My kids attend a university in Canada and live in residence on campus. They have had incredibly strict rules around masking and gatherings. It's clear that they are only considering one variable - number of infections - and it seems like they aren't considering any other factors.
For example, in the dorm there is a common area with a piano. Because of COVID, playing that piano is banned. Even if there was a reasonable danger of contracting COVID from a piano, there are also mental health benefits to playing music. It doesn't feel like the piano ban is in the best interests of the people who live there and I don't think the people who set the rules care because they can't measure that. They can only measure infections.
This is the fundamental issue with coronavirus mitigation measures. There are circumstances in which "drop everything" makes sense - if coronavirus were ten times more fatal, we'd do it naturally.
But in general, looking at life from a perspective of "what is the minimum possible quality of life we can have" is depressing and fundamentally incompatible with the human spirit.
I tend to think that people who operate in this way are subhuman, in the genuine sense of the word - they seem more like bureaucratic automatons than living beings with spirits and hopes and dreams.
Like, yeah, I will take the risk of contracting coronavirus to play the piano, because I want the piano in my life. The piano is what life is, life is not simply breathing and eating.
For two years we’ve been asked to park our problems and to act like literally all that matters is the spread of Covid. Nothing else matters. Just a myopic fixation on the spread of one highly infectious respiratory virus.
Even a year after vaccines we are still being asked to treat Covid like it is the #1 priority in our lives. More important than our well being, our mental health, our communities, our children, or anything else.
Heaven help you if your value system is incompatible with such an idea. Be prepared to be yelled at, called names, lose your career, and become marginalized.
How about if you have anxiety issues and the reduced inflow of air from masks gives you panic attacks? This has been my life for this pandemic. I take medication but it does not stop them 100% from happening, and I have to use anti-anxiety techniques most times I put one on to stop from being overwhelmed by anticipation. Does anyone care about people like me? It sure feels like they don't. And I have seen my physical and mental condition degrade largely due to this (I was never personally panicked by the virus itself). There are others like me and it is deeply upsetting that we have to suffer like this.
[ EDIT: other commenters response to this comment made me go look up some original research on the topic. As a result, I fully retract what I've said below. I found several papers that report substantial restrictions of airflow from wearing a correctly fitted N95 mask.
I was wrong, and I apologize for the misinformation. I did try to explicitly say that I was not doubting someone's experiences, but I apologize for appearing to do that too. I've left the text up because that seems more honest. ]
I do not want to seek to diminish your very real anxiety and panic issues.
But you should be aware that there is no actual reduced inflow of air due to mask wearing, certainly not one that you would detect physiologically. In 2020, there were numerous demonstrations of this, both with actual measurements (lung volume, blood oxygen etc.) and with more anecdotal illustrations such as vigorous exercise even while wearing multiple masks.
Your mental conditions matter, and I hope you are able find ways to live reasonably happily without too much anxiety.
You must be joking!
Have you tried exercising with surgical mask or N95 respirator?
I train regularly with N95 since Omicron started and they definitely negatively affect airflow and aerobic exercise performance. N95 respirator even more than surgical mask. I am used to them and don't have anxiety, but they aren't comfortable at all. They also affect temperature of air that you are inhaling as it mixes inside the mask with the hot air that you exhale, increasing your rest and cooldown time.
Pure, unadulterated BS. I was in the hospital for a few days last year (unrelated to Covid) and as part of the standard discharge process, I had to walk around (with a mask on) while my blood oxygen was measured. It was slightly low, so the nurse said "take off your mask for a second" and sure enough, it popped right back up to normal. She said she sees it with almost everyone.
You're breathing in less air, and more CO2. There is no way it's not going to have an impact.
What are you talking about with masks not restricting airflow, totally not correct and absolute misinformation. Here is what happens when you wear a mask while exercising hard:
I do not want to seek to diminish your very real belief that my issues are not real. But they are. My panic attacks in public started when I had to wear masks. When I am anxious or stressed, my breathing shallows. When this happens and I am wearing a mask, i have even less airflow coming in. I have tested this by simply lowering my mask, and examining how much air enters my nasal cavity. It is a huge difference. Or, I should say, it makes a huge difference to my mental state, even if the change in oxygen is relatively small.
My psychiatrist, therapist and gp all confirmed this.
Frankly, you should trust people with these actual conditions. We are living it, you aren't.
I tried to explicitly state that I believe that your mental experiences are real and worthy of attention and care.
> I should say, it makes a huge difference to my mental state, even if the change in oxygen is relatively small.
This is the key point. The change in airflow and oxygen is extremely small. None of that means your mental state does not change when wearing a mask, but it is probably useful to understand that this is not due to a physiological process involving less oxygen/air.
The key point is that you are wrong. It is absolutely due to a physiological process. You are telling me that it is "all in my head," and that it is impossible that a cloth mask over my face restricts my airflow. I am telling you it isn't.
>I tried to explicitly state that I believe that your mental experiences are real and worthy of attention and care.
I appreciate that. But you should be aware that people with anxiety hear this all the time. "What you believe is true matters. And is important. Now, having said that..." it isn't helpful and not really all that respectful, really. I can tell you with 100% certainty that restricting my breathing gives me anxiety. Not the idea of it, but the actual act itself. And that I feel less air entering my body, and more anxiety, when I wear masks. Other people have said the exact same thing happens to them in this thread. It's your choice who to believe.
Edit: saw your edit. Maybe it's not "oxygen," per se, and another chemical is to blame. That would be helpful, if I knew the exact mechanism! But unfortunately, not very useful in solving the mask/anxiety issue. I've opted just to get a shitty mask (in medical terms) that will suit me, for my health needs.
