Just for disclosure purposes I an fully vaccinated (Moderna) and generally have started (never fully stopped) still sport a mask in places I would have before. For me that is really more about the unvaccinated that I suspect are taking advantage of the new no-mask if fully vaccinated but no one will ever check standard in place now.
I would think one might want to do a quick review of what we got right and what we got wrong in the first year+ of our response and policies related to social interaction with COVID present. If does seem that one of the earlier takeaways was that some policies were mandated too broadly. By the time some regions really needed to be following the policies they were completed burned out on the costs of the too early an adoption. That seems to have helped support a lot of the current resistance we currently see.
Not sure if there are more aspects to consider that are similar to that observation but I do get the sense that our experts are all too happy to follow the old script which was of questionable quality.
In Germany (as has most of Europe), we still have several mask-requirements, even for those fully vaccinated (e.g. for within shopping centers/supermarkets, most public buildings, …). Honestly, I’m quite happy with that and don’t think it’ll change anytime soon.
Also, there are preventive measures known and correlated with incidence, though it’s currently in discussion to couple it to hospital bed availability as well. So should cases go up, everyone already knows what is bound to happen, and when.
I’m quite happy with the current situation, and apart from a few exceptions it seems mostly stable, with delta being dominant for a few weeks now. Vaccination is progressing steadily as well (61% first shot, ~50% second).
I’m happy to be at the point where in Berlin the U-Bahn now tells people to open windows and put stickers on the windows to direct people to open them, the S-Bahn however still doesn’t and there are unnecessary many closed windows.
An S-Bahn with open windows has felt airflow, so it’s likely similar to being outdoors.
This touches on something I think is an obvious follow up from the experiences we’ve had but have not really seem anything about it in general public discussion. That might be just that it’s not really “news worthy” from media’s perspective.
For these airborne diseases it should be obvious (and seems like it’s been demonstrated with some empirical findings from reported cases) that recirculating air internally is not the best idea. You do want to pull outside air in, probably do some filtering of it and perhaps even other sanitizing actions (UV light) and the expel the internal air. But I’ve not heard anything about updates to building code in that regard. Nor have I seen any obvious work on that being done for retail places or apartment/condo or office buildings.
Of course that only works for things like SARS-CoV-2 that doesn’t survive well outside a body so leaves open the possibility that the next pandemic would be the one we pump in from the outside air and don’t have the right filter/sanitizing tools in place.
That might be just that it’s not really “news worthy” from media’s perspective.
Essentially, the media is not interested to engage in journalism on COVID-19 but mostly acts as stenographers for authorities and as a result has declining readership in a time where there’s a very important topic that people want to know about.
But I’ve not heard anything about updates to building code in that regard.
Updating building codes takes years to have effects and is thus not something that’s pushed for right now. Writing good building codes also isn’t easy because we likely want innovation in the field and building codes can easily block new innovation.
Ideally, we should have after the pandemic a discussion about: How do we get rid of flu, what actions can we take everywhere to reduce transmission? That would create a system that’s likely also effective at reducing other pandemic risk.
Just for disclosure purposes I an fully vaccinated (Moderna) and generally have started (never fully stopped) still sport a mask in places I would have before. For me that is really more about the unvaccinated that I suspect are taking advantage of the new no-mask if fully vaccinated but no one will ever check standard in place now.
I would think one might want to do a quick review of what we got right and what we got wrong in the first year+ of our response and policies related to social interaction with COVID present. If does seem that one of the earlier takeaways was that some policies were mandated too broadly. By the time some regions really needed to be following the policies they were completed burned out on the costs of the too early an adoption. That seems to have helped support a lot of the current resistance we currently see.
Not sure if there are more aspects to consider that are similar to that observation but I do get the sense that our experts are all too happy to follow the old script which was of questionable quality.
In Germany (as has most of Europe), we still have several mask-requirements, even for those fully vaccinated (e.g. for within shopping centers/supermarkets, most public buildings, …). Honestly, I’m quite happy with that and don’t think it’ll change anytime soon.
Also, there are preventive measures known and correlated with incidence, though it’s currently in discussion to couple it to hospital bed availability as well. So should cases go up, everyone already knows what is bound to happen, and when.
I’m quite happy with the current situation, and apart from a few exceptions it seems mostly stable, with delta being dominant for a few weeks now. Vaccination is progressing steadily as well (61% first shot, ~50% second).
r = 1.2-1.3 is not stable.
I’m happy to be at the point where in Berlin the U-Bahn now tells people to open windows and put stickers on the windows to direct people to open them, the S-Bahn however still doesn’t and there are unnecessary many closed windows.
An S-Bahn with open windows has felt airflow, so it’s likely similar to being outdoors.
This touches on something I think is an obvious follow up from the experiences we’ve had but have not really seem anything about it in general public discussion. That might be just that it’s not really “news worthy” from media’s perspective.
For these airborne diseases it should be obvious (and seems like it’s been demonstrated with some empirical findings from reported cases) that recirculating air internally is not the best idea. You do want to pull outside air in, probably do some filtering of it and perhaps even other sanitizing actions (UV light) and the expel the internal air. But I’ve not heard anything about updates to building code in that regard. Nor have I seen any obvious work on that being done for retail places or apartment/condo or office buildings.
Of course that only works for things like SARS-CoV-2 that doesn’t survive well outside a body so leaves open the possibility that the next pandemic would be the one we pump in from the outside air and don’t have the right filter/sanitizing tools in place.
Essentially, the media is not interested to engage in journalism on COVID-19 but mostly acts as stenographers for authorities and as a result has declining readership in a time where there’s a very important topic that people want to know about.
Updating building codes takes years to have effects and is thus not something that’s pushed for right now. Writing good building codes also isn’t easy because we likely want innovation in the field and building codes can easily block new innovation.
Ideally, we should have after the pandemic a discussion about: How do we get rid of flu, what actions can we take everywhere to reduce transmission? That would create a system that’s likely also effective at reducing other pandemic risk.