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The Covid-19 pandemic killed off one strain of the flu, and that will change the next vaccines (www.cnn.com)

submitted 9 months ago by FlyingSquid to c/news

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[–] [email protected] 154 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Just imagine how many infectious diseases could be greatly diminished or eliminated if people, I dunno, listened to healthcare professionals.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Or at least stayed home when they were sick. That was such a nice cultural change from COVID that I really hoped it would stick around. But nope, people went right back to just "toughing it out" and going to work/school while sick.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago

People in my area/life (most) aren't given sick days and are expected to use their short (if even able) PTO allotments. If they take a vacation and get sick later - their options are work or miss bills. To me, I understand why folks tough it out. I'd like society to care about health for the whole, most can't afford to do that.

[+] [email protected] -90 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (7 children)

What do you mean by that? Social distancing is mostly what keeps these diseases at bay. But there's an argument that social distancing comes with a hefty cost as we are a social species.

Edit: Wow, the circlejerk for certain topics is just as strong on Lemmy as it was on Reddit. I'm sticking with my point, though. Social distancing has heavy costs and is at this point not worth it. Of course people should wear masks if they are sick or if they want to protect themselves. And staying away from people when you're sick and can do it has always been a good idea.

[–] fuckwit_mcbumcrumble 86 points 9 months ago (4 children)

Wearing a mask and staying away from people when sick is a much better approach. Also being aware of what being sick even is since some people just kinda ignore their symptoms as “a cold”.

[–] [email protected] 51 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

The culture I grew up with valued this type of thing.

Why did you miss work? A cold? If you're not in the hospital and you're not here, you are a slacker.

It doesn't help when you don't have any more paid sick time and you need to keep paying the rent.

It's so infuriating that it feels like life is structured in such a way that it is difficult or impossible to recover from these types of things without exposing people to your own sickness.

No excuses for people that are sick don't stay home when they have the opportunity though.

ETA: masking does definitely help though and I'm glad the culture doesn't find it as unusual as before

[–] kescusay 23 points 9 months ago (3 children)

The thing about that kind of attitude is that it's inherently self-defeating, because if you insist your employees come to work sick, they're going to get everyone else sick too, and productivity will plummet even if everyone keeps showing up. Sick employees don't perform well.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Sick employees don't perform well.

You assume performance matters. A ridiculously large number of jobs are "bullshit jobs" and just require a body/someone to be there.

Example: When I was a teen I had a job at a roller skating rink that involved working at a snack bar. On Tuesdays (designated little kids figure skating practice time) the likelihood that anyone would enter the place was slim and the likelihood that someone would come to the snack bar was probably 1/10th of that. However, if the place was claiming to be open at that time they needed someone there. If only to prevent people from stealing the snacks/drinks 😁

Even at "modern" offices there's tons of jobs that don't have anything practically measurable in terms of "performance". How do you measure the performance of a receptionist who's job is to just hand people clipboards and then enter their info? Smiles? Typos? LOL

Even "fancy" jobs like "systems administrator" often have no realistic measure of performance. Did anything break today? No? Fantastic job 😁👍

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Those are all useful things though - they're not useless, they're just not working at full capacity.

Systems administrators do have meaningful metrics though...

I'm assuming you mean glorified IT so I'll start there. Hardware breaks down obviously, but do does software. They have update schedules, so every few months they have to test updates, research it, and decide how when to roll it out. They have to periodically check equipment, and convince the company on what to buy when. And obviously, at any time something can explode and stop the entire company from working

For systems engineers for more complex systems, you have the same things, except the stakes are much higher. So there's a lot more math, test systems, and so on.

The metrics come from methodology, not just nothing going wrong.

When I think of a truly useless job, I always think about sales. What do they actually do? The better they are is basically how much they can force others to act suboptimally - to pay more, to buy more, to trust a product more because it came from someone charismatic.

I mean sure, they could be using their powers for good and actually helping connect buyers to appropriate products, but most of that is because marketing has muddied the waters. And sure, they might actually be handling necessary logistics with expertise others don't have, but I'd go so far as to say most of them do more selling and less facilitating

It just seems like a lot of humans being stupid humans. It's work we entirely created for ourselves. And sure, it makes money for a company... But even that's just playing with made up numbers.

