Clyde_Style wrote:thebuzzardman wrote:Clyde_Style wrote:
Restaurants are packed here with not a mask in sight. Last night I was craving Italian and thought maybe I could find a well ventilated booth in the corner or at least get takeout. It was jammed. There were 200 people in there without a mask. I was the ONLY person there with a mask on. I left.
I get how different factions in America have their different pet reasons for why things may not be working against the Covid flu. I'd like to think my ideas are close to what mainstream science and common sense would suggest.
Anyway, I'd like to point out that that lots of people have been calling what's happening now, in one form or another, since early on.
Why? Because a variation of this happened during the 1918 Spanish Flu. The pandemic rages, people have mixed amounts of doing the public health measures, they comply better, and the virus seems to move on. They loosened up, the flu ran rampant again. Or it mutated and it ran rampant again. Or both. Point being, that flu also had at least one, and I think two, periods where it was "over" but it wasn't, and the infections raged again.
All we can hope is enough people get vaccinated. Well, that isn't going to happen anymore than it is unless there is some true massive death event over 800,000, like one where young people die in sufficiently spectacular numbers to make generally selfish Americans actually pay the f*ck attention. The other is that the virus mutates into something more infectious but less deadly, as they generally do. However, that takes X amount of time, where no one knows what X is, and there may or may not be the spectacular death count along the way.
The "1918 Spanish Flu" isn't the most helpful historical title, because the problems went on for several years. Just like now.
Oh well. We have the means to stop this with 100+ years of medical advances, but just a bit too many people are too stubborn. Also, the country is 3X more populous, so that matters as well. I figure we break the million death # by February, easy.
The thing about an eventual lessening of the strength of the virus is that two years from now after the last big waves will even the most diligent people wear masks?
It seems eventually everyone will have some form of exposure even if it has been minimized in its effects. I’m in the hot zone so I’m going to get tested soon. I expect a positive result. It just seems likely at this point even though I’m triple vaxxed and sometimes the only guy wearing a mask here.
I'd assume in 3 years when it lessens, people won't wear masks like they don't wear masks in current cold and flu season. Culturally, we don't do it; in many countries in Asia they do. Does the current iteration of the flu kill a bunch of people? Yes, but in acceptable numbers - not condoning that, just acknowledging it. Would less people get sick and less die if we wore masks during this season? Probably. May this whole thing create a social change around that? Doubtful.