Why Are People Treating COVID Like It's Over?
June 10, 2022 10:15 PM Subscribe
Asking not as an 'amirite?' but as a serious question: why are people treating COVID like it's over?
Omicron subvariant BA2.12.1 is around now, and there are other variants down the road. Hospitalization isn't unheard of.
Is the current behavior in the U.S. a situation of giving up due to emotions (being tired of it) despite facts / a case of mass delusion?
Or is this behavior acceptable and it is public-health-wise/scientifically okay to end mask mandates and resume a mostly pre-pandemic lifestyle?
I am looking to gauge my own reaction/feelings against what the science is with regards to the situation. Is there a solid public health, factual answer on this question, or just differing viewpoints?
Omicron subvariant BA2.12.1 is around now, and there are other variants down the road. Hospitalization isn't unheard of.
Is the current behavior in the U.S. a situation of giving up due to emotions (being tired of it) despite facts / a case of mass delusion?
Or is this behavior acceptable and it is public-health-wise/scientifically okay to end mask mandates and resume a mostly pre-pandemic lifestyle?
I am looking to gauge my own reaction/feelings against what the science is with regards to the situation. Is there a solid public health, factual answer on this question, or just differing viewpoints?
This post was deleted for the following reason: poster's request -- taz
You can’t use individual actions to prevent a structural problem. Since governments are abdicating their role to coordinate a response, a lot of the risk calculus changes. There are a lot more vectors of infection that the individual can’t control. As these increase, the advantage of doing more marginal things decreases until they aren’t worth it.
For example no social support means I have to send my child to childcare in order to work. The nursery workers can’t self isolate so will work with some symptoms (who pays them in absence). So since the children are all exposed to each other, what is the advantage of masking up around other children’s parents? Since you want some socialisation (a basic human need), once you take into account the children and all their parents, plus all the people those parents interact with unmasked (for similar reasons). It’s a huge chunk of the population. Then you leave your mask in your other coat, so you are at the shop without a mask. It all breaks down.
Once the government will to manage Covid breaks down it’s inevitable that almost all measures will stop. So if there is a pandemic and you as an individual can’t stop it, it’s natural to begin to underestimate the risks as a coping mechanism. The alternative is horrifying.
Why did the Covid deniers initially undermine the government response is less clear? But once it’s undermined, we are where we are.
posted by DoveBrown at 10:48 PM on June 10, 2022 [46 favorites]
For example no social support means I have to send my child to childcare in order to work. The nursery workers can’t self isolate so will work with some symptoms (who pays them in absence). So since the children are all exposed to each other, what is the advantage of masking up around other children’s parents? Since you want some socialisation (a basic human need), once you take into account the children and all their parents, plus all the people those parents interact with unmasked (for similar reasons). It’s a huge chunk of the population. Then you leave your mask in your other coat, so you are at the shop without a mask. It all breaks down.
Once the government will to manage Covid breaks down it’s inevitable that almost all measures will stop. So if there is a pandemic and you as an individual can’t stop it, it’s natural to begin to underestimate the risks as a coping mechanism. The alternative is horrifying.
Why did the Covid deniers initially undermine the government response is less clear? But once it’s undermined, we are where we are.
posted by DoveBrown at 10:48 PM on June 10, 2022 [46 favorites]
Probably that most Democrats have also given up on slowing down transmission (economic costs to the lobbyists and major donors holding their leashes just aren’t worth it gosh darn it), never mind the fact that children under five still aren’t vaccinated, never mind long COVID. So a large majority of people now have public officials they trust saying, “Go for it— Dine inside at Applebees! See a Marvel movie! As long as there’s an ICU bed free for you in your county, that is!”
Plus no one really wants to consider the potential mass debilitating event that is long COVID, so they don’t, and they treat potentially getting infected like going out during cold and flu season.
I highly recommend Your Local Epidemiologist, whom I especially like because she also has children under five.
posted by supercres at 10:48 PM on June 10, 2022 [10 favorites]
Plus no one really wants to consider the potential mass debilitating event that is long COVID, so they don’t, and they treat potentially getting infected like going out during cold and flu season.
I highly recommend Your Local Epidemiologist, whom I especially like because she also has children under five.
posted by supercres at 10:48 PM on June 10, 2022 [10 favorites]
I have the two shots and a booster. I got Covid over Christmas holiday. It was a mild case or the vax works to limit the reaction. It was milder than the actual flu I had two years ago. Since then, I have not thought twice about it. I go about my business. I wear a mask where required or I avoid those places that require it. Not a big deal. I think for those that have had it and had a mild case, they realize that it is what it is. I find that my few friends that have never had it, maybe 25% of the people I know are Covid virgins, they are much more risk adverse. I'll be honest and say that even though I am in a high risk category, age, weight, heart disease, I was almost relieved once I got it and realized that it was not going to be a bid deal to me. Instead of running scared of catching it, I accepted that I could live my life and live with the risk of getting it again. I trust the vaccine and the natural immunity.
What should I be doing about Covid at this point? Isolating? Wearing a mask everywhere? There are a lot of studies out there. Look at the numbers. Isolation of the states that shut down have similar numbers to the ones that did not. Masks either are or are not that effective depending on which study you read.
My choices are to resume my life or live in fear of something that was not that fearful once I got it. I think it was overblown by the media that had good intentions.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 10:50 PM on June 10, 2022 [18 favorites]
What should I be doing about Covid at this point? Isolating? Wearing a mask everywhere? There are a lot of studies out there. Look at the numbers. Isolation of the states that shut down have similar numbers to the ones that did not. Masks either are or are not that effective depending on which study you read.
My choices are to resume my life or live in fear of something that was not that fearful once I got it. I think it was overblown by the media that had good intentions.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 10:50 PM on June 10, 2022 [18 favorites]
I think it was overblown by the media that had good intentions.
So I'm glad I'm reading this thread, as this comment is the one I was wondering whether anyone would make it.
How do people square believing this, with all the people who died, or suffered debilitating illness, and still are? Didn't that really happen? Or is it just because it only happened to people they don't know?
In my circle of friends, acquaintances and colleagues I can quickly think of five people who died, and quite a few who had to spend time in hospital. I know at least 4 people who have long Covid.
All of this a disease that's just been around since the end of 2019.
I know one person who had died of flu and I'm 50 years old.
It just doesn't add up for me that this is "just" a disease like all the others we're used to living with.
Do people honestly believe Covid is not a big deal? Are they right, and am I delusional? I'm experiencing a lot of cognitive dissonance here.
posted by Zumbador at 11:05 PM on June 10, 2022 [135 favorites]
So I'm glad I'm reading this thread, as this comment is the one I was wondering whether anyone would make it.
How do people square believing this, with all the people who died, or suffered debilitating illness, and still are? Didn't that really happen? Or is it just because it only happened to people they don't know?
In my circle of friends, acquaintances and colleagues I can quickly think of five people who died, and quite a few who had to spend time in hospital. I know at least 4 people who have long Covid.
All of this a disease that's just been around since the end of 2019.
I know one person who had died of flu and I'm 50 years old.
It just doesn't add up for me that this is "just" a disease like all the others we're used to living with.
Do people honestly believe Covid is not a big deal? Are they right, and am I delusional? I'm experiencing a lot of cognitive dissonance here.
posted by Zumbador at 11:05 PM on June 10, 2022 [135 favorites]
Not everyone who thinks COVID is no big deal ends up in the ICU, but most people who end up in the ICU these days thought COVID was no big deal. Nonchalance works until it doesn’t, and people are incredibly bad at multiplying probability by cost.
Full disclosure: If I didn’t have an immunocompromised spouse and a three-year-old living in my home, I’d probably be less mask stringent, but as it is, wearing a N95 everywhere and only eating outside is such a low cost to improve my odds of not getting infected again that I’ll gladly take it. I do not want to get infected again (but I still have the same unavoidable vector that got us last time: day care).
posted by supercres at 11:07 PM on June 10, 2022 [34 favorites]
Full disclosure: If I didn’t have an immunocompromised spouse and a three-year-old living in my home, I’d probably be less mask stringent, but as it is, wearing a N95 everywhere and only eating outside is such a low cost to improve my odds of not getting infected again that I’ll gladly take it. I do not want to get infected again (but I still have the same unavoidable vector that got us last time: day care).
posted by supercres at 11:07 PM on June 10, 2022 [34 favorites]
As someone who got COVID back in March, 2020, and who since got Long Covid? I'm still staying inside. And masking everywhere else.
However, in my friend's group? A lot of them are lowering their defenses against COVID for a few different reasons that I can tell:
1. They're all vaccinated and boosted. Some of them twice.
2. They test themselves before doing something semi-risky, test themselves after doing something semi-risky, and if they have symptoms.
3. Those of who are eligible are getting Paxlovid. When I had a confirmed case of COVID a second time, it was last month - and I was able to start Paxlovid 4 days after my symptoms started. It definitely made the illness a lot less serious than the first time around.
4. Most are either childless, or have children over the age of 5.
I think that access to tests, Paxlovid, and vaccines are making it seem like a more manageable disease, if/when they do get it.
posted by spinifex23 at 11:14 PM on June 10, 2022 [9 favorites]
However, in my friend's group? A lot of them are lowering their defenses against COVID for a few different reasons that I can tell:
1. They're all vaccinated and boosted. Some of them twice.
2. They test themselves before doing something semi-risky, test themselves after doing something semi-risky, and if they have symptoms.
3. Those of who are eligible are getting Paxlovid. When I had a confirmed case of COVID a second time, it was last month - and I was able to start Paxlovid 4 days after my symptoms started. It definitely made the illness a lot less serious than the first time around.
4. Most are either childless, or have children over the age of 5.
I think that access to tests, Paxlovid, and vaccines are making it seem like a more manageable disease, if/when they do get it.
posted by spinifex23 at 11:14 PM on June 10, 2022 [9 favorites]
There are risks to doing everything. Society as a whole has decided that the benefits of operating normally, given the mitigation of vaccines, outweigh the risks posed by COVID. The majority of individuals have also made that calculation, either consciously or subconsciously. I know I have.
posted by el_presidente at 11:23 PM on June 10, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by el_presidente at 11:23 PM on June 10, 2022 [4 favorites]
Because people / governments are no longer prepared to subvert their economic or lifestyle interests to other people's health outcomes.
Different factors for why this is, including fatigue - it is tiring to live your life in isolation or a mask; vaccinations meaning that the number of deaths is "acceptable"; many people having mild cases and saying that nothing to be scared of.
Where I am, Australia, I think the general feel is that it's semi-inevitable that you'll catch it, yes some vulnerable will die but it's not so many that people should have their lifestyle restricted. I'm not saying that attitude is correct but I think that's the majority view now and it likely supported by the health advice. For context, I live in a State that closed its borders for almost 2 years (during which time we were practically covid free) and that was an extremely popular measure.
posted by pianissimo at 11:28 PM on June 10, 2022 [3 favorites]
Different factors for why this is, including fatigue - it is tiring to live your life in isolation or a mask; vaccinations meaning that the number of deaths is "acceptable"; many people having mild cases and saying that nothing to be scared of.
Where I am, Australia, I think the general feel is that it's semi-inevitable that you'll catch it, yes some vulnerable will die but it's not so many that people should have their lifestyle restricted. I'm not saying that attitude is correct but I think that's the majority view now and it likely supported by the health advice. For context, I live in a State that closed its borders for almost 2 years (during which time we were practically covid free) and that was an extremely popular measure.
posted by pianissimo at 11:28 PM on June 10, 2022 [3 favorites]
Mod note: Quick Note: I have left one answer since it has been replied to, but anecdata like "I had a mild case, therefore reporting is overblown," is not actually a helpful answer. Over 6 million people have died worldwide; many of us have friends or family who have died. Anyone can google multi-organ damage inflicted by Covid and view results from science / medical sites. If you feel like you have a science- or logic-based answer about why, at this point, the general attitude is to drop protective measures, feel free to share (and cites are helpful here), but answers suggesting that Covid is mostly made up, fake news, etc. will probably be deleted.
posted by taz (staff) at 11:45 PM on June 10, 2022 [94 favorites]
posted by taz (staff) at 11:45 PM on June 10, 2022 [94 favorites]
Genuinely it’s capitalism and a fun (sarcasm) blend of ableism and racism. People don’t care about disabled people that are high risk. People don’t care about marginalized people that are at high risk for illness or work high exposure jobs. People think they are rubber and everything will bounce off them and can’t imagine becoming disabled. Some don’t even think it’s real (both Covid and post viral disabilities.)
All of that gets magnified by media and governments. They are not just susceptible to this bias, they actively amplify it because they were formed from and to uphold this power. They don’t care who dies or gets sick as long as they make money and keep control. We have a for profit healthcare system even that benefits.
Our state started reporting cases weekly and going to a green, yellow, orange (it’s not even red) map. In that month since the cases in my county have doubled. You won’t know from looking at the local news. Our county is still green. There was a festival with over 7000 attendants last week.
I have CFS/ME, likely from mono over a decade ago when I was 18. It’s terrible. Genuinely. Myself and my spouse mask in stores or in large outdoor groups. We don’t do many outings and are very careful when we do. We have slowed again on our trickle of outings since cases are spiking. We are vax’d and boosted and I’m hoping to get a second booster soon. My husband works remote and I’m disabled and don’t work so we are home most of the time.
Disability activists, many who can be found on twitter, have a lot of info, insight, and blogs on this entire thing. And share in the frustration.
Since we have all been screaming about it since day one and watching in horror as we die, become more ill, put off healthcare, lost jobs, and are kept more and more socially isolated. Yet our group is growing more and more by the day with post Covid issues.
Everyone needs to take it seriously but we need direction and help from the more powerful to get it done. I just want to be part of the world again.
posted by Crystalinne at 12:00 AM on June 11, 2022 [47 favorites]
All of that gets magnified by media and governments. They are not just susceptible to this bias, they actively amplify it because they were formed from and to uphold this power. They don’t care who dies or gets sick as long as they make money and keep control. We have a for profit healthcare system even that benefits.
Our state started reporting cases weekly and going to a green, yellow, orange (it’s not even red) map. In that month since the cases in my county have doubled. You won’t know from looking at the local news. Our county is still green. There was a festival with over 7000 attendants last week.
I have CFS/ME, likely from mono over a decade ago when I was 18. It’s terrible. Genuinely. Myself and my spouse mask in stores or in large outdoor groups. We don’t do many outings and are very careful when we do. We have slowed again on our trickle of outings since cases are spiking. We are vax’d and boosted and I’m hoping to get a second booster soon. My husband works remote and I’m disabled and don’t work so we are home most of the time.
Disability activists, many who can be found on twitter, have a lot of info, insight, and blogs on this entire thing. And share in the frustration.
Since we have all been screaming about it since day one and watching in horror as we die, become more ill, put off healthcare, lost jobs, and are kept more and more socially isolated. Yet our group is growing more and more by the day with post Covid issues.
Everyone needs to take it seriously but we need direction and help from the more powerful to get it done. I just want to be part of the world again.
posted by Crystalinne at 12:00 AM on June 11, 2022 [47 favorites]
I don’t have the energy for millions of links, but this long blog by Mia Mingus says a lot:
We will not trade disabled deaths for abled life. We will not allow disabled people to be disposable or the necessary collateral for the status quo. We will not look away from the mass illness and death that surrounds us or from a state machine that is more committed to churning out profit and privileged comfort with eugenic abandonment.posted by Crystalinne at 12:13 AM on June 11, 2022 [18 favorites]
In the US, I think the CDC deciding that high community transmission is OK as long as hospitals don’t overflow was people’s “pandemic is over” signal. And then the judge striking down masks on airplanes reinforced the signal.
posted by hungrytiger at 12:24 AM on June 11, 2022 [18 favorites]
posted by hungrytiger at 12:24 AM on June 11, 2022 [18 favorites]
At the individual level, there's a collective action problem. If in 2020 enough people act together that we eradicate SARS-CoV-2 like -1, that's transformational. But if everybody else is choosing Defect in their Prisoners' Dilemma game, well, then maybe you too.
At the collective level, well, our options are not great, after we missed eradication by quarantine and contact tracing and we missed eradication by vaccines (which was a fuckin Hail Mary always). Collectively there's less we can do than you'd wish.
But also I think we've done a poor job communicating that "get covid" is not a yes/no question, it's a "how many times, and how many years of disability did that all add for you" question. Understandably, I guess, but still. Personally I have dialysis and vascular dementia in the family and I don't need extra.
posted by away for regrooving at 12:24 AM on June 11, 2022 [16 favorites]
At the collective level, well, our options are not great, after we missed eradication by quarantine and contact tracing and we missed eradication by vaccines (which was a fuckin Hail Mary always). Collectively there's less we can do than you'd wish.
But also I think we've done a poor job communicating that "get covid" is not a yes/no question, it's a "how many times, and how many years of disability did that all add for you" question. Understandably, I guess, but still. Personally I have dialysis and vascular dementia in the family and I don't need extra.
posted by away for regrooving at 12:24 AM on June 11, 2022 [16 favorites]
Or to look at it in a slightly different way, I don’t think people necessarily disagree about the facts as much as we disagree about the meaning of the facts. For people who perceive themselves to be healthy and less vulnerable the pandemic can be over because they aren’t legally obligated to mask any more.