I wonder if the shallowed breathing is a physiological response that only some of us experience while wearing masks. It could explain why there are two very different experiences for people when masked.
I fortunately don't experience panic attacks from wearing a mask, but I will consistently get a headache from wearing one. And it's the same-feeling kind of headache I get from being in another enclosed space without air circulation.
It could be. To me it doesn't feel like there is a difference in the cadence of my breathing, after I put the mask on. I simply have less oxygen coming in. I probably should be breathing more deeply, all the time! Then perhaps the mask wouldn't make a noticeable difference. But after a lifetime of dealing with anxiety, I've learned to trust my body. My mind can lie to me when im anxious, but my body generally doesn't.
Not disagreeing with any of your comments about masks; but FWIW, as another person with a diagnosed & medicated anxiety disorder, your (our) body(ies) absolutely do lie to us. It's an inappropriate physiological response (fight/flight/etc) to stimuli. The panic response _is the lie_. It was that realization/training through therapy that helped make my disorder manageable, knowing that just because my body thinks it's in danger of dying doesn't mean it actually is.
You're right. I think I meant that examining my body's responses can give me a quicker realization of "something is wrong (meaning my anxiety is out-of-proportion)" than examining my mental processes can; because I can get trapped in that anxious loop of thinking about thinking, and worrying about worrying. So it doesn't "lie" to me, that way.
But the only way to truly get over anxiety is like you say, you've got to realize that all of it is exaggerated and false, and you've got to just "let it go." It really does get easier. The pandemic has made it harder again and I resent it.
Yeah, this matches my experience as well. The air simply feels less.. airy. Like I can't get a deep enough breath. I'd love to understand the science behind it.
"Polypropylene is a commonly used material for N95 type respirators. In order for small particles to get through a filter composed of interlaced layers of polypropylene fibers, they have to wind through a rather tortuous path and as a result would likely be trapped in the material." [0]
Have you tried using a plastic mask insert/bracket? I find them very helpful. It lifts the mask off my mouth and nose, so the mask doesn't feel as constricting and I no longer suck in cloth when I'm breathing harder.
Blood-oxygen level is not relevant when it comes to mental well-being. I have the exact same problem as the parent commenter. I've tried exercising with a mask (cloth and surgical), and it feels like getting waterboarded (because the mask inevitably becomes soaked in sweat).
It causes a great amount of anxiety for me, and literally feels like torture. I don't care about what lung volume/blood oxygen "studies" say.
I am double vaxed+boosted, and I still wear a mask everywhere I'm required to which includes still going to the gym 3-4 times a week.
My gym has gone back and forth between masks being required or not with the case count. I know I've read everything about airflow being fine, and there being no reduced oxygen intake, but having worked out with and without a mask depending on location in the past 2 years I can attest anecdotally as somebody with no health problems that even if only anecdotal it is way more taxing/difficult to recover breath when working out with a mask on, and can be borderline anxiety/torture especially after very intense sets or cardiovascular effort.
It easily takes me at least a couple more minutes to recover my breath/rest in between very hard sets of heavy squats for instance as compared to when not wearing a mask.
As an aside, have you noticed any improvements from training with a mask on? Is it like how runners might train at high altitude, so when you come back to normal levels you are more efficient?
A good while back I looked at restrictors for training and my recollection is they didn't show any benefit in studies. Unclear why. They're a lot tougher than any respirator I've tried so I wouldn't expect the respirator to have any benefit that direction. Altitude tents apparently do work but are more trouble and risk than I'm comfortable with.
The only thing I could say is I have improved some at working out with a mask on, but it's still noticeable by a large margin more difficult to recover my breath/energy than without.
I don't think I've generally seen that transfer over to performance without one though.
>Pressure drop is a measure of the resistance that the air meets as it flows through the respirator filter and into the mask. This is important because the pressure drop affects the comfort and breathability of the mask- specifically a lower pressure drop is desirable as it translates to increased breathability and thus comfort.
> On average, those that have high filtration efficiency are also the ones with the largest pressure drop, which make it difficult to breath.
I'm aware not everyone is wearing a N95 or better respirator, but the metric applies to all masks.
Surely there is, at minimum, an unstated variable here like "effort required to inhale the same volume of air"? Or the composition of the air?
I'm not an expert in this area, but as someone who "feels" like I'm getting less oxygen and is willing to consider that my body is tricking me, help me understand.
edit: I shouldn't have to say this, but I'll mention I'm vaccinated+boosted and have complied with the mask mandates. I just don't understand these unintuitive claims.
There is no way that you are not having your intake of air restricted by putting a piece of cloth or fabric over your face. For the average person it probably doesn't make a difference in the way their body or mind works. But small changes can and do make a huge difference in people who are not neurotypical, or have breathing issues due to their sinuses.
That is my assertion as well. The simple physics of it require that filtering air effectively will reduce the air-for-effort. If you're not experiencing this, you're pulling air from around the sides of your mask.
(Note that not noticing it is not the same as not experiencing it.)
the retraction is appreciated but, if you'll excuse me for saying so, the fact that you thought this at all shows that we're well into "brainwashing" territory with this mask nonsense.
it should be beyond obvious to any neutral observer that putting a covering over one's nose and mouth will affect their breathing airflow, especially so when exercising. you don't even have to try it yourself to intuit this, it's just common sense. but once you have tried it, there should be zero doubt in your mind that your breathing airflow is affected, especially if you're actually going out of your way to ensure that you've sealed the mask on your face properly.
I don't say this to shame or disparage you specifically, but instead to point out how people, broadly, are having their thoughts programmed, on a massive scale, to truly believe things that are obviously contradictory to reality.
