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Consequences / Re: COVID-19
« on: March 02, 2021, 03:50:16 PM »
The big picture is all the background in our societies. Shifting demographics, bad food, stripped healthcare , the ever depleted world etc.
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But what about the fact that so many people eat little fruit and often quite bad mixes of ready made highly palatable foods? What about the existence of food deserts?
So many people hardly getting exercise not even some leisurely strolling.
Lung damage from before any disease by pollution.
If we make the whole population better we will all be better off but the system is not geared towards that.
This seems to be wishful thinking. People here keep asserting that a healthy lifestyle is key to reducing risk of a bad outcome with this virus, with little or no evidence.
We've already covered some of this. Presence of diabetes in a person approximately doubles risk of a bad outcome. Not trivial, but that's roughly the level of risk for being 7 - 10 years older. The available evidence suggests you're better off being a 50 year-old diabetic than a fit, vigorous 60 year old.
It may well be that the risk of death for a person is mostly correlated with density of ACE2 receptors in vital tissues. That's something none of us can control, or even measure. It's uncomfortable to think we have limited control over our own risk of death in a pandemic, so many just refuse to believe it.
Its much more comfortable to believe that our own virtuous decisions protect us. I've seen zero evidence that a balanced diet, regular exercise, or breathing less-polluted air is of any particular importance. The belief seems to have as much validity as carrying a lucky rabbit's foot.
Weakness or strength of a virus is a terribly dumb assertion. Sure, the virus is less virulent than smallpox or ebola. But more virulent than influenza or zika.
Just as important as virulence (the propensity to cause serious illness in the infected) is contagiousness. On this metric, Covid is very severe indeed. Thus, it spreads quickly around the world, to a significant percentage of the world's population in just a year.
This is a particularly absurd moment to be decrying shut-downs and restrictions. We have several highly effective vaccines in mass production and mass administration. For the immunized, the virus can be seen as less fearsome than influenza.
What the world should be doing is what most of the world is currently doing -- continue public health measures to limit further spread of Covid and its varieants while vaccinating as many as possible as quickly as possible.
In six months, the "strength" or "weakness" of the virus will be utterly moot. Much sooner in many nations, a bit later in some poor nations. We just all need to stay alive and healthy until then,
Anybody heard from Terry lately?