees them degenerate and die. I've been heavily involved in care for elderly parents who died of degenerative diseases... and I wouldn't wish that upon my worst enemy. I have nothing against my worst enemy's parents.

People who hate their jobs often show a sort of death wish. I have often seen retail clerks (I have done that job and hated life while doing so) go out for a smoking break. Cancerettes aren't cheap, and if one can't find something less harmful, like pop music, one has to have big trouble. 

[pbrower2a]

The number of vaccinated people dying each day in the US now from covid is way, way, fewer than the number of people who typically die each day from the flu (like orders of magnitude fewer).  If you’re vaccinated and weren’t masking and avoiding social gatherings prior to 2020 out of fear of the flu and other viruses, why would you feel the need to now?

Inoculations work, but only if people receive them. Masks work, but only if people wear them. Social distancing works, but only if people go along.

COVID-19 is to the flu what AIDS is to genital herpes.

[pbrower2a]

The New York Times is offering its coverage of COVID-19 without a paywall as a public service.

No modern precedent
Covid-19 has caused the largest decline in U.S. life expectancy since World War II, the federal government reported yesterday. But Covid is not the only reason that life expectancy in this country fell last year to its lowest level in almost two decades.

Even before the pandemic, the U.S. was mired in an alarming period of rising mortality. It had no modern precedent: During the second half of the 2010s, life expectancy fell on a sustained basis for the first time since the fighting of World War II killed several hundred thousand Americans.


By The New York Times | Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Deaths of despair
It’s hard to imagine a more alarming sign of a society’s well-being than an inability to keep its citizens alive. While some of the reasons are mysterious, others are fairly clear. American society has become far more unequal than it used to be, and the recent increases in mortality are concentrated among working-class Americans, especially those without a four-year college degree.

For many, daily life lacks the structure, status and meaning that it once had, as the Princeton University economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton have explained. Many people feel less of a connection to an employer, a labor union, a church or community groups. They are less likely to be married. They are more likely to endure chronic pain and to report being unhappy.

These trends have led to a surge of “deaths of despair” (a phrase that Case and Deaton coined), from drugs, alcohol and suicide. Other health problems, including diabetes and strokes, have also surged among the working class. Notably, the class gaps in life expectancy seem to be starker in the U.S. than in most other rich countries.


By The New York Times | Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Covid, of course, has aggravated the country’s health inequalities. Working-class Americans were more likely to contract severe versions of Covid last year, for a mix of reasons. Many could not work from home. Others received lower-quality medical care after getting sick.

Since vaccines became widely available this year, working-class people have been less likely to get a shot. At first, vaccine access was playing a major role. Today, vaccine skepticism is the dominant explanation. (All of which suggests that Covid will continue to exacerbate health disparities beyond 2020; yesterday’s report on life expectancy did not include data for 2021.)

Race and sex

Covid has also caused sharp increases in racial inequality. As a Times article on the new report explains:

From 2019 to 2020, Hispanic people experienced the greatest drop in life expectancy — three years — and Black Americans saw a decrease of 2.9 years. White Americans experienced the smallest decline, of 1.2 years.

I exchanged emails with Case and Deaton yesterday, and they pointed out that racial patterns contain some nuances. Hispanic Americans live longer on average than non-Hispanic Americans, both Black and white — yet the impact of Covid was worst among Hispanics. “This is not simply a story of existing inequalities just getting worse,” Case and Deaton wrote.

The fact that many Hispanic people work in frontline jobs that exposed them to the virus surely plays a role. But Black workers also tend to hold these jobs. It’s unclear exactly why Covid has hit Hispanic communities somewhat harder than Black communities (and would be a worthy subject for academic research).

Covid has also killed more men than women, Case and Deaton pointed out, increasing the mortality gap between the sexes, after years in which it had mostly been shrinking. Life expectancy was 5.7 years longer for women last year, up from 5.1 years in 2019. The gap had fallen to a low of 4.8 years in the early 2010s.

