COVID-19 Megathread 6: Return of the Omicron

[Donerail]

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.

[Donerail]

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.

I doubt that's true but, if so, that's the first thing I've heard that's made me think positively of Kristen Sinema.

[Donerail]

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.

Yes, we already know you types want us to wear masks in public forever — it's a "minor inconvenience" that is allegedly "very effective against viruses and other pathogens in general." I, on the other hand — and as I mentioned — want to be able to have normal social interactions with people again. Leaving aside the question of what, exactly, a vaccinated person is "mitigating" by wearing a mask, it seems pretty obvious that people who say masks have zero cost aren't wearing them regularly!

[Donerail]

Yes, we already know you types want us to wear masks in public forever — it's a "minor inconvenience" that is allegedly "very effective against viruses and other pathogens in general." I, on the other hand — and as I mentioned — want to be able to have normal social interactions with people again. Leaving aside the question of what, exactly, a vaccinated person is "mitigating" by wearing a mask, it seems pretty obvious that people who say masks have zero cost aren't wearing them regularly!

I do not care about the "Delta Variant." If you are making the personal choice to no longer be vaccinated, that is your choice, and you have to live with the consequences of your free and voluntary choice. You have no right to impose a burden on other people to make up for the costs of your decision.

[Donerail]

I will not fight against indoor mask mandates. Especially in crowded venues.

I will! I’ve done my part — I’ve worn the masks, got the vaccine, did the year+ of social isolation and online work and online school. I’ve done everything asked of me, the whole time. And I’m done! No more. Vaccinated people are much less likely to shed virus, much less likely to contract it, and are almost never hospitalized. The only reason to impose a mask mandate on the vaccinated is security theater to coddle people who have already been offered and refused a vaccine.

We’re headed toward a country where half the people are unvaccinated and doing whatever they want, and the vaccinated half is stuck doing masks/isolation/whatever else in a futile attempt to accommodate the other half. I’m tired of it. If some antivaxxers want to risk it, that’s on them, but the rest of us need to stop moving the goalposts and get back to normal life. In the county I work in, we’re at 89.4% of 16+ year olds vaccinated. 99%+ of hospitalizations are among the unvaccinated, and we only have a dozen patients hospitalized with COVID. The hospitals aren’t being overrun, we’ve vaccinated nearly everybody, and the vaccines work. We can't let the small handful of unvaccinated take our lives hostage.

[Donerail]

I think you're totally right. Suddenly a lot of people on the left that have been vaccinated are acting like Republicans. They're all "Me! Me! Me!" and "It's all about ME!". So much for "we're all in this together". This all goes back to the disastrous decision by the CDC to stop recommending masks for the vaccinated back in May. I'm almost certain that at least 80-90% of the people that are still wearing masks are vaccinated. All that did was give cover to those that aren't vaccinated to remove their masks since very few entities are asking for proof of vaccination. A fourth wave this summer will be look relatively suppressed due to vaccines, but it's also summer. If we were in fall or winter months, it'd be especially ugly.

A very large section of the population already figured out that "we're all in this together" was for suckers, right around the time they decided they wouldn't be getting vaccinated. I don't plan to make any sacrifices for people who clearly do not have any level of regard for their own life or the lives of others, and the government shouldn't be making decisions to cater to them either.

[Donerail]

Masks back at my place of employment and at most non-chain restaurants and retail, regardless of vaccination status.

[Donerail]

Redundant precautions prevent calamities.

There was no redundancy at Chernobyl.

Do you think the consequences of a vaccinated person choosing not to wear a mask could in any way be comparable to a nuclear meltdown?

[Donerail]

What timeline are we living in where I am thankful for Bill de Blasio's decisive national leadership? Feels weird

[Donerail]

As far as Florida goes, just a reminder, but its vaccination rate is pretty much at the national average... The reason why cases, hospitalizations, and deaths are surging in Florida is not that it has an unusually low vaccination rate, because it doesn't.

Currently, Florida is at 59% with 1 dose and 49% fully vaccinated. Illinois is at 63% with 1 dose and 49% fully vaccinated. That is a bit better, but not much. Michigan is at 53% with 1 dose and 49% fully vaccinated - which in fact is worse than Florida. So if you think that what is happening in Florida can't happen in blue states further north just because of vaccination rates, might want to think about that pretty carefully before betting anything important on it.

I would challenge the idea that those numbers are accurate. What that number reflects is the number of people who have received the vaccine from a location in Florida over the total state population; the assumption there is that one group is contained within the other. With Florida in particular, this is not a safe assumption because of the volume of travel and the number of seasonal residents. Florida's high vaccination rate likely reflects a large number of people who received vaccines there who are now not in Florida.

Florida has a large population of seasonal residents ("snowbirds"), many of whom who got one or both doses in the state before returning to their summer home in Massachusetts or Michigan or wherever. It's difficult to measure, but there were also widespread media reports of people from Latin America who traveled to Florida to get vaccinated. (I don't think it's a coincidence, for instance, that (after Sumter) the most-vaccinated county is Miami-Dade.)

