COVID-19 Megathread 6: Return of the Omicron

[MATTROSE94]

I hope there won’t be another lockdown, I recently got a job at my local movie theater and our business is picking back up.

I don't support lockdowns right now, but I think we've moved far too fast in eliminating our other good measures. Masks and social distancing have been extraordinarily effective. The CDC made a big mistakes and moved too fast. We should've relaxed restrictions as we met certain vaccine benchmarks.

As I said before, I believe in the vaccines. I wouldn't have allowed myself to be injected with two doses of Pfizer's vaccine if I didn't. However, I do think warm weather is giving us an artificial low. I'm very concerned about a low vaccine uptake and viral mutations that manage to get past our vaccines. That would spread worse than a wildfire.

I agree. I am 100% sure that the CDC will reimplement mask mandates once the Delta Variant causes cases to skyrocket to a level that would make the winter 2020/2021 surge look like nothing. Still, a lot of the MAGA and Stop the Steal supporters would not go along with that.

[MATTROSE94]

If you're not vaccinated, wear a mask, for all of the reasons we've discussed. If you're vaccinated, you don't need to wear a mask because you're most likely not going to catch Covid. If you're one of the unlucky few who gets sick anyway, then sure wear a mask then.

That’s why I am going to continue to mask up until they develop a strong COVID booster shot and/or if the types of COVID variants start to decrease.

[MATTROSE94]

Obviously a mask mandate is much less onerous than any sort of shutdown.  But wearing a mask every day is still much more onerous and much less effective than just getting vaccinated.  So reimplementing a mask mandate before we implement a vaccine mandate would be inexcusable.

A vaccine mandate would be struck down 5-4 on the Supreme Court, would likely include exemptions, and would serve as a literal shot in the arm to the anti vaxxer movement. On the other hand, a National mask mandate would be much easier to enforce and would be deemed as Constitutional.

[MATTROSE94]

Obviously a mask mandate is much less onerous than any sort of shutdown.  But wearing a mask every day is still much more onerous and much less effective than just getting vaccinated.  So reimplementing a mask mandate before we implement a vaccine mandate would be inexcusable.

A vaccine mandate would be struck down 5-4 on the Supreme Court, would likely include exemptions, and would serve as a literal shot in the arm to the anti vaxxer movement. On the other hand, a National mask mandate would be much easier to enforce and would be deemed as Constitutional.

People keep saying a vaccine mandate would be struck down without any sort of evidence.  There are plenty of vaccine mandates in place now and they’ve always been upheld when they have been tested.   And a mask mandate would not be easier to enforce because you have to keep enforcing it all the time everywhere.  You only need to get the vaccine twice.

As has been said, the vaccine is far more effective and far more convenient in combatting the pandemic than masks are. I'm not sure why some people seem to be convinced that it is the other way. You have a noticeable number of fully vaccinated people still wearing masks when it is not absolutely necessary, and you have some who still doubt the vaccine's efficacy in general.

A high-quality, multi-layer mask is 97.5% effective at stopping COVID, a lot more effective than the 60-93% efficacy of the vaccines on non-Delta Variants.

[MATTROSE94]

Obviously a mask mandate is much less onerous than any sort of shutdown.  But wearing a mask every day is still much more onerous and much less effective than just getting vaccinated.  So reimplementing a mask mandate before we implement a vaccine mandate would be inexcusable.

A vaccine mandate would be struck down 5-4 on the Supreme Court, would likely include exemptions, and would serve as a literal shot in the arm to the anti vaxxer movement. On the other hand, a National mask mandate would be much easier to enforce and would be deemed as Constitutional.

People keep saying a vaccine mandate would be struck down without any sort of evidence.  There are plenty of vaccine mandates in place now and they’ve always been upheld when they have been tested.   And a mask mandate would not be easier to enforce because you have to keep enforcing it all the time everywhere.  You only need to get the vaccine twice.

As has been said, the vaccine is far more effective and far more convenient in combatting the pandemic than masks are. I'm not sure why some people seem to be convinced that it is the other way. You have a noticeable number of fully vaccinated people still wearing masks when it is not absolutely necessary, and you have some who still doubt the vaccine's efficacy in general.

A high-quality, multi-layer mask is 97.5% effective at stopping COVID, a lot more effective than the 60-93% efficacy of the vaccines on non-Delta Variants.

Where do you get this? Are you seriously saying that we should be permanently wearing masks? Why do you think our public health and government officials have been so adamant on people getting vaccinated? Why have so many seen vaccinations as a way out of the pandemic? Like I've said before, we shouldn't allow for the precautions taken earlier in the pandemic to become the norm.

Yes. I think permanent masking is a great idea in the Delta Variant phase of COVID. I don’t want to see what happened in India occur in the US and feel that all vaccinated people should still wear their masks considering that the vaccines aren’t 100% effective.

[MATTROSE94]

Hopefully they will reinstate mask mandates and other public health measures very soon due to the Delta Variant.

