[ben_w]

Seatbelts and drink driving rules don’t totally eliminate car crashes, but they do reduce their frequency and consequences. Likewise vaccines and masks for COVID.

Indeed, if we had 100% vaccine uptake, or 100% sobriety, then all COVID incidents would be vaccinated just as all car crashes would have sober drivers.

“Learning to live with COVID” ought to imply “learning to live with masks and vaccines”, not “lose your sense of smell and be ill for an extra week each year”.

[rkk3]

With Seat Belts & Driving rules we still have 45,000 Driving related deaths a year in the US. We don't ban automobiles because that number isn't 0.

Seatbelts and vaccine's are high impact & low-cost. The same cannot be said about every possible driving or covid restriction. Closing schools has a real cost, sending kid's home from school for a week every time they have a fever has a real cost, requiring kids to wear masks for 8 hours a day has a real cost.

[ratsbane]

We had 38,680 motor vehicle deaths in 2020. We haven't had 45,000 since 1989; 54,000 in 1972. The rate has been steadily decreasing (with a few ups and downs along the way) for about the last 50 years(1), even though miles driven has been steadily increasing(2). This is because we, as a society, as a government, decided to study the problem and implement changes to improve the situation.

(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in...

(2) https://afdc.energy.gov/data/10315

[rkk3]

Other definitions put it at 42K deaths in 2020 with 2021 expected to be even worse, but you're right that 45k is a slight overestimate.

[1] https://www.vox.com/22675358/us-car-deaths-year-traffic-covi...

[ben_w]

Comment I was responding to is complaining about vaccines being “dammed if you do dammed if you don’t”, so you’re shifting the goalposts a bit here by adding the extra restrictions for e.g. closing schools.

> sending kid's home from school for a week every time they have a fever has a real cost,

Hmm. This is what happened to me as a child in the U.K. in the 90s, but perhaps the increasing frequency of both parents working makes this harder now.

Closing schools, sure, that’s got social etc. costs.

> requiring kids to wear masks for 8 hours a day has a real cost.

I don’t see how this is true. Care to elaborate?

Also, your school days are 8 hours? Mine were 09:00-15:30, plus travel time.

[rkk3]

>> requiring kids to wear masks for 8 hours a day has a real cost.

> I don’t see how this is true. Care to elaborate?

Kids are developing and need to learn facial non-verbal social cues. It also directly impacts learning, it's harder to understand the teacher, or for the teacher to understand the child. Do you think wearing a mask makes it easier to learn English as a second language? How about dealing with a speech impairment? And overall masking and other policies also just generally makes school less enjoyable more anxiety driven, which also leads to learning loss. They have a real-cost and just as important it is incredibly low-impact when you have other options like vaccination available.

> Also, your school days are 8 hours? Mine were 09:00-15:30, plus travel time.

The base school day sure, but the commute and morning/afternoon activities means masking up for even longer.

[ben_w]

Thanks! :)

[jude-]

Face masks and vaccines will be the new seatbelts and DUI laws at the rate we're going. I predict that certain activities like flying on an airline, going to public school, or working at a job with close quarters will one day require proof of vaccination and/or masking up to participate. Omicron won't be the last variant, and there is no guarantee that a future variant won't come along that is just as virulent but far more deadly.

[rkk3]

> I predict that certain activities [...] will one day require proof of vaccination and/or masking up to participate

I think those policies will slowly go-away in the North East & West Coast as the public and media comes to term with how ineffective they are. 96% of the population of my county (including those not eligible) has had it least 1 covid vaccine dose. At some point you just stop benefiting from continued restrictions.

> Omicron won't be the last variant, and there is no guarantee that a future variant won't come along that is just as virulent but far more deadly.

And the next terrorist attack could be even more deadly - stay subscribed for our upcoming report on why you should be more afraid.

[1] https://www.e7health.com/post/210/the-best-and-worst-states-...

[ben_w]

Around here the restrictions only happen when the waves happen. I’m not the person you’re replying to here so I have a slightly different expectation: these will come and go regularly until the combination of vaccine and virally induced immunity is sufficient to stop the spread.

> And the next terrorist attack could be even more deadly

The current wave is a 9/11 every 3 days in just the USA: https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#trends_dailydeaths

The total USA fatalities over the entire pandemic so far is 282 9/11s.

The total worldwide so far is 1821 9/11s.

This is mainly a reason to not be afraid of terrorists rather than a reason to not be concerned about a disease.