Wait, so mandating return to office in the middle of flu season has resulted in more people getting sick? Who could have seen that coming?
WHO indeed?
WHO doesn’t have a great track record on COVID either. They denied it was airborne until mid 2021 even though we had sufficient evidence to say so in early-mid 2020.
Edit: dates
Likely caved to pressure to not report on it.
Line must go up. Our company is ~~prepared to sacrifice any number of employees at the altar of capitalism~~ “concerned” for your well being.
Considering how repeat COVID infections can cause cumulative damage, which includes immune system problems, one could expect flu waves to become deadlier. All those laptop class academics who preached about "herd immunity" via infection must be feeling great right now.
Herd immunity is a thing, which is why it's so important to vaccinate if you're able to - the few people that truly can't are relying on you.
Execpt herd immunity doesn't apply to viruses that mutate heavily and where the immunity isn't durable. Dr. Anthony Fauci previously believed that herd immunity could be achieved with COVID, but he has since changed his mind:
So, with regard to that issue and something you mentioned earlier, how should we define herd immunity with respect to COVID, I mean, how do we think of it?
I wrote a paper on that. It was a simple paper [9]. It stated that we cannot apply the standard criteria of herd immunity. It's not applicable with SARS-CoV-2. And the reason is, it's simple. I can synopsize the paper in 30 seconds. One is that herd immunity is dependent on an immune response that is durable, measured in decades to a lifetime, and a pathogen that does not change. So, you have clear-cut herd immunity with measles. Why? The measles that I got infected with as a child, because I was born before the measles vaccine, is the same measles that's killing kids in the developing world today.
Number 2, if you get infected with measles or you get vaccinated with measles, the duration of protection minimally is decades and maximally is lifetime. Those are the criteria that you need for herd immunity. Because if you have a pathogen that keeps changing like the multiple variants of SARS, and if you have a duration of immunity that's measured in months, the entire concept of herd immunity is no longer valid. That's the point.
So that just means keeping vaccine boosters up-to-date is even more important.
Not wrong, but also not helpful in the goal of boosting public health. Even if we're not able to reach literal herd immunity, boosting your own defenses still mitigates the spread and still plays a large role in reducing vulnerable people's exposure.
Combine that with other reduction practices like hygiene and masking and we've got a solid defense.
And don't get me wrong - I'm well aware that's a pipedream, cuz good fucking luck convincing Cletus and Billybob that an itchy nose and a scary poke in the arm are worth not killing some grandma they'll never meet... And until we can reach dipshits like that, there's not much hope in controlling something like covid.
I'd also expand my initial post to vaccination habits in general, and the less mutatey pathogens than covid do give us a bit more wiggle room in dealing with morons.
One of those laptop academics was just promoted to head of the NIH 😭😭
I want to leave this timeline.
I've caught what I presume is the seasonal flu and it has absolutely put me on my ass. Blowing my nose every 5 minutes, coughing up phlegm, I've used so many tissues my trash bin is looking like I'm a teenager who just discovered pornhub. I think I'm past the worst of it, but I took a long weekend and bought a boatload of sick supplies like mucinex, sudafed, chicken noodle soup, and powerade anyhow just to be on the safe side. I've got a pretty strong immune system and basically never catch colds, so I feel pretty confident that regular folks that catch it are going to be absolutely demolished by it, possibly hospital time even.
Sorry to hear that. FYI this is unintuitive but “strong immune system” would mean you would have a worse reaction to the infection.
People often die just as much because their immune system overreacts to infections, than the infection directly killing them.
All that stuff, fever, coughing, phelm, is a consequence of your immune system fighting the infection. Not inherent to the infection itself.
(This is one of my pet peeves, sorry, a strong immune system is just as bad as a weak one, from your life experience it sounds like yours is perfectly balanced).
I’ve used so many tissues my trash bin is looking like I’m a teenager who just discovered pornhub.
Such a vivid description that I can see that trash can in my mind with the towering amount of tissues.
Good thing I got my ~~autism shot~~ I mean flu vax along with the ~~radio chip shot~~ I mean covid vax before RFKJr does away with them.
It's sarcasm. Shut up.
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