[MATTROSE94]

If anyone is still vaccine hesitant, consider this:

https://twitter.com/StevenTDennis/status/1409955273465344004

It's a weird pattern that in most of the stats I've seen recently, vaccinated people account for a much higher % of covid deaths than covid cases.   Whereas during the first several months of the year, everything we heard about vaccines suggested they prevented deaths much more effectively than infection itself.  So what's going on here?

The vaccines seem to be somewhat less effective than originally thought, but are still 100% worth it to get. That’s why we need both vaccines, strict mask mandates, and strict public health measures to reduce COVID cases.

[MATTROSE94]

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/560871-cdc-director-vaccinated-people-safe-from-delta-variant-do-not-need-to-wear

Another galaxy brained move on the part of the CDC. The US needs to implement a National mask mandate and in prison any person who does not wear a mask. Ideally, the US should also deny medical care to individuals who do not wear masks.

[MATTROSE94]

So why was New Mexico so weird about things (compared to Kentucky)?

Care to elaborate?

New Mexico had some of the most dumbest rules on COVID, often on things that no other state would even bat an eye about. They closed state parks to out-of-state residents. They said people who didn't live together couldn't stay at the same motel room (when tourism was allowed at all). I think they were one of the last states to open schools at all.

The governor complained because the state's residents were posting photos of themselves without masks on social media. Someone from the state parks department said anyone who went boating alone at a state park was required to wear a mask out in the middle of the lake.

Nobody in my town would ever bat an eye if even a whole group of people went boating without a mask - let alone in 2021 (as opposed to 2020).

To be fair, New Mexico is more impacted by the Delta Variant than Kentucky. The measures put in place by Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham are meant to keep the residents in her state safe and stop surges in the hospital system.

[MATTROSE94]

Also, the amount of “Democrats” on here who are upset that Covid isn’t 100% magically solved and that the vaccines aren’t as effective as originally thought are only upset for political reasons. I guarantee you, had this been a Trump second term, they would be singing a different tune. Truly disgusting, and I honestly am increasingly annoyed with a majority of red avatars.

Personally I'm annoyed when people want to go back to masks and lockdowns because I want to go out and live life and have a good time, not because of the potential impact on Joe Bidan's poll numbers. Everyone (or at least the majority?) of posters on this blog are humans too.

Masks and lockdowns are essential now that we are in the Delta Variant era. The only reason why such policies were done away with was because of the fact that Joe Manchin and Kristen Sinema did not want to support extended unemployment benefits and other forms of federal support that would allow those policies to be implemented long term.

[MATTROSE94]

I cant believe some posters are still advocating shutting down the US economy.

With the Delta Variant, a preemptive lockdown is necessary to save lives and prevent hospitals from being overrun. I do not want to see what happened in India (~4 million deaths according to unofficial figures) happen here. The MAGA movement and our two turncoat Democratic Senators from West Virginia and Arizona are opposed to such public health measures however and would rather see millions of people infected and dead than to implement proven public health measures.

[MATTROSE94]

I remember after Biden's election victory that many on the online left thought he would come into office on January 20th and lockdown the entire country. Haha he has literally done the opposite.

Biden would have zero authority to lockdown the entire country and a vast majority of states would refuse to comply.

And we shall not become another Australia. Eventually, Australia will have to open up and have their entire population extremely vulnerable to covid as there is virtually no natural immunity down there.

tbh if Joe Biden took that action, we would probably only have about 100 new COVID cases per day right now as opposed to the usual 5,000-25,000 and probably 50,000 less deaths.

[MATTROSE94]

Also, the amount of “Democrats” on here who are upset that Covid isn’t 100% magically solved and that the vaccines aren’t as effective as originally thought are only upset for political reasons. I guarantee you, had this been a Trump second term, they would be singing a different tune. Truly disgusting, and I honestly am increasingly annoyed with a majority of red avatars.

Personally I'm annoyed when people want to go back to masks and lockdowns because I want to go out and live life and have a good time, not because of the potential impact on Joe Bidan's poll numbers. Everyone (or at least the majority?) of posters on this blog are humans too.

I don't want to go back to lockdown either, but there are intermediate measures we can take. Mitigation is not a bad thing. I still fail to see how masks are some apparent massive violation of rights to some people. They are one of the most effective measures we have against this virus (and viruses and other pathogens in general) after vaccines. Lockdowns, although necessary at times, are harmful to businesses and the economy in general. Masks and social distancing indoors are minor inconveniences. That doesn't mean everywhere. It just means in certain places, like stores. There is no harm in basic personal mitigation measures. At this point, I have to wonder how many people decided to stop basic hand-washing since it's apparently probably too much of a chore for most.

At what point would you endorse an end to social distancing measures?

And take "lockdodown" out of your vocabularly. It is not an option and disgusting its even still being debated in July 2021.

