COVID-19 Megathread 6: Return of the Omicron

[Darthpi – Anti-Florida Activist]

122,471 new cases today and 739 deaths today.

How likely the US goes into a lockdown now? We were averaging about 15,000+ cases when we had our first lockdown.

Not unless entire hospital systems are totally collapsing, and even then it would only be on a localized basis, not nationwide.

[roxas11]

122,471 new cases today and 739 deaths today.

How likely the US goes into a lockdown now? We were averaging about 15,000+ cases when we had our first lockdown.

There is a big difference between then and now....


This country is not going lockdown again, simply because people, mainly in red states chose not to get the vaccinated.

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://twitter.com/HelenKennedy/status/1423800493671948289

More natural selection in action.  I have lost all ability to feel sorry for these people.

[emailking]

The tweet is wrong. He doesn't say anywhere in that video that he's glad he got it so he can prove it's not bad. He says he's glad he's got it because he wants the antibodies naturally.

[_.]

It's August 06, 2021 and

50.0% of the total U.S. Population is fully vaccinated!

INCLUDING more than half the population of these states and territories:

Image Link

And getting close in these states:

49.9% - Iowa
49.9% - Nebraska
49.4% - Florida
49.1% - Michigan
49.0% - Illinois

[Hammy]

It's August 06, 2021 and

50.0% of the total U.S. Population is fully vaccinated!

INCLUDING more than half the population of these states and territories:

Image Link

And getting close in these states:

49.9% - Iowa
49.9% - Nebraska
49.4% - Florida
49.1% - Michigan
49.0% - Illinois

The trend is clearly partisan (albeit not for long given the above list) but interesting Wisconsin gets there before Illinois.

[GP270watch]

The tweet is wrong. He doesn't say anywhere in that video that he's glad he got it so he can prove it's not bad. He says he's glad he's got it because he wants the antibodies naturally.

 I watched the video he also said it's like a bad cold and we can get over it with out immune system, then he got worse, then rambled about how 99.9% of us blah blah blah, then he died.

[Skill and Chance]

It's August 06, 2021 and

50.0% of the total U.S. Population is fully vaccinated!

INCLUDING more than half the population of these states and territories:

Image Link

And getting close in these states:

49.9% - Iowa
49.9% - Nebraska
49.4% - Florida
49.1% - Michigan
49.0% - Illinois

The trend is clearly partisan (albeit not for long given the above list) but interesting Wisconsin gets there before Illinois.

It looks a lot more like 2012 than 2020, though. 

[_.]

It's August 06, 2021 and

50.0% of the total U.S. Population is fully vaccinated!

INCLUDING more than half the population of these states and territories:

Image Link

And getting close in these states:

49.9% - Iowa
49.9% - Nebraska
49.4% - Florida
49.1% - Michigan
49.0% - Illinois

The trend is clearly partisan (albeit not for long given the above list) but interesting Wisconsin gets there before Illinois.

Perhaps it has something to do with higher social trust and trust in government in Wisconsin, as opposed to a state like Illinois, where they are well-known for their corruption.

I've heard Wisconsin and Minnesota are especially great in this regard due to the type of migrants they attracted early on, but I could be wrong.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Texas GOP Official Mocked COVID Five Days Before He Died of Virus

A GOP official from Texas who regularly espoused anti-vaccine and anti-mask views online has died from COVID-19, five days after posting a meme on Facebook questioning the wisdom of getting inoculated against COVID.

Dickinson City Council member and State Republican Executive Committee member H. Scott Apley, 45, died in a local hospital around 3 a.m. Wednesday morning, according to a GoFundMe page set up to help Apley’s family with expenses. He was admitted to the facility in Galveston on Sunday with “pneumonia-like symptoms,” and was hooked up to a ventilator as his condition worsened. His wife was also infected, the family said.

The line between the cult members (who are dying) and the cult leaders (who have all quietly gotten vaccinated while urging their cult members to play Republican Roulette) is getting pretty stark. I suspect it's still a long way from Republicultists questioning their dogma, though.

[Hammy]

Texas GOP Official Mocked COVID Five Days Before He Died of Virus

A GOP official from Texas who regularly espoused anti-vaccine and anti-mask views online has died from COVID-19, five days after posting a meme on Facebook questioning the wisdom of getting inoculated against COVID.

Dickinson City Council member and State Republican Executive Committee member H. Scott Apley, 45, died in a local hospital around 3 a.m. Wednesday morning, according to a GoFundMe page set up to help Apley’s family with expenses. He was admitted to the facility in Galveston on Sunday with “pneumonia-like symptoms,” and was hooked up to a ventilator as his condition worsened. His wife was also infected, the family said.

The line between the cult members (who are dying) and the cult leaders (who have all quietly gotten vaccinated while urging their cult members to play Republican Roulette) is getting pretty stark. I suspect it's still a long way from Republicultists questioning their dogma, though.

Yet they keep trying to claim covid is only killing the elderly.

[President Johnson]

Good, but not nearly enough:

https://twitter.com/CNNPolitics/status/1423918354176352256

[roxas11]

https://twitter.com/HelenKennedy/status/1423800493671948289

More natural selection in action. I have lost all ability to feel sorry for these people.