The bottom line: Covid has both worsened and exposed a crisis in health inequality. But that crisis existed before Covid and will continue to exist when the pandemic is over.

[pbrower2a]

Redundant precautions prevent calamities.

There was no redundancy at Chernobyl.

[pbrower2a]

President Biden has suggested that federal employees will face a mandate to get inoculated.

Labor leader Richard Trumka has stated that employers have a right to demand inoculation.

We are seeing the window of dubious freedom to avoid inoculation against COVID-19 closing.

[pbrower2a]

Even if the vaccinated can spread the virus as easily as the unvaccinated, which I doubt, only the unvaccinated are going to get seriously ill. We should not base our policies around protecting them as they have had ample opportunity to protect themselves free of charge and refused to do so every time.

So COVID-19 can bounce off unvaccinated people, especially as the delta variant proliferates faster? If such is so, then I can hardly imagine a better reason for getting inoculated if one isn't already inoculated.

Those getting the delta variant might be the ones in whom a "zeta" or... whatever variant might evolve to beat the existing inoculations.

[pbrower2a]

To paraphrase the late President George Herbert Walker Bush, then it is best that if we err we err on the side of human life.  Because so many Americans failed to do their part -- the very easy part at this stage (which is to take the inoculation) we have what could be a more severe wave of death than we have seen before in proportion to the non-inoculated part of the American population.

I hope that people get scared enough if not inoculated to get to some place that can inoculate them. Yes, get the second shot if you didn't get it before.  

[pbrower2a]

The Delta variant is much more prolific. i can imagine the virus bouncing off anything -- clothing, eyeglasses, watches, eyeglasses, jewelry, hair, bare flesh... this variant is a nightmare, and people who have failed to get inoculated  are the problem.

If you think "delta" is bad, then wait till you hear of some strain that mutates from it that gets a Greek letter lower in the Hellenic alphabet

[pbrower2a]

Getting a mild infection that one's immune system can shake off is not the same as getting a barrage of viruses without immunity. The Delta variant is far more prolific, and because anyone who gets it and has his body hijacked can spread far more viruses. The viruses can hit anything from bare flesh to hair to clothing to jewelry and eyeglasses, to just about everything.

Just get inoculated if you aren't inoculated yet. If Walt Disney Company can mandate that all employees be inoculated, then so can anyone. Your guess is as good as mine. If you are working at Wal-Mart, Rite-Aid, CVS, Walgreen's, Kroger, or Meijer, all of which have pharmacies capable of delivering the vaccine, then you are almost certainly under some pressure to get vaccinated.   

Big Business does not look fondly upon absenteeism for any reason, but COVID-19 is about as disruptive as anything.   

[pbrower2a]

https://twitter.com/djane_go/status/1421266538498199554

Reminder: "Fox has quietly implemented its own version of a vaccine passport while its top personalities attack them"

Non-use of the vaccine has proved to not work quite as expected: the results are even worse. Even if COVID-19 does not kill it can cause organ damage, diabetes, cognitive loss, and sexual impotence.

I would not be surprised, in view of the damage that it does, if it should lead to an uptick in cancer. It's not quite as bad as HIV/AIDS because HIV/AIDS could be transmitted only by a small set of behaviors, some of which were easy to stop in the medical profession. Unprotected sex and IV drug use are not stopped in a medical setting.

At this point one can probably get COVID-19 through the toilet seat if a sick person has used it.   

COVID-19 is a fiscal nightmare.

It is going to damage family life and wreck some careers. And what do we get for the refusal to get inoculated?   

[pbrower2a]

At this point one can probably get COVID-19 through the toilet seat if a sick person has used it.   

Surface transmission is low. Wash your hands afterwards of course.

With more virusxes everywhere, surface transmission becomes more possible. The only question that I have is of the durability of COVID-19.