> the fact that you thought this at all shows that we're well into "brainwashing" territory with this mask nonsense.
I don't agree with that. As noted, blood oxygen levels for most people are not changed by mask wearing (presumably, most of us just add the extra 20-30% effort to keep the airflow up and/or were nowhere near close to requiring the full breath).
> once you have tried it, there should be zero doubt in your mind that your breathing airflow is affected
As some comments in the main thread here have noted, masks like the 3M Aura+ (which I've been wearing for a few months now) really do not have much impact on breathing airflow. My actual experience of wearing KN95's and N95's even while running is that I do not feel that my airflow is impacted at all. My mistake was to combine that actual personal experience together with data on physiological state while wearing masks (not changed much in most people) and make the false claim that there was no impact on airflow.
Some of those comments noted that the construction and fit of the mask can make a huge difference - damp cloth masks, for example, do seem to have an outsize impact. I have never used cloth masks during the pandemic, and I live in an exceedingly dry climate, so people I know who have worn them have not commented much on the effects of them being damp.
So, no, I do not agree that what I said (even while actually false) was "obviously contradictory to reality".
when you put a thing over your nose and mouth, it negatively affects how well you can breathe. depending on the material and how much you're currently breathing (exerting yourself or not, healthy or not), it may be a little, it may be a lot. this is basic common sense intuition, and propaganda about the effectiveness and/or necessity of masks of any description should not preclude you from continuing to hold these basic observable truths in your mind.
> presumably, most of us just add the extra 20-30% effort to keep the airflow up and/or were nowhere near close to requiring the full breath
how can this be considered negligible under any circumstances? even if the observed difference in effort required seems negligible for you personally, why would it be the same for everyone? I can think of many, many reasons why 20–30% additional effort to breathe can be extremely impactful for many different people with different personal circumstances.
Put a tennis racket in front of your face. Does it impede airflow? I think the answer is clearly no.
Put a plastic bag over the your nose and mouth? Does it impede airflow? I think the answer is clear yes.
Put a food sieve over your mouth and nose. Does it impede airflow? I think the answer is probably no, but there's room for doubt.
Clearly, something placed over your mouth and nose does not necessarily impede airflow - it depends on the properties of the material it is made of. Some materials obviously have no impact, some have a lot, others are inbetween.
So the question is: why you conclude without careful measurement that a given mask would impede airflow? Presumably you have some intuition about the material and what you know about its properties ("It stops X percent of all particles above a certain size!") that lead you to conclude that it's somewhere between a food sieve and plastic bag, rather than a tennis racket and a food sieve. But there's no "common sense" here. How can Goretex fabric allow water vapor to pass freely, but not allow water in liquid phase to pass at all? You cannot explain that using common sense, but again, you have some intuition that you can use common sense to reason about the properties of masks.
I should also stress that the 20-30% number comes from a 2009 paper on the reduction in airflow. The increase in breathing effort could be less than that, unchanged or more than that, depending on a large number of factors. Example: sitting on a sofa in a comfortable temperature and being very relaxed ... you are already breathing fairly shallowly, and the increase required to overcome whatever effect the mask has will move you only to a condition you are in very regularly anyway, and so will likely be unnoticeable (there's also the "X percent of a small number is a small number" aspect). By contrast, if you are exercising near V02max levels and in excellent cardiovascular condition, you are likely already breathing almost as hard as you can, and so breathing harder due to reduced airflow is likely to challenging to impossible.
"no actual reduced inflow of air due to mask wearing, certainly not one that you would detect physiologically."
Depends on how you measure it and what you mean by physiologically detect. Generally, the resistance of breathing through a ("good") mask is not automatically detectable, but does exist and one could detect it if they are attentive. Your body tends to increase tidal volume and/or respiration rate because of the rebreathing of the stale under the mask. There are certainly studies that measure the physiological effects, such that we set 15 minute and 8 hour limits on CO2 exposure etc.
Granted it's largely not an issue, but it's not necessarily correct to say that it offers no restriction and no physiological changes.
"EDIT: other commenters response to this comment made me go look up some original research on the topic. As a result, I fully retract what I've said below. I found several papers that report substantial restrictions of airflow from wearing a correctly fitted N95 mask."
Well put. I’m a 29 year old male who moved to a new city right before covid and my life has basically been put on hold for two years now with my only access to meeting potential partners being Tinder (or bars, I suppose.) All the activities I try to join (other than my BJJ classes) are remote. Chess club is remote (might as well just play chess.com) my bipolar support group is remote, etc.
I am very curious, which city? I moved to NYC in early pandemic and have had an extremely robust dating and social life. Even in 2020 dating was not difficult here. And for the past year or so life has been 95% normal, with big events, shows, packed bars, etc.
I have to assume you live on the West Coast. I have spent a couple months in and around SF during pandemic, but I live in NYC and have travelled to many other places.
The West Coast experience seems to be a singularly restrictive experience. I'd hesitate to assume the entire nation is experiencing things the same way as you describe them (they are not). Though it does seem like many students across the nation are getting the super-restrictive experience as well.
It also depends where on the West Coast you live, of course. It's more of a city/rural divide.
I live south of Seattle. Seattle is restrictive, everybody outside is wearing masks, many restaurants are still take-out only, business are open for limited hours.
But you go 40 minutes south to, say, Puyallup, and the COVID restrictions are much more relaxed (if present at all).
> Puyallup, and the COVID restrictions are much more relaxed (if present at all).
Meanwhile, the medical group I work for in Seattle is being absolutely swamped by patients being transferred from overwhelmed hospital and urgent care facilities in Pierce and Thurston counties. We've had to stop doing anything but COVID-related care and the only reason we have the capacity to do that is because we don't operate an emergency room so we can't take on the worst-of-the-worst cases.