 

I admit that people like this guy sometimes make me lose all hope when comes to the unvaccinated

To the point where I start to feel like ivan drago from Rocky IV....


but then I realize that there are still some good people even among the unvaccinated and their lives are worth saving. I personally know family members who will not get vaccinated simply because some idiot on Facebook has convinced them that the vaccines are the mark of the beast

The crazy people on Facebook have also made them believe that the vaccines have microchips in them

[Torie]

Dan and I have decided to cancel our trip to Sturgis.

https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/566824-thousands-of-bikers-descend-on-sturgis-amid-delta-spread-fears

[Torie]

Even though he is gay and cute, I am not particularly fond of my local alderman in Hoboken (all hat, no cattle most of the time, whose MO is to cast aspersions on other people' motives when he probably is the prime suspect in that department), but he has come up with what I think is a good idea. Bars who agree to require Vax ID's to get in, get a waiver of their outdoor street and sidewalk seating municipal fees.

https://patch.com/new-jersey/hoboken/councilman-wants-incentives-bars-requiring-customer-vaccines?utm_term=article-slot-1&utm_source=newsletter-daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

Even though he is gay and cute, I am not particularly fond of my local alderman in Hoboken (all hat, no cattle most of the time, whose MO is to cast aspersions on other people' motives when he probably is the prime suspect in that department), but he has come up with what I think is a good idea. Bars who agree to require Vax ID's to get in, get a waiver of their outdoor street and sidewalk seating municipal fees.

https://patch.com/new-jersey/hoboken/councilman-wants-incentives-bars-requiring-customer-vaccines?utm_term=article-slot-1&utm_source=newsletter-daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter

Much better-handled than De Blasio's fiat, which seems mostly driven by his bizarre animus towards the restaurant industry.

[Darthpi – Anti-Florida Activist]

122,471 new cases today and 739 deaths today.

How likely the US goes into a lockdown now? We were averaging about 15,000+ cases when we had our first lockdown.

I already replied to this once, but I return to point out something that really should be obvious: There was no way we were only having 15K cases per day during at the start of the March 2020 lockdowns. The virus was spreading completely out of control at that time and there was not nearly enough testing capacity to catch the majority of cases occurring at that point. I have a cousin who works at a major hospital, and I remember hearing one estimate from him when we were at around 10K total officially-reported cases nationally that the real number was probably over 100K, and I suspect that even by mid-April we were still identifying only a fraction of new daily cases, based on how slowly testing capacity was improving.

[Bootes Void]

DC giving away AirPods to encourage youth vaccinations

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/566867-dc-giving-away-airpods-to-encourage-youth-vaccinations

Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) announced Saturday that the city would give away AirPods, gift cards and thousands of dollars in scholarship money as incentives to get more adolescents and teens vaccinated.

Bowser said in a tweet that those ages 12-17 who get their first COVID-19 shot at one of three sites would get either a set of AirPods or a $51 gift card, a nod to the push to make D.C. the 51st U.S. state.

Adolescents also have a chance at winning $25,000 in scholarship money or an iPad and headphones, the mayor said.

Lucky people 

[emailking]

122,471 new cases today and 739 deaths today.

How likely the US goes into a lockdown now? We were averaging about 15,000+ cases when we had our first lockdown.

I already replied to this once, but I return to point out something that really should be obvious: There was no way we were only having 15K cases per day during at the start of the March 2020 lockdowns. The virus was spreading completely out of control at that time and there was not nearly enough testing capacity to catch the majority of cases occurring at that point. I have a cousin who works at a major hospital, and I remember hearing one estimate from him when we were at around 10K total officially-reported cases nationally that the real number was probably over 100K, and I suspect that even by mid-April we were still identifying only a fraction of new daily cases, based on how slowly testing capacity was improving.

That might be true but is there any reason to think we're getting most of them now? I know there was some testing shortages back then, but I think a lot of cases are missed because people just don't get tested.

[pppolitics]

Hundreds of Thousands of Bikers Expected in Sturgis Despite Delta Variant

Although most large events shut down last summer because of the coronavirus pandemic, the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally forged ahead, panicking health experts as nearly a half-million motorcycle enthusiasts descended on the Black Hills of South Dakota.

This year’s rally, which began on Friday, is expected to draw an even larger crowd, just as the infectious Delta variant is producing more new virus cases nationwide than this time last year.

What path the virus will take through Sturgis remains to be seen.

Transmission is more difficult outdoors, vaccines greatly reduce the risk of serious illness, and South Dakota has the fewest new virus cases per capita in the United States. At the same time, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention considers Delta as contagious as chickenpox, and people are traveling from across the country — several Southern states are in their worst outbreaks of the pandemic — to a region with a relatively low vaccination rate.

[...]

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/06/us/politics/sturgis-motorcycle-rally-covid.html

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/MaxCRoser/status/1393126767284609024

[HillGoose]

do the corrected death tolls or whatever count people who committed suicide or overdosed due to social isolation, mental illness, or financial stress?

[It’s so Joever]

https://twitter.com/MaxCRoser/status/1393126767284609024

Looks right.
I know Sarajevo was hit hard, and that is reflected here.

[Not Me, Us]

do the corrected death tolls or whatever count people who committed suicide or overdosed due to social isolation, mental illness, or financial stress?

If they are, they shouldn’t be.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

At this point, unvaccinated covid deaths in the US probably should just be recorded as suicides.