Soap and water still do an excellent job of killing the virus. They literally rip the viral membrane and cause the genetic material to disintegrate.

The "toilet seat" is a reference to VD and AIDS. COVID-19 is far more transmissible than VD or AIDS.   

[pbrower2a]

https://twitter.com/vashon_photo/status/1421906339090124801

It's a forged federal document, so manufacturing, storing, dealing, buying, creating a market for dealing, keeping, or using one is a federal offense.

People who manufacture or deal these deserve at least the sorts of sentences that one associates with people who forge tax or postage stamps (the latter is rare)... that is a serious federal term. The schmucks who buy or use them  might get off if I were the judge with a suspended sentence. I would arrange to have the first injection necessary and revoke the sentence upon the second (if necessary) inoculation. (I trust that federal offenders get inoculated -- right?)

[pbrower2a]

Entities mandating inoculation for employees:

the federal government
state governments of California and New York
the city government of Denver
Google
Facebook
the National Football League
Walt Disney Corporation
Wal*Mart (headquarters, but not stores)

[pbrower2a]

Second Amendment remedies!

This is simply terrible. "Second amendment remedies" are for encounters with someone who seeks to do literal harm, like robbery, rape, murder, or taking my family off to a concentration camp. It is far better that we have an effective police force and honest courts to suppress crime... and that we not elect criminals to offices high and low.

[pbrower2a]

If I were to think of a slogan for the Sturgis, South Dakota motorcycle rally, it would be something like this:

"Toughen up against COVID-19. Take the shot."

For your family.
For your loved ones.
For your fellow bikers.
For the people of Sturgis. 

[pbrower2a]

The Other "One Percenter":



It still kills about one percent of those that it successfully infects.

I hope that there are plenty of needles in Sturgis, and I do not mean for tattoo artistry.

[pbrower2a]

It's so weird seeing hysterical coverage like this while concerts, ball games, fairs, and other mass events are happening basically as they were in 2019 in most parts of the country:

https://twitter.com/tomselliott/status/1424405873472966661?s=20

Why is the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally being singled out for national coverage again this year, as if most people were living under the same regulations and voluntary restrictions that were constraining them last summer? Is it just because these people seem weird and uncouth?

It could be that motorcycle clubs have an often-sinister reputation, and that motorcycle riders seem a reckless lot. people assume the worst about motorcyclists that they don't assume about another "lifestyle" -- Holy-Roller Christians -- that are also associated with high rates of COVID-19 infections.

Add to this, motorcyclists are highly mobile. Those attending the Sturgis festival could end up bringing back COVID-19 to places like Sturgis, Michigan and Sturgis, Kentucky. or -- well, anywhere that motorcyclists might congregate. At least the Holy Rollers aren't so mobile.

The rally of last year turned into a super-spreader event, and this festival will likely be much the same.     

[pbrower2a]

The Other "One Percenter":



It still kills about one percent of those that it successfully infects.

I hope that there are plenty of needles in Sturgis, and I do not mean for tattoo artistry.

1%, when counting 80-year-olds.

However, if you exclude people who can't bike anymore, i.e. 80-year-olds, it's lower.

This is about the same as when CNN screamed more Americans died from Covid than in Vietnam.

Sure, if a 19-year-olds death is the same as an 85-year-old's.

Note that Covid is definitely not to be underestimated, as it does sadly kill even young people sometimes, so I would encourage everyone to take their vaccines. I just don't like poor statistical analysis.

Perception of the value of life and necessary expendability (we accept combat deaths but not deaths that result from crime) is obvious. A 19-year-old typically has yet to establish what he is, and an 85-year-old is typically at the end of the line in achievements. So?

There is no good side to COVID-19.

I have looked at the overall statistics, and they may be obsolete, but a 1% chance of death from infectious diseases is unusually high in the Industrial West among people whose immune systems are compromised.

it does not kill as the Spanish influenza did (cytokine storm that turns the body against itself) or HIV-AIDS, although we do not yet know the real (as in five years or so) prognosis of lasting effects. But nothing good can happen. Think of rheumatic fever which does heart damage effectively a ticking time-bomb that kills people before their time. Rheumatic heart disease is a reality.

