jamie1np

I would suggest reading the books, because they go into a lot of detail about those specific elements.

Yes, but they are rare and almost certainly not on Hacker News.

Quats are almost exclusively used by industries like food and health care.

Im pretty sure the joke is that the slide is literally just saying “this is a cow” and someone is confused enough to ask a question.

I think it depends on your definition of “fine.” No one will die or even be particularly inconvenienced from not being able to play a particular game for a couple of hours at the same time every week. Steam alone has hundreds of thousands of other games that ARE available at that time.

You would be doing the universe a service by recommending resources. I think everyone should at least be given the option to check out lucid dreaming.

Reported tests are almost completely gone compared to past waves, so reported positives will likewise be almost gone. Wastewater data in the US shows a very clear increase, with levels currently at least half of the peak of the previous two waves.

Tested cases are barely up because testing is at a small fraction of what it was even a year ago. Wastewater data, hospitalization rates, and deaths are all rising. Wastewater levels are currently about half of most previous peaks(https://biobot.io/data/covid-19), and that data lags by at least a few weeks.

Regarding masking in cars - best practice for good mask wearing is to put it on, ensure a good fit, then leave it on until you're done with it. If someone is running errands, it's better to just put leave it on instead of donning and doffing it repeatedly, making it more likely to cross contaminate or ruin the fit.

There is immunity in the sense of "the body is able to mount an immune response due to previous exposure." Early claims of immunity to infection didn't pan out, especially post-Delta. There are benefits to having immunity, but I believe they are often overstated. (I say this as someone who is currently wearing an N95 respirator around others 100% of the time, including around my partner and family).

It's on track to kill 200 thousand people this year in the United States alone. It's likely that millions will die this year worldwide, and tens of millions will become disabled to some extent by long covid. The usual response is "this is a small number compared to the total population," but it's still millions upon millions of people. Health care systems around the world are already stretched thin, and the increased burden caused by covid will only make things worse.

I think the explosions and fires would cause negligible deaths. The thing I’m worried about is starvation. If the grid goes down on large parts of the world for more than a few days, the cascading effect would probably mean most people just starve to death within a month. We have extremely fragile food creation and distribution systems.

If a creature that quacks like a duck killed over 1000 children in less than 3 years(1) I would be surprised if people still treated it as a duck.

1) https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS/Deaths-by-Sex-Ages-0-18-years/xa4b...

There’s no evidence that doubling masks with a good N95 or equivalent is helpful, and it may even be harmful. More masks means less air is able to flow through the material, so it’s more likely air will leak in from the sides. Tripling and quadrupling will likely exacerbate this with no benefit. The best thing one can do is wear a good mask that fits well.

Dr. Daniel Griffin on This Week In Virology works with long covid patients and is starting to see the first Omicron induced LC patients coming in. The variant has only been around for a few months, so by definition we won't have as many LC patients from it yet. Research takes time, and we're just starting to see the effects of this strain. We have no reason to be confident that Omicron won't induce LC.

I think people are underestimating the sheer magnitude and infectiousness of this virus. Even if chances of longer effects are on par with the flu, it's MUCH more prevalent and infectious. Over the past year, we've had about one wave per season. We're quickly reaching a point where it's reasonable to expect most people will catch it every year or so, and it's entirely possible and maybe likely to get it multiple times a year.

While 3-6 months is a standard recovery timeline for longer term effects, many people are looking at years or a lifetime of serious effects. I'm close to someone who is still recovering from mono over 2 years later. Their entire life has been upended, their career is over, and most of their passions are now physically impossible.

We're looking at many millions of people of people being temporarily or permanently disabled every year on top of previous contributors like flu, etc. Many people don't have the resources to be exhausted and struggling with cognition for months. How many billions of years of life will collectively be deleted over the coming years? I believe this is worse than we realize, and it's going to get worse sooner than we're ready for.