D&D and the rising pandemic

[Cadence]

Went to church in person for the first time since March of 2020 this Sunday. Among other things, I got this mixed bag of a story:

Our church’s music director and his whole family got Covid. The parents were both vaccinated, as I recall, but one of the kids came home with it, and infected everyone else. Despite being vaccinated, the music director still got very sick, so they gave him a monoclonal antibody treatment- probably residemivir.

According to him, he felt GREAT after the treatment was completed. In fact, he felt better 15 minutes after treatment than he did at church a week later when I saw him. He’s still having ups & downs, but many more ups than downs.

The first week we went back (about a month ago) almost everyone was masked. The second week it was odd -- there were about a dozen individuals/couples/families that weren't... but as mass went on 2/3rds or so of them gradually masked up. I'm kind of wondering if the priest was staring them down or something, because otherwise I couldn't tell why they changed.

The church my son's old cub-scout pack met at had the pastor and his wife both pretty sick for a while (I think they both recovered). The one for my son's current boy scout troop had similarly. The former church has a daycare center and so masks are enforced in parts of the building/parts are closed off. For the later, some members were grousing about not being able to do more things just minutes after saying how the pastor was sick.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

New research cited by the CDC concldes both vaccine-induced and exposure-induced immunity to COVID last at least 6 months, but that vaccines boost the immune system more overall.

CDC finds immunity from vaccines is more consistent than from infection, but both last at least six months

It's a question that scientists have been trying to answer since the start of the pandemic, one that is central to the rancorous political debates over coronavirus vaccine policies: How much immunity does someone have after recovering from a coronavirus infection, and how does it compare with...

www.yahoo.com

 

[MoonSong]

New research cited by the CDC concldes both vaccine-induced and exposure-induced immunity to COVID last at least 6 months, but that vaccines boost the immune system more overall.

CDC finds immunity from vaccines is more consistent than from infection, but both last at least six months

It's a question that scientists have been trying to answer since the start of the pandemic, one that is central to the rancorous political debates over coronavirus vaccine policies: How much immunity does someone have after recovering from a coronavirus infection, and how does it compare with...

www.yahoo.com

I hope it is the case. My Dad was hospitalized yesterday -turns out he needs a minor surgery, now when I say minor I mean it can be done via laparoscopy, but it risk complications if this isn't done soon enough- and it worries me that he could get exposed to Covid -along with everything else you can catch while in the hospital-. At least I can be less worried since he has had both doses of AZ already. But seriously, I'm worried they could delay the surgery too much. Earlier this year my cousin died because of complications caused by a delayed surgery. Because she didn't get the surgery on time -due to Covid patients keeping beds and resources tied-, she developed complications, was on a coma for a while and seemed to be recovering when her heart just gave up.

At least we are in "Green" which means few beds have Covid patients, and hopefully they won't delay the surgery too much. We'll know later today if they will schedule as an emergency procedure or if they will schedule it as a regular surgery.

 

[Janx]

Yes. They also note that this process can take years - it is essentially generational.

like, five, ten, twenty years? More? A large enough number to not mean much to our short attention spans?

 

[Thomas Shey]

The father of modern Quality Assurance was Dr. William Edwards Deming. He was an engineer and statistician, and the understanding of the impact of many of our mistaken polices are grounded in his work.

One rule he found to hold runs as follows: Any system to do work has some maximum normal capacity. But, if you regularly run a system at above about 80% of its maximum capacity, the system will degrade to the point where its new maximum is below that 80%. And it turns out this holds no matter what the systems is built from - machines or people.

The inability to take sick days is an example of this. Since everyone else is working at 100% capacity, nobody has slack time to pick up your work, and you become a bottleneck if you aren't present.

The problem is that managers and executives don't usually read Deming.

Or alternatively, can't internalize it enough to effect their decision-making. Its abundantly clear there's a strong mimetic element in business that finds slack in employee usage just intolerable, no matter how much they intellectually know its necessary.

 

[Istbor]

That's definitely a major part of it, but I know people that still send their sick children to school even when they're old enough to stay home by themselves.