According to our daily COVID update report, we have a handful of patients who gave residence addresses--we ask for this because the county and state departments of health want it for statistics, among other reasons--inside Seattle and just a few more inside King County.
It's a very stressful time for many of us, and it isn't helped by the disparity in level of care, let's say, over COVID prevention measures even inside the region.
I'm sure it is. In my experience, the willingness to be vaccinated is directly, if loosely, correlated with the willingness to do other COVID prevention measures, like wearing any form of face covering properly (as in, over the nose and mouth as opposed to a chin diaper) when in an enclosed setting.
Because we are a not-for-profit medical group that receives funding from the federal government, we are covered by the vaccinate-or-test requirement from CMMS. In my department, IT, we had two employees quit over it; both of them live in Pierce County. Meanwhile, all of us (so far as I know, obviously I am not privy to everyone's medical records so I am going off of what is claimed and who remains employed with us) who live inside Seattle were fully vaccinated months before the requirement took effect.
I'm also sorry if I come across as unsympathetic or uncaring. Even though I "just work with the computers," this has not been easy for me or my department, and I have seen nurses and doctors I have worked with for years and become work friends with reach and then exceed burnout and press on anyway out of a sense of duty and obligation.
So it is just a bit disheartening to read yet another thread on Hacker News where people keep insisting we'll just have to live with it and this is just how things are now and the West Coast is obviously bad because we've tried to put this godforsaken virus first of mind for stamping out. I know we're past being able to eradicate it, but to just throw up our hands and say "well, even a disposable mask with earloops is JUST TOO MUCH" makes me deeply sad.
I'm sorry for the difficulty you and your coworkers are facing, it can't be fun. I worked for six years in direct patient care and I know what it's like when my ward is filled an how exhausting it is.
Sometimes we lose a bit of the big picture in that situation though. It helps to take a look at the actual numbers.
In Pierce County, WA the hospitals have only recently exceeded bed capacity warranting transfers [1], in the past week there was an 8% excess capacity, the total bed capacity of Pierce County is ~460, and last week there were 125 covid admissions. The ICU is not at capacity, it's at 92%, which is typically where ICU utilization sits, if a hospital is profitable.
Pierce County has a new infection rate of about 3.5k per 100,000 [2]. The population of Pierce County is almost 1 million, which gives about 35,000 total case infections for 14 days. Of roughly 35,000 infections, there were 125 admissions over the past week. For excess capacity transfer patients, the number is somewhere around 35 to 40 people.
That's certainly enough to feel a strain with when you're working there day to day, but from the average Pierce County resident who's chance of admission in a given week (not age or health adjusted) of 0.000125, I think it's understandable why they may not feel like participating in all of the restrictive measures.
> but from the average Pierce County resident who's chance of admission in a given week (not age or health adjusted) of 0.000125, I think it's understandable why they may not feel like participating in all of the restrictive measures.
I know (and I don't mean that in a sarcastic way, I do agree with you), and I get it. In our practice's case, we're not taking transfers of patients who would be in the ED/ER (we don't have those facilities), we're taking patients who are in for the "long COVID" type symptoms or who need other kinds of longer-term care. I think, though I don't know for sure, that some hospitals in Pierce and Thurston are asking outfits like ours to take patients prior to the ICU getting full so those hospitals can leave a spare bed or two for the true emergency cases.
I guess what I'm saying is it feels like so many of us on the "invisible" end, from medical providers to service workers to public health officials to warehouse folks to all the rest, are expending so much effort to keep things going that to hear people complain that their wellbeing is impacted because they have to exercise behind a mask six days a week just...falls flat. And I feel guilty even typing that out because MENTAL HEALTH IS ABSOLUTELY IMPORTANT and for some people that does mean physical exercise and yes anxiety CAN result from mask wearing. But it seems like there are those who genuinely experience those symptoms, and then there are those who are hiding their petulant "I don't wanna and you can't make me nyah" behind claiming those symptoms. And the overlap between the latter group and the group of people who flatly refuse to be vaccinated so that we can all dump these masks and rules is damn near a circle.
Anyway, I think we largely agree, and I'm just tired, but not as tired as some.
Just to throw my anecdote into the ring -- I live in a mid sized city in the midwest. People have largely stopped wearing masks since about March of last year in all places except for hospitals (and even then it's just those crappy generic blue masks). My GF and I actually had a bit of culture shock when we took a trip to Chicago a few weeks ago and 95%+ people were wearing masks everywhere they went, along with private businesses requiring masks and proof of vaccination.
It's not like the people around here aren't aware of COVID-19 and the subsequent variants, we just kind of moved on.
The north star for most countries and cities has always been cases over hospitalizations or deaths. With vaccine intake high in most developed countries a covid infection is like a cold or a bad flu for some. I think the time has come to rethink this goal of cases being a metric to shut down everything and let society return to some sense of normalcy while still maintaining a safety mandate for those with special conditions(who could potentially die from covid).
Another thing to note, the CDC has mentioned that cloth masks are not effective against omnicron, I know this firsthand as my whole family wore them and we all spread it to each other as the masks did not stop the spread despite hospital levels of disinfection and extreme precaution. With that being said most kids masks are cloth and surgical masks or n95/kn95 masks(cdc says these are effective) are not made for little kids. So whats going on is kids are forced to wear masks that will not protect them against omicron.
Lastly, although the sample size is low my daughter and other kids in her class got covid and had zero symptoms or very minor ones at worst(they were all fully vaccinated) so I wonder what is the benefit of these extreme precautions that don't really seem relevant based on government health declarations(cloth masks don't work, kids[who don't have serious medical issues] have good protection against covid due to age).