Obviously for vulnerable people the pandemic is still going strong.
posted by hungrytiger at 12:29 AM on June 11, 2022 [3 favorites]
Obviously for vulnerable people the pandemic is still going strong.
posted by hungrytiger at 12:29 AM on June 11, 2022 [3 favorites]
I lived for much of the pandemic in Taiwan, which was maintaining a COVID-zero strategy until very recently. The reason they stopped was not that it is impossible to reach COVID-zero — they held off Omicron for several months, with ~a hundred positive inbound travelers per day, and previously went from a delta wave of ~500 cases/day back to zero — but rather that it seemed infeasible to remain isolated forever, when other countries were not perusing (or at least not succeeding at) COVID-zero.
Given that reaching and maintaining COVID-zero, for any country, would require global coordination that is not going to happen at this point, we have to accept that COVID is here, and will be here, until we have some technological or other breakthrough that changes that. The only question is: what are we going to do about it?
Zumbador asks — what about the people who died, who suffered debilitating illness? My answer to this is that the world has changed since 2019, and there is now a new cause of death that ranks similarly to car crashes and heart disease in the number of people it affects. I see people who do not make significant attempts to limit the spread of COVID similarly to people who drive cars — it's something that I personally find morally abhorrent, but I accept that it's something that's just seen as a cost of living in society today. In the same way I have friends who seem entirely reasonable except for their habit of driving dozens of miles per day, I have friends who seem entirely reasonable except that they have no qualms about spreading COVID. If you do drive, it's worth considering why you think that doing so is morally acceptable, and how the actual harm caused by that compares to not masking in public places, or going to mass gatherings. I'm not trying to equivocate here, but I do believe that they're on similar levels of magnitude, both in the impact and in how difficult eliminating that impact would be.
Personally, I have to weigh my own needs for physical connection with friends, acquaintances, and strangers with the impact that will have on other people, and that calculation has changed significantly in recent months: not only is vaccination widely available (including 4th boosters, which seem easy to get even if one does not technically qualify — I intend to get mine quite soon), Paxlovid is available (and appears to have a significant effect at reducing long-COVID symptoms), and Evusheld is available for the immunocompromised (even if it is much harder to access in the USA than it should be right now). Additionally, recent data suggests that vaccination reduces long-COVID symptoms to levels that are comparable to that of the uninfected population (not having a proper control group has been a major problem with previous long-COVID studies, and has resulted in some extremely dubious and sometimes downright incorrect claims being made about its prevalence, often here on Metafilter).
For me, this calculation has meant that I have recently been traveling internationally, and have attended several outdoor mass gatherings. That's not something I would have been comfortable with a year ago, but seeing my friends in person and attending mass gatherings that are spiritually important to me are important to me, and the combination of vaccines, Paxlovid, Evusheld, and recent long-COVID data recently shifted the balance of my personal moral calculus around these things (which have always had externalities, largely from GHG emissions, but also from lots of other things as well). It's understandable to me that for other people, the calculation now lands at "COVID is below the threshold of worrying about," even if I personally disagree with that.
I think a lot of people, particularly on Metafilter and places with similar moral and political values, are clinging to the idea that COVID deaths can be brought back down to zero (or that they personally will be able to avoid COVID forever), and frankly, that delusion scares me. The world has changed, and if you're paying any attention, you should expect COVID to be a quite small change in the world relative to a lot of stuff that is coming. Dealing with climate change, the rising tide of fascism, and similar changes that we're staring down the barrel of requires being able to understand when the world has changed and adapt to it, especially when those changes are in the form of things getting strictly worse for a lot of people for a long time. Risk has been fluctuating by probably something like 50x on the order of months — if the set of things that you're willing to do has not been fluctuating along with that, then you're not approaching this in a entirely rational way either. We are likely approaching a highly nonlinear period of history, and it's time now to be mentally preparing yourself for that.
I wish we were living in a world that had effective enough governance and public health response to eliminate COVID. That world is possible, but it's not the one we are living in. The question we have to answer now is — what do we do instead?
posted by wesleyac at 12:39 AM on June 11, 2022 [101 favorites]
Given that reaching and maintaining COVID-zero, for any country, would require global coordination that is not going to happen at this point, we have to accept that COVID is here, and will be here, until we have some technological or other breakthrough that changes that. The only question is: what are we going to do about it?
Zumbador asks — what about the people who died, who suffered debilitating illness? My answer to this is that the world has changed since 2019, and there is now a new cause of death that ranks similarly to car crashes and heart disease in the number of people it affects. I see people who do not make significant attempts to limit the spread of COVID similarly to people who drive cars — it's something that I personally find morally abhorrent, but I accept that it's something that's just seen as a cost of living in society today. In the same way I have friends who seem entirely reasonable except for their habit of driving dozens of miles per day, I have friends who seem entirely reasonable except that they have no qualms about spreading COVID. If you do drive, it's worth considering why you think that doing so is morally acceptable, and how the actual harm caused by that compares to not masking in public places, or going to mass gatherings. I'm not trying to equivocate here, but I do believe that they're on similar levels of magnitude, both in the impact and in how difficult eliminating that impact would be.
Personally, I have to weigh my own needs for physical connection with friends, acquaintances, and strangers with the impact that will have on other people, and that calculation has changed significantly in recent months: not only is vaccination widely available (including 4th boosters, which seem easy to get even if one does not technically qualify — I intend to get mine quite soon), Paxlovid is available (and appears to have a significant effect at reducing long-COVID symptoms), and Evusheld is available for the immunocompromised (even if it is much harder to access in the USA than it should be right now). Additionally, recent data suggests that vaccination reduces long-COVID symptoms to levels that are comparable to that of the uninfected population (not having a proper control group has been a major problem with previous long-COVID studies, and has resulted in some extremely dubious and sometimes downright incorrect claims being made about its prevalence, often here on Metafilter).
For me, this calculation has meant that I have recently been traveling internationally, and have attended several outdoor mass gatherings. That's not something I would have been comfortable with a year ago, but seeing my friends in person and attending mass gatherings that are spiritually important to me are important to me, and the combination of vaccines, Paxlovid, Evusheld, and recent long-COVID data recently shifted the balance of my personal moral calculus around these things (which have always had externalities, largely from GHG emissions, but also from lots of other things as well). It's understandable to me that for other people, the calculation now lands at "COVID is below the threshold of worrying about," even if I personally disagree with that.
I think a lot of people, particularly on Metafilter and places with similar moral and political values, are clinging to the idea that COVID deaths can be brought back down to zero (or that they personally will be able to avoid COVID forever), and frankly, that delusion scares me. The world has changed, and if you're paying any attention, you should expect COVID to be a quite small change in the world relative to a lot of stuff that is coming. Dealing with climate change, the rising tide of fascism, and similar changes that we're staring down the barrel of requires being able to understand when the world has changed and adapt to it, especially when those changes are in the form of things getting strictly worse for a lot of people for a long time. Risk has been fluctuating by probably something like 50x on the order of months — if the set of things that you're willing to do has not been fluctuating along with that, then you're not approaching this in a entirely rational way either. We are likely approaching a highly nonlinear period of history, and it's time now to be mentally preparing yourself for that.
I wish we were living in a world that had effective enough governance and public health response to eliminate COVID. That world is possible, but it's not the one we are living in. The question we have to answer now is — what do we do instead?
posted by wesleyac at 12:39 AM on June 11, 2022 [101 favorites]
My household tried so hard for so long. N95’s, no indoor dining for two years, masks on everyone even when they weren’t required. And now the public health authorities have just absolutely fucking given up and are no longer making science-based decisions. I’m angry and I feel betrayed. Especially at the decision to drop the masking requirement in my kids’ school and on public transit.
But in opposition to all of that, I keep thinking: does it ever end? It was one thing to hunker down and wait for the storm to pass, but now that it’s clear that new COVID variants are going to be sweeping over us interminably, the calculus changes. We can’t do it forever. We’ve relaxed our approach, largely because our young kids were missing out on a lot of important social interaction. Still wearing masks indoors and avoiding crowds, but small social gatherings? Ok. I even went in to the office once and had lunch with coworkers I’d never met in person.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 12:46 AM on June 11, 2022 [11 favorites]
But in opposition to all of that, I keep thinking: does it ever end? It was one thing to hunker down and wait for the storm to pass, but now that it’s clear that new COVID variants are going to be sweeping over us interminably, the calculus changes. We can’t do it forever. We’ve relaxed our approach, largely because our young kids were missing out on a lot of important social interaction. Still wearing masks indoors and avoiding crowds, but small social gatherings? Ok. I even went in to the office once and had lunch with coworkers I’d never met in person.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 12:46 AM on June 11, 2022 [11 favorites]
Quick Note: I have left one answer since it has been replied to, but anecdata like "I had a mild case, therefore reporting is overblown," is not actually a helpful answer.
It is kind of incredible to me that a mod is leaving this comment when reality is this is why people are acting like COVID is over! Most people I know are fully vaccinated and have gotten COVID in the past 6 months. People are acting quite rationally: when they see everyone around them get COVID, when they themselves get it, and it turns out to be somewhere between "whatever" and "that sucked but I know it means I'm less likely to get it again soon" they change their behavior. (And please don't turn this into a debate on reinfection: yes it is possible but there is plenty of solid evidence of at least some post-infection improved immunity for a few months, against the same or similar variants).
And yes, a great many scientists and public health people concur with this advice. There is no "factual" answer to this question because public health is a combination of "things we think we know" (very little is settled science here except that vaccines measurably reduce your odds of bad outcomes), "the cost of these measures," and "whether the public will actually follow them." Again, when most people have recently gotten and gotten over COVID, asking them to stop doing in-person things and telling them to mask at all times is unlikely to result in compliance.
Let's take the long COVID question. No one serious disagrees with the existence of long COVID. But there are unresolved questions about how common it is post-vaccination, with current circulating variants, and in which populations. The UK does a lot of health surveying, and it does not support claims of 20% of the infected population currently getting long COVID. And back to our question as to whether people's personal anecdotes matter here, they absolutely do: when you see claims of 20% of cases ending in long COVID and yet you know tens of people who have gotten it recently none of whom have gotten long COVID, you start to wonder the accuracy of those claims.
The severity of COVID has plummeted post vaccination and antiviral treatment availability, and for most people and public health concerns, that is the driving factor. If the hospitals aren't being overwhelmed by patients, we are in much much better shape. Things are so obviously not the same as they were pre-vaccination, and questions of long-term consequences of a viral infection aside, this is the data driving public health and the intuition driving public behavior.
One final point is that this is what is expected to happen in a disease that we cannot eradicate. Eventually, most people will get it, and with this, they'll probably get it many times over the course of their lives. We have blunted that impact with vaccines and treatments. Now we are going to be in the position of watching it play out over the years. But humans aren't going to just stop humaning indefinitely because they might get sick, and there are a lot of big things to focus on beyond COVID, so it really shouldn't be surprising that most people are acting like it's over.
posted by ch1x0r at 12:46 AM on June 11, 2022 [76 favorites]
It is kind of incredible to me that a mod is leaving this comment when reality is this is why people are acting like COVID is over! Most people I know are fully vaccinated and have gotten COVID in the past 6 months. People are acting quite rationally: when they see everyone around them get COVID, when they themselves get it, and it turns out to be somewhere between "whatever" and "that sucked but I know it means I'm less likely to get it again soon" they change their behavior. (And please don't turn this into a debate on reinfection: yes it is possible but there is plenty of solid evidence of at least some post-infection improved immunity for a few months, against the same or similar variants).
And yes, a great many scientists and public health people concur with this advice. There is no "factual" answer to this question because public health is a combination of "things we think we know" (very little is settled science here except that vaccines measurably reduce your odds of bad outcomes), "the cost of these measures," and "whether the public will actually follow them." Again, when most people have recently gotten and gotten over COVID, asking them to stop doing in-person things and telling them to mask at all times is unlikely to result in compliance.
Let's take the long COVID question. No one serious disagrees with the existence of long COVID. But there are unresolved questions about how common it is post-vaccination, with current circulating variants, and in which populations. The UK does a lot of health surveying, and it does not support claims of 20% of the infected population currently getting long COVID. And back to our question as to whether people's personal anecdotes matter here, they absolutely do: when you see claims of 20% of cases ending in long COVID and yet you know tens of people who have gotten it recently none of whom have gotten long COVID, you start to wonder the accuracy of those claims.
The severity of COVID has plummeted post vaccination and antiviral treatment availability, and for most people and public health concerns, that is the driving factor. If the hospitals aren't being overwhelmed by patients, we are in much much better shape. Things are so obviously not the same as they were pre-vaccination, and questions of long-term consequences of a viral infection aside, this is the data driving public health and the intuition driving public behavior.
One final point is that this is what is expected to happen in a disease that we cannot eradicate. Eventually, most people will get it, and with this, they'll probably get it many times over the course of their lives. We have blunted that impact with vaccines and treatments. Now we are going to be in the position of watching it play out over the years. But humans aren't going to just stop humaning indefinitely because they might get sick, and there are a lot of big things to focus on beyond COVID, so it really shouldn't be surprising that most people are acting like it's over.
posted by ch1x0r at 12:46 AM on June 11, 2022 [76 favorites]
why do many believe it's over: convenience rules the day. that, and a strange sort of mass delusion.
i think, the deluded have blown fuses: how can a simple virus crash the economy, send people into isolation, and disrupt the everyday flow of activities, for years? it happens, just most people aren't alive for two cycles of massively fatal pandemics. the 1918 influenza was... essentially one hundred years ago. we've had vaxxes against the major killers for ages. smallpox since the 70s. unless one is a reader, or a pro, how would you even know that's possible? USeans don't live with day-in day-out malaria or lassa or dengue or (ffs) measles (anymore)(mostly)(thanks antivaxxers).
so, a science fiction movie lands in our collective laps. easier to laugh off in denial than follow protocols.
i will say, when the next Big One lands (a mers variant, influenza, or bird flu) we are In. For. It.
zero lessons have been learned, generally, for an average guy.
I blame FG's initial handling of it all, with the minimization and clusterfuck of a response.
I had said at the outset - probably here - that the right message is: this is big. dangerous. fatal for many. the best we can do is hang together. masks and isolation and other measures might be necessary for a long and uncertain duration - perhaps years. relax your thoughts around that idea, and think of your neighbors and children.
that's too big of an ask for a culture that pees its pants when gas goes up temporarily. status quo is important to a lot of people, for their sense of safety.
it's not over, and we should all do our best. /ranty know it all comment
posted by j_curiouser at 1:01 AM on June 11, 2022 [16 favorites]
i think, the deluded have blown fuses: how can a simple virus crash the economy, send people into isolation, and disrupt the everyday flow of activities, for years? it happens, just most people aren't alive for two cycles of massively fatal pandemics. the 1918 influenza was... essentially one hundred years ago. we've had vaxxes against the major killers for ages. smallpox since the 70s. unless one is a reader, or a pro, how would you even know that's possible? USeans don't live with day-in day-out malaria or lassa or dengue or (ffs) measles (anymore)(mostly)(thanks antivaxxers).
so, a science fiction movie lands in our collective laps. easier to laugh off in denial than follow protocols.
i will say, when the next Big One lands (a mers variant, influenza, or bird flu) we are In. For. It.
zero lessons have been learned, generally, for an average guy.
I blame FG's initial handling of it all, with the minimization and clusterfuck of a response.
I had said at the outset - probably here - that the right message is: this is big. dangerous. fatal for many. the best we can do is hang together. masks and isolation and other measures might be necessary for a long and uncertain duration - perhaps years. relax your thoughts around that idea, and think of your neighbors and children.
that's too big of an ask for a culture that pees its pants when gas goes up temporarily. status quo is important to a lot of people, for their sense of safety.
it's not over, and we should all do our best. /ranty know it all comment
posted by j_curiouser at 1:01 AM on June 11, 2022 [16 favorites]
Thanks to vaccines and acquired immunity and milder variants, Covid is now less dangerous than flu. Specifically, the infection fatality rate is lower than flu for all age groups, even over-80s (source, UK). We never had society-wide restrictions to combat a normal winter flu season, so why would we accept them for a less lethal disease? If someone in 2019 told me I couldn't go to a concert because I might catch flu, I'd have looked at them like they were mad.
Also, since spring 2021, there have been no excess deaths (source, UK). Everyone dying from Covid is offset by someone not dying from something else.
It's not that it's over, it will never be over, any more than colds or flu will be over — but it's at a level where we have to decide between carrying on with life and society or accepting permanent restrictions.
posted by Klipspringer at 1:44 AM on June 11, 2022 [22 favorites]
Also, since spring 2021, there have been no excess deaths (source, UK). Everyone dying from Covid is offset by someone not dying from something else.
It's not that it's over, it will never be over, any more than colds or flu will be over — but it's at a level where we have to decide between carrying on with life and society or accepting permanent restrictions.
posted by Klipspringer at 1:44 AM on June 11, 2022 [22 favorites]
I live in Australia. Through good government policy, collective action and significant individual sacrifices, we managed to live mostly Covid-free until early 2022. We got vaccinated in huge numbers (95% of my region is double vaccinated, unsure about the % of people who are boosted). And now we’re a Covid hotspot, the #6 country in terms of high infections per 100k. People die of Covid, but at dramatically lower rates than in early waves. I’m glad we were extremely cautious in the early days; at the moment, with the information available, I’m comfortable ramping down my precautions to mask-wearing in specific settings (healthcare, aged care, public transport) and staying on top of boosters as they become available.
