Thanks for continuing to write about this. That said, I feel like a lot of the links in reasoning are left implicit here, and I’d rather not be making assumptions about your rationale. What, specifically, do you think changed to make the situation more similar to typical flu season? How much of that change is rooted in factors that affect society at large, versus being rooted in your own house’s success at reducing your risks for particularly severe outcomes (less immunocompromised; newborn is now older), versus being rooted in your increasing pessimism about our ability to manage tradeoffs in a nuanced way as a society? Also, are you intending a distinction between “exposed to Omicron“ and “getting Omicron”? (looking at “if it were critical that I or a housemate didn’t get Omicron” vis-a-vis your prediction that “pretty much everyone who doesn’t take intense and careful effort to avoid it will be exposed to Omicron at some point in the next ~month”)
What, specifically, do you think changed to make the situation more similar to typical flu season?
A very large portion of the population now has exposure to covid, either directly or via vaccination. It’s not enough to keep people from getting it (or variants) again, but it is strongly protective against death. The high death rate of covid in an immunonaive population was what got us to take it seriously and lock down in the first place.
How much of that change is rooted in factors that affect society at large, versus being rooted in your own house’s success at reducing your risks for particularly severe outcomes (less immunocompromised; newborn is now older), versus being rooted in your increasing pessimism about our ability to manage tradeoffs in a nuanced way as a society?
My comment at the end of my post about flu season maybe didn’t belong in a post under this title; I was thinking there much more about how it made sense for people in general to behave than our household in particular. So almost all the first one, via people’s immune systems.
Are you intending a distinction between “exposed to Omicron“ and “getting Omicron”? (looking at “if it were critical that I or a housemate didn’t get Omicron” vis-a-vis your prediction that “pretty much everyone who doesn’t take intense and careful effort to avoid it will be exposed to Omicron at some point in the next ~month”)
My model here is something like, everyone who does not take serious precautions is very likely to be exposed enough to Omicron that they will get it if that is something their immune system will let happen right now?
The “us” I intended above was society generally, not LW folks. If you look back at the original “shut down everything now” articles they were all about deaths:
I think he’s conditioning heavily on being fully vaxxed and boosted when making the comparison to the flu. Which makes sense to me. I also suspect long Covid-19 risk is much lower if you’re vaxxed & boosted, based on the theory that Long Covid is caused by an inflammatory cascade that won’t shut off (there’s a lot of debate about what biomarkers to use but many long Covid patients have elevated markers of inflammation months later). If your symptoms are mild, you won’t have that inflammatory cascade. Here’s Zvi on one of the latest Long Covid papers : “To the extent that Long Covid is a non-placebo Actual Thing, this seems to strongly suggest that it will indeed scale with the severity of infection, so vaccinations and booster shots will help a lot...”
Thanks for continuing to write about this. That said, I feel like a lot of the links in reasoning are left implicit here, and I’d rather not be making assumptions about your rationale. What, specifically, do you think changed to make the situation more similar to typical flu season? How much of that change is rooted in factors that affect society at large, versus being rooted in your own house’s success at reducing your risks for particularly severe outcomes (less immunocompromised; newborn is now older), versus being rooted in your increasing pessimism about our ability to manage tradeoffs in a nuanced way as a society? Also, are you intending a distinction between “exposed to Omicron“ and “getting Omicron”? (looking at “if it were critical that I or a housemate didn’t get Omicron” vis-a-vis your prediction that “pretty much everyone who doesn’t take intense and careful effort to avoid it will be exposed to Omicron at some point in the next ~month”)
A very large portion of the population now has exposure to covid, either directly or via vaccination. It’s not enough to keep people from getting it (or variants) again, but it is strongly protective against death. The high death rate of covid in an immunonaive population was what got us to take it seriously and lock down in the first place.
My comment at the end of my post about flu season maybe didn’t belong in a post under this title; I was thinking there much more about how it made sense for people in general to behave than our household in particular. So almost all the first one, via people’s immune systems.
My model here is something like, everyone who does not take serious precautions is very likely to be exposed enough to Omicron that they will get it if that is something their immune system will let happen right now?
I remember Eliezer back then writing about how long-COVID concerns were a bigger reason then the death rate to lock down.
How clear are you about the death rate having being more significant in our community?
The “us” I intended above was society generally, not LW folks. If you look back at the original “shut down everything now” articles they were all about deaths:
https://web.archive.org/web/20200310035017/https://www.flattenthecurve.com/
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/coronavirus-cancel-everything/607675/
https://tomaspueyo.medium.com/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca
https://medium.com/@joschabach/flattening-the-curve-is-a-deadly-delusion-eea324fe9727
Specifically on Lesswrong, most pre-lockdown discussion was about deaths (ex https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/RukXjEvMfqDKRJaup/what-will-be-the-big-picture-implications-of-the-coronavirus) with the notable exception of Jim’s https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/h4GFHbhxE2pfiadhi/will-covid-19-survivors-suffer-lasting-disability-at-a-high
I think he’s conditioning heavily on being fully vaxxed and boosted when making the comparison to the flu. Which makes sense to me. I also suspect long Covid-19 risk is much lower if you’re vaxxed & boosted, based on the theory that Long Covid is caused by an inflammatory cascade that won’t shut off (there’s a lot of debate about what biomarkers to use but many long Covid patients have elevated markers of inflammation months later). If your symptoms are mild, you won’t have that inflammatory cascade. Here’s Zvi on one of the latest Long Covid papers : “To the extent that Long Covid is a non-placebo Actual Thing, this seems to strongly suggest that it will indeed scale with the severity of infection, so vaccinations and booster shots will help a lot...”