Via the New York Times, a team of researchers took a look at COVID-19 outbreaks in the two weeks following a birthday in the family. Guess what?
The obvious conclusion is that even with COVID-19 raging, lots of families blithely went ahead with birthday parties for their kids. In places where the virus was under control, this did little harm. But in places where it wasn't, infections went way up after the party.
I suppose we could call this "idiot COVID" or something. "Johnny will be so disappointed if we don't have a party. And what harm can one little get-together do?" Sigh.
Giving your child a horrible disease is something they will remember all their lives.
Or killing off a beloved family member. Nothing says “I had a fantastic 10th birthday!” than Grandma going into the hospital a week or two later followed by her sudden death a few weeks after that. Hallmark should have a series of cards for that special occasion in a child’s life.
Make the Chickenpox Party Great Again!
Then fifty-odd years later, a shingles party…
That would be a great idea just on it's own.
Everybody gets together and talks about all their health problems, and if anyone actually has shingles we all chip in and buy him cheesecake and a coffee.
Not everyone gets shingles you know, 1/3rd.
No, but there is a vaccination available now, which I highly recommend that people get.
Before it existed, i recognized my symptoms immediately & asked to leave work early to go to a clinic. Without health insurance, I had to pay for the exam, then for the Rx (ignorant pharmacy employee acted disdainful, apparently thinking that herpes zoster is an STD).
If you do get it, don't take aspirin products. After the affected area is no longer scabbed over, if you have neuropathy symptoms, you might try one one remedy that worked for me & friends: rose geranium oil- diluted in mineral oil at first, although applying it full strength didn't irritate my skin.
Either that, or follow the science and take acyclovir. But that actually works, and you would be a "progressive" touting some b.s.
I can see the headlines now, "Democrats want to ban birthday parties!"
What's missing in this analysis is how many parties didn't lead to an outbreak?
Is 16 infections per 10,000 a large effect? I mean, to call them "super-spreader" events might be an overstatement.
The fact that some escaped incident by luck or design doesn't change the events that weren't lucky and/or well designed.
Also, the chart doesn't track parties, it tracks birthdays. Some (most?) would have not held the party.
That's a fair point. Maybe there were a some parties that were super-spreaders, other birthdays celebrated safely. The research seems to prove that at least some people had unsafe gatherings.
This is in line with the need to answer a question, eventually.
Why did California have the same December/January spike as everywhere else? Is warm, so its not a change in climate. Its full of people taking Covid seriously.
My speculation is that what happens in that time of the year is an increase in people from different households getting together for a period of time measured in hours. Probably without masks.
The possible conclusion is something I am not sure that Dems want to put out there, which is that if you logically want to eliminate this, or perhaps other viruses, there is only so much (until you get a vaccine) that public measures can do (short of no-one leaves their house).
California had plenty of public measures in place, and a population for the most part going along with those public measures, yet had the same spike.
So, maybe, if you have to rank measures. (1) have a small household (this is not optional, obviously) (2) keep your household small, as minimal a number of people coming over as possible, (3) isolate otherwise, (4) when in public, everyone mask up and keep interactions at a distance and for a short time period.
We have thrown a lot of effort at point (4). Maybe point (1) is just too much for humans.
Sigh, I meant point (2). No edit feature.
The numbers are an aggregate. Unfortunately, I don't have the numbers to do a full break down. I'd guess that most parties do not lead to spread of Covid. Thoae that due, lead to a high number of infections among the un-vaccinated, i.e. they are spreader events.
The question then, is, not that having a party will definitely lead to more infections, it's that there's a 1% chance that someone attending could spread the disease, which would infect most of the unvaccinated attending that party. Or it could be a 10% chance, or maybe a 0.1% chance.
If the case load in your area is 20 new cases/day/100K, and that only picks up 20% of the cases, the real number of new cases/day would be 100/100K, or 1/1K. People are infectious for, say, 5 days, so the number of infectious people in that area would be ca. 5/1K, or 0.5%. If you invite 10 people over, then the chance of someone having covid at the party is 5%, assuming the family hosting the party is covid free. Your numbers will vary depending on assumptions and that fact that the outbreak does not spread uniformly.
Nevertheless, it is clear that all roads lead to “don’t have the birthday party”.