From what I can gather, similar pandemics in human history have lasted anywhere from 3 years (1918-1921 Influenza Pandemic) to 8 years (Plague of Justinian) before they burn out and become entirely endemic. Assuming that COVID follows a similar path, it is safe to say that rolling lockdowns, masking, and social distancing measures should ideally remain in effect until late 2022 at the earliest and early 2028 at the latest.

[MATTROSE94]

Previous rules of virus are 'out the window'

The latest surge, which has sent case numbers exploding across the globe, is fueled by the Omicron variant, the most contagious coronavirus strain yet, health experts say.

The virus is now "extraordinarily contagious" and previous mitigation measures that used to help now may not be as helpful, CNN medical analyst Dr. Jonathan Reiner told CNN on Friday.

"At the beginning of this pandemic... we all were taught, you have a significant exposure if you're within six feet of somebody and you're in contact with them for more than 15 minutes. All these rules are out the window," Reiner said. "This is a hyper-contagious virus."

Now, even a quick, transient encounter can lead to an infection, Reiner added, including if someone's mask is loose, or a person quickly pulls their mask down, or an individual enters an elevator in which someone else has just coughed.

"This is how you can contract this virus," Reiner said.

I'm sure all the anti-restriction people on this forum want this information suppressed, like Trump would. If this were widely known, a substantial portion of the population would lock themselves down, and then large parts of the hospitality industry would likely close due to suddenly being unprofitable, all of this with zero intervention by the government. This would be totally unacceptable to these people who demand their hospitality options open at all times come hell or high water.

I don't understand this post: the kind of people who would 'lock themselves down' are the kind of people who already know everything there is to know about the new variant anyway and would act accordingly.

Omicron Covid is one of the most infectious diseases known to humanity, rendering anything other than the most authoritarian, dystopian NPIs ineffectual. If anything, this means we need fewer restrictions, not more, since they will have nothing but the most vanishingly marginal impact on actual transmissibility and will only make people's lives more miserable with no meaningful change to the trajectory of the pandemic.

Unless you want people to be welded into their homes like in Wuhan there is no plausible level of social/economic restriction that will do anything to prevent everyone contracting Covid now. This is grounds for celebration, because it's extraordinarly mild compared to prior variants.

This will be over soon: the pandemic is transitioning from a medical phenomenon to a social/political one. If original Covid had been as mild as omicron and as transmissible we would never have heard of the phrase 'lockdown' because there would never have been any case for such a measure. The only reason we're even talking about public health restrictions now is because it's been normalised over the last two years.

I think you missed my point. I've long given up on government NPI's in the USA, aside from mask mandates, because they will not be put in place even if Omicron had the lethality of Ebola and corpses were piling up in the streets. I'm speaking of actions by cautious individuals in response to this news. I believe there is a substantial proportion of the population, who thought they were being mostly safe but if they were informed just how contagious Omicron is, would cancel that vacation, stop dining out, cancel that gathering they were going to hold, etc. This could then move the market and make hospitality unprofitable, forcing firms there to shut down, all of this with zero intervention by the government.

One could call this a "grassroots lockdown", and based on the posts on this forum, it would trigger people just as much as a government lockdown, which honestly undermines their "freedom" arguments since it would force hospitality firms to operate for their pleasure despite adverse market conditions.

Time will tell whether we see any effect like this, but I have seen several articles in December saying that restaurants in NYC were experiencing mass cancellations of reservations. My firm asked that we WFH for the first two weeks of January unless necessary and several of our competitors have done the same.

Why? That's just postponing the inevitable by a week or two. Every single person in the world is going to get omicron.

Your triple masking does nothing, omicron will come for you all the same.

You're entitled to your opinion. I believe there are many who believe otherwise, particularly if this doctor is right and his statement becomes widely known, enough to move the market. We'll see who is right.

However, if I'm right and the hospitality industry starts to contract simply due to market conditions, then if you're bashing "lockdowns", like many have already done on this forum, you've totally undermined your "pro-freedom" arguments and have shown that you're authoritarian in the other direction. You're demanding that the hospitality sector stay open for your pleasure, regardless of what Omicron does and what market conditions dictate.

People can believe whatever they'd like about the transmissibility of the omicron variant. The facts are, it will get all of us at some point in at most the next 60 days, probably less, if it hasn't already. Nothing I stated was an opinion.

And I'm not demanding anyone stay open. If a business wants to lose money and shut down, they have that right. Virtually none will.

I do know of a few businesses who overreacted to the Omicron stuff and either shut down or reinstituted capacity restrictions and N95 mask mandates. Most are still open at least where I live, though they will have to modify their operations when and if Phil Murphy implements new COVID NPIs.

[MATTROSE94]

Previous rules of virus are 'out the window'

The latest surge, which has sent case numbers exploding across the globe, is fueled by the Omicron variant, the most contagious coronavirus strain yet, health experts say.

The virus is now "extraordinarily contagious" and previous mitigation measures that used to help now may not be as helpful, CNN medical analyst Dr. Jonathan Reiner told CNN on Friday.

