Fear and Loathing, a Rat Flu Odyssey

[altacoup]

2 hospitals, same system, west of the Montana line: 1 only wears masks in the testing room and the other won't let stroke victims' family members inside because community spread. Strange days.

At this point not letting family see their loved ones seems cruel. I mean no shit there’s community spread. But we’re living with this virus forever. If people choose not to protect themselves with vaccines and paxlovid, that’s their choice. The hospitals aren’t over run anymore.

[bodywhomper]

I’m not sure that the vax and paxlovid combo is the solution…. It’s still keeping people out of work and it’s maybe (?) reducing potential for long Covid (I saw there’s a new journal article out today about this regarding vax and first omicron).

Letting potential contagious people into the hospital to visit family of a stroke victim perhaps (?) could increase potential to infect those that are immunocompromised and unable to protect themselves or increase chance of infecting staff.

My question: how many covid infections a year are people comfortable having?

[jfost]

It’s different. Things are better. We have open beds, people aren’t on vents, we’re not up all night. Trust me, this is playing out across the country. It’s a different game. I live/work in low vax, unhealthy population, our sample population paints a very clear picture. A population at high risk with low disease burden.

309 deaths per day avg = 112k per year

And hospitals must do what they can to prevent spread…

[old goat]

Given the availability of N95 masks, vaccination, and antivirals allowing patients in hospitals to have visitors is entirely reasonable--as long as the visitors are willing to wear them properly. My wife had two health emergencies in the prevaccine days of the pandemic, was not in a condition to explain what was going on with her well or ask questions, and my being unable to be with her in the ER or hospital made her care worse with consequences she is still living with. Having visitors, especially for older patients and people with dementia or other alterations of mental status, is crucial for recovery. The chance of a visitor spreading covid to a patient other than the one they are visiting is remote, compared to the risk of patents being infected by staff.

[bodywhomper]

“as long as visitors are willing to wear them properly.”

That’s the hard part.

[jono]

Given the availability of N95 masks, vaccination, and antivirals allowing patients in hospitals to have visitors is entirely reasonable--as long as the visitors are willing to wear them properly. My wife had two health emergencies in the prevaccine days of the pandemic, was not in a condition to explain what was going on with her well or ask questions, and my being unable to be with her in the ER or hospital made her care worse with consequences she is still living with. Having visitors, especially for older patients and people with dementia or other alterations of mental status, is crucial for recovery. The chance of a visitor spreading covid to a patient other than the one they are visiting is remote, compared to the risk of patents being infected by staff.

I have no details beyond the account of the spouse in question so not taking a position pro or con. I do expect they considered those downsides, which is why it seemed noteworthy. Speculatively some possible reasons include cost to enforce any mask policy on visitors being likely uniquely high and the facility has been partitioned in unusual ways so this may not apply to all of it. I'm sure that's just the tip of the iceberg of what I don't know.

[LongShortLong]

My question: how many covid infections a year are people comfortable having?

tl:dr: 1 million infections a year I would reluctantly accept. "Comfortable..." maybe 100k.

I don't want to catch it. So...
Consider a case rate of 1/100k/day. At this rate we get 365 cases/100k/year, or 0.365% chance of infection per year. I've probably got 40 years left on this planet, so about a 40*.365% = 15% chance of catching covid. Given there's plenty of other things that could mess me up over 40 years, I'm a little nervous about with that case rate, but maybe it's acceptable, reluctantly. Once I combine the chance of catching with the chance of a bad outcome, maybe we're down to 2-3% chance of a bad outcome over my life.

So 365 * 1/100k * 330M Americans is 1.2 million covid infections per year.

note: I'm an engineer, and played loose with the math, as we do when translating a concrete problem into the messy real world. A mathematician would use a combinatoric approach, but you'll find it produces about the same answer for the small percentages in this problem. Since all the numbers are products, you can simply adjust this to your perspective. Note that if your annual infection chance is greater than a few %, you'll somewhat overestimate lifetime chances unless you use the combinatoric approach.

If treatments improve population-wide outcomes, or I'm convinced the long covid chances are smaller, I'd accept proportionately more cases.

[Mofro261]

tl:dr: 1 million infections a year I would reluctantly accept. "Comfortable..." maybe 100k.

I don't want to catch it. So...
Consider a case rate of 1/100k/day. At this rate we get 365 cases/100k/year, or 0.365% chance of infection per year. I've probably got 40 years left on this planet, so about a 40*.365% = 15% chance of catching covid. Given there's plenty of other things that could mess me up over 40 years, I'm a little nervous about with that case rate, but maybe it's acceptable, reluctantly. Once I combine the chance of catching with the chance of a bad outcome, maybe we're down to 2-3% chance of a bad outcome over my life.

So 365 * 1/100k * 330M Americans is 1.2 million covid infections per year.

note: I'm an engineer, and played loose with the math, as we do when translating a concrete problem into the messy real world. A mathematician would use a combinatoric approach, but you'll find it produces about the same answer for the small percentages in this problem. Since all the numbers are products, you can simply adjust this to your perspective. Note that if your annual infection chance is greater than a few %, you'll somewhat overestimate lifetime chances unless you use the combinatoric approach.

If treatments improve population-wide outcomes, or I'm convinced the long covid chances are smaller, I'd accept proportionately more cases.

For some perspective, Influenza hits roughly 20-40 Million/yr in the US (or it used to).

Those other 4 human Corona viruses that are relatively harmless? They cause 15-30% of all common colds, and some estimates are 1billion common colds/yrs (mostly Rhino and Corona). So maybe 150-300 Million infections/yr in the US.

~1 million/yr for Sars-2 may be a little optimistic.