The seasonality explanation falls flat for me because Florida is not the only state where it's hot right now. The vaccination rates in Arizona and Texas, for instance, are slightly lower than Florida's posted rate, but cases per capita and hospitalizations in Florida are more than double what we see in those states.

[Donerail]

That's just untrue. Many of us want to avoid being infected, period. Looking at all the data that has come in about Delta, it's clear that now breakthrough cases are not rare events and that the vaccine alone does not make one safe from being infected with COVID-19. You can say that breakthrough infections are no big deal since the vaccine protects strongly against severe cases, and this is a reasonable point of view, but it's insulting to present it as an absolute truth since it's fundamentally an opinion and many disagree. The comparison to the flu doesn't hold because COVID-19 (Delta in particular) have proven to be much more contagious than the flu; Walensky called it the most infectious respiratory disease she's ever seen.

Looking at the data that have come in about Delta, "I want to avoid becoming infected" is a pipe dream

[Donerail]

The only health being threatened by this are that of the unvaccinated, most of whom are three by choice.

Your health is also under threat. I don't know or care about "variants," that's effectively unpredictable, but if the hospitals are full, that's a big problem. No vaccine for auto accidents, and outcomes get dramatically worse if you have to postpone trauma care by an hour or three. That's the health impact to be concerned about — not the individual patients but the fact that it's flooding the system.

[Donerail]

Wait, I'm confused, I thought you were arguing that since Lollapalooza was a liberal event held in Chicago the authorities there must be fudging their numbers and playing down the spread for ideological purposes?

Do you genuinely have him confused with someone else or are we doing the thing where we impute every blue avi's words to every other blue avi?

[Donerail]

I'm not necessarily defending them. But I am wondering exactly what DeSantis and Abbott could have done. It's no longer feasible to do lockdowns, and I feel like there's only so much you can do to convince people to take vaccines. Beyond a certain point, you can't fix stupid.

DeSantis should start with doing that much. His communications over the last few weeks have been entirely about "monoclonal antibodies," not a mention of vaccines as a possible healthcare option.

[Donerail]

"Why does it matter if other people aren't vaccinated?"

https://twitter.com/DavePuglisiTV/status/1428785401897050115

[Donerail]

This is never going to end isn't it ?

It ends whenever you want it to end — not really the case, as you're in California. But it ends whenever there's no more community support for this.

[Donerail]

The DOE needs to immediately withdraw all grants and federal student loans to Stanford students.

[Donerail]

The Biden administration should publicly disavow anyone who says we'll be wearing masks forever.

[Donerail]

I understand you don't care that you're playing Russian roulette repeatedly for the rest of your life, given that you're going to catch COVID-19 approximately once every 6-12 months if you don't bother to protect yourself. But the virus is ridiculously contagious and vaccines don't provide anything close to sterilizing immunity. Your rights end when they infringe on mine, and I have the right to safe public spaces just the same as you. You don't get to spread noxious fumes in public indoor spaces just because you couldn't be bothered to put on a 5c mask that doesn't interfere with anything you want to do.

You are also going to catch the covid approximately once every 6-12 months, even if you do the whole triple mask-face shield-latex gloves routine. Hate to be the one to break the news to you, but that's how this goes.

[Donerail]

Nah. I'm seeing my family. Fauci can go fxck a cactus.

He said it's safe to do that if everyone is vaccinated.

I don't see why being vaccinated would make that any safer. It's mostly about the spines.

[Donerail]

How have the grey cardboard vaccine cards still not been modernized? Driver's licenses switched to plastic 50 years ago for a reason.

Wouldn't you just use a QR code?

Americans do not use QR codes, as a general rule.

[Donerail]

Zero COVID hasn't been plausible since "two weeks to slow the spread" but there's been plenty of strategic incoherence regarding why we are doing much of what we have been doing since then, so many people still believe that is our collective goal.

Nobody on here is arguing for it, maybe a few in the real world, but that definitely has not been the goal since…probably last summer.

Then what is the goal?

[Donerail]

Zero COVID hasn't been plausible since "two weeks to slow the spread" but there's been plenty of strategic incoherence regarding why we are doing much of what we have been doing since then, so many people still believe that is our collective goal.

Nobody on here is arguing for it, maybe a few in the real world, but that definitely has not been the goal since…probably last summer.

Then what is the goal?

Keep hospitals running and not overwhelmed? Lmao

Are policies being made with that goal in mind? Is that what public health officials are emphasizing in their current messaging? I'm not asking what your goal is, I'm asking what the goal is.

[Donerail]

At this point, how many people are going to contract COVID-19?

Roughly 329,500,000 in the United States.

[Donerail]

It's really too bad the opposing force, elderly people who fear for their lives, are busy hiding in their homes and not nearly as likely to yell online, get on CNN, or badger their elected officials.

This is certainly a novel perspective on the relative political influence of different generations. Politicians are notorious for neglecting the concerns of elderly people who vote every cycle — a group that never badgers elected officials — in order to curry favor with young people, who are engaged and reliable voters.