Sounds like you are on a path to awakening so I don't want to discourage you, but it might be worth sharing additional data and context to parts of your comment.
>With vaccine intake high in most developed countries a covid infection is like a cold or a bad flu for some.
That may be more driven by the mildness of Omicron than it is by the protective effect of the vaccine. For example, the latest data show that vaccinated (but not boosted) are getting sick and dying at higher rates than unvaccinated. One source (14 per 100k vs 10 per 100k): https://publichealthscotland.scot/media/11318/22-01-26-covid...
>Another thing to note, the CDC has mentioned that cloth masks are not effective against omnicron
This is something that is in all likelihood not variant-specific. In other words, cloth masks were always ineffective, however with the increased transmissibility of Omicron, this fact of ineffectiveness has become readily apparent.
You're taking 14 vs 10 from table 15 on page 50 on the report. Page 51 says:
> The rates in Table 15 should not be used as a measures of vaccine effectiveness due to unaccounted for biases and risk factors.
The age-standardized morality rates you mentioned are for just the week of Jan 8-14 (though the same pattern is visible for earlier weeks). But, you didn't mention 3-dose stats with show the opposite pattern:
- Unvaccinated: 16/1.5m raw; 10/100k age adj
- 2-dose: 33/1m raw; 14/100k age adj
- 3-dose: 71/3m raw; 1.5/100k age adj
You can't infer the protectiveness of vaccination in elders directly from this age-adjusted mortality data because Scotland has 100% 2+ dose coverage in those age 60+. The unvaccinated group only includes people under 60 while the vaccinated group includes both. You have to use other observations to judge the protective effect.
(In reality the number is a bit under 100% because the denominator and the numerator are not linked together. They're tracking sum totals, not individual people.)
To put it more directly, the same document states (on page 36):
In the last week from 08 January 2022 to 14 January 2022, in an age-standardised
population, the COVID-19 related death rate in individuals that received a booster or
third dose of a COVID-19 vaccine was between 3.2 to 9.4 times lower than
individuals who are unvaccinated or have only received one or two doses of a
COVID-19 vaccine
You pulled a quote that compares boosted vs unvaccinated/one/two doses, and that is not the comparison I was making. It's possible that I'm misinterpreting the data, but you didn't show it right there.
From December 11 to January 7, 2022, 107 patients died in Scotland who were vaccinated twice.
Most of them (more than 95 percent) received the second dose more than six months before their deaths. As many as 96 percent of them "had other health complications that contributed to their deaths," the PHS report said. Their average age was 78.1 years.
Please do not cherry-pick data that has hidden confounding variables. The data DOES NOT SHOW that vaccinated (but not boosted) are getting sick and dying at higher rates than unvaccinated. You are being severely misleading with your statements as “facts”.
Most importantly “In the last week from 08 January 2022 to 14 January 2022, in an age-standardised population, the COVID-19 related death rate in individuals that received a booster or third dose of a COVID-19 vaccine was between 3.2 to 9.4 times lower than individuals who are unvaccinated or have only received one or two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine.”. That directly contradicts your “fact”, and the reason is the simple one that your numbers are not standardised for age i.e. more older people are vaccinated so more vaccinated people die. This should not need to be repeated ad nausium. Pay attention to the facts and please stop misrepresenting the truth.
From page 34 of that report:
“PLEASE READ BEFORE REVIEWING THE FOLLOWING TABLES AND FIGURES There is a large risk of misinterpretation of the data presented in this section due to the complexities of vaccination data. A blog post by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), formerly Public Health England (PHE), provides a comprehensive explanation of the biases and potential areas for misinterpretation of such data. They state that a simple comparison of COVID-19 case rates in those who are vaccinated and unvaccinated should not be used to assess how effective a vaccine is in preventing serious health outcomes, because there are a number of differences between the groups, other than the vaccine itself, and these biases mean that you cannot use the rates to determine how well the vaccines work.
Below are examples of some of the complexities and biases that need to be taken into consideration when interpreting these data. This is explained in more detail in our blog on the PHS website.” And from page 35: “There are likely to be systematic differences and biases between the vaccinated and unvaccinated groups, such as behaviour, vulnerability and previous infection, that are unaccounted for when comparing rates. As most of the population is vaccinated, these differences become more evident and could create bias in case/hospitalisation/death rates between vaccinated and unvaccinated population.”
>Most importantly “In the last week from 08 January 2022 to 14 January 2022, in an age-standardised population, the COVID-19 related death rate in individuals that received a booster or third dose of a COVID-19 vaccine was between 3.2 to 9.4 times lower than individuals who are unvaccinated or have only received one or two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine.”. That directly contradicts your “fact”,
It does? You pulled a quote that compares boosted vs unvaccinated/one/two doses, and that is not the comparison I was making. It's possible that I'm misinterpreting the data, but you didn't show it right there.
> That may be more driven by the mildness of Omicron than it is by the protective effect of the vaccine
So with this one I wonder if the mildness of omicron is due to previous infection/vaccination than the virus itself being mild. Like if omicron came into the scene in 2020 it would have been just as deadly but more infectious. I don't know for certain if this is true but was something I was thinking.
As for this I 100% agree:
> This is something that is in all likelihood not variant-specific. In other words, cloth masks were always ineffective, however with the increased transmissibility of Omicron, this fact of ineffectiveness has become readily apparent.
"Even a year after vaccines we are still being asked to treat Covid like it is the #1 priority in our lives. More important than our well being, our mental health, our communities, our children, or anything else."
Depends on where you live. There are many rural/red areas that are basically back to normal.
> For two years we’ve been asked to park our problems and to act like literally all that matters is the spread of Covid.