[LongShortLong]

~1 million/yr for Sars-2 may be a little optimistic.

Certainly, but the question asks how many cases I'd be comfortable with. Those other respiratory viruses cause much less long-term damage. Nor am I comfortable with the current level of them. No disease sounds comfortable. Getting rid of them all would give a GDP boost, and increase happiness. Though the philosophers say we'd just be miserable about something else, so maybe happiness remains the same - I find that argument unconvincing. I've really enjoyed no flu/cold for the last 2 years.

[supermodel159]

https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tra...tatracker-home


getting a lot of stuff in the vaccination thread -

cdc is reporting >100,000 cases daily ;

~ 1500 deaths weekly


I am so glad the pandemic ended in February /S


skiJ

It's a pandemic of the vaccinated. Enjoy!

[skiJ]

It's a pandemic of the vaccinated. Enjoy!

I don't believe that is true, and

you are welcome to Enjoy it --


rolling on... tj

[skaredshtles]

I don't believe that is true, and

you are welcome to Enjoy it --


rolling on... tj

Please don't quote that moran.

Thanks.

[skiJ]

copy -

I'm sorry - he wasn't on my list : (


thanks. tj

[bodywhomper]

Fascinating breakdown of potential potential infections/yr at a population scale.

What I meant was how many times is an individual willing to be infected each year with covid? For example: by end of august, there’s a strong possibility for a vaxed person to have been infected and infectious with Delta, omicron ba1, and omicron ba4/5.

Are people really comfortable with catching covid that frequently?

[riser4]

Please don't quote that moran.

Thanks.

Same to you bud.

[funkendrenchman]

Are people really comfortable with catching covid that frequently?

Based on current behaviors, I believe most people probably are. Maybe after a few infections they'll start realizing it actually sucks, but again, they probably won't change much. This is without any consideration of long term effects.

[bodywhomper]

I don’t think people realize they can catch it so frequently. And many think they catch the flu several times a year and when they catch several colds a year, they think it’s the same cold… I guess.

It’s going to take some time to get figured out. But I’d think global business leaders may start to pick-up on it if employees are absent from work so frequently. I’m one of those “don’t go to work if I’m sick types,” even to the point where I don’t have sick leave/PTO available. I don’t know how this is going to play out. I’ve talked to some local leadership at my company, too, and they don’t know either.

[skaredshtles]

Same to you bud.

lol

[Trackhead]

Are people really comfortable with catching covid that frequently?

Nobody wants to get sick, but what do you suggest? The risk is super nominal for the vast majority of people. Do we halt life for the small percentage with higher risk? What’s the ethical answer here? Is it distributive justice?

[skiJ]

There are lots of things people can do to reduce exposure to pathogens ( it's not 2019 anymore ) -

for some people, these were already normal practices / standard operating procedures ;
restaurants, theaters, and arenas/venues are all optional ;
' shopping ' is optional in 2022...

distancing and masking don't have to be mandated ;

take better care of your health -
eat a better, healthy diet ;
get Good rest. And exercise ( Outside is encouraged ) ; And

... ( please) maintain resistance by maintaining vaccination. ( Six months. )

All is not lost -
it doesn't have to be complicated ;

be aware - and
take the Precautions you choose. !


good luck.
society is not going to shut-down, probably even if there is a killer variant.

good luck. tj

[jono]

Is groundhog day all one day or does it actually repeat? Or is it both?

Base rate fallacy. IGNORE DON'T QUOTE! Qualitative risk fallacy. Next comes...false dichotomy? Vaccine side effects? Or is it back to masks? I feel like I should know the order by now.

[old goat]

At this point I don't think statistics--infection rates, death rates--are going to matter unless things get much worse than they are right now. Most people don't seem likely to follow rules and recommendations at this point but will likely make decisions based on personal risk tolerance--risk of getting seriously ill and risk of being seriously inconvenienced. Maybe someone will start wearing a mask for a couple of weeks before their wedding or a big vacation trip or when they've run out of sick leave--that sort of thing.

[jfost]

At this point I don't think statistics--infection rates, death rates--are going to matter unless things get much worse than they are right now. Most people don't seem likely to follow rules and recommendations at this point but will likely make decisions based on personal risk tolerance--risk of getting seriously ill and risk of being seriously inconvenienced. Maybe someone will start wearing a mask for a couple of weeks before their wedding or a big vacation trip or when they've run out of sick leave--that sort of thing.

One of the states in our union doesn’t even want to provide vacc support to their youngsters, so yea everyone for themselves!

[bodywhomper]

Lol. run out of sick leave. Many companies combine it with vacation and catalog it as “PTO.” Having PTO incentivized employees to not take sick leave because it can cut into their non-sick time off.

In the US, our data seems to get worse and worse. Speaking of risk, the CDC report from earlier this month is 1 in 5 infections results in long COVID. But their data is old and the quality is shitty. But if that’s even remotely close to correct… even if it’s 1:10 or 1:20, wouldn’t that result in change?

The air quality engineering Twitter world seem to be continually banging their heads on a desk and yelling into the void about improvement in ventilation and filtration.

[jono]

The air quality engineering Twitter world seem to be continually banging their heads on a desk and yelling into the void about improvement in ventilation and filtration.

For sure. There's been plenty of time to bring that online, too, but as long as the CDC is still defensive about screwing up on aerosols and a big chunk of people want to throw up their hands and do nothing there's going to be a headwind.

It seems like that needs to come through OSHA because it's a perfect job for them: add some filtration, maybe a few far UVC lights (define a standard based on cost and effectiveness) and the reduction in lost time pays for the upgrades in very short order. Especially now. Even if it only cut sick days in half.