CDC estimates 140 million Americans have had COVID, about double case reports

About 37 million infected in omicron wave, and 58% of kids were infected at some point.

Read the whole story

 

[jdvorak]

The sad part is there is pretty much no reason for most of those cases to have ever occurred, except for the war on public health. I hate to think of what the long term costs of this are to society.

The sad part really is that people actually believe that.

This was never controllable... long term. That is known fact by every expert. What do people think they meant when they said flatten the curve ? The public health measures where about slowing the spread through the general population... not ending it. Anyone that thought that was incorrect Public figures that said it measures where about ending covid where lying or they where stupid.

People seem to forget that humans have only ever eradicated two viruses. One of which wasn't a human virus... and we it doesn't really count cause we can't cull humans.

Washington state: 30.9% infected
Oregon: 28.2%
Vermont: 17.8%
Massachusetts: 36.5%
Connecticut: 38.9%

Texas: 52.8%
Georgia: 49.5%
Mississippi: 51.8%
South Dakota: 49.8%

Tell me again how public health policies made no difference to how many people got sick.

Curious, where is California versus Florida? Cherry-picking the data, are you?

 

[jdvorak]

The sad part is there is pretty much no reason for most of those cases to have ever occurred, except for the war on public health. I hate to think of what the long term costs of this are to society.

Damn right it's a war on public health. BTW. I'm one of the ones who didn't get it either. I didn't screw around and take stupid chances.

You seem to be implying that in order to catch it one needed to screw around and take chances, which is not fair to many who caught it. My step dad was bedridden and caught it because a workman wasn't careful - but the work was necessary for his health and well-being. I was exposed to my step dad before we knew he caught it because I went to help out with his care. Even though I was exposed for a couple of days with him, it appears the vaccine worked for me and I had no symptoms (but I did quarantine anyway)..

Just a reminder that this virus is complex and it's not just careful people on one side and irresponsible people on the other..

Earlier, someone posted infection statistics from states that took it seriously and others that didn’t. So mask wearing , social distancing, minimizing any outside of the home trips vs exactly the opposite of that. Guess which ones had higher infection rates, and thus hospitalized or dead people? So yes, people in positions of not taking it so seriously statistically got it more often. We can chalk that up directly to other people not being careful, which is how your stepdad contracted it—someone didn’t do everything within their power to keep it at arms length. Would be interested in how many nurses and doctors were able to avoid it, using proper equipment and techniques.

Except that those states were carefully chosen to illustrate a point.
If you choose states at random to compare you will not really find a clear pattern based on public health mandates. California and Florida for example have almost the same infection rate despite adopting pretty much the opposite public health approach.

It’s even better for Florida considering its high proportion of seniors (i.e. most vulnerable population segment).