Maybe I’m being selfish but there is no point in living if all social activities (gyms, restaurants, clubs and bars, cinemas, indoor sports etc.) are closed.
Being healthy is important, but it has no value without freedom.
1 Like
There’s a lot of social activities that can be done outdoor no? Especially in spring/summer.
4 Likes
I was thinking more in the lines of: are we going to be able to all get two jabs a year once the production ramps up. I’ve been waiting for my first jab for months and still have no date set. My gf works in healthcare and she also has no date.
Sure, that’s the general idea. I just wonder what happens if the vaccines prove not as effective? E.g. the virus mutates and bypasses the protection that the vaccine provides. Are we going to live suspended in this state for years waiting for a breakthrough?
I’m not saying that I share your view as I am really torn on this point, but I know that many people think like this. And we can call them egoist / irresponsible / assholes, but I think it’s safe to say that millions of people have a limited amount of patience. They reason like this: I am fine, my family is fine, my chance of dying is low and I don’t care about long covid, so let me live. Add to this all the business owners who operated their family businesses for decades and now they went bankrupt. In Warsaw there was a story of a barber shop that operated through WW2, but it collapsed under covid.
2 Likes
Where do you meet new people? Where do you talk with people that you know from certain indoor activities? I know a couple of people that live alone and are single. Home office makes things even worse. They all have a serious risk of falling into depression.
2 Likes
I invite one person at a time in my home, but interactions are limited spacewise, balcony only. And there‘s always a screen it front of you, so use that
True. I think we face some unexpected societal changes as a result of lockdown. I have not seen any friends for months and have not visited my family since september. Since a year in home office, only talk to my co-workers via skype. Avoid mass transit, haven’t been to a shop (clothes etc) in months. I can handle this isolation, at least I have my gf. How many singles there are who live alone?
1 Like
There is a 1 in 30 chance that one of your parents will die, if they get covid.
Around 1 in 40 of people have severe long covid 6 months after the infection. (meaning not beeing able to walk a few 100 meters, chronic fatigue and so on)
High incidence rates have a negative impact on the well beeing of people.
We are 2-3 month away from having 70% of the people vaccinated. Why is it a good idea to do 10s of billions of damage so close to the point where Nocovid is easy to maintain?
Why can’t most of it be done outdoor? I’m not sure which part of that has to be done indoor. Also afaik dating apps haven’t stopped functioning (and I’m fairly sure I’ve seen quite a few people be on first date in a park, etc.)
I’m all for reopening stuff as quickly as possible, but doing it too early actually will likely make that take longer… Last summer was ok but infection rate wise, we’re nowhere near where we were (and we’re going in the wrong direction). I just hope the vaccine rollout will be quick but I’m actually a bit pissed that instead of crushing stuff in early spring (would probably have been a few weeks) and reopening mostly (like last year), we’re instead going to drag it out until mid summer at least.
3 Likes
I wished Switzerland had done more effort to publicize the idea of a covid bubble. Meeting with friends, etc. is actually fairly safe if:
- you’re either in the same strict bubble
- or you meet distanced/outdoor
It’s important to keep those relations for mental health. (Personally I live alone, but there’s 2-3 persons I see regularly).
2 Likes
As far as I understand, absent some new totally different mutation, the immunity will be “ok” for at least a couple of years.
I wouldn’t worry about the other scenario too much because of two reasons:
-
Even if you lose immunity and are reinfected, the illness will most likely be far less severe. Other Coronavirus strains we get when we are young. Then whenever we get reinfected as adults, the disease is pretty benign in most cases.
-
Even if the worst case scenario happens. There’s a lot of money to be made selling vaccines, even if governments are stupid. Producing billions of jabs a year should be feasible. The nytimes estimates that already more than 800 million doses have been administered. And that’s within 4-5 months for a novel virus. Recently it has also become clear, that many of the vaccines are more stable (can be kept in a fridge vs. on dry ice) than previously thought.
I believe yes. We will manage. Through multiple hiccups of course. Humans are good at floundering before setting up war economy for things like this. Infection biology has been an orphan child ignored by pharma and academic research fo very long. get ready for the roaring advances in coming years.
