Where are you seeing those numbers? Alabama cases and Shelby county cases have both continued to decrease for the past month, and are at yearly lows right now.
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COVID-19 detected in United States
- Thread starter WesL
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Where are you seeing those numbers? Alabama cases and Shelby county cases have both continued to decrease for the past month, and are at yearly lows right now.
Mostly a reporting artifact I think, on April 6, 7, 8 in Shelby County they reported -14, -10, and -10 cases. That'll cause it to look like an increase on the last few days. The test numbers for the last 3 days in Shelby County are less than half the cases they were reporting just 2 weeks ago.
I agree Covid will go nowhere and always be here. Eventually it will be like common flu. Nature will run its course and that is just reality and part of living. When will need immunity hit? Very hard to say. As apparently the wall is being hit of people that have taken the vaccine to those that don’t. I do find it amusing that some that take the vaccine are saying now they can go back to normal and live life. Like the vaccine guarantees no death. Nothing changes much with someone getting the vaccine. One can still get it and still spread it. One can also still end up in hospital and die. Though a lot less likely for older individuals and non healthy individuals. It’s still the same for under 60 and mostly healthy individuals as it was without taking vaccine. Hopefully here immunity happens much faster than we believe it will. Just maybe we get lucky and Covid mutates into a regular cold. I think we all can agree we are all ready to move on. Seems most have and are going to no matter what.
What I bolded in your post is misinformation/untrue, unless we are to assume everything we know about the vaccines is false. No vaccine is going to be perfect, but significantly reducing the risk of hospitalization/death, and severely limiting the spread isn't exactly "nothing changes".
Ok. Limiting the spread is not part of the vaccine. People can still get it and spread it. Limiting deaths and hospitalizations good possibility but we are still very early in the vaccines being given. It does appear to do so at this point but also seems to be also be doing the opposite of making people sick and having side effects and deaths. It will be interesting what happens when people start taking the booster or next round. How will their bodies react.To date Moderna has never had an FDA approved product. All 3 of these companies have settled lawsuits in the billions for negligence. Not a single person seems to think this is a problem. Yes the flu vaccine has been given for years but it’s also a different type of vaccine. I just think it’s way to early to predict the vaccines are a success. Only time will tell.
thundersnow
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I've been seeing this sentiment floating around comments on social media. And, it's also not true... a responsive immune system contains the virus from the extensive replication in one's body that would lead to viral load and a person being more contagious.
Isn't that like... common sense?
It absolutely is part of the vaccine. In fact, that's the main point of the vaccine.
While a person I guess "could" spread a virus even if their own immune system reduces the case, I don't see how anyone could not see that the other benefit of the immune response is that it also massively shuts down viral replication and thus prevent the person from being more contagious... unless you can show us otherwise?
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I'm vaccine hesitant myself, as a young healthy person who likely had COVID in July last year, I see no upside to me personally getting it. I try not to let my own personal concerns about the vaccine interfere with the larger picture of what the vaccine does/is supposed to do.
Your first sentence is also patently false, the vaccine is absolutely supposed to limit the spread. If you are immune and don't get it, you don't spread it, and if you do happen to get it but it is a very mild or asymptomatic case, you are less likely to spread it. If you have a mild/asymptomatic case and are around other vaccinated people, you're extremely less likely to spread it. Other than the reduction in case severity, that's the entire point of the vaccine.
thundersnow
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My wife and I just got our second shot (Pfizer) this morning. We're in our 40s and healthy. Our motivation is *not* because we fear the virus for ourselves but so we can do our part to protect more vulnerable people we love so that we can resume spending more time with them (who are also vaccinated). 95% reduced risk of spreading it + 95% reduced risk of catching it or at the very least a lighter case of it if they do catch it = well worth the effort.
There's a fallacy that's made the rounds during this whole thing which I'll call the "all or nothing fallacy," which says that if something isn't 100% guarantee then it's somehow no better than 0. That was the reasoning with the anti-masks and the same reasoning for a lot of the same folks arguing against the vaccine today. A mask is not a 100% guarantee (no one ever said it was), just like the vaccine is not 100%. But, it greatly improves the prospect of fighting against this thing. To argue against that would be like arguing that seatbelts are useless just because they don't completely guarantee you won't die in an auto accident. Use some common sense, people.