At the risk of having my answer deleted, and assuming the question isn’t US-centric and you’re open to international responses, the current dominant strain just isn’t as lethal as the original. People are making decisions based on that.
posted by third word on a random page at 1:51 AM on June 11, 2022 [9 favorites]
At the risk of having my answer deleted, and assuming the question isn’t US-centric and you’re open to international responses, the current dominant strain just isn’t as lethal as the original. People are making decisions based on that.
posted by third word on a random page at 1:51 AM on June 11, 2022 [9 favorites]
it's a new and mysterious infection. we have no epidemiogy on long covid. so far it's a wide cluster of symptoms.
say, in ten years, 20% of everyone who had mild or asymptomatic covid comes down with serious long covid. insurance companies are going to play nice? are they even going to acknowledge it - you might've stayed home and never had an official diagnosis.
i dunno, man. there's a lot of self assuredness around this particular unfolding pathogen.
the precautionary principle maybe applies.
posted by j_curiouser at 1:59 AM on June 11, 2022 [14 favorites]
say, in ten years, 20% of everyone who had mild or asymptomatic covid comes down with serious long covid. insurance companies are going to play nice? are they even going to acknowledge it - you might've stayed home and never had an official diagnosis.
i dunno, man. there's a lot of self assuredness around this particular unfolding pathogen.
the precautionary principle maybe applies.
posted by j_curiouser at 1:59 AM on June 11, 2022 [14 favorites]
Covid is not "over," but it's here to stay now. I am personally still more cautious than your average bear, but when I do risk assessments for something I'm not thinking "am I willing to do this now" but " am I willing to give this up for the next 5 years? 10?" Because I don't think the reality of covid is going to change much. This is it. It sucks, it makes me very afraid for my vulnerable relatives, but it is what it is.
I'm still masking in public, I'll only eat out when it's the only way to see a friend, and I'm sure as hell not going to any big events. But I am living my life in a way that feels sustainable for the long haul, so I am having friends over unmasked, not wearing a mask at my (four person) physical job, occasionally staying at hotels, going to important weddings.
posted by stillnocturnal at 2:11 AM on June 11, 2022 [8 favorites]
I'm still masking in public, I'll only eat out when it's the only way to see a friend, and I'm sure as hell not going to any big events. But I am living my life in a way that feels sustainable for the long haul, so I am having friends over unmasked, not wearing a mask at my (four person) physical job, occasionally staying at hotels, going to important weddings.
posted by stillnocturnal at 2:11 AM on June 11, 2022 [8 favorites]
data suggests that vaccination reduces long-COVID symptoms to levels that are comparable to that of the uninfected population (not having a proper control group has been a major problem with previous long-COVID studies, and has resulted in some extremely dubious and sometimes downright incorrect claims being made about its prevalence, often here on Metafilter).
In apparent contradiction to that paper, there was a recent study of thirteen million people (which did include a control group) that found vaccination to only lower one’s chance of getting long COVID by fifteen percent. Perhaps the jury is still out on this question.
Returning one more time to the question of "why do people differ on whether the pandemic is over," I do think that our medical and explanatory systems have failed us regarding long COVID studies and reporting.
For one thing, they lump people with dragged-out symptoms (“I still have a cough four weeks later”) together with people whose lives have been devastated (“I had to quit my job and am mostly bedbound”). For another, our understanding of post viral syndromes is deeply lacking. (For instance, have you ever read about the potential link between Parkinson's and the 1918 flu?) And finally, I think the media is failing to transmit that a lot of people are probably already carrying COVID damage — not “long COVID” — that they don’t even know about, a la the recent study that found increased risk of heart disease even in otherwise recovered individuals.
Once again, I think people who know they are vulnerable (because they are already sick/disabled and/or have young children who can't be vaccinated) are seeing the calculus differently from people who do not perceive substantial risk to themselves.
posted by hungrytiger at 2:17 AM on June 11, 2022 [34 favorites]
In apparent contradiction to that paper, there was a recent study of thirteen million people (which did include a control group) that found vaccination to only lower one’s chance of getting long COVID by fifteen percent. Perhaps the jury is still out on this question.
Returning one more time to the question of "why do people differ on whether the pandemic is over," I do think that our medical and explanatory systems have failed us regarding long COVID studies and reporting.
For one thing, they lump people with dragged-out symptoms (“I still have a cough four weeks later”) together with people whose lives have been devastated (“I had to quit my job and am mostly bedbound”). For another, our understanding of post viral syndromes is deeply lacking. (For instance, have you ever read about the potential link between Parkinson's and the 1918 flu?) And finally, I think the media is failing to transmit that a lot of people are probably already carrying COVID damage — not “long COVID” — that they don’t even know about, a la the recent study that found increased risk of heart disease even in otherwise recovered individuals.
Once again, I think people who know they are vulnerable (because they are already sick/disabled and/or have young children who can't be vaccinated) are seeing the calculus differently from people who do not perceive substantial risk to themselves.
posted by hungrytiger at 2:17 AM on June 11, 2022 [34 favorites]
Once again, I think people who know they are vulnerable (because they are already sick/disabled and/or have young children who can't be vaccinated) are seeing the calculus differently from people who do not perceive substantial risk to themselves.
That's exactly it. We're in a place where we as a society are essentially living on two different planets. On one planet, Covid is absolutely thing that exists but the risk is low, livable, and manageable enough for most people to continue their lives as usual, give or take a few precautions. On the other planet, Covid can be a dangerous and contagious illness and it's best to remain cautious, especially for vulnerable populations. As every month passes, the orbits of these planets are accelerating away from each other.
Because we're still getting a grasp on covid, which planet you live on depends largely on your own self-identified risk.
I live on the planet where "Well, there's Evusheld now!" and "It's just like the flu!" and "Recent data suggests..." all sound a bit ghoulish coming from people who are at low risk and have zero real idea of what the past two years have been like for the disabled and medically fragile.
posted by mochapickle at 2:38 AM on June 11, 2022 [48 favorites]
That's exactly it. We're in a place where we as a society are essentially living on two different planets. On one planet, Covid is absolutely thing that exists but the risk is low, livable, and manageable enough for most people to continue their lives as usual, give or take a few precautions. On the other planet, Covid can be a dangerous and contagious illness and it's best to remain cautious, especially for vulnerable populations. As every month passes, the orbits of these planets are accelerating away from each other.
Because we're still getting a grasp on covid, which planet you live on depends largely on your own self-identified risk.
I live on the planet where "Well, there's Evusheld now!" and "It's just like the flu!" and "Recent data suggests..." all sound a bit ghoulish coming from people who are at low risk and have zero real idea of what the past two years have been like for the disabled and medically fragile.
posted by mochapickle at 2:38 AM on June 11, 2022 [48 favorites]
... Also I don't know the scope of the question.
We don't have access to paxlovid in my country, and last time I checked we were running out of Pfizer vaccines (I think j&j is still available). Most people I know got vaccinated but are not willing to get boosted because of vaccine hesitancy.
As far as I understand, we don't know much about how long our current vaccines will protect us, especially against variants.
I think we're still very much in "we don't know yet" territory.
posted by Zumbador at 3:22 AM on June 11, 2022 [5 favorites]
We don't have access to paxlovid in my country, and last time I checked we were running out of Pfizer vaccines (I think j&j is still available). Most people I know got vaccinated but are not willing to get boosted because of vaccine hesitancy.
As far as I understand, we don't know much about how long our current vaccines will protect us, especially against variants.
I think we're still very much in "we don't know yet" territory.
posted by Zumbador at 3:22 AM on June 11, 2022 [5 favorites]
I've been thinking a lot about this. In short, the "lock-down" was intended to "flatten the curve" so that hospitals and morgues weren't overwhelmed. They were still overwhelmed, particularly the funeral homes and there are news reports that are disturbing of mass graves and rotting bodies. But now, though hospitals, morgues and funeral homes are busy with covid patients/deaths, they have capacity to deal with them. This is dark and disturbing, but apparently ok for most people and I guess better than social isolation? It's not my preference because I don't want to make my children orphans, but for others that risk appears to be reasonable.
Also as a side note, I'm a little bemused by people referring to "business as usual" as half of my department is out sick with covid right now. And we are coming to the end of the fiscal year and associated legal requirements. All work has stopped. Of the seven senior staff members in my department, it is currently only my boss and me. My boss actually burst into tears yesterday - I don't think it is personal. So, I'm not certain "business as usual" actually involves people *doing business*.
posted by Toddles at 3:59 AM on June 11, 2022 [14 favorites]
Also as a side note, I'm a little bemused by people referring to "business as usual" as half of my department is out sick with covid right now. And we are coming to the end of the fiscal year and associated legal requirements. All work has stopped. Of the seven senior staff members in my department, it is currently only my boss and me. My boss actually burst into tears yesterday - I don't think it is personal. So, I'm not certain "business as usual" actually involves people *doing business*.
posted by Toddles at 3:59 AM on June 11, 2022 [14 favorites]
I won't touch on what is morally/scientifically right, but to answer why people act like it's over, my (non-US) answer is: because it feels like it's over.
COVID doesn't come up in the news anymore, nor in conversation. All restrictions have been lifted here, numbers are low, mask mandates have been lifted months ago and barely anyone wears a mask (only some tourists from abroad do). Everyone I know and care about is properly vaccinated and good hospital care would be (currently) available if needed. Almost everyone I know has had COVID months ago, with no serious illness or serious long-term effects. I don't personally know anyone who is vulnerable/non-vaccinated or has caught COVID recently.
Putting all that together, it feels like it's over. Of course, I cognitively know it's still around (and will be around perhaps indefinitely). But it's just moved to the back of my mind with all the other terrible things in the world that I know are going on but don't affect me like, let's say, people in poor countries dying of easily preventable diseases or the war in Yemen. Until autumn comes around and a new big wave happens, that is...
Again, not saying this is right, just my view on the processes behind it.
posted by snusmumrik at 4:03 AM on June 11, 2022 [5 favorites]
COVID doesn't come up in the news anymore, nor in conversation. All restrictions have been lifted here, numbers are low, mask mandates have been lifted months ago and barely anyone wears a mask (only some tourists from abroad do). Everyone I know and care about is properly vaccinated and good hospital care would be (currently) available if needed. Almost everyone I know has had COVID months ago, with no serious illness or serious long-term effects. I don't personally know anyone who is vulnerable/non-vaccinated or has caught COVID recently.
Putting all that together, it feels like it's over. Of course, I cognitively know it's still around (and will be around perhaps indefinitely). But it's just moved to the back of my mind with all the other terrible things in the world that I know are going on but don't affect me like, let's say, people in poor countries dying of easily preventable diseases or the war in Yemen. Until autumn comes around and a new big wave happens, that is...
Again, not saying this is right, just my view on the processes behind it.
posted by snusmumrik at 4:03 AM on June 11, 2022 [5 favorites]
Zumbador: as far as I know, we aren't running out of Pfizer, but because of the hesitancy our stock is not being used up and is in danger of expiration (although the expiration dates were extended a little based on new data from Pfizer). That's why people over 50 are now being offered another Pfizer booster -- to use up the stock. I don't qualify, but it's quite possible that they will extend this to more age groups.
But I agree more broadly (e.g. about the paxlovid). We also don't have cheap rapid tests or genuine respirators here, which is very frustrating. It feels very much as if people are seeing this as a solved problem globally without realising that locally they don't have access to a lot of precautions and treatments that people can get overseas. I also think that our (hypothesised) high level of immunity because of past community infection rates has lulled us into a false sense of security, and I'm worried about what may happen if the next variant is worse (there's a lot of magical thinking around this).
At least (in the places I frequent) most people are still masking up. This has been a lot less politicised here than e.g. in the US.
I am lucky enough to have a very low-risk lifestyle. I have recently started taking more calculated risks (meeting in person with small groups; occasionally even indoor maskless eating), but very infrequently, and only when there's a specific reason that I think is important enough. And I know that every time I do this it's a risk, and don't pretend that it isn't.
I don't see myself returning to pre-pandemic "normality" until we have much more conclusive data about long COVID -- and/or a sterilising vaccine. I've been following the research into nasal vaccines with interest, and I am optimistic that we will eventually get one that prevents infection (and therefore really puts the brakes on transmission). If that happens, it will be a real game-changer, and a real chance for the pandemic to be genuinely over.
posted by confluency at 4:07 AM on June 11, 2022 [7 favorites]
But I agree more broadly (e.g. about the paxlovid). We also don't have cheap rapid tests or genuine respirators here, which is very frustrating. It feels very much as if people are seeing this as a solved problem globally without realising that locally they don't have access to a lot of precautions and treatments that people can get overseas. I also think that our (hypothesised) high level of immunity because of past community infection rates has lulled us into a false sense of security, and I'm worried about what may happen if the next variant is worse (there's a lot of magical thinking around this).
At least (in the places I frequent) most people are still masking up. This has been a lot less politicised here than e.g. in the US.
I am lucky enough to have a very low-risk lifestyle. I have recently started taking more calculated risks (meeting in person with small groups; occasionally even indoor maskless eating), but very infrequently, and only when there's a specific reason that I think is important enough. And I know that every time I do this it's a risk, and don't pretend that it isn't.
I don't see myself returning to pre-pandemic "normality" until we have much more conclusive data about long COVID -- and/or a sterilising vaccine. I've been following the research into nasal vaccines with interest, and I am optimistic that we will eventually get one that prevents infection (and therefore really puts the brakes on transmission). If that happens, it will be a real game-changer, and a real chance for the pandemic to be genuinely over.
posted by confluency at 4:07 AM on June 11, 2022 [7 favorites]
treating COVID like it's over
There are definitely people who think that, but I’m not sure it’s a helpful way to frame it. Some people are now concluding that this will never be over, which may mean different choices to the “temporary problem” mindset we’ve had for the last two years. My feeling is that’s becoming the prevailing attitude.
That is true here in the UK; we are officially “Living With Covid”. We have vaccines and treatments that reduce the death rate dramatically. Without unrealistic, universal global coordinated effort, it won’t go away. So the choice is to isolate ourselves, to a greater or lesser degree, forever; or accept this lessened but still extant level of risk, and get back to a more “normal” life. Official policy is the latter, and despite a wary start almost everyone is on board with this.
Final point — strict Covid policies reduce the risk from Covid, obviously, but they are known to increase other risks instead. Everything is a trade off, in the same way that not every speed limit is 5mph.
posted by breakfast burrito at 4:26 AM on June 11, 2022 [13 favorites]
There are definitely people who think that, but I’m not sure it’s a helpful way to frame it. Some people are now concluding that this will never be over, which may mean different choices to the “temporary problem” mindset we’ve had for the last two years. My feeling is that’s becoming the prevailing attitude.
That is true here in the UK; we are officially “Living With Covid”. We have vaccines and treatments that reduce the death rate dramatically. Without unrealistic, universal global coordinated effort, it won’t go away. So the choice is to isolate ourselves, to a greater or lesser degree, forever; or accept this lessened but still extant level of risk, and get back to a more “normal” life. Official policy is the latter, and despite a wary start almost everyone is on board with this.
Final point — strict Covid policies reduce the risk from Covid, obviously, but they are known to increase other risks instead. Everything is a trade off, in the same way that not every speed limit is 5mph.
posted by breakfast burrito at 4:26 AM on June 11, 2022 [13 favorites]
Even in my widest circles, I don't know anyone who has died of Covid in the last 6-9 months. In total I know of 5 people who have died of Covid throughout the pandemic. None of them were vaccinated. I know many people who have had Covid in the last 6-9 months, many of them have needed to take a few days off work. They were all vaccinated. The illness feels about a severe as a particularly contagious flu to me now. This is backed up by no longer hearing that hospitals are in any way overwhelmed. In addition, it's over because there are no restrictions any more.
posted by plonkee at 4:46 AM on June 11, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by plonkee at 4:46 AM on June 11, 2022 [6 favorites]
I guess really the answer is because the pandemic itself more or less is over. Sure it could flare back up again, but otherwise this is as good as it's going to get. There is no future, better, state to look forward to.
posted by plonkee at 4:49 AM on June 11, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by plonkee at 4:49 AM on June 11, 2022 [6 favorites]
In England (can't speak for the rest of the UK), the majority of the population does not, by and large, have access to free tests, to boosters or to Paxlovid.
All of which actually bolsters the messaging from on high, whether that's the Government, the health authority, the media or your boss, that to all intents and purposes, it's over. If you aren't eligible for a booster or antivirals, it's because you don't need them; Covid is now only a threat to the elderly and infirm. Precautions are no longer required. Case rates are low. Yeah, if you have symptoms, you might want to think about staying home for a few days, but you're not obliged to: that's not how we'd treat a dangerous communicable disease, so Covid can't be dangerous.
The majority of people are taking one of two options:
Option 2 is probably also quite common, but as it looks indistinguishable from option 1, it's hard to guess how many people are in that camp.
It's increasingly hard to take any other option.
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 5:01 AM on June 11, 2022 [9 favorites]
All of which actually bolsters the messaging from on high, whether that's the Government, the health authority, the media or your boss, that to all intents and purposes, it's over. If you aren't eligible for a booster or antivirals, it's because you don't need them; Covid is now only a threat to the elderly and infirm. Precautions are no longer required. Case rates are low. Yeah, if you have symptoms, you might want to think about staying home for a few days, but you're not obliged to: that's not how we'd treat a dangerous communicable disease, so Covid can't be dangerous.
The majority of people are taking one of two options:
- believe that the pandemic is over and Covid no longer poses a threat
- behave as if the pandemic is over, because you *don't* believe it's over but you want or need to participate in society; accept that you're going to have to live with a certain degree of anxiety until you catch and (hopefully) recover from Covid.
Option 2 is probably also quite common, but as it looks indistinguishable from option 1, it's hard to guess how many people are in that camp.
It's increasingly hard to take any other option.