"At the beginning of this pandemic... we all were taught, you have a significant exposure if you're within six feet of somebody and you're in contact with them for more than 15 minutes. All these rules are out the window," Reiner said. "This is a hyper-contagious virus."

Now, even a quick, transient encounter can lead to an infection, Reiner added, including if someone's mask is loose, or a person quickly pulls their mask down, or an individual enters an elevator in which someone else has just coughed.

"This is how you can contract this virus," Reiner said.

I'm sure all the anti-restriction people on this forum want this information suppressed, like Trump would. If this were widely known, a substantial portion of the population would lock themselves down, and then large parts of the hospitality industry would likely close due to suddenly being unprofitable, all of this with zero intervention by the government. This would be totally unacceptable to these people who demand their hospitality options open at all times come hell or high water.

I don't understand this post: the kind of people who would 'lock themselves down' are the kind of people who already know everything there is to know about the new variant anyway and would act accordingly.

Omicron Covid is one of the most infectious diseases known to humanity, rendering anything other than the most authoritarian, dystopian NPIs ineffectual. If anything, this means we need fewer restrictions, not more, since they will have nothing but the most vanishingly marginal impact on actual transmissibility and will only make people's lives more miserable with no meaningful change to the trajectory of the pandemic.

Unless you want people to be welded into their homes like in Wuhan there is no plausible level of social/economic restriction that will do anything to prevent everyone contracting Covid now. This is grounds for celebration, because it's extraordinarly mild compared to prior variants.

This will be over soon: the pandemic is transitioning from a medical phenomenon to a social/political one. If original Covid had been as mild as omicron and as transmissible we would never have heard of the phrase 'lockdown' because there would never have been any case for such a measure. The only reason we're even talking about public health restrictions now is because it's been normalised over the last two years.

I think you missed my point. I've long given up on government NPI's in the USA, aside from mask mandates, because they will not be put in place even if Omicron had the lethality of Ebola and corpses were piling up in the streets. I'm speaking of actions by cautious individuals in response to this news. I believe there is a substantial proportion of the population, who thought they were being mostly safe but if they were informed just how contagious Omicron is, would cancel that vacation, stop dining out, cancel that gathering they were going to hold, etc. This could then move the market and make hospitality unprofitable, forcing firms there to shut down, all of this with zero intervention by the government.

One could call this a "grassroots lockdown", and based on the posts on this forum, it would trigger people just as much as a government lockdown, which honestly undermines their "freedom" arguments since it would force hospitality firms to operate for their pleasure despite adverse market conditions.

Time will tell whether we see any effect like this, but I have seen several articles in December saying that restaurants in NYC were experiencing mass cancellations of reservations. My firm asked that we WFH for the first two weeks of January unless necessary and several of our competitors have done the same.

Why? That's just postponing the inevitable by a week or two. Every single person in the world is going to get omicron.

Your triple masking does nothing, omicron will come for you all the same.

You're entitled to your opinion. I believe there are many who believe otherwise, particularly if this doctor is right and his statement becomes widely known, enough to move the market. We'll see who is right.

However, if I'm right and the hospitality industry starts to contract simply due to market conditions, then if you're bashing "lockdowns", like many have already done on this forum, you've totally undermined your "pro-freedom" arguments and have shown that you're authoritarian in the other direction. You're demanding that the hospitality sector stay open for your pleasure, regardless of what Omicron does and what market conditions dictate.

People can believe whatever they'd like about the transmissibility of the omicron variant. The facts are, it will get all of us at some point in at most the next 60 days, probably less, if it hasn't already. Nothing I stated was an opinion.

And I'm not demanding anyone stay open. If a business wants to lose money and shut down, they have that right. Virtually none will.

No, it's your opinion. It's still possible to avoid being infected by avoiding all human contact and sanitizing everything. I don't believe Omicron has evolved to be Lysol resistant. Also getting a booster does help a bit to prevent infection. If one can't tolerate avoiding human contact, then one incurs risk of catching it. How much human contact you need and how much risk you want to incur, that's up to personal opinion.

If you're willing to stick to what you said about voluntary business shutdowns, then I will respect your opinion. But there are multiple active threads where people are whining about "lockdowns" which are really voluntary business shutdowns and that really is not a respectable opinion since their "pro-freedom" arguments turn into hypocrisy.

I really don’t mean to criticize you or your opinion, but when would you feel comfortable abandoning COVID NPIs such as masking and staying at home unless for essential activities?

[MATTROSE94]

Lysol literally never helped us combat the virus, but ok.

I remember early on when COVID first hit that my job at the time (Kmart in West Long Branch, New Jersey) required gloves as opposed to masks and required us to spray down high traffic areas with Lysol. The store closed down permanently a few days after the statewide mask mandate was implemented, so most of the employees and customers weren’t wearing masks. Also, because the store was in liquidation, no one  really cared about COVID that much.

[MATTROSE94]

Lysol literally never helped us combat the virus, but ok.