Which brings up a whole lot of even more roles based on stupid humans being stupid.

(And reception is again logistics and support - could you imagine walking into a doctor's office and just waiting in an exam room until someone shows up? Their presence enables someone with presumably valuable skills to multiply their productivity)

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago

You are so very right. However, these facts do not deter these managers. (And other people that think like this.)

[–] FlyingSquid 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

It's such bullshit. I am ill with a mystery illness that I am going to the Mayo Clinic at the end of the month and have been for over a year now. Before I left my last job, I was told (after being told that they understood that I was sick and to take as much time off as I needed) that I had taken 80 hours of time off in the last year and I had to go on FMLA or quit. So I went on FMLA and then quit because I wasn't getting any better. It's been a good thing for a lot of reasons despite going down to a single income, but it's bullshit that I should be put in that position because of health problems that I could not avoid.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

It is so much bullshit that you get put in that situation for something that isn't your fault, but glad you had options. It is appalling how we neglect the sick and disabled. My partner was physically messed up for nearly a decade because she could not afford the healthcare or the time off needed. (Fortunately she is doing much better now after I could support her financially to get treated.) In a time of great abundance, this should not be a common occurrence.

I hope you find answers and relief soon.

[–] FlyingSquid 1 points 9 months ago

Thank you.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 9 months ago

I lost all hope when, at the end of the pandemic and the mask mandates, I saw clearly sick people out and about without a mask.
Like what the heck, wasn't that enough of a lesson?
Sometimes I wish that COVID was more virulent than it was because it clearly didn't traumatise people as much as it should have.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago

I'm willing to bet that WFH plays a big role in public health.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

Wild pitch... What if we stayed home when we had "just a cold"?

Colds suck, it's not macho to spread or be exposed to infectious diseases, and I have no idea why people act like it is

Everyone should have the ability to take sick days, but a lot of people have the ability to, no questions asked, and still come in to not "waste" PTO. I used to do that too - I didn't even consider it until COVID

[–] lennybird 32 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

This genius thinks he figured out what a consensus of medical and science professionals did not factor.

You know what else has a hefty social cost? Having parents and grandparents die in the family because of lazy scientific illiterate dumbfucks and grifters.

[+] [email protected] -26 points 9 months ago (1 children)

No, I did not. That's why the CDC and other health agencies around the world are no longer recommending social distancing as a general rule. That's my whole point, when people come along and argue what we could accomplish by continuing the harsh rules from COVID times.

[–] lennybird 21 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Help me follow your logic when you immediately bring up "social distancing," from the following message you replied to:

Just imagine how many infectious diseases could be greatly diminished or eliminated if people, I dunno, listened to healthcare professionals.

...? Because this feels like a straw-man. The user you replied to said nothing about social distancing. Seemed to be a more generalized comment to me.

[+] [email protected] -18 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I jumped there because masks are fine, but the only thing that really keeps infectious diseases at bay is social distancing. Everything else like vaccines, masks and proper hygiene only limits the risks to some degree. Keeping away from other humans is the only thing guaranteed to work. That's why I assume people mean this when they talk about measures to fight diseases.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I think the key is compromize and risk reduction. Sick people should stay home, mask if they need to go out, & be aware of what signs of infection are.

Its true social distancing is the only "100% effective" way to not get sick. But its kind of like abstinence-- most people are not going to do the "100% safe" thing, but they will take measures to make bad outcomes less likely. Which the cdc recognizes and has adjusted covid reccomendations to reflect what is most benificial for people as a whole (stay home if sick, but no need to isolate yourself from everyone).

Perfection is the enemy of the good and all that jazz.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

There needs to be more pushback on the idea that "if we only save one life, it's worth it". Everything has tradeoffs. Domestic violence went up because of lockdowns. So did a lot of other social ills.

Was it worth that cost? Yes. Covid at the time was just that bad, and because we didn't know enough about its infection factors, there were reasonable models that showed it could have been much, much worse than it was. However, that's a tradeoff argument. Lockdowns did more good than harm. We shouldn't pretend they did zero harm, and that idea that "if we only save one life" feeds into that.