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 5:01 AM on June 11, 2022 [9 favorites]
Some things to know about me before I answer this from my perspective:
- I am not immunocompromised and live with my kids and spouse and 75+ yo mil
- I lost a child to a 1:1,000 event which normally is easily managed so effectively is a 1:10,000 event
- I had pneumonia 1-2 times a year between the ages of 9 and 16 which resulted in a decade of shortness of breath
- I had mono at 20 and had complications; I've had two rounds of of transverse myelitis
- I have PTSD
For me, the response to Covid here in Canada on an individual level reads partly as a trauma-response to me. Unfortunately denial is a huge factor in trauma.
When my small business shut down and didn't open for 8 months, we had a social safety net but I also saw a lot of the owner-operators in my industry launch from "let's all shut down for 2 weeks and support everyone" into denial, especially once the American right-wing politicized it. These are people, decent people, generally not liberal arts or scientifically trained.
As time went on, they were placed between "a global event I don't control with fuzzy health messaging and inconsistent government policies" and "maybe it's not that bad."
People with vocations/jobs/things they love to do that don't require in-person groups maybe can't relate, and that's ok. In my mind I always think, what if someone told me I couldn't read again to save the world. I would have a really hard time.
A lot of them (not my owner, thank god) went into what I would classify as a deep state of denial. And they met up with a hell of a lot of other people who also were in the same deep state of denial.
Welcome to every family holiday dinner I have had - a group of people maintaining a fiction about my family's past.
This is how the vulnerable get sacrificed to the comfort of many. It's also how humans cope with bad things, at least, it's one way. It's banal. Denial is a common response to trauma and it may or may not be 'legitimate' but think of women who have denied their own experiences of assault.
What I find personally horrifying is watching our government (Ontario, Canada) go through the same curve. After the initial solidarity, how many people can die/become disabled and it still stay -- I hate this word -- "acceptable." Governments measure in money or votes, it seems. I expected better.
I am ashamed to say that despite having worked in an NGO for a few years that had shelters and housing and things, I had not fully absorbed -- still haven't -- that our governments do this calculus every day, with choices in disability payments and healthcare and education and transit accessibility and all kinds of things.
This is not an aberration, this move to normalize human suffering at some kind of low level. It's a bit better perhaps than when there was no welfare and no health care. But we're not at 'arrived at a great place for everyone.' I renew my fight.
But we're living in a system where our governments and businesses have accepted a level of human suffering, and so their mechanisms to make us okay with that have all started up. Advertising all. over. of gatherings without masks. (Imagine if every company on the planet normalized mask-wearing? Beer commercials, SUV ads...) Concert tickets without rapid testing at the door. No ventilation regulation. Etc.
Within that sick system you will have all kinds of individual responses so here is mine.
After my daughter died and I had my next child, I lived in fear.
Eventually I came to an understanding within myself that a) I couldn't live that way and b) what I wanted was for my son to not just exist to save me from the pain of loss, but to live.
I'm not buying him a motorcycle. All of us have had every vaccine going. But I had to ease up some on him and my next child for my and their sake. My calculus is not 'safety at every cost.'
So for our family right now, we are not in denial - I know people who have died or been left with permanent issues from Covid.
But, we are doing some things. We wear masks, especially because any of us could catch Covid given that I work public-facing, my kids are in school, etc. We pick and choose. No indoor dining, for us it's not a huge thing (unlike lack of art shows or family weddings.) We try to take care of others.
Finally...although I have experienced sequelae and lung damage, I have thought a long time about whether I wish I had stayed home from university (where I got mono) or somehow been able to isolate and not get pneumonia. And the answer is...a qualified no. I'm not willing to keep my son out of university in case he catches Covid. I was in favour of school shutting down in 2020-2021, but it did damage my kids' learning and mental health.
So that's where I'm at.
posted by warriorqueen at 5:28 AM on June 11, 2022 [42 favorites]
- I am not immunocompromised and live with my kids and spouse and 75+ yo mil
- I lost a child to a 1:1,000 event which normally is easily managed so effectively is a 1:10,000 event
- I had pneumonia 1-2 times a year between the ages of 9 and 16 which resulted in a decade of shortness of breath
- I had mono at 20 and had complications; I've had two rounds of of transverse myelitis
- I have PTSD
For me, the response to Covid here in Canada on an individual level reads partly as a trauma-response to me. Unfortunately denial is a huge factor in trauma.
When my small business shut down and didn't open for 8 months, we had a social safety net but I also saw a lot of the owner-operators in my industry launch from "let's all shut down for 2 weeks and support everyone" into denial, especially once the American right-wing politicized it. These are people, decent people, generally not liberal arts or scientifically trained.
As time went on, they were placed between "a global event I don't control with fuzzy health messaging and inconsistent government policies" and "maybe it's not that bad."
People with vocations/jobs/things they love to do that don't require in-person groups maybe can't relate, and that's ok. In my mind I always think, what if someone told me I couldn't read again to save the world. I would have a really hard time.
A lot of them (not my owner, thank god) went into what I would classify as a deep state of denial. And they met up with a hell of a lot of other people who also were in the same deep state of denial.
Welcome to every family holiday dinner I have had - a group of people maintaining a fiction about my family's past.
This is how the vulnerable get sacrificed to the comfort of many. It's also how humans cope with bad things, at least, it's one way. It's banal. Denial is a common response to trauma and it may or may not be 'legitimate' but think of women who have denied their own experiences of assault.
What I find personally horrifying is watching our government (Ontario, Canada) go through the same curve. After the initial solidarity, how many people can die/become disabled and it still stay -- I hate this word -- "acceptable." Governments measure in money or votes, it seems. I expected better.
I am ashamed to say that despite having worked in an NGO for a few years that had shelters and housing and things, I had not fully absorbed -- still haven't -- that our governments do this calculus every day, with choices in disability payments and healthcare and education and transit accessibility and all kinds of things.
This is not an aberration, this move to normalize human suffering at some kind of low level. It's a bit better perhaps than when there was no welfare and no health care. But we're not at 'arrived at a great place for everyone.' I renew my fight.
But we're living in a system where our governments and businesses have accepted a level of human suffering, and so their mechanisms to make us okay with that have all started up. Advertising all. over. of gatherings without masks. (Imagine if every company on the planet normalized mask-wearing? Beer commercials, SUV ads...) Concert tickets without rapid testing at the door. No ventilation regulation. Etc.
Within that sick system you will have all kinds of individual responses so here is mine.
After my daughter died and I had my next child, I lived in fear.
Eventually I came to an understanding within myself that a) I couldn't live that way and b) what I wanted was for my son to not just exist to save me from the pain of loss, but to live.
I'm not buying him a motorcycle. All of us have had every vaccine going. But I had to ease up some on him and my next child for my and their sake. My calculus is not 'safety at every cost.'
So for our family right now, we are not in denial - I know people who have died or been left with permanent issues from Covid.
But, we are doing some things. We wear masks, especially because any of us could catch Covid given that I work public-facing, my kids are in school, etc. We pick and choose. No indoor dining, for us it's not a huge thing (unlike lack of art shows or family weddings.) We try to take care of others.
Finally...although I have experienced sequelae and lung damage, I have thought a long time about whether I wish I had stayed home from university (where I got mono) or somehow been able to isolate and not get pneumonia. And the answer is...a qualified no. I'm not willing to keep my son out of university in case he catches Covid. I was in favour of school shutting down in 2020-2021, but it did damage my kids' learning and mental health.
So that's where I'm at.
posted by warriorqueen at 5:28 AM on June 11, 2022 [42 favorites]
The only way I can square it for myself is to figure part of it has to be that clustering thing where disabled people tend to know and be close to other disabled people, and somewhere out there in the world there seem to be other people whose important connections are not made up largely of high risk or otherwise vulnerable people. Perhaps those people, surrounded by healthy abled people without chronic health conditions, have seen mild cases sweep through with no deaths and ill effects. Perhaps they don't know people who were *already* permanently disabled from post virus syndromes before covid and desperate to avoid further disability. Perhaps none of their loved ones died. Maybe they have never dealt with the medical system as a disabled person and believe that if they do get seriously ill, simple availability of a hospital bed means they will be treated well, quickly, compassionately, fairly.
I can't imagine that perspective but if I had it, maybe I'd also be shrugging off any concerns about infecting someone else or getting long covid.
posted by Stacey at 5:40 AM on June 11, 2022 [27 favorites]
I can't imagine that perspective but if I had it, maybe I'd also be shrugging off any concerns about infecting someone else or getting long covid.
posted by Stacey at 5:40 AM on June 11, 2022 [27 favorites]
I think there is a view that we've reached a steady state, and in the absence of a serious spike, we have to adapt to the way things are now, that the vaccines provide good protection against dying, so keep getting your shots, take precautions if you feel the need but don't expect it of others.
The % of the population that's vaccinated isn't as high as it should be, but it isn't going much higher due to anti-vax movements.
posted by SemiSalt at 5:40 AM on June 11, 2022 [1 favorite]
The % of the population that's vaccinated isn't as high as it should be, but it isn't going much higher due to
posted by SemiSalt at 5:40 AM on June 11, 2022 [1 favorite]
Aside: I can't believe someone hasn't recorded a parody/charity—charody?—song called "COVID's Over (If You Want It)."
It's already been well answered by many above, but with 50 separate states allowed to set their separate standards, and plenty of DON'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO yahoos yahooing, this was bound to happen (at least in the US.)
Reporting in from Richmond, VA, where almost every friend and family member I can think of has had COVID at least once, and I still have some lingering bronchial issues after testing positive back at the end of April.
posted by emelenjr at 5:52 AM on June 11, 2022 [1 favorite]
It's already been well answered by many above, but with 50 separate states allowed to set their separate standards, and plenty of DON'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO yahoos yahooing, this was bound to happen (at least in the US.)
Reporting in from Richmond, VA, where almost every friend and family member I can think of has had COVID at least once, and I still have some lingering bronchial issues after testing positive back at the end of April.
posted by emelenjr at 5:52 AM on June 11, 2022 [1 favorite]
I suppose relative to the last two years I'm treating COVID like it's over. Here's where I'm at:
- I'm vaccinated and boosted, and in both my personal anecdotal experience and in the data I see that cases are much less severe now that we have access to vaccines and better treatment.
- I am a little hesitant to say this but... I didn't see a huge amount of evidence that our higher societal caution made that much of a difference in containing COVID surges early in the pandemic beyond hospital capacity, which is no longer an issue. Perhaps I'm wrong, I have not done a lot of digging.
- I do not see any changes in the horizon to change the covid landscape significantly, so my risk assessment is being calculated in years rather than weeks or months as it was in 2020.
- My partner works in food service and already brought COVID home, so whatever curtailment of fun/socializing we do as a household is going to be undone significantly by that.
- This winter/ spring I changed my behavior due to a surge but it's summer, so most of the things I'm doing are outdoors anyway.
posted by geegollygosh at 6:01 AM on June 11, 2022 [7 favorites]
- I'm vaccinated and boosted, and in both my personal anecdotal experience and in the data I see that cases are much less severe now that we have access to vaccines and better treatment.
- I am a little hesitant to say this but... I didn't see a huge amount of evidence that our higher societal caution made that much of a difference in containing COVID surges early in the pandemic beyond hospital capacity, which is no longer an issue. Perhaps I'm wrong, I have not done a lot of digging.
- I do not see any changes in the horizon to change the covid landscape significantly, so my risk assessment is being calculated in years rather than weeks or months as it was in 2020.
- My partner works in food service and already brought COVID home, so whatever curtailment of fun/socializing we do as a household is going to be undone significantly by that.
- This winter/ spring I changed my behavior due to a surge but it's summer, so most of the things I'm doing are outdoors anyway.
posted by geegollygosh at 6:01 AM on June 11, 2022 [7 favorites]
1) People are acting as if COVID is over because...
The pandemic is not equally distributed.
The effects of the pandemic are not equally distributed.
Honesty about the effects of the pandemic is not equally distributed.
Medicines to fight the pandemic are not equally distributed.
News about the pandemic is not equally distributed.
Given those things, and many good points made upthread, I think it is effectively impossible for individuals to answer with certainty many, many questions that are important for life safety on a daily and an incidental basis. And when the answers to any number of good-faith questions about the pandemic are either "it depends" or actually change over time and space (laws; policies; research findings; etc.), people must fall back on their own viewpoints.
2) In the United States, at least, our national consensus reality is badly fractured, possibly broken. We do not nationally agree about what constitutes reality, or how to distinguish reality from unreality. This is a chicken-and-egg thing with widespread cynicism and assumption (often justified) of bad faith in public discourse. The election of a Black president badly damaged the perceptions of a quarter of the country in terms of what America is supposed to be, do, and look like, and the followup election of a deceitful, fascist/white nationalist-adjacent con man who actively attempted to overthrow the republic shook another quarter-to-half.
People are acting like COVID is over because we are (again, speaking for the United States) unable to agree what normal daily reality is, let alone should look like with the addition of a virus that affects some people, badly harms others, and apparently hardly touches--as far as we can tell at this time--half the country. I'm a believes-in-science-and-still-masks-indoors-in-99%-of-cases person, and I think there's good stuff upthread, but our national illness has also gotten to me: I think there are people upthread making comments that are literally not reality-adjacent; they are made based on the assumption of existence of things that I do not believe exist.
taz offered an excellent reason for deletion of a set of types of comments, which seems to me to follow from the fact that even a well-moderated place like MetaFilter is so exhausted from discussion of what constitutes reality that certain kinds of discussion are not much tolerated. I support that, insofar as I don't want anti-science views to spread that will further harm national and global health, but I think it's one heck of a solid pointer to an answer to this question. The holding of widely divergent beliefs, with huge impacts for all of us, is so widespread that it's permeated most of society, and disbelief in/believing COVID is over feels to me like a logical progression from that level of disunity.
posted by cupcakeninja at 6:26 AM on June 11, 2022 [23 favorites]
The pandemic is not equally distributed.
The effects of the pandemic are not equally distributed.
Honesty about the effects of the pandemic is not equally distributed.
Medicines to fight the pandemic are not equally distributed.
News about the pandemic is not equally distributed.
Given those things, and many good points made upthread, I think it is effectively impossible for individuals to answer with certainty many, many questions that are important for life safety on a daily and an incidental basis. And when the answers to any number of good-faith questions about the pandemic are either "it depends" or actually change over time and space (laws; policies; research findings; etc.), people must fall back on their own viewpoints.
2) In the United States, at least, our national consensus reality is badly fractured, possibly broken. We do not nationally agree about what constitutes reality, or how to distinguish reality from unreality. This is a chicken-and-egg thing with widespread cynicism and assumption (often justified) of bad faith in public discourse. The election of a Black president badly damaged the perceptions of a quarter of the country in terms of what America is supposed to be, do, and look like, and the followup election of a deceitful, fascist/white nationalist-adjacent con man who actively attempted to overthrow the republic shook another quarter-to-half.
People are acting like COVID is over because we are (again, speaking for the United States) unable to agree what normal daily reality is, let alone should look like with the addition of a virus that affects some people, badly harms others, and apparently hardly touches--as far as we can tell at this time--half the country. I'm a believes-in-science-and-still-masks-indoors-in-99%-of-cases person, and I think there's good stuff upthread, but our national illness has also gotten to me: I think there are people upthread making comments that are literally not reality-adjacent; they are made based on the assumption of existence of things that I do not believe exist.
taz offered an excellent reason for deletion of a set of types of comments, which seems to me to follow from the fact that even a well-moderated place like MetaFilter is so exhausted from discussion of what constitutes reality that certain kinds of discussion are not much tolerated. I support that, insofar as I don't want anti-science views to spread that will further harm national and global health, but I think it's one heck of a solid pointer to an answer to this question. The holding of widely divergent beliefs, with huge impacts for all of us, is so widespread that it's permeated most of society, and disbelief in/believing COVID is over feels to me like a logical progression from that level of disunity.
posted by cupcakeninja at 6:26 AM on June 11, 2022 [23 favorites]
Short answer? Because they want it to be over, and their own desires are the most important thing to them.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 6:30 AM on June 11, 2022 [15 favorites]
posted by The Underpants Monster at 6:30 AM on June 11, 2022 [15 favorites]
For most people, it's effectively over, even if it will never be eradicated. I do wonder why some folks seem unable to grasp this. Perpetual isolating and public masking was never going to be option. And "Zero Covid Policy", where it was even adopted, is a slogan, not a realistic expectation. I mean, c'mon. Even among the best and most cautious governmental responses with the most compliant populations, it's not realistic to think that everyone will, or can, continue following the science to someone's expectation.
If a new particularly deadly and virulent strain pops up, then it will change. But until then, the critical pump is over and mitigation is the best we've got.
posted by 2N2222 at 6:41 AM on June 11, 2022 [7 favorites]
If a new particularly deadly and virulent strain pops up, then it will change. But until then, the critical pump is over and mitigation is the best we've got.
posted by 2N2222 at 6:41 AM on June 11, 2022 [7 favorites]
Also, since spring 2021, there have been no excess deaths (source, UK). Everyone dying from Covid is offset by someone not dying from something else.
This was not the case in the US. There were a huge number of excess deaths between summer '21 and spring '22. Source:
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm
There is a lag in the data, so the last 6-8 weeks aren't up to date, but it does seem like excess deaths have been very low for the past 2-3 months.
Personally, I've started to return to pre-pandemic behavior-- going to indoor social gatherings, going to a movie, etc. I'll re-evaluate if things get bad again.
posted by justkevin at 6:50 AM on June 11, 2022 [4 favorites]
This was not the case in the US. There were a huge number of excess deaths between summer '21 and spring '22. Source:
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm
There is a lag in the data, so the last 6-8 weeks aren't up to date, but it does seem like excess deaths have been very low for the past 2-3 months.