More Americans have died from COVID-19 than Americans did in combat in any war except perhaps the Civil war in absolute numbers. It is not a perfect analogue for warfare, but it certainly kills in large numbers.

Yes, heart attacks, strokes, falls, and vehicle crashes are statistically more dangerous. We just do not have the story of COVID-19.  Aside from the untimely deaths are also organ disease, diabetes, cognitive decline, and sexual dysfunction as one might expect from partial suffocation. Cancer? Birth defects? Infertility? We may have no clue yet.

There is no perfect assessment of the danger of COVID-19 yet. I looked at infections and related deaths and saw over 1%.       

[pbrower2a]

This is a nightmare

Cases in the UK are going back up yet again

Covid is proving to be the most stubborn virus the world has EVER seen

In 1918, despite how primitive our medical technology was, the flu pandemic was gone in like 1.5 years

The world will be dealing with covid for years and years

A nightmare

We need to stop trying to eradicate it. The goal at this point is vaccines that turn it into a sinus infection

This is awful

In 1918 they did not have to deal with facebook letting idiots post BS like this



social media has played a very destructive role when it came to dealing with Covid and I really do believe that the world would have never been able to eliminate Polio if Facebook had existed back then

Facebook would never allow posts espousing Holocaust denial, which -- horrid as it is -- does not directly kill people. It offends and deludes, and it may cause people to trivialize the meaning of Nazi symbols and memes. OK, if I managed a site, then Holocaust denial would be streng verboten.

Freedom of speech gives nobody justification for irresponsible speech even if irresponsible speech somehow avoids criminal sanctions. Someone like Stephanie Kelley Haines deserves to have posts like this haunting her all her life.

If there is one area in which I would eliminate free speech, then it would be in medical quackery which can never have any value in enriching any debate. I see her posts as the equivalent of barnyard fowl (Chicken Licken, Ducky Lucky, and Turkey Lurky) being convinced that the sky is falling, only to find that Foxy Loxy has a safe place from a falling sky. It is an oven.

COVID-19 isn't as efficient a killer as is Foxy Loxy's oven, but it is something to avoid. 

[pbrower2a]

It is worth reminding people that there has been absolutely NO surge in covid deaths in blue America (with a small number of local exceptions).

It never ceases to amaze me how after all this time, so many people STILL do not understand that hospitalizations and deaths lag cases.

In economics: a leading indicator is an economic measure or statistic that usually presages economic change. Leading indicators:

Components of the Conference Board's Leading Economic Indicators Index

Average weekly hours (manufacturing) — Adjustments to the working hours of existing employees are usually made in advance of new hires or layoffs, which is why the measure of average weekly hours is a leading indicator for changes in unemployment.

Average weekly initial jobless claims for unemployment insurance — The CB reverses the value of this component from positive to negative because a positive reading indicates a loss in jobs. The initial jobless-claims data is more sensitive to business conditions than other measures of unemployment, and as such leads the monthly unemployment data released by the U.S. Department of Labor.

Manufacturers' new orders for consumer goods/materials — This component is considered a leading indicator because increases in new orders for consumer goods and materials usually mean positive changes in actual production. The new orders decrease inventory and contribute to unfilled orders, a precursor to future revenue.

Vendor performance (slower deliveries diffusion index) — This component measures the time it takes to deliver orders to industrial companies. Vendor performance leads the business cycle because an increase in delivery time can indicate rising demand for manufacturing supplies. Vendor performance is measured by a monthly survey from the National Association of Purchasing Managers (NAPM). This diffusion index measures one-half of the respondents reporting no change and all respondents reporting slower deliveries.