Probably because their parents made them do it when they were young. We really have a habit of, "Well I did it when I was a kid, and look how I turned out!" Or, "That's how it has always been done."

 

[Mirtek]

A vaccine doesn't prevent someone from "catching the germ."

That's also not what he said. It doesn't need to prevent you from ever catching the germ to do enough for you to no longer have to walk on eggshells.

If the vaccine is decreasing the chance to get it enough coupled with when this fails also enough decreasing the chance that it will get serious , then there's no reason to be worried to play with your un-vaccinated friends.

The remaining danger they potentially mean to you is then just a random everyday risk of life then and risk to stay away from them. Might as well stay away from playing with them because you might fall from the tree that you try to climb together

If it's still so bad that you have to be warry around your un-vaccinated friends, then the combined effect of making it less likely (not need to become impossible) to catch it coupled with making it less likely (again no one asks for making it impossible) to get seriously sick, are obviously not yet big enough

 

[Mirtek]

Reminds me of a What If? about trying to eradicate the common cold by just isolating everyone from each other for a few weeks. (I couldn't find it on his site, but this is the basic premise.)

That got me interested, I like to read XKCD. Google actually quickly brings it up. However it's not on their website but was only in one of their books. Since the link leads to a scan of 8 pages from the book on Imgur, I am not sure it's something that should be posted here.

Just google "what if xkcd common cold" and you should get directly to Imgur or maybe to a 2 year old reddit thread that then has the link to Imgur.

For those who just want the end result of XKCDs musing (which included consulting experts from the university of Queensland) is that no, it would not work. Total distancing for ~10 days should be enough to completely eliminate it in all humans with a normal immune system, but it would survive in humans with weakened immune systems (can apparently survice for years in peoples with particular weak immune systems, e.g. those dependent on supressing their immune systems after having received transplants) and from them it would once again sweep through humanity

 

[J.Quondam]

That's also not what he said. It doesn't need to prevent you from ever catching the germ to do enough for you to no longer have to walk on eggshells.

If the vaccine is decreasing the chance to get it enough coupled with when this fails also enough decreasing the chance that it will get serious , then there's no reason to be worried to play with your un-vaccinated friends.

The remaining danger they potentially mean to you is then just a random everyday risk of life then and risk to stay away from them. Might as well stay away from playing with them because you might fall from the tree that you try to climb together

If it's still so bad that you have to be warry around your un-vaccinated friends, then the combined effect of making it less likely (not need to become impossible) to catch it coupled with making it less likely (again no one asks for making it impossible) to get seriously sick, are obviously not yet big enough

Most people aren't going to get very sick from it, if at all, not even infected unvaxxed people. But that's not the point.
The point is that infection goes both ways. One can and should be as concerned about giving the disease as getting it, vaxxed or not.
It's just common courtesy and consideration of others' well-being. That's the difference between being a civilized human being and being a selfish one.

 

[Mirtek]

Infection goes both ways. One can and should be as concerned about giving the disease as getting it, vaxxed or not.
It's just common courtesy and consideration of others' well-being. That's the difference between being a civilized human being and being a selfish one.

Yes, but that's the choice of the friends who decided they want to be un-vaccinated. If they decided that they are fine to live with the risk, I may voice my concern once, but at the end of the day respect their choice.

If they decide they are not afraid to meet with me despite them being un-vaccinated and the high enough security of the vaccination makes me comfortable to meet with them despite them being un-vaccinated, then I see no reason not to meet with them.

I would definately not be like "I am confident enough in my safety due to the vaccination, but I am now going to protect you from yourself because I do not accept your acceptance of the risk of being un-vaccinated"

The spouse of a good childhood friend is un-vaccinated by choice. Didn't stop us from having a wine tasting last Saturday. I also have a co-worker who is not vaccinated, since we are not allowed to just all sit together at lunch at work, we just go eat together outside.

Statistically there are probably even more people in my circle which are not vaccinated, I just only happen to know it for sure of these two. I am not afraid of either of them or the unknown others.