Personally, I've started to return to pre-pandemic behavior-- going to indoor social gatherings, going to a movie, etc. I'll re-evaluate if things get bad again.
posted by justkevin at 6:50 AM on June 11, 2022 [4 favorites]
Perpetual isolating and public masking was never going to be option. And "Zero Covid Policy", where it was even adopted, is a slogan, not a realistic expectation. I mean, c'mon. Even among the best and most cautious governmental responses with the most compliant populations, it's not realistic to think that everyone will, or can, continue following the science to someone's expectation.
As someone in the vulnerable group, I don't actually expect that. And yet I'm constantly being told, here and everywhere else, that I am. Why is that? I'm baffled that people seem to always assume that people in my situation could even imagine that people could isolate forever. Society would completely fall apart. I'm sick, not unrealistic.
One thing that makes Covid prematurely over is the absolute lack of mitigations and allowances for vulnerable groups, where these groups literally get cast aside with a shrug because people feel that if we can't offer 100% protection, the only other option is to offer nothing at all. Our stores have now dropped the mask-expected shopping hours for vulnerable people. My city planning department has a major development plan going right through my neighborhood and there's literally no way for me to see the plan without going to an in-person, unmasked, indoor meeting.
Good lord. Aren't we better than this?
posted by mochapickle at 7:02 AM on June 11, 2022 [36 favorites]
As someone in the vulnerable group, I don't actually expect that. And yet I'm constantly being told, here and everywhere else, that I am. Why is that? I'm baffled that people seem to always assume that people in my situation could even imagine that people could isolate forever. Society would completely fall apart. I'm sick, not unrealistic.
One thing that makes Covid prematurely over is the absolute lack of mitigations and allowances for vulnerable groups, where these groups literally get cast aside with a shrug because people feel that if we can't offer 100% protection, the only other option is to offer nothing at all. Our stores have now dropped the mask-expected shopping hours for vulnerable people. My city planning department has a major development plan going right through my neighborhood and there's literally no way for me to see the plan without going to an in-person, unmasked, indoor meeting.
Good lord. Aren't we better than this?
posted by mochapickle at 7:02 AM on June 11, 2022 [36 favorites]
I reject the framing of the question, because people aren’t acting like this just in the U.S.
I spent 2.5 weeks in Ireland, London, and Paris in March-April of this year and basically no one was wearing a mask or social distancing, and COVID hasn’t been politicized in these places the same way it has been in the U.S.
posted by rhymedirective at 7:16 AM on June 11, 2022 [4 favorites]
I spent 2.5 weeks in Ireland, London, and Paris in March-April of this year and basically no one was wearing a mask or social distancing, and COVID hasn’t been politicized in these places the same way it has been in the U.S.
posted by rhymedirective at 7:16 AM on June 11, 2022 [4 favorites]
Another answer: people are acting like it is over due to stress, strain, and confusion caused by 2+ years of communication challenges.
Many people I know, friends and colleagues and acquaintances, say that wearing a mask is a "small sacrifice" to protect the immunocompromised and others for whom getting COVID is life-threatening. While I personally lean that way, not least because of my own health concerns, the implicit assumption is here is sometimes "people should be wearing masks forever, or until we have foolproof therapies and vaccines, however long that takes." This seems super-unrealistic to me for many reasons, as 2N2222 indicated. Why not?
Faces are an important part of communication.
Is decreasing our ability to communicate society-wide worth saving us from the effects of COVID? That's an op-ed, but see some research below if you want to read more (fellow academic types, please forgive malformed/incomplete citations):
"The nonverbal communication of emotions"
Tracy, J. L., Randles, D., & Steckler, C. M. (2015). The nonverbal communication of emotions. Current opinion in behavioral sciences, 3, 25-30.
"Nonverbal communication: developmental perspectives"
Halberstadt, A. G., Parker, A. E., & Castro, V. L. (2013). Nonverbal communication: Developmental perspectives.
"Children’s Prototypic Facial Expressions during Emotion-Eliciting Conversations with Their Mothers"
Castro, V. L., Camras, L. A., Halberstadt, A. G., & Shuster, M. (2018). Children's prototypic facial expressions during emotion-eliciting conversations with their mothers. Emotion (Washington, D.C.), 18(2), 260–276. https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000354
That's just the slightest nod at extensive research about the impact of seeing faces. Masks impair this in various ways, and yet discussion about this subject frequently ignores this entirely. Often the best I'll see is "it's important for socializing children," or even just "the kids need it." And yet, the importance of viewing faces is tacitly acknowledged in many contexts where masks are removed when communication stakes are high.
(Side note: I've tried KN-95s with a see-through window for work, to enable lip-reading. They work for about 5 minutes, at which point the condensation from my breath means my lips are near shadows. Someone in the auto industry was working on fully clear N-95s for a while, for all the obvious safety and communication reasons, and I don't know where that is right now.)
posted by cupcakeninja at 7:16 AM on June 11, 2022 [5 favorites]
Many people I know, friends and colleagues and acquaintances, say that wearing a mask is a "small sacrifice" to protect the immunocompromised and others for whom getting COVID is life-threatening. While I personally lean that way, not least because of my own health concerns, the implicit assumption is here is sometimes "people should be wearing masks forever, or until we have foolproof therapies and vaccines, however long that takes." This seems super-unrealistic to me for many reasons, as 2N2222 indicated. Why not?
Faces are an important part of communication.
Is decreasing our ability to communicate society-wide worth saving us from the effects of COVID? That's an op-ed, but see some research below if you want to read more (fellow academic types, please forgive malformed/incomplete citations):
"The nonverbal communication of emotions"
Tracy, J. L., Randles, D., & Steckler, C. M. (2015). The nonverbal communication of emotions. Current opinion in behavioral sciences, 3, 25-30.
"Nonverbal communication: developmental perspectives"
Halberstadt, A. G., Parker, A. E., & Castro, V. L. (2013). Nonverbal communication: Developmental perspectives.
"Children’s Prototypic Facial Expressions during Emotion-Eliciting Conversations with Their Mothers"
Castro, V. L., Camras, L. A., Halberstadt, A. G., & Shuster, M. (2018). Children's prototypic facial expressions during emotion-eliciting conversations with their mothers. Emotion (Washington, D.C.), 18(2), 260–276. https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000354
That's just the slightest nod at extensive research about the impact of seeing faces. Masks impair this in various ways, and yet discussion about this subject frequently ignores this entirely. Often the best I'll see is "it's important for socializing children," or even just "the kids need it." And yet, the importance of viewing faces is tacitly acknowledged in many contexts where masks are removed when communication stakes are high.
(Side note: I've tried KN-95s with a see-through window for work, to enable lip-reading. They work for about 5 minutes, at which point the condensation from my breath means my lips are near shadows. Someone in the auto industry was working on fully clear N-95s for a while, for all the obvious safety and communication reasons, and I don't know where that is right now.)
posted by cupcakeninja at 7:16 AM on June 11, 2022 [5 favorites]
I always feel like these questions are gotchas/purity tests.
I'm probably one of those people are thinking of when they envision someone who is acting as if COVID is over, but like others have stated more eloquently above, I'm acting as if COVID is here to stay. I stayed in when I had to, vaxxed/boosted when I was told it was safe and proper to do so, and convinced others to be vaxxed as well. We avoided vacations and social situations and fun long after many went back to that.
But at a point we decided to start returning to pre-COVID activities (although I will never emotionally get over these years), while keeping watchful eye on stats. Staying in more and masking in public when the numbers rose, releasing the brakes cautiously when the numbers fell. But we started traveling again, eating out again, shopping after 8am again.
Our goal as a family was to avoid getting COVID for as long as we possibly could, to get to a point where the strain was survivable, and cross our fingers that we wouldn't have long complications/long COVID. And last month I and my husband, and then my brother, sister-in-law, and 2 nephews (one too young to be vaxxed) all caught COVID*. It sucked but we're at the end, with a few lingering coughs and taste issues that slowly improve daily. Despite all of the doom I felt when my test showed a positive result, I am thankful that we had the privilege to stave it off long enough to get the May 2022 strain and NOT the April 2020 patients-transported-in-bubbles, wash-your-groceries,clip-on-your-blood-oxygen-monitor-and-hope-for-the-best strain.
Our future will always have COVID in it. It sucks, but as it changes, the public's behavior is going to change too. Even the cautious public.
*from different places, we did not socialize in the month before this.
posted by kimberussell at 7:19 AM on June 11, 2022 [18 favorites]
I'm probably one of those people are thinking of when they envision someone who is acting as if COVID is over, but like others have stated more eloquently above, I'm acting as if COVID is here to stay. I stayed in when I had to, vaxxed/boosted when I was told it was safe and proper to do so, and convinced others to be vaxxed as well. We avoided vacations and social situations and fun long after many went back to that.
But at a point we decided to start returning to pre-COVID activities (although I will never emotionally get over these years), while keeping watchful eye on stats. Staying in more and masking in public when the numbers rose, releasing the brakes cautiously when the numbers fell. But we started traveling again, eating out again, shopping after 8am again.
Our goal as a family was to avoid getting COVID for as long as we possibly could, to get to a point where the strain was survivable, and cross our fingers that we wouldn't have long complications/long COVID. And last month I and my husband, and then my brother, sister-in-law, and 2 nephews (one too young to be vaxxed) all caught COVID*. It sucked but we're at the end, with a few lingering coughs and taste issues that slowly improve daily. Despite all of the doom I felt when my test showed a positive result, I am thankful that we had the privilege to stave it off long enough to get the May 2022 strain and NOT the April 2020 patients-transported-in-bubbles, wash-your-groceries,clip-on-your-blood-oxygen-monitor-and-hope-for-the-best strain.
Our future will always have COVID in it. It sucks, but as it changes, the public's behavior is going to change too. Even the cautious public.
*from different places, we did not socialize in the month before this.
posted by kimberussell at 7:19 AM on June 11, 2022 [18 favorites]
This is a great question, I have wanted to ask it myself. Here's what I think (US):
In early days of COVID-19, the various levels of government were focused on keeping the hospital systems from collapsing. Now, due to a combination of vaccination, immunity caused by prior infection, and antiviral drugs, this is a much more distant threat.
Over the course of the past two and a half years, their concern has shifted to economic collapse. They need people to work, buy stuff, generate tax revenues, etc. to try to prevent this.
And of course there is the political will to maintain power. Folks need to think were in good times in order to keep the status quo.
Messaging comes from the top down. The CDC has relaxed its message, and then the blue state and holdout red state local governments bowed to pressure and followed suit, from the governors, to the counties, to the school districts.
The additional devastation caused to children during 2 years of distancing is a compelling reason to stop distancing. I am not saying that we shouldn't be distancing, just that this piece of it seems to have no possible solution.
Finally, as individuals, this has been a devastating period mentally, emotionally, and financially. We are only so strong and we slip into cognitive dissonance in small moments or in general.
My husband and I are sick with COVID now, having both been 4x vaxxed and masked. We've both taked Paxlovid and have missed 2 weeks of work anyway, and are not yet back to work. We're not stuck home because of rules, in fact he went back to work in his public facing grocery job because of the "recommendations" and his employer's expectations, and guess what, he relapsed and now is back home for at least another 5 days. All this to say, this disease may be like the common cold for some people some of the time, but it has the potential to severely upend your world by knocking you down long enough that you can't earn a living or function well for an extended period. It IS different in that way and deserves to be treated as such. I think we'll come to see that eventually.
posted by happy_cat at 7:21 AM on June 11, 2022 [14 favorites]
In early days of COVID-19, the various levels of government were focused on keeping the hospital systems from collapsing. Now, due to a combination of vaccination, immunity caused by prior infection, and antiviral drugs, this is a much more distant threat.
Over the course of the past two and a half years, their concern has shifted to economic collapse. They need people to work, buy stuff, generate tax revenues, etc. to try to prevent this.
And of course there is the political will to maintain power. Folks need to think were in good times in order to keep the status quo.
Messaging comes from the top down. The CDC has relaxed its message, and then the blue state and holdout red state local governments bowed to pressure and followed suit, from the governors, to the counties, to the school districts.
The additional devastation caused to children during 2 years of distancing is a compelling reason to stop distancing. I am not saying that we shouldn't be distancing, just that this piece of it seems to have no possible solution.
Finally, as individuals, this has been a devastating period mentally, emotionally, and financially. We are only so strong and we slip into cognitive dissonance in small moments or in general.
My husband and I are sick with COVID now, having both been 4x vaxxed and masked. We've both taked Paxlovid and have missed 2 weeks of work anyway, and are not yet back to work. We're not stuck home because of rules, in fact he went back to work in his public facing grocery job because of the "recommendations" and his employer's expectations, and guess what, he relapsed and now is back home for at least another 5 days. All this to say, this disease may be like the common cold for some people some of the time, but it has the potential to severely upend your world by knocking you down long enough that you can't earn a living or function well for an extended period. It IS different in that way and deserves to be treated as such. I think we'll come to see that eventually.
posted by happy_cat at 7:21 AM on June 11, 2022 [14 favorites]
I don’t think people are pretending covid doesn’t exist any more. But what covid infections mean both to most individuals and to society as a whole has changed drastically over the last two years.
In early 2020 medicine did not know how to treat covid effectively but what everybody could see was that it was highly contagious, that mortality rates for certain parts of the population were extremely high and that hospitals were not able to keep up. So restrictions were introduced to flatten the curve to ensure those who needed medical intervention could get it. The objective of those restrictions was never to stop people from getting ill, it was to slow down the spread enough so that those who needed medical care could get it. Individuals clearly had and continue to have the objective not to get ill themselves and not to infect their loved ones.
Over the last two years, medical science learned how to treat people more effectively reducing mortality and when vaccines were found to greatly reduce severity and mortality the justification for maintaining significant restrictions simply stopped to exist, people could access the care they needed even though people were still getting sick.
I live in a country that had a reasonably coordinated response, power was taken away from local government to federal government to ensure minimum measures could be defined and implemented. And between vaccinations and better treatment the last few variants haven’t overwhelmed medical care providers.
So for the time being, covid has joined a long list of infections that affect people with varying conditions differently. There are decades of records showing greater incidents of hospitalisation for various respiratory problems every winter including greater mortality. These things always had a much greater effect on those with pre-existing conditions and the elderly. But as society we accepted that as given. Yes, public health messages encourage people to get a flu shot every year but the risk of catching flu has never stopped people from going about their normal business over the winter months. They accept the risk of such infections. And rightly or wrongly this feels no different.
I live alone, I have one risk factor and am boosted. To the best of my knowledge I’ve never had covid. But of all the people I know who have had it, some more than once, nobody ended up with long covid and nobody died.
So I’ll comply with whatever restrictions and I’ll keep washing and sanitising my hands and I much prefer spacious meeting rooms with windows you can open and I stay home when I have symptoms of any lurgies. I am a homebody for all intents and purposes so I was never out and about all the time except for work. But there is only so much time you can look at your own walls and every now and then I do meet people or travel to places and I have moved from wfh to a hybrid model, depending on what makes sense for the project I am working on at any given point. And none of that makes me a bad person.
posted by koahiatamadl at 7:30 AM on June 11, 2022 [18 favorites]
In early 2020 medicine did not know how to treat covid effectively but what everybody could see was that it was highly contagious, that mortality rates for certain parts of the population were extremely high and that hospitals were not able to keep up. So restrictions were introduced to flatten the curve to ensure those who needed medical intervention could get it. The objective of those restrictions was never to stop people from getting ill, it was to slow down the spread enough so that those who needed medical care could get it. Individuals clearly had and continue to have the objective not to get ill themselves and not to infect their loved ones.
Over the last two years, medical science learned how to treat people more effectively reducing mortality and when vaccines were found to greatly reduce severity and mortality the justification for maintaining significant restrictions simply stopped to exist, people could access the care they needed even though people were still getting sick.
I live in a country that had a reasonably coordinated response, power was taken away from local government to federal government to ensure minimum measures could be defined and implemented. And between vaccinations and better treatment the last few variants haven’t overwhelmed medical care providers.
So for the time being, covid has joined a long list of infections that affect people with varying conditions differently. There are decades of records showing greater incidents of hospitalisation for various respiratory problems every winter including greater mortality. These things always had a much greater effect on those with pre-existing conditions and the elderly. But as society we accepted that as given. Yes, public health messages encourage people to get a flu shot every year but the risk of catching flu has never stopped people from going about their normal business over the winter months. They accept the risk of such infections. And rightly or wrongly this feels no different.
I live alone, I have one risk factor and am boosted. To the best of my knowledge I’ve never had covid. But of all the people I know who have had it, some more than once, nobody ended up with long covid and nobody died.
So I’ll comply with whatever restrictions and I’ll keep washing and sanitising my hands and I much prefer spacious meeting rooms with windows you can open and I stay home when I have symptoms of any lurgies. I am a homebody for all intents and purposes so I was never out and about all the time except for work. But there is only so much time you can look at your own walls and every now and then I do meet people or travel to places and I have moved from wfh to a hybrid model, depending on what makes sense for the project I am working on at any given point. And none of that makes me a bad person.
posted by koahiatamadl at 7:30 AM on June 11, 2022 [18 favorites]
Masks impair this in various ways, and yet discussion about this subject frequently ignores this entirely. Often the best I'll see is "it's important for socializing children," or even just "the kids need it." And yet, the importance of viewing faces is tacitly acknowledged in many contexts where masks are removed when communication stakes are high.