[–] lennybird 10 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

You're from a German instance if I understand Lemmy right (and odds are good I don't), and if that's the case perhaps you're not aware that the message above was probably for an American audience because we had a lot of really, really ignorant conservatives under the Republican party banner who completely ignored the science and medical advice of experts, continued to socialize, continued to be anti-vaxx, anti-mask, and spread dangerous unfounded conspiracy theories to the detriment of millions. I'm sure Germany and other nations had a similar issue albeit to a lesser extend from what I understand.

As the original user said, if more people just heeded the vast consensus of experts in this field on this issue, we'd all be much better off. Instead, they'd rather listen to some right-wing media pundit tell them there is some grand conspiracy because it makes them feel better about themselves or something...

[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I loved the social distancing aspect of the pandemic.

[–] BonesOfTheMoon 1 points 9 months ago

I missed eating in restaurants, but I didn't get to WFH or anything during the lockdowns so I would have appreciated more isolation.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago

What do you mean by that?

I mean that there are far too many people who insist on abusing the world we live in to our own detriment, that acute public health is one of the things that suffers, and that it doesn't have to.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago (1 children)

You're getting downvoted, not entirely because people disagree with the point you are making, but becauase you are making a counterargument against something nobody said.

The topic is about staying home when you are sick. You've even agreed with that part. But for some reason you decided to come out swinging against social distancing even though nobody recommeded it or even brought it up in this context.

Given your need to strawman the original point with a stance generally championed by reactionaries, people are accurately determining that you are a reactionary and delivering a well-deserved downvote.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

If you determine that then it is not accurate. The way I understood the comment I responded to they could only mean social distancing, I've explained that too. That's not a strawman, that's my (mis)understanding. And there are some topics on Lemmy where it really depends on chance what will get downvoted, depending on which crowd piles onto the thread. One such topic is nuclear power and the other big one is COVID policies. Not every argument you disagree with is in bad faith. Mine definitely wasn't. Social distancing is a sore topic for me and people bring it up on Lemmy all the time as if it a viable solution and that pisses me off. So I might jump to conclusions occasionally. But like I said, the whole topic is not one you can have a serious discussion about on Lemmy because it's apparently a sore topic for too many.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)

What do you mean by that? Social distancing is mostly what keeps these diseases at bay. But there's an argument that social distancing comes with a hefty cost as we are a social species.

There's a more rational problem than seeing people at your will. It's seeing people as you must. I had minor panic attacks with struggles to breath over commuting to work in overfilled busses, working around many people, because I didn't have a pleasure to work from home at all although I could, easily, without a problem. I'm fine with living in a solitary confinement with the internet connected anonymously - I'm this weird, yeah - but my boss said no. And I was potentially infected and spread this shit to other people who probably got ill or died. I'm very adjusted to social distancing, but I and many had no chance for that.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Sure, that's a valid critique of working conditions in our society. There's a lot to be said and hopefully done about that.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Maybe its not the circlejerk, maybe your opinion is just shit?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

What about my opinion is shit, exactly?

[–] BonesOfTheMoon 19 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I sometimes feel like I'm the last person masking in the world, but obviously the government is on the side of capitalism in terms of public health so I'll continue masking. I like not getting sick.

[–] chuckleslord 8 points 9 months ago (1 children)

This is the issue. You wearing the mask protects you like 10% of the way (even the really good masks). It's people who are sick wearing the mask that is the other 90%. If people wore a mask when they felt gross, that would be basically all that is needed.

[–] BonesOfTheMoon 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Eh any risk I can reduce is worth it.

[–] BagelEmbezzler 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

So glad I'm not the only one

[–] BonesOfTheMoon 2 points 9 months ago

I don't know how anyone feels comfortable yet. 10K deaths in the US in the first two months of 2024 alone. At least in crowded and poorly ventilated places, or at least at hospitals.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago

It's interesting, but trading one strain of flu, which was already on the decline, isn't a great tradeoff for having covid-19 around. Even if it had died without covid-19 existing, another strain would fill its niche.

[–] TokenBoomer 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Soon Coronavirus will be so powerful it will cure cancer.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

There is actually a promising cancer treatment that uses a genetically modified poliovirus strain, but it's still in its trial phase.