I remember early on when COVID first hit that my job at the time (Kmart in West Long Branch, New Jersey) required gloves as opposed to masks and required us to spray down high traffic areas with Lysol. The store closed down permanently a few days after the statewide mask mandate was implemented, so most of the employees and customers weren’t wearing masks. Also, because the store was in liquidation, no one  really cared about COVID that much.

You worked at Kmart? It must have been something to deal with the early stages of the pandemic while your store was in the process of closing. Kmart has almost entirely disappeared at this point, just like Blockbusters.

Yup. I worked for Kmart for almost 10 years. I started at the Hazlet store when I was 16 in 2010 and then went over to the West Long Branch store after Hazlet closed down in 2016. It was very odd working at Kmart when COVID first hit, as we had a lot of panic buying and were able to get the store cleared out ahead of schedule. Right now I work in an Aldi store and see a lot of COVID hygiene theater and virtue signaling from the customers. Also, the store where I work is very strict with masks and requires all employees to wear at least KN95s.

[MATTROSE94]

Previous rules of virus are 'out the window'

The latest surge, which has sent case numbers exploding across the globe, is fueled by the Omicron variant, the most contagious coronavirus strain yet, health experts say.

The virus is now "extraordinarily contagious" and previous mitigation measures that used to help now may not be as helpful, CNN medical analyst Dr. Jonathan Reiner told CNN on Friday.

"At the beginning of this pandemic... we all were taught, you have a significant exposure if you're within six feet of somebody and you're in contact with them for more than 15 minutes. All these rules are out the window," Reiner said. "This is a hyper-contagious virus."

Now, even a quick, transient encounter can lead to an infection, Reiner added, including if someone's mask is loose, or a person quickly pulls their mask down, or an individual enters an elevator in which someone else has just coughed.

"This is how you can contract this virus," Reiner said.

I'm sure all the anti-restriction people on this forum want this information suppressed, like Trump would. If this were widely known, a substantial portion of the population would lock themselves down, and then large parts of the hospitality industry would likely close due to suddenly being unprofitable, all of this with zero intervention by the government. This would be totally unacceptable to these people who demand their hospitality options open at all times come hell or high water.

I don't understand this post: the kind of people who would 'lock themselves down' are the kind of people who already know everything there is to know about the new variant anyway and would act accordingly.

Omicron Covid is one of the most infectious diseases known to humanity, rendering anything other than the most authoritarian, dystopian NPIs ineffectual. If anything, this means we need fewer restrictions, not more, since they will have nothing but the most vanishingly marginal impact on actual transmissibility and will only make people's lives more miserable with no meaningful change to the trajectory of the pandemic.

Unless you want people to be welded into their homes like in Wuhan there is no plausible level of social/economic restriction that will do anything to prevent everyone contracting Covid now. This is grounds for celebration, because it's extraordinarly mild compared to prior variants.

This will be over soon: the pandemic is transitioning from a medical phenomenon to a social/political one. If original Covid had been as mild as omicron and as transmissible we would never have heard of the phrase 'lockdown' because there would never have been any case for such a measure. The only reason we're even talking about public health restrictions now is because it's been normalised over the last two years.

I think you missed my point. I've long given up on government NPI's in the USA, aside from mask mandates, because they will not be put in place even if Omicron had the lethality of Ebola and corpses were piling up in the streets. I'm speaking of actions by cautious individuals in response to this news. I believe there is a substantial proportion of the population, who thought they were being mostly safe but if they were informed just how contagious Omicron is, would cancel that vacation, stop dining out, cancel that gathering they were going to hold, etc. This could then move the market and make hospitality unprofitable, forcing firms there to shut down, all of this with zero intervention by the government.

One could call this a "grassroots lockdown", and based on the posts on this forum, it would trigger people just as much as a government lockdown, which honestly undermines their "freedom" arguments since it would force hospitality firms to operate for their pleasure despite adverse market conditions.

Time will tell whether we see any effect like this, but I have seen several articles in December saying that restaurants in NYC were experiencing mass cancellations of reservations. My firm asked that we WFH for the first two weeks of January unless necessary and several of our competitors have done the same.

Why? That's just postponing the inevitable by a week or two. Every single person in the world is going to get omicron.

Your triple masking does nothing, omicron will come for you all the same.

You're entitled to your opinion. I believe there are many who believe otherwise, particularly if this doctor is right and his statement becomes widely known, enough to move the market. We'll see who is right.

However, if I'm right and the hospitality industry starts to contract simply due to market conditions, then if you're bashing "lockdowns", like many have already done on this forum, you've totally undermined your "pro-freedom" arguments and have shown that you're authoritarian in the other direction. You're demanding that the hospitality sector stay open for your pleasure, regardless of what Omicron does and what market conditions dictate.

People can believe whatever they'd like about the transmissibility of the omicron variant. The facts are, it will get all of us at some point in at most the next 60 days, probably less, if it hasn't already. Nothing I stated was an opinion.