While this is no doubt true, the choice isn't between wearing masks everywhere forever and never wearing masks at all. It would not be a huge impediment to communication to say people have to wear masks on airplanes (though I recognize that it's too much to expect of flight attendants to enforce this when people are going to be assholes and even violent assholes). A relative of mine just got COVID after 2+ years of avoiding it - he had to fly for work, and people on the plane were coughing. I'm immunocompromised, and just before COVID hit, I was in the hospital for five days with flu after a six-hour flight sitting next to someone who was obviously sick. It was one of the scariest times in my life, and I'm sure that's affected my ultra-cautious response to COVID.
And retail stores and restaurants have been able to enforce "no shirt, no shoes, no service" basically forever without the world falling apart. I'm sure there were people who were upset about that. Hell, we've gone from accepting people smoking everywhere to almost nowhere. Airplanes and restaurants and offices used to be full of cigarette smoke, sometimes with "no smoking" sections that didn't keep the smoke from everywhere else. That is a huge societal change from my childhood, and people survived it. I don't think it would be awful to expect people to wear masks in stores (though again, it is very hard for the low-wage people who end up enforcing it).
My short answer is we live in the age of the toddler, where a whole lot of people can't believe in something that's not right in front of their eyes ("no one I know died from COVID or got long COVID") and aren't willing to make even the smallest sacrifice to help people who are less lucky than they are.
posted by FencingGal at 7:58 AM on June 11, 2022 [50 favorites]
While this is no doubt true, the choice isn't between wearing masks everywhere forever and never wearing masks at all. It would not be a huge impediment to communication to say people have to wear masks on airplanes (though I recognize that it's too much to expect of flight attendants to enforce this when people are going to be assholes and even violent assholes). A relative of mine just got COVID after 2+ years of avoiding it - he had to fly for work, and people on the plane were coughing. I'm immunocompromised, and just before COVID hit, I was in the hospital for five days with flu after a six-hour flight sitting next to someone who was obviously sick. It was one of the scariest times in my life, and I'm sure that's affected my ultra-cautious response to COVID.
And retail stores and restaurants have been able to enforce "no shirt, no shoes, no service" basically forever without the world falling apart. I'm sure there were people who were upset about that. Hell, we've gone from accepting people smoking everywhere to almost nowhere. Airplanes and restaurants and offices used to be full of cigarette smoke, sometimes with "no smoking" sections that didn't keep the smoke from everywhere else. That is a huge societal change from my childhood, and people survived it. I don't think it would be awful to expect people to wear masks in stores (though again, it is very hard for the low-wage people who end up enforcing it).
My short answer is we live in the age of the toddler, where a whole lot of people can't believe in something that's not right in front of their eyes ("no one I know died from COVID or got long COVID") and aren't willing to make even the smallest sacrifice to help people who are less lucky than they are.
posted by FencingGal at 7:58 AM on June 11, 2022 [50 favorites]
I believe that the sustained economic blow of disrupted goods, reliance on work-from-home (for a privileged sector further disrupting industries not capable of working from home), the complete bollixing of movement of goods/gridlock, resulting in 1. shortages and 2. inflation of prices and 3. required significant upping of salaries, (while needed, also contributing to inflation) have made it economically imperative for governments to reduce Covid restrictions. We can see it easily in the recent announcement that inflation in the USA is a 8.6%. And this is real dollars that are deeply meaningful to every American shopping for food or fuel. Americans are also very aware of the disaster home schooling has wrought, with (largely) mothers unable to work because they had no child care as day care centers closed and schools went remote. The disruptions rolled out differently as time went on, with the economic blows of inflation finally overtaking us now. Most children are back in school, masked at first, then with vaccinations and a lowered perceived, and actual, consequence of infection masks are mostly gone. Fear of infection and restrictions on travel clobbered tourism, theater, movies, concerts . . . The economic fallout is undeniable.
Yesterday the end of testing requirements was announced for entry by plane into the USA. We have a couple of European trips planned to see family, and those countries no longer require testing.
I am among the more cautious, a nurse who is vaxxed and boosted, and who vaxxed and boosted all my family members. We wear masks in indoor places, like theaters, but are eating inside at restaurants. Last winter we took a Covid-isolated vacation and only went maskless outside, yet my daughter, her husband and all kids got Covid (their only outing around other people was skiing) and recovered without sequelae, fortunately. No ski lodge or restaurant (closed due to Covid) so they must have gotten it in line for the lift, where of course nobody wore a mask.
There definitely have been consequences to the lock-down, and it's foolish to try to deny it. More people did die early because of lack of vaccines and the idiotic and destructive political divide fueled by our deep political division when vaccines finally became available. I will never forgive Trump and his coven for skewing so many Americans to refuse vaccination. This caused many unnecessary deaths.
A hugely contagious respiritory infection which mutates widely and evades vaccination is an epic problem for individuals, communities, countries, the world. In the industrialized parts of the world health departments seem to have made a real difference, but we were all caught hugely unprepared. The impact among populations has been uneven. Governments have been more - or less - successful in facilitating vaccination and instituting other methods of lowering risk.
But all of us have taken an economic and social blow. I think covid fatigue and anger towards those who focus on the strictest restrictions to limit personal risk, which has also contributed to lack of goods, expensive goods, and inflation, is a big part of the hostility expressed by many towards government and public health.
tl;dr No aspect of our existence has been untouched by Covid and its sequelae. People can't bear the isolation and personal sacrifices any more and are making calculated responses to perceived risk. Economies have taken large blows which have flowed downstream to affect everyday costs and are making painful differences in daily life.
posted by citygirl at 8:39 AM on June 11, 2022 [11 favorites]
Yesterday the end of testing requirements was announced for entry by plane into the USA. We have a couple of European trips planned to see family, and those countries no longer require testing.
I am among the more cautious, a nurse who is vaxxed and boosted, and who vaxxed and boosted all my family members. We wear masks in indoor places, like theaters, but are eating inside at restaurants. Last winter we took a Covid-isolated vacation and only went maskless outside, yet my daughter, her husband and all kids got Covid (their only outing around other people was skiing) and recovered without sequelae, fortunately. No ski lodge or restaurant (closed due to Covid) so they must have gotten it in line for the lift, where of course nobody wore a mask.
There definitely have been consequences to the lock-down, and it's foolish to try to deny it. More people did die early because of lack of vaccines and the idiotic and destructive political divide fueled by our deep political division when vaccines finally became available. I will never forgive Trump and his coven for skewing so many Americans to refuse vaccination. This caused many unnecessary deaths.
A hugely contagious respiritory infection which mutates widely and evades vaccination is an epic problem for individuals, communities, countries, the world. In the industrialized parts of the world health departments seem to have made a real difference, but we were all caught hugely unprepared. The impact among populations has been uneven. Governments have been more - or less - successful in facilitating vaccination and instituting other methods of lowering risk.
But all of us have taken an economic and social blow. I think covid fatigue and anger towards those who focus on the strictest restrictions to limit personal risk, which has also contributed to lack of goods, expensive goods, and inflation, is a big part of the hostility expressed by many towards government and public health.
tl;dr No aspect of our existence has been untouched by Covid and its sequelae. People can't bear the isolation and personal sacrifices any more and are making calculated responses to perceived risk. Economies have taken large blows which have flowed downstream to affect everyday costs and are making painful differences in daily life.
posted by citygirl at 8:39 AM on June 11, 2022 [11 favorites]
My answer: people aren't as smart as we think, and they make bad decisions.
posted by bleep at 9:07 AM on June 11, 2022 [10 favorites]
posted by bleep at 9:07 AM on June 11, 2022 [10 favorites]
According to this map a large majority of US counties are experiencing high transmission. That's a lot of people getting sick, losing organ function, and dying. There's no definition of the word "over" that this would fall under. People just want to pretend.
posted by bleep at 9:16 AM on June 11, 2022 [15 favorites]
posted by bleep at 9:16 AM on June 11, 2022 [15 favorites]
I'm probably one of those people are thinking of when they envision someone who is acting as if COVID is over, but like others have stated more eloquently above, I'm acting as if COVID is here to stay.
I probably fit this description also -- I've been dining indoors, going to occasional work meetings indoors, and some socializing. All at a lower level than three years ago, but basically it came down to trying to trying to figure out a long term approach for myself given that this disease will be around for probably the rest of my life.
Like others have said above, at the anecdotal level, people I know (almost universally vaccinated) are catching it but no one has been having a severe case; this is different from earlier (pre-vaccines) where people we know died.
I'm not going to claim that I have the balance point perfectly set, but for me personally, there were a lot of negative impacts from the isolation and returning to a level of semi-normal social interaction has been restorative. I will definitely adjust if the metrics move in a bad direction.
More generally -- I think people in general got exhausted (and are still exhausted) with all of the stress and difficulty, especially people with kids and people who are either themselves vulnerable or live with someone vulnerable. (We stayed cautious longer than many people we know because of this, for example, and I am not sure when I will feel relaxed again.) It's been a lot and it is unrealistic to expect people to perform in those conditions for the long term. Societally, however, we are completely failing the vulnerable and it is shameful that better accommodations aren't being developed.
posted by Dip Flash at 9:59 AM on June 11, 2022 [13 favorites]
I probably fit this description also -- I've been dining indoors, going to occasional work meetings indoors, and some socializing. All at a lower level than three years ago, but basically it came down to trying to trying to figure out a long term approach for myself given that this disease will be around for probably the rest of my life.
Like others have said above, at the anecdotal level, people I know (almost universally vaccinated) are catching it but no one has been having a severe case; this is different from earlier (pre-vaccines) where people we know died.
I'm not going to claim that I have the balance point perfectly set, but for me personally, there were a lot of negative impacts from the isolation and returning to a level of semi-normal social interaction has been restorative. I will definitely adjust if the metrics move in a bad direction.
More generally -- I think people in general got exhausted (and are still exhausted) with all of the stress and difficulty, especially people with kids and people who are either themselves vulnerable or live with someone vulnerable. (We stayed cautious longer than many people we know because of this, for example, and I am not sure when I will feel relaxed again.) It's been a lot and it is unrealistic to expect people to perform in those conditions for the long term. Societally, however, we are completely failing the vulnerable and it is shameful that better accommodations aren't being developed.
posted by Dip Flash at 9:59 AM on June 11, 2022 [13 favorites]
Something that I haven’t seen written here but that plays into my own risk calculus:
Covid taught me that we have no idea what the future holds. We could die or have our lives shattered at any time.
So I try to be socially responsible. Vaxxed, boosted, etc. But I’m seizing the day. NOTHING is on hold. The future looks bleak and there’s no guarantee that any of us will even be around to see it.
My life has changed a lot since March 2020, but maybe even more than that, my perspective has changed. Now I think, these are the “beforetimes” of other disasters, and I don’t want to squander them.
posted by rue72 at 10:12 AM on June 11, 2022 [17 favorites]
Covid taught me that we have no idea what the future holds. We could die or have our lives shattered at any time.
So I try to be socially responsible. Vaxxed, boosted, etc. But I’m seizing the day. NOTHING is on hold. The future looks bleak and there’s no guarantee that any of us will even be around to see it.
My life has changed a lot since March 2020, but maybe even more than that, my perspective has changed. Now I think, these are the “beforetimes” of other disasters, and I don’t want to squander them.
posted by rue72 at 10:12 AM on June 11, 2022 [17 favorites]
I don't think COVID is over by any means, but. In the United States, at least: Death rates are way down. Hospitalization rates are way down. Treatments exist that can dramatically lessen severity if taken at the right time. I've been here, in NYC, the entire time since March 2020, and people feel different because the experience is different.
When my (generally healthy) sister got COVID in 2020, we had a legitimate, albeit modest, fear that she might die. My (generally healthy) brother got it last week, and he's staying home taking paxlovid and feeling kind of oogy.
Most of the more rigorous COVID control protocols were conceived as short-term emergency responses. It was understood that we couldn't close businesses, keep kids out of school, keep the borders closed, etc., forever, because those measures have costs, too. (I mentioned somewhere here earlier that I deferred a routine cancer screening because of the pandemic and when I finally went and had it done recently I had to go all the way to biopsy to confirm I didn't have it. You can't help but think of what might have happened.) Now, well, since we fumbled (to put it mildly) even the short-term emergency responses, COVID isn't going away for the foreseeable future. People's behavior does have to shift, and people who perceive the risk to themselves and others as lower are going to behave with less caution. I would say that there is a real lack of public health messaging about control measures that makes the case for less expensive/disruptive ones in light of the fact that we as a society do only engage in a certain degree of mitigation against the risk of dying of car crashes or the flu.(*)
(People get very angry about the comparison to the flu, but I think it's because they think it's minimizing--they don't recognize that flu is in fact a top killer of the same kinds of vulnerable groups! It is a little strange to be browbeaten about COVID prevention by people who maybe didn't even get their flu shots regularly before the pandemic.)
(*) Let's stipulate that there's not a fucking thing anyone can do about the MAGA crowd that believes that being asked to do anything for anyone else that they don't feel like doing is an infringement upon their God-given white supremacy and maybe they should buy some more guns to express their feelings.
posted by praemunire at 10:22 AM on June 11, 2022 [11 favorites]
When my (generally healthy) sister got COVID in 2020, we had a legitimate, albeit modest, fear that she might die. My (generally healthy) brother got it last week, and he's staying home taking paxlovid and feeling kind of oogy.
Most of the more rigorous COVID control protocols were conceived as short-term emergency responses. It was understood that we couldn't close businesses, keep kids out of school, keep the borders closed, etc., forever, because those measures have costs, too. (I mentioned somewhere here earlier that I deferred a routine cancer screening because of the pandemic and when I finally went and had it done recently I had to go all the way to biopsy to confirm I didn't have it. You can't help but think of what might have happened.) Now, well, since we fumbled (to put it mildly) even the short-term emergency responses, COVID isn't going away for the foreseeable future. People's behavior does have to shift, and people who perceive the risk to themselves and others as lower are going to behave with less caution. I would say that there is a real lack of public health messaging about control measures that makes the case for less expensive/disruptive ones in light of the fact that we as a society do only engage in a certain degree of mitigation against the risk of dying of car crashes or the flu.(*)
(People get very angry about the comparison to the flu, but I think it's because they think it's minimizing--they don't recognize that flu is in fact a top killer of the same kinds of vulnerable groups! It is a little strange to be browbeaten about COVID prevention by people who maybe didn't even get their flu shots regularly before the pandemic.)
(*) Let's stipulate that there's not a fucking thing anyone can do about the MAGA crowd that believes that being asked to do anything for anyone else that they don't feel like doing is an infringement upon their God-given white supremacy and maybe they should buy some more guns to express their feelings.
posted by praemunire at 10:22 AM on June 11, 2022 [11 favorites]
Last year I read an article in NYT that explains how pandemics end. When fear wanes, pandemics can "end" in societies.
People, Not Science, Decide When a Pandemic Is Over
I am a nurse in a hospital and a couple months ago we went down to zero inpatient. Our high was in the 70s during the Delta surge. As of yesterday we currently have 24 inpatient with one in the ICU. This is anecdotal and specific to my area, and I don't know the ages, vaccine status, or comorbidity or health status of these 24 inpatients, apart from one that appears to be critical because of their location.
Is the current behavior in the U.S. a situation of giving up due to emotions (being tired of it) despite facts / a case of mass delusion?
Tolerance to risk differs. Some may feel their risk of serious illness or death is low, and lower for Omicorn vs Delta and can find evidence to back this up. Some may be willing to take a risk despite being at a higher risk for serious illness. The United States will no longer require negative tests to enter the US for international travel. This is a big relief to the travel industry (and many travelers) and pressure and lobbying was likely part of the reason why this requirement changed. (I do not know the impact of a negative test requirement to travel, and whether it is beneficial to reduce numbers or transmission in countries.)
posted by loveandhappiness at 10:22 AM on June 11, 2022 [3 favorites]
People, Not Science, Decide When a Pandemic Is Over
I am a nurse in a hospital and a couple months ago we went down to zero inpatient. Our high was in the 70s during the Delta surge. As of yesterday we currently have 24 inpatient with one in the ICU. This is anecdotal and specific to my area, and I don't know the ages, vaccine status, or comorbidity or health status of these 24 inpatients, apart from one that appears to be critical because of their location.
Is the current behavior in the U.S. a situation of giving up due to emotions (being tired of it) despite facts / a case of mass delusion?
Tolerance to risk differs. Some may feel their risk of serious illness or death is low, and lower for Omicorn vs Delta and can find evidence to back this up. Some may be willing to take a risk despite being at a higher risk for serious illness. The United States will no longer require negative tests to enter the US for international travel. This is a big relief to the travel industry (and many travelers) and pressure and lobbying was likely part of the reason why this requirement changed. (I do not know the impact of a negative test requirement to travel, and whether it is beneficial to reduce numbers or transmission in countries.)
posted by loveandhappiness at 10:22 AM on June 11, 2022 [3 favorites]
I took it very seriously when there were no treatments (wore a mask in February, was in a vaccine trial, etc.) The point, to me, of getting to a moment where there were vaccines and treatments, and even volunteering in my small way to make that happen faster, was to return to normal life.