Also, my thinking is using the figure for community infection rates might not provide an accurate representation of a risk that I suspect is incalculable (or at least well beyond my capabilities to compute it). The problem, as I see it, is that prior to the emergence of new variants, most contagious people didn’t tend to infect a lot of others. But there were apparently an unknown number of apparently randomly distributed “super spreaders” who were/are capable of infecting really large numbers of people, which (if I understand the math correctly) is what made super spreader events.
I think that your formula fails to account for such super spreaders. If there one contagious person at the party and he or she would typically infect one or two people, who would themselves infect one or two people you’ve got a very serious problem. But if you’re got a super spreader at a large event, say, a biker convention, a casino, a sporting event or a Trump rally, the presence of one of more such super spreaders is what creates super spreader events and powerfully fuels the pandemic. Birthday parties are simply a micro version of that phenomenon.
I agree. And I would suspect that those holding parties when they are not vaccinated, and those attending, are probably part of a cohort in the community at higher risk for Covid, i.e. they are less likely to wear masks and practice social distancing.
But you have to be careful how the danger is presented. Saying birthday parties lead to the spread of Covid is true. Of course if someone went to a birthday party and was not infected, then they'd say that statement was "fake news". It would be better to say we've had multiple covid infections traced to some birthday parties, and that it's best to avoid large gatherings until most people have been vaccinated and Covid levels have dropped.
I think you’ve put your finger on an important part of the problem. I think it’s the sheer randomness of the thing that causes people not to take it seriously enough. You could fill up Disney Hall and have zero transmission even if there are contagious people there. You could have a handful of cases or no cases.
But if one of these highly contagious people is present, there will be many infections and you will have a super spreader event. But the randomness and infrequency of such super spreader events lulls many people into complacency.
It's more likely 1 person at the party infects a dozen and that dozen infects.... maybe a dozen more collectively. It's not a 1>2>4>8 growth pattern prior to the UK variant, most people infected 1 or none persons while mitigation measures were up.
But even with low spread you can do things to make spreading it less likely, like holding the party outside which has a massive reduction in risk since the majority of relevant transmission is by aerosols.
“idiot COVID”
Getting kinda close to making fun of vaccine skeptics there, Kevin. Better watch yourself for your lack of empathy for their valid and sincerely-held concerns that you warned us all just a few weeks ago against berating them for.
As if Kevin Drum getting called out again by the New York Times Pitchbot wasn't bad enough; now, his readers are turning on him.
Booman (Martin Longman) also called him out last week.
Some have done it before he left MoJo. And after posting an article I saw elsewhere the other day, I regretted it - too many here have shade for everything & also include "globalism" & "zionism" in nearly every comment.
Really disappointing; I try to remember that KD is dealing with something similar to my condition & that he isn't requiring or accepting money for his blog.
Isn't Andy Sullivan HIV+?
That's no excuse for him being a white nationalist.
Likewise, multiple myeloma doesn't mean KD can be an apologist for the culture warriors, Andy Sullivan among them.
So you're a communist who hates whites and hates this country. Today's Democratic Party is your perfect home.
OMG so ironic. Today IS my birthday, I'm not kidding. But no party and no party last year either. First off I'm not a party person and second I live year my elderly parents so I can be ready to help them as needed so I've not gone hog wild with risky activities since the beginning.
This does not shock me one bit, you naturally let your guard down among close family and friends. I wish we could talk folks out of doing stupid things but it seems that folks are insisting on being stupid.
Happy birthday! And many more.
Thanks 🙂
🎂
Rigorous, definitive proof that children are plaguebearers.
Heh. Anybody who's ever had children already know that.
Virtually every serious illness I have suffered in the past 10-15 years, from bronchitis to pneumonia to flu (thankfully not covid, knock wood) can be directly traced to some sniffle first introduced to the home by one of my kids. I never would have survived the Middle Ages. "Hey, you! Get that rat out of here!" "But daaaad! I found it! It's my pet!"
Heck, we don't have kids and can trace all the epidemics we participated in from children!
(Well, except for the Coronavirus. That if we got it (and we don't know we did) was from adults.
Wife's co-workers kid caught corona at daycare last year. Despite the 2 year old SUCKING MOMS FACE mom did not get it. She took PCR tests than later antigen tests, nothing. Happily she is not a Trump supporter so she vaccinated rather than thinking she was invincible.