Manufacturers' new orders for non-defense capital goods — As stated above, new orders lead the business cycle because increases in orders usually mean positive changes in actual production and perhaps rising demand. This measure is the producer's counterpart of new orders for consumer goods/materials component (#3).

Building permits for new private housing units.

Stock prices of 500 common stocks — Equity market returns are considered a leading indicator because changes in stock prices reflect investors' expectations for the future of the economy and interest rates.

Corporate equities as leading indicator with respect to GDP.

Money Supply (M2) — The money supply measures demand deposits, traveler's checks, savings deposits, currency, money market accounts, and small-denomination time deposits. Here, M2 is adjusted for inflation by means of the deflator published by the federal government in the GDP report. Bank lending, a factor contributing to account deposits, usually declines when inflation increases faster than the money supply, which can make economic expansion more difficult. Thus, an increase in demand deposits will indicate expectations that inflation will rise, resulting in a decrease in bank lending and an increase in savings.

Interest rate spread (10-year Treasury vs. Federal Funds target) — The interest rate spread is often referred to as the yield curve and implies the expected direction of short-, medium- and long-term interest rates. Changes in the yield curve have been the most accurate predictors of downturns in the economic cycle. This is particularly true when the curve becomes inverted, that is, when the longer-term returns are expected to be less than the short rates.

Index of consumer expectations — This is the only component of the leading indicators that is based solely on expectations. This component leads the business cycle because consumer expectations can indicate future consumer spending or tightening. The data for this component comes from the University of Michigan's Survey Research Center, and is released once a month.

coincident indicators:

There are four economic statistics comprising the Index of Coincident Economic Indicators:[5]

Number of employees on non-agricultural payrolls

Personal income less transfer payments

Industrial production

Manufacturing and trade sale

The Philadelphia Federal Reserve produces state-level coincident indexes based on 4 state-level variables:[6]

Nonfarm payroll employment

Average hours worked in manufacturing

Unemployment rate

Wage and salary disbursements deflated by the consumer price index (U.S. city average)

lagging indicators:

The components on the Conference Board's index are:

The average duration of unemployment (inverted)

The value of outstanding commercial and industrial loans

The change in the Consumer Price Index for services

The change in labour cost per unit of output

The ratio of manufacturing and trade inventories to sales

The ratio of consumer credit outstanding to personal income

The average prime rate charged by banks

Non-indicators

height of hem lines
whether the American League or National League team last won the World Series

Kind of like how, just a few pages back in this thread and just a week ago, people STILL didn't think that deaths would rise in Florida and Texas when cases were rising there but hospitalizations/deaths were still lagging (spoiler: they are rising now).

Deaths follow hospitalizations, which themselves follow "positive" tests for COVID-19, which follow activities that foster infections.

[pbrower2a]

I can’t agree with this either.
Once you are vaccinated, the threat of covid is much less than the threat of the flu or any number of other virus.

(checks notes)

Yup, completely ignoring long COVID.

Not to mention ignoring various other things such as potential future viral evolution, the unknown degree to which vaccine efficacy declines over time, and the fact that the efficacy of booster is still unknown (we can be hopeful, but hope is not a plan). But let's focus on long COVID, because that is IMO pretty clearly the most significant risk for young healthy vaccinated people, and it is a significant risk that you underestimate at your own peril.


Among other things, people who have been infected with COVID have been found by the most comprehensive study so far to have lost a couple of IQ points as a result (with small losses even:

https://www.news.com.au/technology/science/human-body/british-study-finds-intelligence-hindered-by-coronavirus/news-story/980383a23c88a98a97de8dc18e6f5a02

That includes mild cases where you naively wouldn't expect any serious long-lasting damage.



Is brain damage a significant thing?

Yup, loss of a few IQ points seems to be pretty serious and worth being careful to avoid. I value my brain. But maybe that is just me.

