I'm still amazed that in 2026, 6 years into a novel pandemic, that the press still can't bother to mention masking as a preventive step to keep you safe from the Flu or Covid.
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@jeffluszcz I've seen several references to COVID-19 here on Mastodon as a pandemic that is still going on. WHO declared the global health emergency around COVID-19 as over in 2023. I get that the virus is still here, still mutating, as all other flus do. And it makes sense to use masks to protect others from flu. Is that what ia meant by the word pandemic in your toot?
@malte @jeffluszcz The WHO made the declaration arbitrarily and incorrectly. The pandemic never changed. It's still screwing people up and killing them. It takes hundreds of years for a species to fully adapt to a disease like this. We haven't changed and COVID-19 didn't suddenly decide to get "nicer" to us. People aren't getting properly vaccinated (it takes somewhere in the 90+% range and we're at like 30% or something) and not masking, so it is NOT in control.
We're all just pretending.
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@jeffluszcz Worse than that, there are articles questioning (without much actual curiosity) why Olympians have been masking before their events.
@vathpela @jeffluszcz Humanity just as a whole is in complete denial and trying desperately to pretend away a pandemic.
The thing is, diseases don't know or understand that we find them too inconvenient. They don't just... go away because we find them inconvenient. It's literally impossible to pretend it away...
It's amazing that as far as medical science has progressed, humanity is still just sort of mentally in the dark ages in regards to it anyway... We have the info, we just ignore it.
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@malte @jeffluszcz the “emergency” was declared over so people would fill empty office buildings.
The pandemic never ended, especially not for those of us who are immune compromised.
@Laukidh @malte @jeffluszcz "to fill empty office buildings."
That's the short of it. The longer version is it was hurting profits all around. Real estate, tourism, even just regular everyday purchases, all were down. Those at the top were losing money, so it became "necessary" that we "get things back to normal." It didn't matter what actual cost there would be in lives and health.
The maddening thing is, we could have gotten it under control. We just needed time and effort.
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@malte @jeffluszcz The WHO made the declaration arbitrarily and incorrectly. The pandemic never changed. It's still screwing people up and killing them. It takes hundreds of years for a species to fully adapt to a disease like this. We haven't changed and COVID-19 didn't suddenly decide to get "nicer" to us. People aren't getting properly vaccinated (it takes somewhere in the 90+% range and we're at like 30% or something) and not masking, so it is NOT in control.
We're all just pretending.
@nazokiyoubinbou I find it hard to follow all this. 70% of the global population has received at least one vaccination dose for COVID-19. That is significantly more than 30% as you say. In some countries like my own, Denmark, the numbers are much higher - 90% are fully vaccinated. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deployment_of_COVID-19_vaccines @jeffluszcz
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@nazokiyoubinbou I find it hard to follow all this. 70% of the global population has received at least one vaccination dose for COVID-19. That is significantly more than 30% as you say. In some countries like my own, Denmark, the numbers are much higher - 90% are fully vaccinated. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deployment_of_COVID-19_vaccines @jeffluszcz
@malte @jeffluszcz "70% of the global population has received at least one vaccination dose for COVID-19."
Well, that falls apart on its own because most of the vaccines require two doses even to do anything, but, more importantly, the vaccines have to be constant. They only protect a few months as it is. So it's not just the initial dose that matters, but the followups too. There are also many variants that evade the vaccines since we let it go so out of control.
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@malte @jeffluszcz "70% of the global population has received at least one vaccination dose for COVID-19."
Well, that falls apart on its own because most of the vaccines require two doses even to do anything, but, more importantly, the vaccines have to be constant. They only protect a few months as it is. So it's not just the initial dose that matters, but the followups too. There are also many variants that evade the vaccines since we let it go so out of control.
@malte @jeffluszcz As for your country, I'm glad they've done so well, but are you carefully monitoring everyone who comes in? Do you test them (especially for variants that evade the vaccines) and keep track of who they come into contact with? Other countries don't.
And here's a doozy: vaccines are non-sterilizing. It's rare, but you can still catch even a variant you're vaccinated against. And you can still be contagious...
It was always meant to be part of the trifecta, not an absolute
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@malte @jeffluszcz "70% of the global population has received at least one vaccination dose for COVID-19."
Well, that falls apart on its own because most of the vaccines require two doses even to do anything, but, more importantly, the vaccines have to be constant. They only protect a few months as it is. So it's not just the initial dose that matters, but the followups too. There are also many variants that evade the vaccines since we let it go so out of control.
@nazokiyoubinbou One vaccine shot does give some protection if you later get infected. You are less likely to get the serious symptoms that kill people. It seems that your thing is basically: One, COVID-19 is still alive and infecting people (no one to my knowledge disagrees) and two, it is still a global public health emergency. Is that right?
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I'm still amazed that in 2026, 6 years into a novel pandemic, that the press still can't bother to mention masking as a preventive step to keep you safe from the Flu or Covid. https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/flu-strain-bay-area-21343720.php
The press mostly do not serve us now, and seldom have. I am always grateful for when they do. But they often don't.
Let me see... SFGate cites Monica Gandhi...
Flashback to...
"Stop panicking about COVID-19 variants, says UCSF's Dr. Gandhi" Updated Feb 24, 2021 6:18 p.m.
What was happening then?
A whole lot of death.
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@nazokiyoubinbou One vaccine shot does give some protection if you later get infected. You are less likely to get the serious symptoms that kill people. It seems that your thing is basically: One, COVID-19 is still alive and infecting people (no one to my knowledge disagrees) and two, it is still a global public health emergency. Is that right?
@malte Yes, that's basically the short of it. Declaring it no longer an emergency doesn't *actually* make it no longer an emergency. It's a virus. It doesn't understand that we arbitrarily decided it was too inconvenient and was impacting profit margins too much. It just keeps replicating because that's all it can do.
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@malte Yes, that's basically the short of it. Declaring it no longer an emergency doesn't *actually* make it no longer an emergency. It's a virus. It doesn't understand that we arbitrarily decided it was too inconvenient and was impacting profit margins too much. It just keeps replicating because that's all it can do.
@nazokiyoubinbou What would make it no longer an emergency in your mind?