The logic of COVID has also changed with the changing variants—it was feasible, I think, to try to wipe out pre-Delta COVID. The increased transmission of later variants, especially Omicron, makes that dramatically less viable, even in places like China where they're willing to completely disrupt society to try to make that happen. At the same time, far more of us, through vaccination and infection, are no longer immunologically naive to it—plus between monoclonal antibodies and Paxlovid there's very good treatment available, also Evusheld for immunocompromised people. We have done a frustratingly bad job of getting people those non-vaccine treatments, but I'm able to tend my own garden there and ensure that anybody close to me who is willing to receive a treatment goes to get one when it will be helpful to them.
Today I think it sucks that we have a new endemic disease, but we have one whether I think it sucks or not. I have protected myself and my family members in a way that makes it not much of an issue for people around me. If I thought I could help a bunch of other people (including my unvaccinated relatives!) by behaving like COVID wasn't over I would think about it, but I think there is practically just very little for vaccinated people to do to change the course of it. Most importantly, I don't believe we'll reach a point at which "COVID is over" relative to where it is now, at least not without nasal vaccines or some other step change in technology like that that makes transmission dramatically less likely. We certainly won't do it before all my older relatives die and I can't see them anymore, or before my children grow up and can no longer live like children. I think it would be bad for them and me and the entire world, for that matter, to ignore that and continue to postpone our lives.
posted by Polycarp at 10:23 AM on June 11, 2022 [17 favorites]
The logic of COVID has also changed with the changing variants—it was feasible, I think, to try to wipe out pre-Delta COVID. The increased transmission of later variants, especially Omicron, makes that dramatically less viable, even in places like China where they're willing to completely disrupt society to try to make that happen. At the same time, far more of us, through vaccination and infection, are no longer immunologically naive to it—plus between monoclonal antibodies and Paxlovid there's very good treatment available, also Evusheld for immunocompromised people. We have done a frustratingly bad job of getting people those non-vaccine treatments, but I'm able to tend my own garden there and ensure that anybody close to me who is willing to receive a treatment goes to get one when it will be helpful to them.
Today I think it sucks that we have a new endemic disease, but we have one whether I think it sucks or not. I have protected myself and my family members in a way that makes it not much of an issue for people around me. If I thought I could help a bunch of other people (including my unvaccinated relatives!) by behaving like COVID wasn't over I would think about it, but I think there is practically just very little for vaccinated people to do to change the course of it. Most importantly, I don't believe we'll reach a point at which "COVID is over" relative to where it is now, at least not without nasal vaccines or some other step change in technology like that that makes transmission dramatically less likely. We certainly won't do it before all my older relatives die and I can't see them anymore, or before my children grow up and can no longer live like children. I think it would be bad for them and me and the entire world, for that matter, to ignore that and continue to postpone our lives.
posted by Polycarp at 10:23 AM on June 11, 2022 [17 favorites]
The novelty has worn off. SARS-CoV-2 and humanity are now far enough along the way toward fully adapting to each other that COVID is no longer exceptional.
I still haven't had it and still intend to keep on not having it for as long as possible; I'm triple vaxxed, will get another as soon as I'm eligible, and will continue to wear a mask when out and about and avoid going back to choir practice until my State's official daily case rate has dropped by three orders of magnitude which it shows absolutely no sign of doing any time soon.
But since I now know personally more people who have had it than haven't, what's over for me is any realistic hope of living amongst people who feel the same way about it that I do, and that's despite it already having killed several within my social orbit including one family member.
posted by flabdablet at 10:31 AM on June 11, 2022 [12 favorites]
I still haven't had it and still intend to keep on not having it for as long as possible; I'm triple vaxxed, will get another as soon as I'm eligible, and will continue to wear a mask when out and about and avoid going back to choir practice until my State's official daily case rate has dropped by three orders of magnitude which it shows absolutely no sign of doing any time soon.
But since I now know personally more people who have had it than haven't, what's over for me is any realistic hope of living amongst people who feel the same way about it that I do, and that's despite it already having killed several within my social orbit including one family member.
posted by flabdablet at 10:31 AM on June 11, 2022 [12 favorites]
I'm immunocompromised and I have relaxed my precautions significantly.
My son goes to daycare and for many months I've had him wear a mask. He doesn't keep it on consistently and now that there's no mandate, the teachers don't make him. This week I gave up and don't send him with a mask anymore. If he's not going to wear it and they won't remind him then there's no point.
I don't interact with other high risk people. I barely leave my house for the most part. I still masked around my high risk mother when I visited her a couple of weeks ago.
In my head, I have a belief (which is possibly not backed by science at all) that most of the idiot "you can't make me mask/take the shot" people have either died from COVID or gotten some natural immunity by now, so the risk of severe illness if I get it is still pretty low because the risk of others having a severe course is lower than it was in the beginning.
Also just the fatigue that was mentioned before. You can only be at threat level red for so long before the brain adapts to the intensity so it's no longer felt as a threat.
I still mask strictly in healthcare environments and when around people known to be high risk. I would mask in a large indoor gathering. Probably not an outdoor one.
I'll probably tighten up precautions when it gets cold again. Hopefully my child's new school will be better at helping him remember to keep the mask on.
Edit to add: I've had three shots and qualify for the 4th already, which I do plan to get as soon as life settles enough that I can afford to lose 3-4 days to the side effects. I also have an appointment later this month to freshly crash my immune system and will probably be more strict for a few weeks after that.
posted by crunchy potato at 10:32 AM on June 11, 2022 [4 favorites]
My son goes to daycare and for many months I've had him wear a mask. He doesn't keep it on consistently and now that there's no mandate, the teachers don't make him. This week I gave up and don't send him with a mask anymore. If he's not going to wear it and they won't remind him then there's no point.
I don't interact with other high risk people. I barely leave my house for the most part. I still masked around my high risk mother when I visited her a couple of weeks ago.
In my head, I have a belief (which is possibly not backed by science at all) that most of the idiot "you can't make me mask/take the shot" people have either died from COVID or gotten some natural immunity by now, so the risk of severe illness if I get it is still pretty low because the risk of others having a severe course is lower than it was in the beginning.
Also just the fatigue that was mentioned before. You can only be at threat level red for so long before the brain adapts to the intensity so it's no longer felt as a threat.
I still mask strictly in healthcare environments and when around people known to be high risk. I would mask in a large indoor gathering. Probably not an outdoor one.
I'll probably tighten up precautions when it gets cold again. Hopefully my child's new school will be better at helping him remember to keep the mask on.
Edit to add: I've had three shots and qualify for the 4th already, which I do plan to get as soon as life settles enough that I can afford to lose 3-4 days to the side effects. I also have an appointment later this month to freshly crash my immune system and will probably be more strict for a few weeks after that.
posted by crunchy potato at 10:32 AM on June 11, 2022 [4 favorites]
I'm an epidemiologist, which means that you have to take my advice with a pinch of salt (to flavor the overwhelming bitterness and to temper the scorching heat of rage).
I am looking to gauge my own reaction/feelings against what the science is with regards to the situation. Is there a solid public health, factual answer on this question, or just differing viewpoints?
There is only nuance in a system that allows for only bombastic, assertive, showy confidence. The answer(s) to your question are calculable in a very case-specific way, and yet it's been difficult--maybe impossible--to integrate that kind of scientific approach to this pandemic.
For my own sanity, I've only thinly browsed some of the responses above. There are some good, helpful links to papers about information overload, frustration, and policy measures that have variously been used to try to navigate or ignore the way things are.
From a more personal vantage, I'd emphasize just how self-reinforcing the people and media are who are behaving as if the pandemic is over. They do not--cannot--recognize any of the people who are not behaving that way for fear of losing their positions of hopeful influence. It's gross, weird, and I don't know where we go from here. When in doubt, I encourage you to try your hardest to turn away from those sources of information or noise or whetever I'm supposed to call it. Seek out trusted sources of information whose premises you accept as well-defended. I regret that this is a task for the individual now, but it is. I hope it won't be this way forever, but this is the inflection point we find ourselves in right now. Misinformation is the sign of our times and that applies just as much to public health as it does to politics.
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 10:57 AM on June 11, 2022 [36 favorites]
I am looking to gauge my own reaction/feelings against what the science is with regards to the situation. Is there a solid public health, factual answer on this question, or just differing viewpoints?
There is only nuance in a system that allows for only bombastic, assertive, showy confidence. The answer(s) to your question are calculable in a very case-specific way, and yet it's been difficult--maybe impossible--to integrate that kind of scientific approach to this pandemic.
For my own sanity, I've only thinly browsed some of the responses above. There are some good, helpful links to papers about information overload, frustration, and policy measures that have variously been used to try to navigate or ignore the way things are.
From a more personal vantage, I'd emphasize just how self-reinforcing the people and media are who are behaving as if the pandemic is over. They do not--cannot--recognize any of the people who are not behaving that way for fear of losing their positions of hopeful influence. It's gross, weird, and I don't know where we go from here. When in doubt, I encourage you to try your hardest to turn away from those sources of information or noise or whetever I'm supposed to call it. Seek out trusted sources of information whose premises you accept as well-defended. I regret that this is a task for the individual now, but it is. I hope it won't be this way forever, but this is the inflection point we find ourselves in right now. Misinformation is the sign of our times and that applies just as much to public health as it does to politics.
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 10:57 AM on June 11, 2022 [36 favorites]
I can answer this based on recent personal experience, where (within my own personal estimation) I made some reckless decisions around COVID, ones which I never ever would've made a year ago (see my recent question for an example.) This whole pandemic I've been hyper-cautious around COVID (I'm talking wiping down my groceries, not seeing another human being for 6 straight months cautious) but then I had a recent few weeks where I suddenly started making these reckless, dangerous decisions that would've given me a panic attack to even think about last year.
So, I'm not saying this to excuse or justify my recent behavior, because it wasn't okay, or to say that it's how we should all behave because everything is fine—no. COVID is still a real threat and is still endangering people on the daily, especially high-risk people, and I'm being much much more careful again. But I've been analyzing my decisions to travel, go to bars a few times, go to a concert; all done within the past 2 months, all of which are, again, wildly drastic and completely out of character for someone with my very, very low risk tolerance. Yet here I was, doing them. And here I am, seeing the vast majority of my leftist, politically-aware friends make the same risky choices. Maybe that's just my own personal circle and I need different friends, I don't know, but it's the pattern I've been seeing/living.
Why? Well, for starters I had a false sense of security due to vaccination and testing access. I thought, hey, my area's 95% vaccinated, and vaccines protect against severe disease, so that means I and others are safe even if we do get it, right? Obviously I now understand that the science is much more nuanced, but my government has been proudly proclaiming that we're the most vaccinated region in my country, we should be proud of that, so I believed them and didn't look deeper into the science of transmission, that others can still be at risk post-vaccine even though it helps, etc. Somehing I regret, but here we are.
Secondly, I have access to cheap testing, and was under the false impression that testing was pretty reliable. The tests themselves felt very medical (?) to me, so I had this bias that they were reliable even though now I understand that you have to test multiple times on different days, and even then it's more of a rough guide rather than a free pass. I didn't know that, and I really really wish I'd done more research and hadn't been so complacent.
Thirdly, there's this strong sense of social proof and social pressure. I keep seeing people I deeply admire—musicians who have the same radical left ideas I do, friends who are heavily involved in local politics, family members who have always been very concerned about others and were also incredibly cautious during the pandemic—suddenly going out unmasked, or having weddings without any precautions, or going to bars on the weekends. And seeing those instagram stories made it feel safer than it actually is. Like, if everyone I admire is doing it and so are my closest friends and so is my family, and they're usually on the same page as I am politically, then it made it feel much safer than it actually was. It made me feel like "oh, okay, I guess things are improving and I was just being too anxious about things?" Which, again, I'm aware isn't the case since COVID is still dangerous to so many, but that was the mindset I was shifting into.
I also had this internal sense of fatigue and a tunnel-vision desire to get needs met no matter the cost. This self-centered sense of "fuck, I've been sacrificing everything fulfilling in my life for 2+ years, can I please just go to a bar with a friend who almost died and see her just in case she doesn't make it by the time I visit again; can I please go to one single concert of an artist who kept me afloat for two years?" These emotionally-charged, self-focused factors definitely pushed me to be more reckless than I'm comfortable with, and though they were intense, I really really wish I'd figured out safer ways to get those needs met.
So, to sum all that up, between confusing messaging from our governments, a false sense of security, fatigue, misinformation, and being reckless because I felt deprived, I wasn't as careful as I wish I'd been for a couple months and was acting like it was over. I regret it, and I'm trying to now be much more careful (masking, no big events, meeting people outdoors, etc), but that's what happened to me, personally. It sucks, and I hate that I acted that way, but I get the sense that it's what's happening to a lot of otherwise reasonable-and-cautious people too. Not everybody, of course, I know there's plenty of folks still taking precautions, and I don't think any of these reasons justify throwing high-risk people under the bus, but yeah.
I desperately hope our policy-makers enact more common-sense policies like masking in public places, access to testing, fighting against misinformation, etc, because I believe it would help a lot with the decisions people are making. I know it would've helped me a few weeks ago to be more cautious and not get lulled into a dangerous, warped sense of security. Don't know if it'll happen with how things are going, but I hope so.
posted by Anonymous at 11:34 AM on June 11, 2022
So, I'm not saying this to excuse or justify my recent behavior, because it wasn't okay, or to say that it's how we should all behave because everything is fine—no. COVID is still a real threat and is still endangering people on the daily, especially high-risk people, and I'm being much much more careful again. But I've been analyzing my decisions to travel, go to bars a few times, go to a concert; all done within the past 2 months, all of which are, again, wildly drastic and completely out of character for someone with my very, very low risk tolerance. Yet here I was, doing them. And here I am, seeing the vast majority of my leftist, politically-aware friends make the same risky choices. Maybe that's just my own personal circle and I need different friends, I don't know, but it's the pattern I've been seeing/living.
Why? Well, for starters I had a false sense of security due to vaccination and testing access. I thought, hey, my area's 95% vaccinated, and vaccines protect against severe disease, so that means I and others are safe even if we do get it, right? Obviously I now understand that the science is much more nuanced, but my government has been proudly proclaiming that we're the most vaccinated region in my country, we should be proud of that, so I believed them and didn't look deeper into the science of transmission, that others can still be at risk post-vaccine even though it helps, etc. Somehing I regret, but here we are.
Secondly, I have access to cheap testing, and was under the false impression that testing was pretty reliable. The tests themselves felt very medical (?) to me, so I had this bias that they were reliable even though now I understand that you have to test multiple times on different days, and even then it's more of a rough guide rather than a free pass. I didn't know that, and I really really wish I'd done more research and hadn't been so complacent.
Thirdly, there's this strong sense of social proof and social pressure. I keep seeing people I deeply admire—musicians who have the same radical left ideas I do, friends who are heavily involved in local politics, family members who have always been very concerned about others and were also incredibly cautious during the pandemic—suddenly going out unmasked, or having weddings without any precautions, or going to bars on the weekends. And seeing those instagram stories made it feel safer than it actually is. Like, if everyone I admire is doing it and so are my closest friends and so is my family, and they're usually on the same page as I am politically, then it made it feel much safer than it actually was. It made me feel like "oh, okay, I guess things are improving and I was just being too anxious about things?" Which, again, I'm aware isn't the case since COVID is still dangerous to so many, but that was the mindset I was shifting into.
I also had this internal sense of fatigue and a tunnel-vision desire to get needs met no matter the cost. This self-centered sense of "fuck, I've been sacrificing everything fulfilling in my life for 2+ years, can I please just go to a bar with a friend who almost died and see her just in case she doesn't make it by the time I visit again; can I please go to one single concert of an artist who kept me afloat for two years?" These emotionally-charged, self-focused factors definitely pushed me to be more reckless than I'm comfortable with, and though they were intense, I really really wish I'd figured out safer ways to get those needs met.
So, to sum all that up, between confusing messaging from our governments, a false sense of security, fatigue, misinformation, and being reckless because I felt deprived, I wasn't as careful as I wish I'd been for a couple months and was acting like it was over. I regret it, and I'm trying to now be much more careful (masking, no big events, meeting people outdoors, etc), but that's what happened to me, personally. It sucks, and I hate that I acted that way, but I get the sense that it's what's happening to a lot of otherwise reasonable-and-cautious people too. Not everybody, of course, I know there's plenty of folks still taking precautions, and I don't think any of these reasons justify throwing high-risk people under the bus, but yeah.
I desperately hope our policy-makers enact more common-sense policies like masking in public places, access to testing, fighting against misinformation, etc, because I believe it would help a lot with the decisions people are making. I know it would've helped me a few weeks ago to be more cautious and not get lulled into a dangerous, warped sense of security. Don't know if it'll happen with how things are going, but I hope so.
posted by Anonymous at 11:34 AM on June 11, 2022
For me, it's not so much that I feel like COVID is over, but that I feel like I don't have the capacity to really worry about it anymore. I have decided that my physical health risk from COVID is not as high as the mental health risk of continuing to isolate and keep so many of the things that make life worth living on hold. I've been working from home for over two years and am absolutely sick of it. Although I'm glad to have been able to work from home during this experience, I never wanted to work from home in the first place - I like going into an office and seeing people every day. Now, I feel lonely and isolated and miserable. I am sick of it. I actually want a job where I can see people in person more often, even if it means being at higher risk of getting COVID again and again and again.
