[Devils-Avocado]

I would consider it the danger of lockdown. We guarantee that the virus is still festering somewhere on the planet, and that vulnerable populations remain around the world, risking flareups.

With zero response - ie. what we do for influenza - we establish herd immunity over a short, sharp period, and the virus immediately falls over.

In any case, even if this mink-mutant variant is slightly deadlier, the data from Sweden shows that COVID deaths can be effectively reduced to near-zero from basic herd immunity strategies - Sweden yesterday recorded a single COVID death. So it makes sense to adopt the Swedish approach now, for a variant of the virus we know how to treat.

[vecinu]

You mention the IFR but what about the long term implications of so many people catching COVID and having reduced lung capacity or long term damage?

Can we please address this fact that scares a lot of us? We already know the death rate is low for groups that are not at risk but it seems even healthy people are suffering from "long COVID" with serious long term implications.

[timr]

"what about the long term implications of so many people catching COVID and having reduced lung capacity or long term damage?"

There is almost no evidence of either in mild-to-moderate cases of Covid-19 (i.e. the vast majority of cases). People who have been on ventilators, or hospitalized for extended periods due to severe illness are a different story, as ventilators themselves often cause lung damage. The scariest anecdotes that have been widely circulated online have come from ventilated or hospitalized patients with severe illness.

Beyond these anecdotes, stories of "long covid" thus far are predominantly based on anecdote and self-reporting of symptoms, and the symptom profiles that you hear are frequently vague and/or unverifiable ("brain fog") and in most cases, not significantly different than you might see with any respiratory virus.

For example, here is a report from the CDC that was widely reported as evidence that "35% of covid cases had long-term illness". However, "long-term" here, is defined as "three weeks", and "illness" was defined as a spectrum of mild symptoms that resemble any flu-like illness, such as fatigue, cough and congestion:

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6930e1.htm

Even more specific studies have had serious problems. There have been a few reports of cardiac inflammation and other specific clinical signs in otherwise healthy people. To date, most of these have been debunked for statistical problems. For example, it was widely reported that Division I athletes were found to have heart inflammation after mild Covid-19 infections, which led the Big10 to start screening athletes with MRI before play. Subsequently, so few abnormalities have been found that doctors are now calling for the rule to be rescinded:

https://www.si.com/college/2020/10/28/big-ten-covid-protocol...

https://images.saymedia-content.com/.image/cs_srgb/MTc2NDI1M...

In short, the science of "long-term covid" exceptionally poor, and I caution you that most of what you're reading online is rumor and speculation.

[tinus_hn]

Please provide a number instead of ‘so many’ and ‘it seems’. I’ve seen ‘so many’ alarmist stories on this but no statistics at all, this is turning me rather skeptical.

[cannedslime]

We simply do not know right now. I think ARDS and the risk of permanent lung damage is one of the main reasons that we named this SARS pandemic "COVID".

For the previous SARS pandemic I believe it was about half of every infected person who developed long term respiratory problems. This strain shares around 80% of its genome with the previous SARS-1 strain.

[tinus_hn]

If you don’t know, bringing it up as an established fact is dishonest. But again, if the claim is really so many people are experiencing an obvious issue, yet they are so hard to find we still don’t have an idea I’m rather skeptical.

[cannedslime]

If you never look for them you will never find them. I was very sick in december and still have bad lungs because of it. Wether it was "COVID" or just multiple types of the flu hitting me relentlessly I don't know, but the short story is that you basically are not taken serious by doctors if you come up to them and say "My lungs feel really bad after that thing you said was simply the flu one year ago". And I live in Denmark, the exemplary of free medical health care...

Governments seem more keen on burning an uncountable amount of money on dubious PCR testing instead of treating or at least debunking any concerns of long term issues.

Its obvious that MY government really has no clue what they are doing. They have given themselves absolute power in this state of emergency, they make decisions and then announe them before other parties have a chance to say anything about the material handed to them. First our government sold The state serum institute to a rediculous low price to some sheikh from Saudi Arabia, and now they pay BILLIONS every month to that very same company and take all the advice they give as unconditional fact.

But fact is they are a private company with a stake in government funded PCR testing.

[tinus_hn]

Not sure what your point is.

You tell us an anecdote about how you are experiencing problems after you were sick in December.

I’m pretty sure you didn’t get tested for Corona in December but anyway I don’t see how that justifies scaremongering about ‘a lot of cases’ where people have longlasting damage. Again, if it is so pronounced and affects so many people it shouldn’t be hard to show.

[threeseed]

In Sweden it hasn't been reduced to near zero and the trend has it rising to 100+ a day.

https://covid19.healthdata.org/sweden

People love to bring up Sweden but they have never experienced dealing with COVID-19 in winter where it is up to 20x more contagious as everyone moves indoors.

[timr]

> In Sweden it hasn't been reduced to near zero and the trend has it rising to 100+ a day.

That is incorrect. Sweden is currently seeing about 2,000 cases a day, and 5 deaths a day (7-day moving averages):

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/

Today, they had thirteen deaths, nationwide, which was a statistically abnormal spike. The previous day was 1.

The IHME site you are linking is reporting the output of a model, not actual data on deaths.

[_-___________-_]

Right now the average high in large parts of Sweden is below 0°C. And your link leads to data from the output of a model, not actual recorded deaths.

[threeseed]

It is showing actual historical recorded deaths and predicted future ones.

[claudeganon]

>I would consider it the danger of lockdown.

You would be objectively wrong? Basic reasoning would tell you that places with less cases have a lower probability of transmitting the disease to animal reservoirs and risking harmful mutations coming back at us.

>With zero response - ie. what we do for influenza - we establish herd immunity over a short, sharp period, and the virus immediately falls over.

This is also incorrect? We take a number of proactive actions against the flu every year, from vaccination, to other public health and treatment measures, to even more drastic steps like culling livestock populations where more dangerous strains have emerged.

>So it makes sense to adopt the Swedish approach now, for a variant of the virus we know how to treat.

We don't actually have any idea about the consequences of this mutation, especially in a larger population, so we should do the exact opposite and proceed with extreme caution until its risk profile is understood.

[Vrondi]

No competent medical professional ever uses the term "herd immunity" in any instance where they are not talking about a vaccine. Without a vaccine to _create_ herd immunity, what you are proposing is just sitting back and willfully letting huge numbers of people die, willfully allowing the virus to mutate unchecked as it spreads unchecked, etc. You should really give this a listen: https://maximumfun.org/episodes/sawbones/herd-immunity/

[sxv]

I tried to listen to this but the basis of their argument is "if one person dies it's too many", which is a knee-jerk reaction that fails to weigh the possible options and outcomes in a thorough manner. Note that the hosts are not specialists in this field and the vibe of the podcast is more comedy than science. I also take issue with your opening: "no competent medical professional ever", which is doomed to be a faulty generalization, and a name-calling one at that.

[markkanof]

I've listened to Sawbones for a long time and finally had to give up. The shows does present some factual information, but also spins some things, and seem to primarily exist so the hosts can create a setting where they can "prove" how smart they are and insult anyone that doesn't agree with 100% of what they are saying. It just comes off as really mean spirited and not particularly informative or funny as they claim to be.

[macspoofing]

And if there is no (reliable) vaccine?