I can see using birthdays as a proxy for parties but just how good a proxy is it, and why the assumption birthday parties are for kids?
Then there is this. Church Camp as a super spreader event.
https://mobile.twitter.com/JoeMyGod/status/1412101488034213889
There is another explanation that has nothing to do with parties. Covid is going to spread more in large households than small. I think we have seen enough now to realize that the chance of covid is highly correlated with size of household. If you have a large household, there is a greater chance that somebody will have a birthday. I would expect that households with a birthday would have a greater chance of covid simply because of that, even if they held zero birthday parties.
Yes, I would think that holding a birthday party would increase the chance of covid. And surely some did hold birthday parties. But I would say this proved nothing without controlling for size of household.
Question, out of genuine curiosity: How do you square the circle of events like children's birthday parties (according to that chart) or summer camps (as mentioned in the comments) being very potential super-spreader events (or at least causing a good number of infections) against the opinion of "Schools MUST REOPEN because children don't spread the virus?"
Don't get me wrong … I honestly believe it's harmful and tragic, the impact of a generation of kids losing a year or more of classroom time. But the spread of the virus is also harmful and tragic and I've had trouble understanding the whole "Pandemic be damned, REOPEN SCHOOLS" argument, especially when schools aren't given time or resources to improve ventilation and implement other social distancing protections.
Based on my above comment, was not taking any position regarding whether birthday parties spread or are superspreader events are not. Only that a study using number of birthday parties per household without controlling for household size seems useless.
But I would say my opinion is that of course holding a birthday party will increase the possibility of spreading covid. Duh of course it will to some extent. The question is really by how much. And I would say that the vast majority of birthday parties should probably not be called "superspreader" events as that exaggerates the risk.
And you cannot expect people to avoid anything with even a small risk, you cannot live your life that way. Or, better, even if you want to, should not expect others to and condemn them if they do not.
And it seems that vague terms like "superspreader " are used to condemn events that the political side does not like but not ones they do, even if they are the same effectively. I hate that.
We do not have enough clear information to really fully decide exactly where to draw the line. But seems easy enough to be practical and take precautions if not too hard.
So how about give your kid a birthday party with friends. Don't sacrifice those years of their young life they will never get back. But how hard is it to ask you to maybe make it a bit smaller than otherwise and just hold it outside. I think we have seen enough to know that outside makes a huge difference.
And what I see happening knowing extremes on both sides are the left wing wanting to condemn anyone not taking extreme precautions and then condemning anyone who does anything like holding any sort of birthday party, even one smaller and outside. And that provokes a reaction from the right of, "well if you are going to condemn anything I do, might as well hold the biggest inside birthday party i can, just to own you libs"..
And a pox on both your houses.
Since most here are mostly on the left, consider that trying to be more reasonable and sympathetic and understanding the other side does not agree with you, as Kevin often does to complaints, will end up getting a result more like what you want. If you want the right who are note resistant to take more cautions and maybe get vaccinated, stop being so damn arrogant and condescending.
> you cannot expect people to avoid anything with even a small risk, you cannot live your life that way. Or, better, even if you want to, should not expect others to and condemn them if they do not.
Which is why I always insist that it's my right to hold a loaded automatic weapon in my hand with my finger on the trigger and the safety off and let the muzzle point at anyone I happen to see.
There's a huge difference between accepting a small risk to yourself and forcing a small risk on someone else.
> stop being so damn arrogant and condescending.
Have you considered taking your own advice?
I used the term "superspreader" because that's the term Kevin used in the headline of the post. That's why I specifically clarified "potential super-spreader events (or at least causing a good number of infections)".
And while I'm admittedly more leftist I was not "condemning" anyone. I was asking how one reconciles the fact that allowing the spread of the virus is very bad AND allowing kids to miss out on classroom experience is very bad. They are two problems with opposing solutions and I'm skeptical of the motivations of any absolute argument from either side, "ABSOLUTELY keep kids at home" or "ABSOLUTELY keep kids in school."
I certainly didn't write my comment to be "arrogant and condescending." Nowhere did I say no one should take any small risk ever. You might want to look in a mirror though. In eight paragraphs you didn't even address my actual question. *shrug*
> We do not have enough clear information to really fully decide
> exactly where to draw the line.