I am vaccinated and boosted, and I will continue to get boosters whenever they're recommended for my age group. I still wear a mask where it seems like the right thing to do, although with so many people not masking anymore I don't know how useful my mask really is. I have no desire to eat in crowded, poorly ventilated restaurants anymore, but otherwise I don't know what activities I still want to avoid. I don't feel like the virus is going to go away. I certainly know it's not gone now. And I know there's a risk that I could have some kind of lasting harm from getting the virus. But that's where I'm at right now.
posted by wondermouse at 11:39 AM on June 11, 2022 [11 favorites]
I am vaccinated and boosted, and I will continue to get boosters whenever they're recommended for my age group. I still wear a mask where it seems like the right thing to do, although with so many people not masking anymore I don't know how useful my mask really is. I have no desire to eat in crowded, poorly ventilated restaurants anymore, but otherwise I don't know what activities I still want to avoid. I don't feel like the virus is going to go away. I certainly know it's not gone now. And I know there's a risk that I could have some kind of lasting harm from getting the virus. But that's where I'm at right now.
posted by wondermouse at 11:39 AM on June 11, 2022 [11 favorites]
The absolutist thinking in some of the comments above is just stunning. Cake, or death?
If *I* got COVID and didn’t die, that must mean that the news about people dying of COVID must be overblown.
*I* did my part by getting vaxxed and wearing a mask for a while, so I shouldn’t have to modify my behavior anymore to mitigate population-level risk.
*I* am a good person and I’m tired of all the precautions it takes to ward off this pandemic, so people who think I should still maybe mask up sometimes or care about vulnerable populations must just be purity-testing, power-seeking manipulators who want me to feel bad about myself, which makes them *bad*, because *I* am good.
Scientists say, “Things are complex and we’re not yet sure how even mild infections will affect people at the population level in the long run,” that means that They Don’t Know, but I *do* know from my one experience at the center of the universe that some people get COVID and don’t suffer for months afterward, so the science must just be noise.
Since the *only* options are total lockdown and debilitating fear and masks everywhere forever vs. beautiful, friendly life-like-it-used-to-be, I’m on the side of Common Sense when I decide that COVID is over.
The idea that the only two alternatives are cake or death is juvenile and reductive. We don’t think this way about flu, or car accidents, or cancer or heart disease or malaria or early childhood development or any of the thorny, complex problems that human societies need to tangle with. Yes, COVID is out of Pandora’s box and now a human scourge that is unlikely to ever go away. “We have vaccines and Paxlovid, now, so…” is a callous shrug in the face of the literal BILLIONS of folks in developing countries with no access to vaccines, not to mention the resistance to vaccination in countries that *did and do* have enough supply and health education capacity to be 100% jabbed up ages ago. People making these kinds of comments: do you think we should just stop investing in low-cost flu shots and improving road safety, since people obviously don’t often get flu shots and continue to drive, despite the risks? Should school systems stop trying to improve outcomes for kids who aren’t doing well, because some kids are doing fine?
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 11:52 AM on June 11, 2022 [27 favorites]
If *I* got COVID and didn’t die, that must mean that the news about people dying of COVID must be overblown.
*I* did my part by getting vaxxed and wearing a mask for a while, so I shouldn’t have to modify my behavior anymore to mitigate population-level risk.
*I* am a good person and I’m tired of all the precautions it takes to ward off this pandemic, so people who think I should still maybe mask up sometimes or care about vulnerable populations must just be purity-testing, power-seeking manipulators who want me to feel bad about myself, which makes them *bad*, because *I* am good.
Scientists say, “Things are complex and we’re not yet sure how even mild infections will affect people at the population level in the long run,” that means that They Don’t Know, but I *do* know from my one experience at the center of the universe that some people get COVID and don’t suffer for months afterward, so the science must just be noise.
Since the *only* options are total lockdown and debilitating fear and masks everywhere forever vs. beautiful, friendly life-like-it-used-to-be, I’m on the side of Common Sense when I decide that COVID is over.
The idea that the only two alternatives are cake or death is juvenile and reductive. We don’t think this way about flu, or car accidents, or cancer or heart disease or malaria or early childhood development or any of the thorny, complex problems that human societies need to tangle with. Yes, COVID is out of Pandora’s box and now a human scourge that is unlikely to ever go away. “We have vaccines and Paxlovid, now, so…” is a callous shrug in the face of the literal BILLIONS of folks in developing countries with no access to vaccines, not to mention the resistance to vaccination in countries that *did and do* have enough supply and health education capacity to be 100% jabbed up ages ago. People making these kinds of comments: do you think we should just stop investing in low-cost flu shots and improving road safety, since people obviously don’t often get flu shots and continue to drive, despite the risks? Should school systems stop trying to improve outcomes for kids who aren’t doing well, because some kids are doing fine?
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 11:52 AM on June 11, 2022 [27 favorites]
I think we need to start treating COVID as endemic. I still mask up just about everywhere I go (which is mostly the grocery store, and the bus when I have to go into the office, which is mostly empty), and haven't sat down in a restaurant or gone to a movie since early 2020.
I'm all for a "new normal." Masks are important, but me wearing a mask when others don't is still helpful. I want to be able to wear a mask when I want to, and am not going to be down on those who don't. I think we're past that, whether we should be or not. I'm sure there's another pandemic just around the corner, over which I have no control except how I react and try to protect myself and my family.
posted by lhauser at 12:03 PM on June 11, 2022 [1 favorite]
I'm all for a "new normal." Masks are important, but me wearing a mask when others don't is still helpful. I want to be able to wear a mask when I want to, and am not going to be down on those who don't. I think we're past that, whether we should be or not. I'm sure there's another pandemic just around the corner, over which I have no control except how I react and try to protect myself and my family.
posted by lhauser at 12:03 PM on June 11, 2022 [1 favorite]
Although I'm glad to have been able to work from home during this experience, I never wanted to work from home in the first place - I like going into an office and seeing people every day. Now, I feel lonely and isolated and miserable. I am sick of it. I actually want a job where I can see people in person more often, even if it means being at higher risk of getting COVID again and again and again.
I made the above comment, but I also want to point out: My employer is falling apart too. There is zero company culture now that most of the staff has been working from home. It went from an inspiring company to work for to a soulless slog, where no one seems to truly care about anyone else unless they got to know them in person before everyone started working from home. And my company does important work. I don't have a bullshit job. But I am about to quit as well.
New employees develop no sense of camaraderie where they may have before. Long time employees have been quitting and it's just like, "Oh well, there goes another one." It is really depressing to see, and the willpower doesn't seem to exist to try to wrangle everyone back to the office on a more regular basis. Frankly, the company is run by humans and everyone is exhausted. I feel like stuff like this is doing long term damage to the fabric of human civilization, more than the virus will do directly.
For those who have said things like "Anyone who is acting normal now is stupid or ignorant," please consider the other angles to this very complicated human predicament.
posted by wondermouse at 12:38 PM on June 11, 2022 [20 favorites]
I made the above comment, but I also want to point out: My employer is falling apart too. There is zero company culture now that most of the staff has been working from home. It went from an inspiring company to work for to a soulless slog, where no one seems to truly care about anyone else unless they got to know them in person before everyone started working from home. And my company does important work. I don't have a bullshit job. But I am about to quit as well.
New employees develop no sense of camaraderie where they may have before. Long time employees have been quitting and it's just like, "Oh well, there goes another one." It is really depressing to see, and the willpower doesn't seem to exist to try to wrangle everyone back to the office on a more regular basis. Frankly, the company is run by humans and everyone is exhausted. I feel like stuff like this is doing long term damage to the fabric of human civilization, more than the virus will do directly.
For those who have said things like "Anyone who is acting normal now is stupid or ignorant," please consider the other angles to this very complicated human predicament.
posted by wondermouse at 12:38 PM on June 11, 2022 [20 favorites]
I'm admittedly biased, but I think the answers here from people who are trying to cobble their lives back together in this environment have been very nuanced and not absolutist at all, and I'm dismayed (but not surprised, sadly) at the language and bad-faith interpretations seen here. Many of us are saying we had Covid, and are we required to provide a body count of our acquaintances who have passed in order to prove we're not minimizing what's going on?
Cake or death? Who is saying this at all in this thread?
posted by kimberussell at 1:14 PM on June 11, 2022 [25 favorites]
Cake or death? Who is saying this at all in this thread?
posted by kimberussell at 1:14 PM on June 11, 2022 [25 favorites]
I think it's also as simple as, a ton of people got Omicron, either in January when it was poppin off or in the more recent wave that's ongoing in many places, and they expect they're quite likely to be immune or mostly-immune to other Omicron variants. I think that was a LOT of the "yay mask mandates are over" rejoicing from people in frontline customer service roles - people felt like they had already had covid, got over it, were very unlikely to catch it again but still were required by their employers to wear a mask, and it felt silly to them and also uncomfortable for many of them. Which I get! I haven't had confirmed covid yet, but I do think I'd feel like once I'd suffered through it, I could at least drop my guard a little bit for a couple months, and it would be annoying to have to stick to rules saying that wasn't allowed.
My husband had a long exposure to covid (ate a long dinner sitting next to someone coughing and sneezing who tested positive a few hours later) and he didn't catch it, and that also absolutely changed his behavior. I think he is much less afraid of a breakthrough case, because he has this solid evidence that his vaccine worked a trick in a situation where a breakthrough case seemed very likely. Is this rational? Not terribly; if I've learned anything from the last two years it's that we understand the immune system and disease transmission very poorly. But I can't say I wouldn't feel the same.
posted by potrzebie at 2:06 PM on June 11, 2022 [2 favorites]
My husband had a long exposure to covid (ate a long dinner sitting next to someone coughing and sneezing who tested positive a few hours later) and he didn't catch it, and that also absolutely changed his behavior. I think he is much less afraid of a breakthrough case, because he has this solid evidence that his vaccine worked a trick in a situation where a breakthrough case seemed very likely. Is this rational? Not terribly; if I've learned anything from the last two years it's that we understand the immune system and disease transmission very poorly. But I can't say I wouldn't feel the same.
posted by potrzebie at 2:06 PM on June 11, 2022 [2 favorites]
Checking Chicago Epidemiologist Twitter:
Katrine Wallace, PhD @DrKatEpiposted by sebastienbailard at 2:32 PM on June 11, 2022 [2 favorites]
Epidemiologist 🦠🤓📈UIC-School of Public Health
@uicpublichealth
,✨Empower your health decisions with data✨views my own
Katrine Wallace, PhD
@DrKatEpi
It’s been a very heavy week. Need to decompress. I’m gonna watch tv, eat vegan ice cream & avoid people bc everyone in Chicago has COVID right now.
8:28 PM · May 27, 2022 from Chicago, IL·Twitter for iPhone
CDPH | Chicago Department of Public Health
@ChiPublicHealth
·
May 26
According to the CDC, Cook County (including Chicago) is now at the High Community COVID level.
We are strongly recommending wearing masks in public indoor settings.
Make sure you are up to date on vaccination: http://Chi.gov/covidvax.
Mod note: I unfortunately took an hour to be with my kids at a pool and am now regretting that choice. I am cleaning up the thread now, deleting a few.
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 2:53 PM on June 11, 2022 [8 favorites]
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 2:53 PM on June 11, 2022 [8 favorites]
Anecdotal of course: I'm double-vaxxed, double-boosted, and had COVID in January that was mostly mild (tired/cough/sore throat/congestion, never a fever). I then got COVID again 6 weeks after the 2nd booster on the week of my Dad's funeral. Almost the entire family got it so we had to push out his service. My Mom had it pretty rough (single booster, first infection). Thankfully, mine was mild and cleared in 5 days (Thanks Paxlovid!).
It was super aggravating to have it after everyone was so careful due to my Dad's health issues. It was super aggravating to have it while we were all grieving such a terrible loss - we couldn't be together and mourn, we had to separate to our own homes and just be alone for days. We aren't sure where we caught it at.
I wish that people remembered/realized that not wearing a mask or getting vaccinated maybe just doesn't make them the ones that are going to get sick. I don't know how to convince people that it's not going away.
posted by getawaysticks at 9:10 PM on June 11, 2022 [8 favorites]
It was super aggravating to have it after everyone was so careful due to my Dad's health issues. It was super aggravating to have it while we were all grieving such a terrible loss - we couldn't be together and mourn, we had to separate to our own homes and just be alone for days. We aren't sure where we caught it at.
I wish that people remembered/realized that not wearing a mask or getting vaccinated maybe just doesn't make them the ones that are going to get sick. I don't know how to convince people that it's not going away.
posted by getawaysticks at 9:10 PM on June 11, 2022 [8 favorites]
Mod note: One deleted. Please, please, please, everyone, don't just state things you don't know / understand well as facts! Misleading people can have dire consequences. In this case, I will refer to the particular statement for correction, for anyone who might have read it and absorbed it as authoritative: mutations of Covid (et al) are not guaranteed to be milder. It is not safe to assume the "bad Covid" is over and all new variants are / will be just lesser flu-like annoyances. Folks, I implore you, even if you think you know a thing — look it up, find the evidence, link the source. It may STILL be misleading within the big picture, but at least it's an attempt. Off-the-top-of-your-head declarations on serious public (or other) health issues are not okay.
posted by taz (staff) at 2:28 AM on June 12, 2022 [18 favorites]
posted by taz (staff) at 2:28 AM on June 12, 2022 [18 favorites]
I teach my intro-infosec students to assess threats via a quadrant diagram with likelihood and severity on the axes. High-likelihood, high-(potential)-severity threats are the ones to worry about first.
My sense is that folks generally agree on the likelihood of contracting COVID -- even in this rather contentious thread, nobody's saying that available prophylactics are perfect, and everybody's aware of the contagiousness of currently-circulating variants. It's the severity question that's holding all the tension.
My assessment for myself (only) is that the potential severity of an infection, long-term, is very high. Long COVID scares me, and what I'm seeing about the brain, heart, lung, and gut/digestion implications of even a mild case scare me worse. I happen to be alone in the world -- if I lose the ability to work, if I lose appreciable physical or mental capacity, there is no one to care for me. I certainly don't trust current US health-care systems to, and it's clear from this thread that I can't expect those around me to accommodate my worry. So for now, I'm continuing to isolate to an extent that most folks in this thread wouldn't abide, and continuing to mask indoors (such as when I'm teaching). It's what I can do.
On a more positive note, I do guess (and it is only a guess) that the odds will improve further. I like what I'm reading about the nasally-administered vaccines and pan-corona vaccines currently under development. I would also guess that vaccinating as many under-5s as possible will put a spoke in at least some transmission.
I've never minded looking silly to others. Comes in handy, these days.
posted by humbug at 9:27 AM on June 12, 2022 [6 favorites]
My sense is that folks generally agree on the likelihood of contracting COVID -- even in this rather contentious thread, nobody's saying that available prophylactics are perfect, and everybody's aware of the contagiousness of currently-circulating variants. It's the severity question that's holding all the tension.
My assessment for myself (only) is that the potential severity of an infection, long-term, is very high. Long COVID scares me, and what I'm seeing about the brain, heart, lung, and gut/digestion implications of even a mild case scare me worse. I happen to be alone in the world -- if I lose the ability to work, if I lose appreciable physical or mental capacity, there is no one to care for me. I certainly don't trust current US health-care systems to, and it's clear from this thread that I can't expect those around me to accommodate my worry. So for now, I'm continuing to isolate to an extent that most folks in this thread wouldn't abide, and continuing to mask indoors (such as when I'm teaching). It's what I can do.
On a more positive note, I do guess (and it is only a guess) that the odds will improve further. I like what I'm reading about the nasally-administered vaccines and pan-corona vaccines currently under development. I would also guess that vaccinating as many under-5s as possible will put a spoke in at least some transmission.
I've never minded looking silly to others. Comes in handy, these days.
posted by humbug at 9:27 AM on June 12, 2022 [6 favorites]
COVID isn't over it's here to stay forever. We have vaccines, therapeutics, and the hospital system is no longer in danger of collapsing. Last I checked, in my major city, there were zero people on ventilators.
My business was 100% shut down against my will for over a year. I do not have children and do not come across children in my daily life. Am I supposed to hide in my apartment and go broke forever? I don't understand this logic, it's like everyone on MeFi has a work from home job and thinks anything but the strictest 2019 interpretation of public health codes is a moral failing. I've noticed in liberal spaces - that now that we have vax/treatments - the goalposts have shifted to long covid being the reason for eternal vigilance. Although even here in SF I barely see anyone wearing masks anymore so this isn't even really a "liberal" thing anymore. Maybe it's an extremely online liberal thing?
It just seems like some people have let their anxiety get the better of them, and they've had two years to wrap it up in self righteousness and their own politics. Like others have said, if you travel right now people in other countries aren't doing the social distancing and mask thing either. Are they all part of a right wing death cult that wants to kill children? Or have they successfully recalibrated their risk level due to the changing circumstances?
posted by bradbane at 11:33 AM on June 12, 2022 [6 favorites]
My business was 100% shut down against my will for over a year. I do not have children and do not come across children in my daily life. Am I supposed to hide in my apartment and go broke forever? I don't understand this logic, it's like everyone on MeFi has a work from home job and thinks anything but the strictest 2019 interpretation of public health codes is a moral failing. I've noticed in liberal spaces - that now that we have vax/treatments - the goalposts have shifted to long covid being the reason for eternal vigilance. Although even here in SF I barely see anyone wearing masks anymore so this isn't even really a "liberal" thing anymore. Maybe it's an extremely online liberal thing?
It just seems like some people have let their anxiety get the better of them, and they've had two years to wrap it up in self righteousness and their own politics. Like others have said, if you travel right now people in other countries aren't doing the social distancing and mask thing either. Are they all part of a right wing death cult that wants to kill children? Or have they successfully recalibrated their risk level due to the changing circumstances?
posted by bradbane at 11:33 AM on June 12, 2022 [6 favorites]
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by meowzilla at 10:46 PM on June 10, 2022 [3 favorites]