[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.