No, we won’t be suspended in full/partial lockdown (thats my hope and belief). But it is likely to be iterative process of vaccinations, mutations bypassing them, and then refining of vaccines. I would not count on a silver bullet (vaccine that fixes all current and future variants) too quickly. We may get it, we may not! But the current vaccines once administered to 60/70 % of population would reduce the infection rate, and with it the chances of newer mutations spreading.
Make it 2 years for me. My daughter is going to be 1 year old soon and hasn’t seen family other than me and my wife. I am just grateful that we have all the video calling, cheap internet and multiple devices. 15 years ago, I an my family had none of them!
And many of them will become clear only in few years.
2 Likes
Remember, this is a personal finance forum. never extrapolate recent gains or recent losses. Don’t sell the dip! This too shall pass.
4 Likes
I would even go further than this. If you yourself are disciplined enough, you can have multiple friend groups that you join up sparingly.
If I visit my grandmother, I minimize the social interactions the week before and after.
If I end up in a situation, where I feel a high chance of having been infected, I don’t have social interactions (except my girlfriend) for a week afterwards.
And now, I can even use a self-administred rapid test before any risky situation. This should catch around 85% of the times I am infected.
1 Like
Disagree. Only if you have a high virus load. Otherwise it‘s 20-40%. I wouldn‘t use this as the main or any safety measure. Just on top of distance/mask/outdoors
1 Like
Well, this argument is put forward by lockdown skeptics. It’s great business to spread fear and sell vaccines to billions to people, for the promise of being able to get back to normal life.
I really hope it’s true. If there’s an upside to this mess, it’s this. If billions flow to medical research and we can benefit from it in a decade.
Just because it is a possible explanation doesn’t make it in any way sensible.
A plausible explanation says that we are in a major economic and public health crisis and so there is a large monetary incentives to find ways to put an end to it. Luckily we also have multiple vaccines, so there is competition and per-dose prices are actually incredibly low:
Astrazeneca: below $5
Moderna: below $40
Pfizer-BioNTech: $20
J&J: $10
Absolute worst case scenario the population will have to pay CHF150 a year to be vaccinated.
Edit: It’s probably below to 80CHF per year, see comment below.
Can people just calm it with their conspiracy BS?
2 Likes
are these the production costs or are these the actual prices that governments pay? If so, these are cheap, I didn’t know. But how to you get from $10-20 to 150 CHF? 150 CHF for every human on earth is over $1 trillion per year. That’s quite a lot.
By the way, it’s crazy how some people can be smart and reasonable in some areas, and at the same time believe in pseudo-science. I recently watched an interview with an investor that I follow. All was fine when he was talking about the economy. But then things went to covid and he said he’s not wearing his mask. And then mentioned something about being sensitive to geopathic radiation and water veins. I wouldn’t be surprised if he believes in homeopathy, too. 
2 Likes
I took the prices from this article.
But yeah, the CHF150 are probably a total overestimate.
For switzerland it seems to be about CHF15-20 for the shot and CHF15-20 for administration.
So at most CHF40 per dose → CHF80 per year if two doses were necessary (even more unlikely).
Which is incredible. If someone told you that 1 year ago, you’d be in disbelief. This should make you horny for capitalism (and government sponsored research) 
I got my favourite quote from a student of veterinary medicine:
“Notice how cases always conveniently increase just days before new measures are to be issued. Coincidence much?”
2 Likes
In the end, I think it will likely endemic in the population. And similar to the flu: seasonal waves with different strains, mostly harmless for most people - though the incidence of serious complications (and death) has probably been underestimated by most people - if they had taken a look at the figures.
PS: Once they’ve opened up things to pre-Corona level, the exposure and rate of infection with COVID will probably - though cases in a vaccinated population should be much less severe.
Put differently: I think few, if any people will escape the virus altogether and never become exposed or infected - but vaccination will greatly help their immune systems to cope.
1 Like
That doesn’t have to be, with a vaccinated population and thus a low R0, it should die down and just stops transmitting. Exposure should then be fairly low as well (in addition to the vaccine-induced immunity).
2 Likes