The problem is only half the population really followed through. These measures are still needed more because half the population effectively thinks COVID is no big deal or a hoax.
We were never going to stop it. As soon as the "real lockdown" people were calling for in the US in April, 2020 was lifted, the virus would start spreading again since there would always be travel, p999 events, people violating lockdown, and animal reservoirs that would reintroduce it. China is the best case for "following through." It can hold back covid, but only through extensive testing, lockdowns, and border restrictions in perpetuity.
Given US values (e.g. "don't tread on me"), 15% of the population would ignore restrictions. You'd also see the same thing globally, sometimes because of values, sometimes out of economic necessity.
We never had a chance to vaccinate the world quickly enough, either. Up until delta, the mRNA vaccines might have been able to eradicate it, but delta was circulating in India around when those vaccines were approved. The logistics and manufacturing capacity to deliver them to rich countries was still 6 months away.
My parents live in a moderately rural area outside of seattle, i live in seattle. The end of very first week of the lockdown my parents were able to acquire or had already had a few items I could not find in stores in the city. Primarily toilet paper, but a few other items as well.
So I drove over to their place and they leant me some stuff, we were all paranoid so they left the stuff in the garage, I drove up, waved to them on the porch and loaded up my car and headed home. I did need to stop and get gas before getting back on the freeway, at the gas station there was a little mini-mart. There were four people inside, none of them had a mask on. The gas station is next to a Denny's or similar, their dining room was closed but there were people waiting INSIDE and UNMASKED for takeout.
That's why we can't have nice things, even if your town/city collectively was pretty serious about lockdown, the next town over might not be and their citizens are coming into your community to work or whatever else. The only enforcement is the local sherif and if they are a crazy gimme liberty or gimme death type they aren't going to enforce shit.
Yeah, just because it was mandatory doesn't mean people followed through. I live in a very progressive city and we still had many people refusing to follow mask mandates at the height of pre-vaccine pandemic.
People ripping down mask signs, spitting on people, arguing at the doors to a store, etc.
Interesting, I haven't noticed any of that. Maybe my country has a different mentality. I do see some people not having the masks cover their nose, but definitely nowhere near 50%, more like 5% at worst.
I have a feeling that if the same people were tasked with setting road speed limits, they would set it to 20 mph and argue that 30,000 lives will be saved each year. They aren't wrong, but it's misjudging the risk most of us are willing to accept for the benefits of being able to move around quickly.
You are grossly misrepresenting the argument. It is about 30mph inside cities. Which is a great idea, not just for saving lives but for substantially increasing quality of life of everyone living there.
The greatest cause of noise in cities is traffic. Setting a strict speed limit would substantially reduce this. (Also side benefits like better air quality and so on) And traffic would actually flow better, so you might not even reach your destination that much later.
You can be protect your individual freedom at all cost and treat everything as a zero sum game or you can bee cooperative and help build a better world for everyone by compromising a bit.
There are actual attempts to ban cars in my neighbourhood now because some people judge that the marginal effects of air pollution outweigh the enormous benefit of me being able to visit my friends and family in literally a quarter of the time.
These people don't think about benefit. It's only cost. I've come to think of them as simply being depressed, in the chemical imbalance sense.
And here you are making pseudoscientific judgements (chemical imbalance?!) about a huge number of people you've lumped into a group and referred to as "these people."
I'm seriously surprised you haven't been downvoted off this thread.
Referring to other humans as "subhuman" is disrespectful, at best. Where do you get off saying ANYONE isn't a "living being[s] with spirits and hopes and dreams?"
Having different priorities than you do does not make someone "subhuman" and I would seriously reconsider the language you are using.
Perhaps instead I might be following Covid guidelines for the following reasons: so I don't pass the infection onto those who are indeed vulnerable; so I don't overtax an already overtaxed healthcare system and healthcare workers. Part of the ineffable human spirit, IMHO, is altruism: which in this case can manifest as taking on a set of mild day to day inconveniences in order to help others be happier and safer. I do believe altruism is a (not exclusively) human characteristic, which means that part of 'joie de vive', alongside wine, piano playing, etc., is knowing one is doing something for others.
Honestly, I don't think it's as extreme as "if coronavirus were ten times more fatal" that would lead us to naturally take on mitigations. Instead, it would be if the death rate were evenly spread across age groups. Then, the motivation for avoiding some piano playing would be the immediate cost to self or close friends, rather than the abstract cost to some other group.
All that said I am quite sympathetic to the motivation behind your argument, but I believe you and GP are ignoring some motivations people might have for following or being 'bureaucratic automatons'.
At this point, the most vulnerable have a sophisticated arsenal of tools to prevent themselves from being seriously affected by the virus. Vaccines, antivirals, masks like N95 that work to protect the wearer, etc. In my opinion it is no longer the duty of the non-vulnerable, especially children, to carry the burden of the pandemic because of the extremely negative consequences of these countermeasures.
> so I don't pass the infection onto those who are indeed vulnerable; so I don't overtax an already overtaxed healthcare system and healthcare workers
This seems reasonable and is a common point of view. It does make me curious though. Did you get a yearly flu shot prior to Covid? If not, has Covid changed your mind about this?
A good question. I've done the yearly flu shot for over a decade. But before that I was A) not a flu shot getter, B) a more reckless driver, and C) etc. etc. My sense of the impact of my actions on other peoples safety seems to have grown over the years, from a near complete lack of consciousness in my teens and early twenties to a stronger feeling today. Probably a not unusual path. And people including myself are good at rationalizing their choices, good or bad.
To the subject of the article: If our child's school decided to not require masks (they currently do) I would go ahead with that without undue worry about the children, assuming the school were representing the will of the teachers. I believe overall the teachers should have the strongest say in the matter because they're the highest risk group involved.
