[mjevans]

The post holiday gathering spike is rather obvious. Not just for COVID but for everything. We really should have test kits, and people should test BEFORE travel. A national level policy of full refunds if tested positive (for any illness / disease) could help prevent the needless spread of illness.

[timr]

> The post holiday gathering spike is rather obvious. Not just for COVID but for everything.

Post hoc, ergo propter hoc.

It's not a "holiday gathering spike". It's literally the same respiratory pathogen pattern we've seen for as long as we've bothered to look: in the winter, as we go inside and the air becomes cool and dry, respiratory infections go up. The viruses evolved to work this way, because it's a great survival strategy when your host is a social animal that doesn't/can't live outside in the cold.

It happens in parts of the world where Christmas and Thanksgiving aren't a thing (see Japan and China and Korea right now). It happens on the opposite schedule in the lower half of the planet (even where Christmas and/or Thanksgiving are a thing).

This impulse to blame/scold people for a natural phenomenon is unnerving.

[TurkishPoptart]

>This impulse to blame/scold people for a natural phenomenon is unnerving.

Yeah, but as far as our governments will share more information on this, this SARS-CoV-2 virus was invented by people in a lab, and it escaped from a lab, due to human error.

[gernb]

> in the winter, as we go inside and the air becomes cool and dry, respiratory infections go up.

This winter is the cause the please explain Japan which had it's biggest spikes in summer

[timr]

They didn't. They're having a big spike, right now [1]. It's going to end up being bigger than the summer wave. They had a big spike last winter, too, but they weren't testing as much then.

Comparing the absolute magnitude of these spikes is fraught, because they depend on the number of tests being conducted, (which was rapidly increasing over the course of last year), as well as the many other behavioral changes that were happening at the same time.

[1] https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/region/japan

[gernb]

Did you even look at the page you linked to? Their top spike is in July/August

[timr]

Yes. Re-read what I wrote.

[ampersandy]

What about staying inside with cool/dry air causes these infections? Genuinely curious.

[ma2t]

Recent studies suggest it's not just staying indoors or viruses hanging around longer in cold/dry air. Exposure to cold temperatures may suppress specific immune mechanisms in respiratory tract. See paper out this month, Huang et al "Cold exposure impairs extracellular vesicle swarm–mediated nasal antiviral immunity" https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S009167492...

[timr]

Staying inside should be obvious by now. These pathogens evolved to exploit the fact that people get together in close quarters and breathe together.

Cold/dry air: most respiratory viruses we've looked at survive for longer in cold, dry, dark air.

[version_five]

Sorry I don't have a link but I read few years ago that dry air typical of heated indoor spaces in winter means that virus (or maybe virus + moisture we breath out) stay suspended in the air longer

[valarauko]

Low relative humidity dries out the aerosol droplets faster before they have a chance to settle out of the air.

[chrisco255]

Diseases are inevitable. It's not all that useful to be testing for every random disease that comes up. Testing doesn't help. Lockdowns don't help. Even mRNA treatments don't help. You WILL get Covid. You WILL get the flu. And your immune system will get stronger as you get exposed.

Covid used to be novel. Now it's endemic and mutates multiple times per year. It's looking more and more like Covid will be with us for decades if not forever, just like the flu and the common cold.

[droopyEyelids]

Your 'inevitable' comment reminds me of the novice security mindset where something either Secure or it is Not Secure.

In the world of security, you grow up, leave behind the simple binary descriptions, and assess impact of event and threat you're defending against.

This applies to disease safety as well. It's not just 'inevitable' or 'preventable', but there is a difference between getting sick once a year and getting sick every month. Between working in a hospital and working from home. Between being sick by yourself and spreading it to your extended family.

There is a risk assessment to be done, and calculated measures to be taken.

[ethbr0]

It is worth all of those things... when you have a novel pandemic to blunt.

However, once the disease is characterized, you have effective treatments and protocols for the most sick, and you have decent rates of vaccination and recent infection... needs shift.

The critical factor is {max hospital ICU capacity} + 1 more seriously ill person, and when you're dealing with exponential growth rates and a virgin population, that can be hit pretty easily.

The fact that we didn't (in most parts of the world, for most of the time) is a triumph of modern health policy.

[micromacrofoot]

There seem to be some amount of long-term risks associated with covid that aren't present in influenza though. I hope to continue avoiding covid myself.

[jimjimjim]

gah! Sure fine whatever. you'll get covid. but how many times? If you test and you discover you currently have covid maybe don't be a raging asshole and give it to your family and friends!

[jimjimjim]

and while I'm on it, since we are all getting it why wouldn't you get the v word? It will help strengthen your immune system (as will getting covid) and the bit that people keep missing out it will lessen the affects you suffer when you get it.