A loss of cognitive ability could affect one's ability to hold an existing job or get a new one whether after losing a job or as an entrant to the workforce. Performance on most jobs has a correlation with IQ, and this is especially so for the lowest-skilled work. Most jobs are designed for people of dull-normal intelligence, and the difference of six points is the difference between dull-normal intelligence and mental retardation. People with IQ's under 90 can do rigidly-supervised, highly-routine toil... but go below 80 and the needs for supervision and the quality of performance drops off. Even in very menial work, a domestic servant with an IQ of 100 (average) is far more desirable than a domestic servant with an IQ of 80 (marginal).

Add to this: dull-normal IQ's are highly-correlated with crime.

Can people who are vaccinated get long COVID? Does vaccination lower your chances of getting long COVID?

Yes, people who are vaccinated definitely get long COVID (including from very mild cases). The chances are not really well known yet, but a study a few days ago found that being vaccinated lowered the chance of getting long COVID by about 50%. Don't get me wrong, that is better than 0%, and I would gladly take 50% over 0%, but that is not the reduction from the base risk one would hope for. The base risk of long COVID is something like 10-30% (fairly wide variation because it has not been as well studied as one would hope and also long COVID is still not that clearly defined). A 50% reduction of that would put you at 5-15% chance of getting long COVID from a breakthrough infection. Another Israeli study a couple of days ago found that ~19% of vaccinated breakthrough infections resulted in long COVID (although small sample and this was a study of medical personnel/nurses, so it may not be representative of the general public).

This is like the argument that I once saw against using seat belts: one might avoid death but one might have a greater chance of surviving severely crippled instead of being killed on the spot. (The truth is that one is more likely to survive the crash and be in a condition in which to get out of the car. If one has a seat belt on one is more likely to be able to exit a car that might eventually catch fire.

So those both seem in the same general sort of range, but new information continues to come out and that is not at all determinate yet.

We have yet to know all the damage that COVID-19 can do. Cancer and birth defects are not yet established as consequences, but I would not be surprised about either.

But anything remotely like a 5-15% chance is not a small chance. It is in a totally different league from the chance of death for e.g. young vaccinated people from COVID, and given the symptoms one would be foolish to ignore that.

You take the best risks. Should there ever be a serious war in which large cities face incendiary attacks, then getting a dangerous job as a miner or lumberjack far outside of a large city so that one is not in some city that will become a fireball might be a rational choice in life.  

Is the risk and/or severity of long COVID higher with Delta than with previous variants?

This is not yet known because not enough time has passed with the Delta variant being dominant. But it would be sort of surprising if that were NOT the case, given that everything else about the Delta variant seems to be worse.

Until all communities are mass0inoculated, COVID-19 has plenty of opportunity of morphing into more contagious variants no less deadly... and perhaps that can circumvent existing vaccinations, which would put us back at the start. Yuck!  

Is there any precedent for this?

Yup, there was the same sort of thing with SARS-1. "Long SARS":

https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Outcomes+of+SARS+survivors+in+China%3a+not+only+physical+and...-a0369220546

There were studies ~10 years after SARS-1 that found that many SARS-1 survivors still had serious symptoms. I would be very interested to see follow-up on how they are doing today (and also how SARS-1 survivors have fared against COVID), but I haven't seen any such studies yet.

Just remember: COVID-19 is actually SARS-2. Much remains speculation, but peer-reviewed statistical studies already establish that getting inoculated is the best way of defending oneself. That is all that I need.

Is the cumulative probability of getting long COVID higher if you are re-infected with COVID, as GeorgiaModerate's relative was, higher than if you are only infected with COVID a single time?

I don't think we know yet, but it would stand to reason that to some extent or another, the answer to that is yes. We don't yet know if it is a great extent or a small extent.

We do not yet know all the sequelae, including resurgences, of COVID-19. Venereal diseases, mononucleosis, rheumatic fever, and even chickenpox (shingles) have long-term effects.

And frankly, covid is likely going to be with us forever.  If you are vaccinated and still afraid of covid, you are going to be living in fear your entire life.

