Coronavirus (COVID-19) Discussion Thread

[LurkerJ]

SvennoJ said:

This does raise a moral/ethical question.

Do you let the virus do 'its thing', no more restrictions, since the option is there to get vaccinated if you want / try hard enough. Basically let the anti-vaxers and other hesitant people fend for themselves. (with the risk of creating new strains in the process) And go for herd immunity the hard way.

What about the children though, below 12 aren't getting vaccinated yet and while low occurrence, there are problems with covid in children as well. Plus hospitals will stay busy with covid, pushing other things further and further back.

It seems the USA is done with restrictions, UK as well, the rest can fend for themselves. Canada might be next.

Anyway, instead of getting rid of it / numbers so low it won't flare up again with vaccinations, now it's a wait and see game again whether it's safe to send my youngest back to school. He has to go back regardless, not doing well socially. But how safe it will be, I don't know. There definitely no longer is any push to suppress the pandemic entirely, it's a collective fail in that regards.

I'm getting my second dose tomorrow, and my wife should have reached close to full immunity by now. Next, the kids, our oldest just turned 12, so he is eligible. It still feels like a gamble. Too many unknowns still and too much conflicting information. Anyway it's his decision to make and there is zero info made available for kids. Pretty poor going imo.

I think smokers, boozers, addicts, and those who are obese and don't exercise should pay more taxes. If those who don't wish to take the vaccine end up in the hospital, they should be taxed more. Obviously the issue here is that the majority of unvaccinated people won't need public services to support them unless they get severe or long COVID19, so only start taxing them if they fall ill? I truly believe there should be harsher consequences for anyone who thinks my taxes are there to fund their smoking-induced COPD/diabetes treatments, nothing more off putting than seeing a grown ass adult with a cigarette. 

I don't think vaccines will limit new strains, eventually, the strain that escapes the immune response the vaccine induces, will be the dominant strain and you just can't possibly ask people to keep wearing masks and wash their hands forever, all you'd end up doing is falling severely ill to viruses that were benign before the pandemic. I agree, however, that we still need few more months before opening up to let the vaccines do their job. 

As for children, I think we need more data and solid science on why they're not affected by COVID19 the way adults are and does vaccinating them really offer any added benefit in lower transmission. For example, I remember reading about ACE receptors being genetically less expressed in the young as a major reason for their better immune response against COVID19. I haven't been keeping up so what else have we figured out? Also, we should start sub-categorizing in more sub-groups, instead of just labelling anyone under 18 as a "child". Maybe that's all available science and I am just ignorant, I am sick of keeping up with covid19 lol