> I tend to think that people who operate in this way are subhuman, in the genuine sense of the word - they seem more like bureaucratic automatons than living beings with spirits and hopes and dreams.
Quick capsule hypothesis-- you tend toward thinking in a way that results in you having written the word "subhuman" on HN because an active pandemic tends to increase feelings of disgust in the affected population.
Why look for a statistical hypothesis when I have the actual reasoning?
I specifically want to exclude bureaucratic people from my life, it's not a new thing since coronavirus. I don't find the "pandemic" disgusting at all, to be honest, it's a low severity virus. I've had it, zero negative effect.
I genuinely find it bizarre that people would have an issue with me using a potentially slightly offensive word to describe someone, but have no issue with the use of force to seperate people from their families.
Like, you need to go right back to basics on your entire thought process there because there's been a complete logical breakdown.
> Like, yeah, I will take the risk of contracting coronavirus to play the piano, because I want the piano in my life.
I'm sympathetic to your point (and I love to play piano), but I can't help but ask, if we slightly reword your claim: would you be willing to take responsibility for spreading coronavirus to n other people so you can play the piano?
Edit, to be clear: I'm not talking about the piano, or surface transmission; I'm talking about the values.
> would you be willing to take responsibility for spreading coronavirus to n other people so you can play the piano?
Would you be willing to accept responsibility for the increased depression and loneliness among the young people who live together in this building that could result from banning the piano?
Yes, exactly. We have conflicting values to balance. I hope most of us can do it most of the time from the goal, however quixotic, of doing the most good for the most people. I don't claim to know what that is, and I am not saying that the kid in the example shouldn't be able to play the piano (though, on that note, it seems to me that if a student's well-being depends that directly on being able to play the piano, the school itself is foundering). But I get you. It would be all too easy to settle for some sort of rhetorical first principle that abstracts away all the complexity: sharing things makes people sick, we shouldn't share things. Or, other people getting sick is their own problem, damn the torpedos, I'm jamming in the lounge.
It's exhausting. And the piano policy in the example is totally absurd. I hope my remarks didn't come across as personal. I have kids in school too, and although I'm currently favoring masks, I'm also miserable about how my kids' early childhood social and academic development have been impacted.
Why do kids even need masks? Like, they aren’t at risk… this is a known fact since like March of 2020. Why force kids to wear them? Who are they supposed to be protecting? Fully vaccinated teachers? Who?
Kids are less at risk. That doesn't mean they aren't at risk. They can, and do, still catch Covid, even if they are less likely to suffer severe hospitalization.
On top of that, if they end up with long-covid or some other long-term complication from the Covid infection, they're quality of life is impacted for a far longer time. Some known long-covid complications include things like (potentially) permanent loss of smell or taste, reduced mental faculties, and organ damage. Would you sentence a child to a lifetime of being unable to taste their food for the rest of their lives just so they don't have to wear a mask for a tiny portion of their lives?
Also, adults seem to hate masks, but plenty of kids don't feel the same way. My oldest loves to accent his outfits with his cloth masks, and wears them over surgical or N95 masks now.
Who are they protecting? They're protecting each other and everyone around them. That could be a teacher who could catch a breakthrough case, a sibling or family member, and anyone they might come into close contact with. That also cascades. That vaccinated teacher who may have caught a break through case might infect their family causing a small outbreak in their home.
By wearing a mask, they're reducing risk, even if it might be a small amount. Those few percentage points could mean the difference between life and death for someone in their contact circle.
Yeeeaaah, I realize my point was easy to make a caricature of, but that's a pretty specious caricature. I'm talking about an effort to balance safety and freedom from a more collective and thoughtful perspective.
Yeah, sorry for not being more clear, but I wasn't talking about that person, or the piano, or about the odds of someone contracting COVID from surfaces. I was using the quote to illustrate what I see as a difficult pair of values to balance that situations like masks in classrooms, or other shared-space restrictions, really throw into painfully high relief: how do we collectively, as a society, balance our own personal inclinations (i.e., in this case, to play the piano, or in OP, to let our kids go unmasked) with whatever risks we impose on other people (i.e., in this case, which for the record I totally agree is excessive, that the shared piano will help spread disease; or in the outer case, that fewer masks in the classroom could lead to, e.g., more sick grandparents, or teachers)?
In the case of the piano, it's very simple: anyone who is worried about catching Covid by listening to the piano is free to not listen to the piano. There's really nothing to balance.
Solid, got it. Next time I talk to criddell's kids' university's dorm administrators, I'll try to set them straight. Hopefully they'll be able to zoom out a bit from whatever conversation-impairing details they've latched onto.
This myopic focus on exactly one specific illness to the literal exclusion of everything else is not healthy. People need to accept the risks and move on.
There is more to life than a singular focus on spreading Covid. Life would be robbed of all that is worth living for if every action and encounter we take has to pass the “willing to spread Covid” question.
There are countless more problems and risks in life than Covid. Many are much more important to individuals.
I upvoted your comment for your overall sentiment about focusing on what life is really about, and not driving to the lowest-common-denominator of quality of life.
But I'd also like to downvote you for the this comment:
"I tend to think that people who operate in this way are subhuman, in the genuine sense of the word"
>> It's not right, not useful, and not reflective. Much better is to assume others are also smart, well-educated and well-intentioned, and then try to genuinely understand why they believe or act the way they do.
To me, this ignores the fact that a death of a loved/cared for individual is the most "minimum quality of life" you can get.