There's a fallacy that's made the rounds during this whole thing which I'll call the "all or nothing fallacy," which says that if something isn't 100% guarantee then it's somehow no better than 0. That was the reasoning with the anti-masks and the same reasoning for a lot of the same folks arguing against the vaccine today. A mask is not a 100% guarantee (no one ever said it was), just like the vaccine is not 100%. But, it greatly improves the prospect of fighting against this thing. To argue against that would be like arguing that seatbelts are useless just because they don't completely guarantee you won't die in an auto accident. Use some common sense, people.
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Ehh, you lost me on the masks. I agree entirely with your premise on the other, but I think masks are close enough to the 0% part of the spectrum that they are essentially useless. I would even float that masks might make things more dangerous because at-risk people might overestimate their effectiveness and make decisions they otherwise wouldn't. I think their effectiveness was greatly oversold early, and instead of anybody in power actually admitting they don't do much, they keep doubling down on the idea that they significantly alter the course of the disease. I know many likely strongly disagree with that sentiment, and that's fine, but I don't think it is fair to call it anti-science (not accusing you of this, but it's the common sentiment elsewhere) to question whether masks help at all. Nowhere has adding or removing mask mandates made any difference in case count or disease trajectory.
Much of the mask craze was based off of Asian results and also what happened last spring/summer in Czechia. In Czechia cases fell to almost 0 after everybody started wearing masks, but it was actually just seasonality as the virus spread lowered during summer in an area where it wasn't really prevalent yet. Outside of the micro-country Gibraltar, Czechia now has the highest death rate in the world after a terrible winter wave there.
thundersnow
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So that my comments about masks are not misunderstood, I do want to clarify that I'm not at all equating the efficacy of masks with that of say, the vaccine, or even basic things such as hand-washing and other hygiene measures, and basic social distancing. We can get into discussions about N95 versus cloth masks and what effect cloth masks really have on however many microns viral particles are in size and their ability to pass through a barrier. I'm not equipped to dive very deeply into that kind of discussion, other than it seems like common sense and not at all rocket science that even a cloth barrier can block droplets and at least slow down (to some extent) the propulsion of exhaled infectious air out into a space where there are other individuals present. Even if that effect is less than 10%, oh well. For what it's worth, something sure did slow down influenza this year. Perhaps, that was more social distancing and virtual/remote options that reduced gatherings. Maybe masks added a few percent on top of that, maybe they didn't. I can't really say for sure one way or the other. But, I'm willing to do whatever measures that might add a few points here and few points there to improve to the overall reduction of spreading this thing.
I've posted about the flu before, and I believe the most likely reason for the low flu season was COVID itself, in the form of viral interference. Flu, RSV, other coronaviruses have all been significantly reduced since March 2020, regardless of level of mask-wearing, social distancing, etc. Countries/states that locked down hard and countries/states that stayed mostly/wide open all saw those viruses disappear at the same rate. The only places that have seen a near-normal amount of flu are parts of SE Asia and parts of Africa, where COVID hasn't been nearly as prominent. As we see COVID decline (hopefully) the rest of this year, we should see a return of the flu, RSV, other Coronaviruses, etc. We've actually seen a large increase of coronaviruses OC43 and NL63 over the last month across the US, which is an encouraging sign.
maroonedinhsv
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Why do you disagree with his statement?
I'm pretty much back to normal. My side effects were pretty much spot on to what they said I could have. The university is still requiring everyone to wear masks while on campus. I have no problem with that and most everyone still seems to be complying.
The vaccine makes one 95% immune and less likely to get it severe or end up in hospital so we are told. So why a mask? I say wear one if like and if don’t like don’t wear one. Everywhere I go it’s about 70-80 without masks.
maroonedinhsv
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The statement that you referenced has nothing to do with masks.
Edited to add: His complete statement does reference masks (although that's not the main point of what he said), but your post didn't mention masks at all.