And I'm not demanding anyone stay open. If a business wants to lose money and shut down, they have that right. Virtually none will.

No, it's your opinion. It's still possible to avoid being infected by avoiding all human contact and sanitizing everything. I don't believe Omicron has evolved to be Lysol resistant. Also getting a booster does help a bit to prevent infection. If one can't tolerate avoiding human contact, then one incurs risk of catching it. How much human contact you need and how much risk you want to incur, that's up to personal opinion.

If you're willing to stick to what you said about voluntary business shutdowns, then I will respect your opinion. But there are multiple active threads where people are whining about "lockdowns" which are really voluntary business shutdowns and that really is not a respectable opinion since their "pro-freedom" arguments turn into hypocrisy.

Do you do this?

No, not religiously, but I adjust my activities based on the perceived risk. Omicron might be ultra contagious but it's still true that if I expose myself less, then I have a lower chance to be infected. Right now the risk of being infected is very high so I restrict my social activities and mobility. That's my opinion on what I should do. Fine, you perceive the risk differently, so you have a different opinion and go about your life as if it were 2019. However there are clearly many people who think along the same lines as me since restaurants in NYC were reporting mass cancellations of reservations in December.

I really don’t mean to criticize you or your opinion, but when would you feel comfortable abandoning COVID NPIs such as masking and staying at home unless for essential activities?

I think the most realistic scenario to hope for is when science conclusively establishes that the severity of omicron is similar to the common cold for vaccinated people. Right now it looks like it could be true, or it might be somewhere between common cold and flu, we're not sure. What scares me most about breakthrough infections is not that I'll get hospitalized, but that I'll suffer a "mild case" where I am bedridden with fever, body aches, and chills and then suffer long term effects like loss of smell and taste, decreased lung function, brain fog, etc. This was common with breakthrough Delta infections, but if we can be sure breakthrough omicron is like the common cold and this kind of disease severity is rare, then it should cause far less concern.

This is a pretty fair opinion. Omicron doesn’t seem to be ad bad as Alpha or Delta, but is still killing around 1,200 people per day, which is a lot better than the 5,000 per day Alpha killed in the US and the 10,000 per day Delta killed in India last spring. BTW, I see that you mentioned that you worked for a firm, is it a law firm or a different type of firm?

[MATTROSE94]

Newsweek: Omicron May Be the 'Harbinger of the End' of COVID's Epidemic Phase, Study Says

The decreased severity of the Omicron COVID-19 variant may be a "harbinger" of an end to the global pandemic caused by virus. Initial data from South Africa indicates that the variant results in a quarter of deaths associated with earlier variants.

In the first study conducted to assess the risk of fatalities presented by Omicron researchers assessed the progress of COVID patients admitted to the Steve Biko Academic Hospital and the Tshwane District Hospital, the latter of which has been converted into a COVID specialist facility.

The hospitals are located in the City of Tshwane, the region of South Africa that was the first global epicenter of Omicron.

"There are clear signs that case and admission rates in South Africa may decline further over the next few weeks," the authors wrote.

"If this pattern continues and is repeated globally, we are likely to see a complete decoupling of case and death rates suggesting that Omicron may be a harbinger of the end of the epidemic phase of the COVID pandemic ushering in its endemic phase."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) describes an endemic as a sudden localized rise in a particular disease that is usually present in a community. This means that the disease's spread is predictable. This is in contrast to a pandemic, which the CDC defines as an: "Event in which a disease spreads across several countries and affects a large number of people."

Haven’t we heard this before?  Another scary new variant always seems to come along that wipes away all previous assumptions.

I've literally never heard of a variant being discussed as possibly the beginning of the end of the pandemic. Every single variant, without exception, prior to this been treated as evidence the pandemic will go on for eternity.

The fact is, especially for the vaccinated, omicron is functionally a cold. And there have been quite a few studies now that back up the assertion that the chances of the unvaccinated getting severe covid--while still high enough to warrant vaccination--is significantly less than prior variants, an indication that it's following prior pandemics where it becomes both more contagious and less severe over time.

I remember people here saying Delta would be the last major wave and that we'd have an easy winter.

I'm just saying that we need to take things with a grain of salt.  The pandemic has shown time and time again that it gives zero F's when it comes to just about anything.  It's not running on our time.

First, I don't recall a single person saying that. Second, this article is citing actual scientists, not some Atlas posters.

I don’t recall anyone saying that about Delta either. Most public health observers expected a bad winter with Delta anyway.

[MATTROSE94]

The last few pages are seemingly an exercise in collective sociopathy and lack of any coherent idea part from rubbishing anyone who says that restrictions are still necessary, even if the evidence backs them up.

Exactly! This forum has seriously lost its mind on the subject of COVID. They claim to be "pro-freedom", but they've already won that battle in the US; there are no government policies causing any business shutdown or restricting any behavior. But it's not enough for this forum, as they are actually the authoritarian ones. They want a coerced return to the normal of 2019, regardless of what COVID is doing and the threat it poses. They want to deny us the freedom to take COVID seriously and change our behavior to protect ourselves. In their world, masks and hand sanitizer would be controlled substances, COVID would be a censored word, all testing would stop, and WFH and takeout/delivery services would be banned.