This is exactly why I was asking. With so many issues to be concerned with, how does one "fully decide" to draw that line at the far extreme that schools absolutely should be reopened with no other consideration?
Universal public education is a recent development in human history, which to me suggests that almost year may not devastate our children psychologically. They may not have made the progress they would have educationally; we will see how much can be made up in future years. It seems likely that extra resources will be made available.
I’d like to see the evidence that kids who don’t have birthday parties with groups of friends every year somehow suffer harm.
almost -> a lost
Also if everyone losses a year no one loses a year. They'll be commensurate with their peers so it won't them in the long run.
The original Covid virus, no so with some variants, is less likely to cause disease in or be spread effectively by young children. So opening schools with face masks, some social distancing, and proper ventilation should not be too bad.
Birthday parties, esp. those inside, typically means people eating, no masks, and not spaced far apart, with inadequate ventilation.
Teenagers may not get as sick as adults, but can still spread it. And in all cases, some children will get very sick and can die from Covid.
Birthday parties are all about disease-riddled children blowing out the candles and belting out songs at the top of their lungs.
Kevin likes being free to vacillate.
In fact when you think about it, since Democrats are responsible for the culture wars and since they just had to make both the pandemic and mask wearing a “thing” (e.g. calling people idiots) you could say Democrats are ultimately responsible for these super spreader events.
Re schools, my personal position has evolved some as more evidence comes in.
While of course it is an exaggeration to say that children do not spread the virus, it now seems fairly clear that they spread it less and especially seems rare that they spread it to adults. Nations doing more rigorous case tracing than we do seem to find almost no such child to adult spread.
And , although there is some risk to children, it really is small and looks like much less than the flu for them.
And then add in that it is also clear that closing schools is really detrimental to children and this may be causing long term damage to them. And making them wear masks and not be able to socialize with friends sucks for them too.
So you have to weigh the costs and the benefits. Yes, opening schools will increase covid, but it seems that the extent of that is not all that big. And the costs of not doing so are large.
Plus the costs fall almost all on the children while the benefits of closing schools are mainly for the old ( the bulk of those who die from covid). And just seems wrong to ruin the young years of childhood to protect old guys like me. Not fair.
And we now have vaccines that do seem to work real well.
So open schools next year and no masks and only minor social distancing and things like hand washing that are good habits regardless. But all teachers who want to teach in classrooms must be vaccinated. Those who don't or cannot can still teach remotely as surely some supercautious parents will want that option.
Left wing no, most leftists could care less about covid. The biggest civic complaints are from progressive capitalist as seen through big buiness.
So, Mossad was going joint research with the People's Liberation Army at the Wuhan Infectious Disease Institute into efficacy of a bioterror weapon?
> Left wing no, most leftists could care less about covid.
Someone has no idea what left-wing Twitter looks like, then.
Good grief.
Leftwing twitter was giddy for COVID when it seemed to be a Boomer Remover that would ensure Bernie's triumph in the otherwise rigged 2020 Democrat primary .
I hope it will not shock anyone to learn that, in the recent outbreak that has closed down "greater Sydney" and lead to smaller shut-downs in other parts of Australia, birthday parties played a big role. At least one party lead to more than 18 people being infected. Of course, these all happened after "voluntary" restrictions were in place. (The Primer of NSW wanted very much for it to be the case that lock-downs were seen as a "Victorian" thing, and so now there are growing cases there. Sigh.) What a great party, where the majority of people get Covid! Just skip these, folks! Your life will go on.
The presumed analogy to an automatic weapon makes no sense to me. Don't get it. Holding an automatic weapon with your finger on the trigger and the safety off seems like you are clearly describing a situation that just about anyone would recognize creates a large risk, not small. And do not see much of an offsetting benefit, unless there is some real danger you need to protect yourself from.
If your point is that you think holding a birthday party really is not a small risk and the risk is large enough to not make it worth the benefit, that is a factual issue and I am open to a logical argument re that based on evidence.
But that would not dispute the point that we cannot live our lives avoiding every risk to ourselves or those we pose to others. Do you ever drive a car to go see a friend? Every time you do, there is a small chance that you could kill someone by making a mistake.