Sure, being able to go watch a family movie together used to be a big family thing, but we can't do that anymore. Our QOL has dropped in that regard, but it's far less impactful than saying to heck with it and going to the theater and having my kid or an in-law catch Covid and die. Long Covid even indicates there's a chance that surviving Covid leaves you with a long-term impact to QOL. Why take that risk over minor irritation in the near term?
Sure, masks are tedious and annoying. But to my youngest, so are shirts and shoes. If he had his choice, he'd run around all damn day in underwear or shorts. But society as a whole benefits from a general adherence to everyone wearing shirts and shoes in public. He's got the same feelings towards seatbelts. Just like masks, seatbelts are only a half-measure. They don't prevent you from dying in a car crash, but they give some modicum of benefit overall. There's a higher chance of surviving a crash with a seatbelt on, even if it's not guaranteed.
All of these "I'm done with masks/precautions" statements are made in a void while ignoring the ripple effect that stems from that.
There's a turning point where life will have to resume one way or another, but the longer we can go as a civilization with a reduced QOL the better the chances of resolving the pandemic with fewer deaths all around.
> To me, this ignores the fact that a death of a loved/cared for individual is the most "minimum quality of life" you can get.
Counterpoint: my grandmother spent her last two years in perpetual loneliness because of covid measures in care homes preventing our family from ensuring full time visitors.
Up front here, I'm in no way attempting to demean your loss.
As a counter-counterpoint; Buddy of mine by way of a local community group lost his elderly mother in a care home because someone decided to come in to visit last year while unknowingly covid-positive. It swept through the wing and at least three other residents died from Covid complications. My friend himself ended up catching it from his mother and was in ICU when she passed herself.
Lack of social connections can be overcome with virtual communications. It's not the same as true face to face interaction, but it beats killing someone with your mere presence.
> Lack of social connections can be overcome with virtual communications. It's not the same as true face to face interaction, but it beats killing someone with your mere presence.
While true, when someone's dying, skyping not in any way a replacement for being at their side.
> Like, yeah, I will take the risk of contracting coronavirus to play the piano, because I want the piano in my life.
The problem comes when it's "I will take the risk of infecting others who are vulnerable, of contributing to overwhelming the already struggling healthcare system, and of damaging the economy to play the piano, because it doesn't matter how many people are infected or are dying every single day I care more about myself getting the things I want right now than I care about any of those things."
There's no need to frame the issue as if folks are being told they can't do anything they enjoy ever again and have to devote their whole lives to simply breathing and eating either. It's a false dichotomy that we have to choose between common sense measures for the good of our community and limiting ourselves to "what is the minimum possible quality of life we can have".
We can instead make smart choices based on the degree of community spread which can mean putting off certain activities, but often times just means putting on a mask and washing our hands. It's not a huge ask.
>There are circumstances in which "drop everything" makes sense - if coronavirus were ten times more fatal, we'd do it naturally.
It was pretty damn fatal when we had no containment measures or vaccines. We're in a totally different situation now, and need to get out of the "minimize cases" mentality.
Reminds me of (now takeout only) restaurants which have their bathrooms closed "for covid," or public drinking fountains which are still closed "for covid." Not really much to due with covid at this point I suspect. So it may not really be about measuring infections at all, but that played piano makes noise and requires tuning, and so administration would rather just not, and now there is an excuse.
Many places have used Covid as an excuse to regress and implement desired polices. Take for example the Tate Modern, a museum in London. Under the argument of COVID you must have a ticket to enter (previously free). You can get a ticket by scanning a QR at the door, you simply have to give an name and email.
You can see how they got to that place, so they can control the density of visitors which is important because of COVID, but it's also something they've wanted for years.
contact tracing only works when a pandemic is in the hundreds, maybe a few thousand tops. After that it becomes too intractable to trace and also yields little benefit.
And if its anything like American colleges, the draconian restrictions don't actually stop the students from crowding into over-packed apartment and house parties over the weekends.
This has been my son's experience : masks required in the classroom but the students spread disease (not just COVID -- Flu and colds as well) rampantly in the dorms.
The piano thing feels like a "we gotta do something" from a board with very little power over things that would limit transmission. Maybe they have a separate dorm board.
It is like where I live, the library closed becouse that was the only thing the county could close.
And there is like never more than 10 people there at the same time for a huge building. They could just have closed the cafeteria and remove the reading chairs. Etc.
This one-dimensional approach is especially bad since the emergence of omicron, where number of infections doesn’t even capture the level of COVID danger.
This argument falls flat on its face. There is always infections viruses going around. Covid is not the first nor will it be the last.
Who gets to decide what is okay and isn’t anyway? Some myopic “experts” who barely feel the negative impacts of their prognostications? What about other types of experts? What would “music experts” say about shutting down the piano?
It likely wouldn't be crowded. They have pretty strict rules about the number of people that can gather in any room. Also, these people all live together. They are touching the same surfaces, breathing the same air, sharing the same bathrooms, etc...
But you are right - singing would increase the risk of infection. Still, I think the risks from the current version of the virus to a vaccinated group of young people (who are still required to wear masks!) is small enough that the piano should be available.
I strongly suspect that playing the piano is banned due to the possibility of social gatherings of people in close proximity to each other listening to the piano - not contracting covid from the piano itself.
Presumably the piano ban was brought in last year, when people though that Covid spreading through surfaces was a big problem - and that piano ban hasn't been re-considered now that we know that Covid is mostly spread through inhaling shared air.
For example, in the dorm there is a common area with a piano. Because of COVID, playing that piano is banned. Even if there was a reasonable danger of contracting COVID from a piano, there are also mental health benefits to playing music. It doesn't feel like the piano ban is in the best interests of the people who live there and I don't think the people who set the rules care because they can't measure that. They can only measure infections.