Hawaii, California, Illinois, Oregon, New Mexico, DC, and Washington still have social distancing requirements and other strong COVID NPIs in place.

[MATTROSE94]

Your leader has spoken! He asks that you continue to wear masks. Do you want to be a Trumpist numbskull? I know you don't, 90% of this forum opposes Trump. Wear the mask.

President Biden on masks

“I know that for some Americans, a mask is not always affordable or convenient to get. So next week, we’ll announce how we’re making high-quality masks available to American people for free,” he said in remarks about the administration’s COVID-19 surge response.

He touted the work done already to make sure there is a supply of N95 masks for health care workers and first responders.

“We also helped make sure that high quality masks are widely available and an ample supply at affordable prices sold online and in stores,” he said, regarding masks for the public.

Biden on Thursday also addressed the frustration among Americans with continued mask wearing mandates and guidance.

“I know we all wish that we could finally be done with wearing masks. I get it. But there is a really important tool to stop the spread, especially the highly transmissible omicron variant. So please, please wear the mask,” he said.

You are equating opposition to mask mandates for support with Trump? That doesn't seem to be a fair evaluation of where this forum stands on the issue. But at this point, it's obvious that the majority of posters are at odds with you on this, as you are with them. You won't retreat from your viewpoints, and they won't retreat from theirs.

Now that President Biden unambiguously supports masks, if you oppose them you oppose him. Then since we are in a two party FPTP system, if you oppose Biden you support Trump. The anti-maskers here now must decide, do they oppose Biden here and allow Trump to get a win, effectively turning into a Trump supporter? Or do they close ranks behind Biden to form a united front against Trump?

This makes no sense, whatsoever. A Democratic or Republican voter should not be required to support every position that their candidate or their leader holds.

He's a CCP shill. Of course this would be how he views American politics.

Don’t know about compucomp being a CCP shill. Instead he strikes me as the type of person who reads a lot of stuff on COVID from zero COVID advocates on Twitter like Permanent Social Distancing Advocate, Vincent #ZeroCovid, Eric Feigl Ding, Denise Dewald, Yaneer Bar-Yam, Trisha Greenhalgh, Matthew Sims, and Leana Wen. Not that I fault him for holding those beliefs, but we have some disagreements regarding COVID.

[MATTROSE94]

https://twitter.com/CDCDirector/status/1481315911843856387
Thank you Dr. Rochelle, very cool!

Of course, it makes even less sense than ever to force young, healthy people to get vaccinated.  That won't be the takeaway by the CDC though.  A lot of $$$ on the line for big pharma.

91% less deadly can also be expressed as 11.1x less deadly. Awhile back, based on South Africa data, I crudely estimated Omicron is 16.8x less deadly IRC. Looks like while that was a bit overoptimistic, it was on the right order of magnitude.

My calculations pointed to Omicron being about 10-15x less deadly as well, so we we both kind of close. It seems that Omicron has a 0.25-0.5% CFR, a lot less than the 1% CFR of the Wuhan 1.0 COVID variant of 2018/2019, the Alpha Variant, and the Delta Variant.

[MATTROSE94]

Your leader has spoken! He asks that you continue to wear masks. Do you want to be a Trumpist numbskull? I know you don't, 90% of this forum opposes Trump. Wear the mask.

President Biden on masks

“I know that for some Americans, a mask is not always affordable or convenient to get. So next week, we’ll announce how we’re making high-quality masks available to American people for free,” he said in remarks about the administration’s COVID-19 surge response.

He touted the work done already to make sure there is a supply of N95 masks for health care workers and first responders.

“We also helped make sure that high quality masks are widely available and an ample supply at affordable prices sold online and in stores,” he said, regarding masks for the public.

Biden on Thursday also addressed the frustration among Americans with continued mask wearing mandates and guidance.

“I know we all wish that we could finally be done with wearing masks. I get it. But there is a really important tool to stop the spread, especially the highly transmissible omicron variant. So please, please wear the mask,” he said.

You are equating opposition to mask mandates for support with Trump? That doesn't seem to be a fair evaluation of where this forum stands on the issue. But at this point, it's obvious that the majority of posters are at odds with you on this, as you are with them. You won't retreat from your viewpoints, and they won't retreat from theirs.

Now that President Biden unambiguously supports masks, if you oppose them you oppose him. Then since we are in a two party FPTP system, if you oppose Biden you support Trump. The anti-maskers here now must decide, do they oppose Biden here and allow Trump to get a win, effectively turning into a Trump supporter? Or do they close ranks behind Biden to form a united front against Trump?