What frustrates me is that too often the thinking is that spreading covid is a bad thing ( it is) and that any birthday party increases the risk of spreading covid ( it has to at least a small extent) and the risk could even fall on an innocent ( someone who did not even attend). And then the conclusion is that no birthday parties. No, not good enough. You still have to weigh the benefits of letting kids enjoy their youth vs. The risk of spreading covid.
Now facts may change that.
One interesting point to me is that I think it is more reasonable to ask for restrictions when you have a lot of hope than when things are bad.
During the summer, when seems most " experts" said no way we could get a vaccine for a few years, there was a good argument that restrictions did not make sense unless to just slow the spread, not stop it. Then, given our society, it might have been inevitable that everyone would end up getting it in the end. So restrictions cause pain and only delayed the deaths a bit. Now that we found out we got the vaccine so quick , the restrictions look better in hindsight.
And now arguably with getting near or past herd immunity, this might be the optimal time for restrictions. When we have more hope. In fact after you reach her immunity might be the best time.
So I am quite open to arguments that not a good idea to hold a birthday party with eating, etc. especially inside. And actually that is what I think. But the right answer is just not that clear as it depends on information we do not yet know and also on how you weight the value of different things ( enjoying life vs. Longer life ).
So I do not think it is easy to condemn others for coming to a different conclusion on whether a birthday party is "worth it" now or not.
Well that was pretty dumb since nobody is vaccinated down there.
The baboon colony left to their own devices, but with communications equipment,
https://old.reddit.com/r/Fuckthealtright/comments/oe7hrh/underachievers/
Cooper,
I was not referring to your prior post at all when I mentioned being arrogant and condescending. Your post asked me a question in a fairly respectful manner which appeared to be at least somewhat open to a different opinion. In fact, your post would be one of the ones with the best tone in that regard.
I thought I did respond to your question but will try again to clarify. Anytime you have two choices, both with potential good things and bad. Open schools and may have more covid spread but children get to have a more normal childhood. Close schools likely less spread but kids are harmed.
How you "reconcile " those two is not the way I would put the question but assume you mean how to decide which way to go. If it was a clear one way or the other choice, which mostly is, then you need to weigh the costs and benefits and decide.
But in this situation, there is no clear right answer. Because we just do not have clear facts. We still do not know for sure how much opening schools will increase spread. Some evidence and imo the majority seems to indicate not a huge amount. But then there are a few situations where there clearly was a good amount. Covid evidence is really confusing in a lot of respects.
But a bigger issue is that a large part of this type of decision is based on value judgements. How do you compare the quality of life mainly for children vs. Length of life for mostly elderly. There is no " right" answer there and cannot say someone else is wrong for having a different opinion.
But maybe one thing we can do is try to listen to each other and compromise.
Maybe some will think best to keep schools closed and also keep things like mask mandates in some indoor places. But possibly could concede of the two, the case for closing schools is more marginal. And the other side might want schools open and no mask mandate, but think schools being open is more clear.
So a working democracy should maybe be able to come up with a compromise where schools are open but some other restrictions stay on ( the ones where the costs just are not that much and maybe benefits clearer.
For example, imo asking people to wear masks in places like grocery stores and drug stores, places really essential where someone trying to be real careful might just have to go. That is just not asking a lot. And I argue with some hardline anti restriction people and ask them why cannot you compromise at least on that.
Kinda different from gender *reveal* party .
Progressive liberals are wimps and the worst when it comes to disease. The obsession with safety like white suburban moms who freak out when their husbands come home with a handgun.
They can't enjoy driving covid down to a inactive pandemic, no we must whine consistently, like women.
My fave is the Karens who wear masks inside their car, followed by Karens who wear them outside. I think covid is the least of their issues. LOL
Whats the fascination with kids birthday parties?
It's ANY gathering. From 5 year olds birthdays to swamp creatures at a political rally.
What is curious is the fact that after saying Trump handled it well, and Faucci lied, and quack solutions could cure COVID we have the data that shows that in those states that WANTED to believe those things that the new variant(s) are spreading and cases are rising.
Republicans seem to be very quiet about THAT now aren't they? There is still a small group that says "Oh, it's nothing" but their voices are growing silent. Now that THEY politicized COVID and the response they are bearing the brunt of the infections and deaths.
