Why on Earth would anyone go to a movie theater in the middle of a pandemic?????

There is no interaction between the people other than that they are all breathing the same air.

If there is anything that could be done online just as well as in person, it's watching a damn movie!

#COVID #COVID19 #vax #vaccine #mask #masks #movie #movies #social #distance #remote

@Pat I go to movie theaters mostly just for the popcorn to be honest. That said I havent went to one during the pandemic. I probably would though now that we moved onto the delta variant and deaths have been consistently reasonable even during infection spikes. I'm kinda over covid as a result and just pretend it doesnt even exist at this point. Back before Delta though no way would I have went to a theater.

@freemo

(we posted simultaneously)

The delta variant is more contagious. Now is not a good time to be around a bunch of other people.

The main difference is that the media are not talking about the thousands of people who are dying every day. They want people to go out and spend money and burn gas, even if it kills thousands of more people.

I thought mankind was making progress, but this is reprehensible.

@Pat recent data is suggesting delta isnt more contagious, it is just that the vaccine has no effect on preventing its spread. So it appears more contagious since people are vaccinated. The data is new like everything covid so we cant say for certain either way, but this seems to be the case.

That said even if it is mroe contagious, the death toll even when cases spike has been minimal. As such I'm not really worried about it spreading.

@freemo

Here in the US it's terrible. It's over a thousand people a day for a very long time. It was over 3000/day a few weeks back. All preventable.

This week, over 10,000 people were buried by their loved ones.

I'm unaware of that recent research on delta. The R0 for delta has been ~150% of alpha, which has been ~150% of the original. But it's entirely possible that the difference is due to behavior and public policy.

@Pat In the USA before delta the morbidity rate was well over 4x higher than it is now with delta. Yes a lot of people are still dying sadly, but it is far less lethal than the old variant even in the USA. It is still more lethal than the flu but the margin is much closer as a result, the new variant is getting pretty close to flu levels of morbidity.

Attached is an example from the USA, specifically massachusits. As you can see the mortality during Delta has gone down to nearly 0, its just not a very lethal virus anymore.

That said I am more than happy to put it behind us and not take social measures anymore given where its at.

All that said its been almost 2 years now, even if the virus was just as deadly as it was we cant remain in lock down forever. A new vaccine is not even close to being ready and we are looking at it being well over a year away if one ever comes that fights delta at all... Its time to be done with it, and accept the deaths until we can cure it. Lock down nursing homes, wear a mask around the elderly, but other its time to go back to normal IMO and has been that time for a while.

@freemo

You may be done with covid, but covid is not done with us. The virus continues to kill massive numbers of people and many times that amount are left with chronic illness. Millions of people can no longer work because they are dead or disabled from the virus. Millions more are justifiably afraid to go back to work. And millions more are so disgusted with the way that the politician have handled this that they've joined the general strike.

You may be done with it, but it's not done with you.

@Pat It may not be done with me, but living in fear for 2 years is my limit. I am willing to accept the very real death toll if that means going back to a normal life. People living the way we have for 2 years extended into the future forever is not a solution or acceptable, the deaths are preferable.

@freemo

That strategy will never get us back to normal. The country and the economy could never handle the drag of that many deaths and disabilities.

There is a very simple way out of this, but for whatever reason, the politicians won't even consider it -- have an all-out public awareness campaign to get at least 60% of the people to wear respirators for about 6-8 weeks. That would eliminate the virus in the US. Then we could use test and trace to keep it in check from then on.

@Pat

> That strategy will never get us back to normal. The country and the economy could never handle the drag of that many deaths and disabilities.

No vaccine on the market right now has any effect on the viral load of delta variant, and thus does nothing to reduce the spread of the virus. Therefore **nothing** will make covid go away right now. You will **never** get back to normal if you are waiting for covid to go away and certainly not if you think wearing masks is going to solve it. The best you could hope for is covid incidence goes down, to some arbitrary level and the moment masks stop getting worn it goes right back to where it is.

COVID isnt going away, if that is the measure for going back to normal then might as well just give up entierly.

That said since the morbidity of delta is so low even when it is spreading rapidly I think your premise is wrong. Society could handle COVID spreading freely just fine. Yes there will be deaths just like with many diseases, but delta is entierly manageable as we have already seen from the chart I have shown.

@freemo

>Its not holding my head in the sand. Its recognizing there are no solutions on the table, zero.

I just gave you a viable solution. Along with the vaccines, which do mitigate infection, respirators could stop the pandemic. Stop it. Completely.

A properly worn respirator completely stops the virus -- not just delta, but all current and future variants of the virus. And we don't need 100% of people wearing them, just about 60-65%, along with the current vax level would end this now.

@Pat

> I just gave you a viable solution. Along with the vaccines, which do mitigate infection, respirators could stop the pandemic. Stop it. Completely.

This is false. Recent studies, the best studies we have, show vaccine has no effect on the viral load of delta. so current data suggests the vaccines have no effect anymore on the spread.

Second resperators will not and never can stop it completely. It can at best reduce the incidence of the virus temporarily while we wear them and comply. Since vaccines do not slow its spread the second people stop wearing masks if there is even one remaining case then it spreads and starts all over again.

So no despite the effectiveness of respirators they can not and will not solve the problem. They only work for as long as they are worn, so they only solve the problem if we decide to wear respirators for the rest of our life, which I wont do.

You might have a chance of solving it if we had a new vaccine that was effective agaisnt delta **and** people wore respirators. But that is likely to never happen. The first vaccine failed for all the reasons I said it would before a vaccine even existed, and so will any new vaccines that use the same approach.

Despite your optimism what you offer is not a solution, and there is no solution that exists or that is in development.

@Pat Attached is the data if your curious. As you can see the vaccine significantly reduced viral load int he original COVID as the picture shows. But in the delta variant vaccines have no effect on viral load. In fact, being vaccinated causes a marginal **increase** in viral load against delta.

So yea, the science that has come out in recent weeks now that delta is 98% prevalence shows that the vaccine has absolutely no effect on the spread of the disease.