This makes no sense, whatsoever. A Democratic or Republican voter should not be required to support every position that their candidate or their leader holds. If such a requirement were exacted of them, that would be an unfair and undemocratic move. Ironically enough, what you say here sounds very much like what the Trumpists would say. Any Republican who does not wholeheartedly support Trump and who even deviates from one position that he holds is denounced by them as a "RINO" or as "not being a true conservative." Such a viewpoint should not invade the Democratic Party. I'm a Biden voter, and yet I haven't approved of much of the Administration's strategy and messaging with regards to the pandemic in recent months.

You did a good job of describing how politics should be. But that's not how it is. Clearly Trump and the Republicans have taken "in unity lies strength" to heart. Their total unity behind Trump clearly powers them through just about any crisis or bad press and keeps them always a threat to take over. In the face of this, not supporting Biden and showing Democratic disunity is basically unilateral disarmament, like Republican states drawing gerrymanders while Democratic states use independent commissions and draw fair maps. Look at the 2016 and 2020 elections, it's clear that only a unified Democratic party can beat the Trumpist Republicans. So if you want to oppose Trump, you must support Biden on the foremost issue of the day.

Even if we concede your premise that the Democratic Party needs or could use a Führerprinzip, nobody who isn't some sort of maniac thinks that masks in particular are "the foremost issue of the day". A significant proportion of the country doesn't even think COVID is any more.

The COVID-19 pandemic is still the foremost issue of the day. Why do you think Biden has given several addresses in 2022 already about it? Why is he sending everyone N95 masks and distributing 1 billion test kits, notions that a month ago seemed fanciful and unrealistic? Because he knows that he is still being judged based on his performance on containing the pandemic. If you're not supporting Biden on this issue, then you support Trump with his bleach injections and hydroxychloroquine.

There's a been a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth on this forum about Manchin and Sinema blocking BBB and HR1, the Biden agenda being killed by DINOs, etc. But this forum has a huge mental block over the most important part of the Biden agenda, the part that got him elected: to take the pandemic seriously and get it under control. He unambiguously asked everyone to wear masks today and will make it even more clear when he sends them out in the mail. Where is your support for this part of the Biden agenda? Who are the DINOs now?

I agree a bit more with Eric Adams, Ralph Northam, and Jared Polis regarding COVID restrictions when compared to Joe Biden. That doesn’t make me a Trump supporter. I also wear N95 masks already at my job as well.

[MATTROSE94]

It's just maddening to me that so many people have had their minds "screwed up" by this pandemic and the response to it.

A lot of this was caused by TV.

True. My stepmother loves to watch TV, particularly programs such as The View, the CBS Evening News with Norah O'Donnell, and ABC World News Tonight with David Muir. And these programs (the Evening News programs in particular), tend to highlight the most depressing and heartbreaking aspects of the pandemic, with regards to severe outlier cases of COVID, hospitalizations, and of course deaths. They bring on Dr. Fauci, Dr. Walensky, Dr. Murthy, and other public health experts frequently. It's not wrong to consult them, but these individuals certainly aren't the best messengers and haven't been the most consistent.

CNN does that a lot as well at least in particular on programs hosted by Don Lemon, Poppy Harlow, Brianna Keilar, Brian Seltzer, Kaitlin Collins, SE Cupp, and Kate Baldwin.

[MATTROSE94]

2700 deaths today. Very bad.

On the plus side we're now 2 weeks out from the probable peak in cases, so hopefully the deaths are peaking soon.

2800 deaths today and yesterday was revised to 3100 which is the most since last winter. Very bad.

I'm old enough to remember when 3000 people died so we changed our society, went to war in multiple countries, and spent trillions of dollars. Now, that many people are dting every day or two and people keep whining about how uncomfortable masks are and how they want things to go back to normal. Quite a difference.

Then which of the Covid view camps do you fall into? Your comments seem to suggest that you fall into Camp #2.

I'm solidly in Camp #5:

Camp 1: We must return to March 2020- if not even more strict measures- to rid the world of covid once and for all.  #ZeroCovid was right, and we abandoned it too soon.

Camp 2: The unvaccinated should be forced back into lockdown with siginficant restrictions on life for the vaccinated (perhaps resembling blue state restrictions during the winter of 2020-21).

Camp 3: Life should continue semi-normally and everything should be open, but I support mask and/or vaccine mandates.

Camp 4: Vaccinated people should be living without restrictions, while encouraging, but not requiring unvaccinated people to get vaccinated.  People with covid should still get tested and quarantine.

Camp 5: Covid needs to be treated no differently then the flu.  Make vaccines and treatments available to anyone who wants them, but that's it.  End mass testing of asymptomatic or pauci-symptomatic people and allow people who feel up to it to go about normal lives- whether they would test positive or negative.

I don't object to people wearing masks, but I do object to government mandates.

I agree. I used to be in Camp 1, but now I recognize that mandates are counterproductive and do more harm than good at this stage of the game. If people want to win the Darwin Awards by not getting vaccinated, then more power to them. All of us vaccinated people did the right thing and should be free to go back to our 2019 way of life if we so desire.