600K deaths just isn't enough for Republicans to worry about I guess
No, but there is a vaccination available now, which I highly recommend that people get.
Before it existed, i recognized my symptoms immediately & asked to leave work early to go to a clinic. Without health insurance, I had to pay for the exam, then for the Rx (ignorant pharmacy employee acted disdainful, apparently thinking that herpes zoster is an STD).
If you do get it, don't take aspirin products. After the affected area is no longer scabbed over, if you have post herpetic neuralgia, you might try one one remedy that worked for me & friends: rose geranium oil- diluted in mineral oil at first, although applying it full strength didn't irritate my skin.
Tried to post this as a reply above, but it was still sitting at the bottom here, so am adding this - hope it isn't a misplaced duplicate.
Why do comments switch from being shown as a Reply to [name]" to " Leave a reply" - ? Is there a time limit? I've seen a few others comment about this. WordPress is terrible.
Stop peddling unscientific crap, Karen. Yes, aspirin is contraindicated after getting the Shingrix vaccine, but only then and only briefly. In fact, topical aspirin IS recommended otherwise, Karen. Stop lying to people.
Oh, and for anyone not as stupid, lazy, or dishonst as "KawSunflower," if you do have zoster (which I've had for nearly 40 years), the effective treatment for ongoing exacerbations is acyclovir. It comes in a variety of forms, and the one that works best is 800mg 5x/day for 10 days. This is not just my experience but is well documented by the research that Karen was too lazy to read.
If you have zoster and get a shingles exacerbation, my experience is that it'll get worse for a day or two and then much better. Now, kids, you can believe Karen the Lazy Nutcase or you can search the term acyclovir zoster. Your call.
By the way, the published research -- not just a little, but multiple double-blind, placebo-controlled studies -- supports not only acyclovir's efficacy for shingles outbreaks, but also the best dosage and the timing of relief. Karen Sunflower is a lying idiot and a science denialist, like so many "progressives."
One of many studies that Karen Sunflower was too stupid and lazy to read:
"Oral acyclovir therapy for herpes zoster has been studied in double-blind, placebo-controlled trials of two dosages, 400 mg and 800 mg five times per day for 10 days. Compared with placebo recipients, recipients of the high-dosage acyclovir experienced a significantly shortened period of viral shedding, significantly accelerated time to 50 percent scabbing, significantly accelerated time to 50 percent healing, and after two days of therapy, significantly less frequent formation of new lesions. The duration and severity of acute pain were less in acyclovir recipients, with differences in pain severity achieving statistical significance (p = 0.03) between Days 3 and 10 and correlating with the treatment differences in new lesion formation. In studies of the 400 mg five times per day dose schedule, differences between acyclovir and placebo recipients were not significant. In a six-month follow-up of recipients in the higher dosage study, the acyclovir recipients experienced less post-zoster pain than placebo recipients; differences in the prevalence of pain were most significant for the presence of a persistent pain in the first three months of follow-up. Oral acyclovir at these dosages appears to be free of adverse reactions. In summary, oral acyclovir at a dosage of 800 mg five times per day for 10 days for treatment of acute herpes zoster is superior to 400 mg five times per day and favorably alters the course of the disease."
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3044099/
One more thing, both from experience and medical journals.
If you have a shingles recurrence (common), acyclovir works best if you take it as soon as you notice the symptoms. The longer you wait, the worse it will be and the longer it'll hang on.
How about when "progressives" blessed their antifa rallies because "institutional racism" (other than their own, natch) was more dangerous. And then you hypocrites wonder why 30% of the public has not gotten the vax? Maybe they are protesting "institutional racism?" LOL
Back in, ircc, Nov. or Dec. 2020, cases in our county were climbing after everyone had decided that Covid was over in October and went out and had big Halloween parties and family gatherings for Thanksgiving. Some local idiot had this big b-day party for their kid with like 50 people (gatherings over 10 were not allowed at the time, I believe, but local law enforcement said they weren't going to get involved) and like half the party-goers came down with Covid and several were hospitalized in serious condition. I don't think anyone died, but it was close. Morons.
You LOVE the fear, Karen. Still wearing your mask, except to antifa riots? LOL