Although I see your general point, you fail to mention that the unvaccinated population includes children under age 5, not just those who choose to remain unvaccinated. This is a substantial portion of the population and a particularly delicate one in terms of treatment options if covid does happen to cause complications. I for one am particularly displeased with the argument that 'only a small number of children' get serious covid. The response I have borrowed from someone else surely always has to be: 'But I only have a small number of children'.
The argument against protecting the immunocompromised is also a bit weak - testing didn't protect them fully, so why continue doing it? An umbrella doesn't keep you perfectly dry, so toss it completely? Perhaps it bought us time, to develop monoclonal antibody treatments for covid that in the first few months didn't exist, so that getting serious covid now is somewhat more treatable.
Hi Maria - thanks for your comment - essentially I am saying that we should be less neurotic about covid and more neurotic about everything else (ie wear masks, distance, purell etc when you have any uri symptoms - even if you are covid negative (especially by rapid). Ultimately I think that will result in less covid transmission than what we are doing now. And I am arguing that the severity of covid has been reduced to comparable infections like colds or the flu (which is worse in fact for many children than is covid) for basically everyone, children included.
Enjoyed this post. Seems like good perspective. What's your take on Long COVID or the other long term impacts of COVID which seem to exist but aren't yet well understood - are you not worried about those?
Hi Andrew - great point - and maybe long covid is a good topic for another post because there's a lot to say. But in a nutshell, 1. I don't see the current strategy of widespread testing/quarantine as decreasing transmission (and therefore long covid) very effectively anymore to begin with, 2. all viral infections (flu, mono, enterovirus) can have serious and long-lasting effects in a minority of people, so 3. we should try to the best we can not to spread any of them around when we are sick, and 4. the covid vaccine seems to reduce long covid by about 50%. Again, this is not a full answer but thanks for bringing it up!
Would be great to get your take on long COVID in a future post. Point taken on testing. Key question for me is how much I go out of my way to avoid getting COVID at this point. Other than getting a flu vaccine I don’t do anything to avoid getting the flu, but w/ COVID there is masking, boosters, checking the stats, etc.
Although I see your general point, you fail to mention that the unvaccinated population includes children under age 5, not just those who choose to remain unvaccinated. This is a substantial portion of the population and a particularly delicate one in terms of treatment options if covid does happen to cause complications. I for one am particularly displeased with the argument that 'only a small number of children' get serious covid. The response I have borrowed from someone else surely always has to be: 'But I only have a small number of children'.
The argument against protecting the immunocompromised is also a bit weak - testing didn't protect them fully, so why continue doing it? An umbrella doesn't keep you perfectly dry, so toss it completely? Perhaps it bought us time, to develop monoclonal antibody treatments for covid that in the first few months didn't exist, so that getting serious covid now is somewhat more treatable.
Hi Maria - thanks for your comment - essentially I am saying that we should be less neurotic about covid and more neurotic about everything else (ie wear masks, distance, purell etc when you have any uri symptoms - even if you are covid negative (especially by rapid). Ultimately I think that will result in less covid transmission than what we are doing now. And I am arguing that the severity of covid has been reduced to comparable infections like colds or the flu (which is worse in fact for many children than is covid) for basically everyone, children included.
Enjoyed this post. Seems like good perspective. What's your take on Long COVID or the other long term impacts of COVID which seem to exist but aren't yet well understood - are you not worried about those?
Hi Andrew - great point - and maybe long covid is a good topic for another post because there's a lot to say. But in a nutshell, 1. I don't see the current strategy of widespread testing/quarantine as decreasing transmission (and therefore long covid) very effectively anymore to begin with, 2. all viral infections (flu, mono, enterovirus) can have serious and long-lasting effects in a minority of people, so 3. we should try to the best we can not to spread any of them around when we are sick, and 4. the covid vaccine seems to reduce long covid by about 50%. Again, this is not a full answer but thanks for bringing it up!
Hi Bertie, the people who I know with long Covid are fully vaccinated and boostered.
Would be great to get your take on long COVID in a future post. Point taken on testing. Key question for me is how much I go out of my way to avoid getting COVID at this point. Other than getting a flu vaccine I don’t do anything to avoid getting the flu, but w/ COVID there is masking, boosters, checking the stats, etc.