Ok, seriously, what should be the approach on a societal level? The whole point of masks and isolation was to prevent spreading not in general for the sake of preventing it, but as a way to “flatten the curve” as a way to make people get vaccinated hopefully before catching it for the first time, and to prevent the overload and collapse of the sanitary system.
I’m asking from ignorance because I’m not an epidemiologist, whether it makes sense for individuals to wear masks to slow the spread during normal periods of healthcare not collapsing, and in a scenario where already the overwhelming majority of the population has been exposed to the virus and to vaccines; or whether it’s best to let people get immunity through normal exposure to the virus as we’ve been doing with basically every other seasonal virus in existence (with vaccinations available for at-risk individuals)
Quarantines based on contact tracing, ample sick leave, culture of wearing a mask when feeling sick, easy access to tests, vaccines.
If every country did it, covid would still be around, but getting stuck in quarantine would become a less and less frequent annoyance. Eventually the spread would be low enough that the mutation rate would settle down, and vaccines would start being more effective.
As a non-epidemiologist, this sounds extremely sensible to me. Public campaigns to make people agree to voluntarily use open source, verifiably anonymous contact apps for quarantining, would be very welcome; face masks when having COVID symptoms, ample sick leave, and free access to facemasks, tests and vaccines, sounds amazing. Thank you for your input
exposure to the virus does not grant immunity. notice how it’s still raging
It does grant a certain degree of immunity, especially in terms of reduced symptoms and effects upon following sickness, the main thing afaik is that the virus mutates as the flu or the common cold do, so that you don’t get full immunity to the newly appearing variants (remember the stuff with Omicron and so on?). Death rates now are much lower than they were at first
It does grant a certain degree of immunity, especially in terms of reduced symptoms and effects upon following sickness
yea, instead of dying you now develop AIDS and cancer and can’t walk 10 yards and lose your sense of taste for 3 years straight
it grants a degree of immunity that is so small in comparison to the virus’ effects that it doesn’t matter in absolute terms
Honestly idfk at this point because the numerous mammalian wildlife reservoirs means that even strict quarantine procedures for whatever length of time necessary to stamp it out in human populations means it will inevitably resurface anyway, at some point, somewhere, when bat coughs on a dude or something.
People dont ‘get immunity’ to seasonal viruses, thats why theres constantly updated flu shot every year. Not enough people get the shot, kncluding me sometimes, but with the flu its mostly just a mild irritation for a few days with minimal lasting effects. Still, less people would get it if everyone would mask up and get vaccinated, as we saw during covid when barely anyone got the flu due to wearing masks. This isnt a complicated social problem, masks protect people from germs of all kinds, and the more people wearing them, especially when theyre feeling sick, the better off the rest of the population will be. Especially since covid can have such lasting effects.
