Former President Barack Obama said he gave ex-President Donald Trump a pandemic playbook when Trump took office — but he disregarded it.
“He ignored it,” Obama said during a rallyfor Vice President Kamala Harris in Las Vegas on Saturday. “And three years later, a pandemic hits.”
When Trump said it hundreds of thousands of people were dying from covid because we did not have a vaccine and the variant was extremely deadly. Hospitals were nearing collapse, and ignoring it would have been an even bigger catastrophe than it was.
Now we have vaccines and have built up enough immunity that while it is still around and still causing damage to the population, it is no longer the massive threat that it was, even if it is still worse than most people think.
It’s now endemic, not a pandemic.
I agree on most- vaccines are great, but immunity doesn’t work like that, if anything people getting repeat infections fare worse.
I fear for the children growing up with years of covid infections racked up by the time they’re 18, and allowing that to just happen is going to be regarded the same way leaded paint/gas is now.
Like obviously the social/developmental/economic impacts of interrupting school for lockdowns are bad, but both things still be bad and are ultimately solvable problems that we’re worse off for not addressing.
That is exactly how it works! Immunity doesn’t mean your body has a perfect defense or that nothing will ever come from a minor infection, it means your body will be able to fight off the worst effects and might even result in not having lasting damage. This is true for ALL diseases including the flu and even colds!
Covid is still on the terrible end of the spectrum and if people would actually keep up the vaccination rate the disease could become as rare as measles over time, but that takes decades and expecting something like that right now is pretty ridiculous. What we have to do it mitigate it as best we can, and at this point we are doing as much as society will accept for lengthy periods of time with lowered rates of death. We were fine with 10s of thousands deaths and the long term impacts of the flu prior to 2020 and we are approaching that with covid.
I never said that immunity meant your body had a perfect defense, nor did I say that you did- though maybe I misinterpreted what you said at the population level re: vaccines as something related to the immunity from infection.
I meant that it doesn’t always track that getting infected more means you as an individual are building up immunity across all those infections, people get reinfected after several months and it’s often worse.
One guy I knew (indirectly) had had it twice with little issues then died after the third time- he had comorbidities and its an anecdote, but still.
Yes, having comorbidities means the person is less likely to have the increased immunity to the disease than the average person. Even colds can be fatal for some people, but that doesn’t mean the general trend of building up immunity from repeated exposure is wrong. That really is how the immune system works in healthy populations.
Also, most of the susceptible people die in the first few waves. What you’re left with is a population that’s more resistant. Over time, the comorbidities tail off.
Looking at population level resistance is different than looking at individual resistance.
I mean, at the population level people with comorbidities and susceptibilities get culled early on, and thus the overall rates will look better after that. The issue I have is with only considering healthy people.
Me, I’m going to keep wearing my mask everywhere and continue my personal zero COVID streak for as long as I can.
Better, but not zero. That’s why your friend died. So all this stuff how immunity works, well this is how immunity works.
Yeah that’s kinda my point is that it’s not something that necessarily gets better with repeat exposure - and with comorbidities (like being fat) you can just straight up die even as a young person
You’re confusing immunity with zero effects. That’s not how it works.
It isn’t about considering only healthy people, it is about considering the entire population including the level of risk for the most vulnerable.
Do keep wearing a mask, that is a great idea on a personal level at this point in time. It was a great idea when trying to slow the spread before widespread vaccines, but we are past the point when widespread mask requirements would have a meaningful impact on the overall spread. Vaccines and immunity are what the vast majority of people should be following, since they are more effective than masks in that context.
Yeah, I’m getting all the shots too, the combination seems to work way better than just vaccines because all the people I know who stopped masking just keep getting it over and over regardless of the vaccine.
I’m sure it’s more mild™ but I don’t trust getting it either way.