What exactly do you mean by "living in fear"?

Analogy: if you ever get a stroke or a heart attack, you live in fear of another one for the rest of your life.

For example, when I drive a car, I am aware that there is a chance of getting into a car accident and dying or getting seriously injured (as well as killing or seriously injuring other people). This is something that I would like to avoid. Consequently, when I am driving I try to drive carefully and defensively, avoid excessive speeding especially in environments when it is unsafe, be sure to look over my shoulder when changing lanes, be careful about passing on single lane roads, etc. And yes, I do wear my seatbelt also. And when making travel plans for any long cross-country journeys, one small factor that I consider in deciding whether to fly or drive is the fact that flights are safer. So, am I "living in fear" of car accidents?

Not driving drunk or angry (driving while angry is hard to quantify as it does not have any BAC to measure it) or while drowsy is big trouble. I know about all three, the latter two from experience.  

I have been taking and intend to keep on taking similar sorts of efficacious but low cost precautions with regards to COVID. They are not going to be 100% effective, but if everyone did this it would make a difference.

Wearing a mask, frequent hand-washing, sanitizing surfaces, and avoiding high-risk activities is still easy. I dread ending up as a prisoner of a ventilator.

This behavior does have a cost. I probably get to my destination a few seconds slower. So, am I "living in fear"? After all, I am changing my behavior based upon risk and cost-benefit analysis. If there were 0 risk of car accidents and the like, then I would instead always drive as fast as I could, swerve to change lanes recklessly, and as a result could save some small amounts of time on my car trips (also giving me less time to listen to NPR tho ).

I find that the "p@$$hole" who couldn't wait to get ahead of me because I am driving at a speed that he dislikes (the speed limit) often ends up just before me at the same stoplight. Hardy har-har!

And frankly, covid is likely going to be with us forever.

If you get long COVID, yes, it could be with you forever. It would kind of suck to have chronic fatigue for potentially as long as the rest of your life, to name one symptom of long COVID. You know what that means, "chronic fatigue"? It doesn't just mean you are tired. The name makes it sound far less bad than it is. To anyone who doesn't know, look it up. Or honestly, maybe don't look it up. I would sort of rather not know that it exists and is a significant possibility, in a way.

I don't want anything at all approaching a 5-15% chance of that from infection. That is way too high of a chance to just sit back and passively accept.
[/quote]

It probably won't.

[pbrower2a]

https://twitter.com/natalie_allison/status/1425449438202548224

Does anyone really not believe by now that the Republican Party isn't trying to start another insurrection? We're getting micro versions of it all over the country over similarly stupid wedge issue bulls****: this, critical race theory, QAnon, take your pick. It's getting old, but not getting any less startling and depressing.

I think we're way past "trying to start". While the shape of our emerging domestic conflict will be different from past struggles here and elsewhere, future historians will likely put the start somewhere around April 30th 2020 (the armed assault on the Michigan capital), if they don't just use Trump's election as the demarcation point.

Those of us who aren't Republicultists need to come to terms with reality; we are in the early stages of a novel sort of civil war. It's an ugly reality, but refusing to face it makes us no better than the right-wingers denying climate change and COVID.

We could be closer to the end than to the beginning.

We have had a cold civil war from just after the end of the 2007-2009 economic meltdown, with America tending into two hostile and exclusive camps that want nothing to do with each other. We have one clearly left-wing Party and one clearly right-wing Party, with the most liberal Senator from  the Republican Party (Susan Collins) more to the right than the most conservative member of the Democratic Party (Joe Manchin). The divide is heavily regional.

I see the January 6 insurrection as the "now or never" moment for the Right, when (how many were involved?) put their lives, reputations, economic opportunities, wealth, and freedom on the lines on behalf of a leader in which they had unswerving faith. 

[pbrower2a]

People not already inoculated are getting scared -- enough that more people who rejected it before are taking the needle.