COVID-19 Megathread 6: Return of the Omicron

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

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

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

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

The Republican Death Cult, and it's leader, Donald Trump, should not be allowed to escape responsibility for their actions so easily.

Unvaccinated Republicans bear ultimate responsibility for their own choices, but those choices are not being made in a vacuum. The leadership and spokespeople for the political party that spent decades screaming about harsher penalties for drug pushers need to be held to account for the mass deaths they have caused.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Shame on Obama.

Shame on Sturgis.

Shame on Lollapalooza.


Anyone organizing or hosting a large gathering like these is doing so at the detriment to overall society.  And possibly creating situations in which people will eventually get sick and die.  I don't care who you are or what party you vote with...there should simply be no large gatherings until it's safe--and it isn't.  Vaccinated or not.  Even if the crowd is 100% vaccinated, as I suspect with the Obama birthday party, even then it sends a terrible message to the rest of the country struggling to get through this; it sends the wrong message and it's discouraging.  He should be sensible enough to realize it, and turning 60 with a bunch of rich celebs at your party sends such an unneeded "elitist" message at the absolute worst time.

And the unvaccinated morons at Sturgis.  I mean, what will it take for these people?  Their kids dying of covid?  Will they listen then?

Wait until the pandemic subsides/ends.

I can’t agree with this either.
Once you are vaccinated, the threat of covid is much less than the threat of the flu or any number of other virus.
And frankly, covid is likely going to be with us forever.  If you are vaccinated and still afraid of covid, you are going to be living in fear your entire lift.

The one remaining concern I have is that children cannot yet be vaccinated.  The threat to young kids is obvoiusly still much less than to unvaccinated adults, but with the delta variant it is probably greater than the threat to vaccinated adults.  

I don’t quite understand why there hasn’t been more public pressure on the FDA to approve the vaccine for children more quickly.  I really expected approval by the fall when they moved so quickly for the 12-15 year olds, and I haven’t heard of any problems among this age group.  Why aren’t there pro-vaccine rallies demanding FDA action of at least the same vigor and the we see in the anti-vaxxers?

Because that's all already happening, so such protests would be pointless demonstrations of ignorance?

FDA, under pressure, plans ‘sprint’ to accelerate review of Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine for full approval
The F.D.A. could grant full approval to Pfizer’s vaccine by early September.
Covid vaccines for kids under 12 expected midwinter, FDA official says

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1424195207088676865

'It's going to disappear': A timeline of Trump's claims that Covid-19 will vanish

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

No mask is 100% either. You seem to trust masks more than vaccines, an increasingly common position on the left that I find extremely troubling. Maybe it's because you can see a mask and not a vaccine? Really don't get it.

You really don't? Masks + vaccines is more effective than vaccines even if neither is 100%. Just like you should wear a seat belt even if you have an airbag that you can't see. I don't know about a mandate, but that's clearly the advantage in doing both, reducing risk.

When would you feel comfortable removing your mask in a public space?

And no, I absolutely don't understand why someone would trust masks more than vaccines when the latter does far, far more to protect you.

"I'm safe" is irrelevant. This isn't about protecting individuals. This is the human race vs. COVID. All of us. All our DNA, all our cells (and the other living things that can get COVID infections, too).  The more cells that are infected with COVID, the more chances it has to spread, the more chances it has to mutate into something worse for all of us.  Mutation rate is roughly proportional to the number of infected. It's about cutting down aggregate COVID numbers. Masks help do that. Vaccinations help a lot, but are non-trivial to create, distribute, and use. On this scale, the costs of masks is trivial. Anyone anywhere that there are enough cases that trace and quarantine isn't practical should be masking in public at all times. Additional measures beyond masks, vaccinations and good public hygiene awareness should be implemented on a rational cost-benefit basis, with stopping COVID (and not political PR points or entitled whining) as the primary factor.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/tedcruz/status/1425086627232325632?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/natalie_allison/status/1425449438202548224

Does anyone really not believe by now that the Republican Party isn't trying to start another insurrection? We're getting micro versions of it all over the country over similarly stupid wedge issue bulls****: this, critical race theory, QAnon, take your pick. It's getting old, but not getting any less startling and depressing.

I think we're way past "trying to start". While the shape of our emerging domestic conflict will be different from past struggles here and elsewhere, future historians will likely put the start somewhere around April 30th 2020 (the armed assault on the Michigan capital), if they don't just use Trump's election as the demarcation point.

Those of us who aren't Republicultists need to come to terms with reality; we are in the early stages of a novel sort of civil war. It's an ugly reality, but refusing to face it makes us no better than the right-wingers denying climate change and COVID.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

It's an incredible comment on American insularity that absolutely none of the discourse around dEltA and the vaccines incorporates... you know... places that have had significant outbreaks of it with large numbers of the population vaccinated.

Yeah. You'd think that would be the kind of thing that the CDC and national news organizations might pay attention to.
CDC reverses indoor mask policy, saying fully vaccinated people and kids should wear them indoors
 
Vaccinated People With Breakthrough Infections Can Spread The Delta Variant, CDC Says

masks indoors in much of the country, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was criticized for not citing data in making that move.

Now it has — and the data is sobering.

The study details a COVID-19 outbreak that started July 3 in Provincetown, Mass., involving 469 cases. It found that three-quarters of cases occurred in fully vaccinated people. Massachusetts has a high rate of vaccination: about 69% among eligible adults in the state at the time of the study.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/Jessicam6946/status/1426569590457487367

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

god i dont want to wear masks again

i did what they said and got vaccinated, so why can't things just go back to normal already

it's so depressing and they are never gonna let it end

Because half the country (mostly but not entirely Republican) didn't.

And you can relax, their absolutely will be an end. Either, 1)the government will mandate vaccines and other preventative measures, or 2) civilization will collapse and most of us will die, or 3) most everyone who doesn't take precautions (including vaccinations) will die. I'm rooting for option 1, but I'll take 3 as preferable to 2. And 2 & 3 seem to be the only ones the Republican Death Cult will allow.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://mobile.twitter.com/jennycohn1/status/1427400062523478033

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Florida threatens to remove school officials who disobey DeSantis

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ fight over school mask mandates took a dramatic turn on Tuesday after the state Board of Education ruled two defiant school districts broke state law and threatened to remove local elected officials for disobeying the GOP governor.

School leaders in Alachua County and Broward County, who are resisting DeSantis’ order banning mask mandates, now could face a range of possible punishments for defying the DeSantis administration, which has taken a hard line against enacting additional Covid-19 precautions despite a record-breaking surge in cases and hospitalizations brought on by the Delta variant.

DeSantis should be in jail awaiting charges, not the governor's mansion.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Jacksonville Regeneron clinic photo ‘doesn’t convey ... pain' of COVID-19 patients

Louie Lopez showed up to the downtown Jacksonville Main Library Conference Center on Wednesday in the early afternoon for a Regeneron therapy appointment. His primary care doctor recommended it after Lopez tested positive for COVID-19 and was experiencing moderate to severe symptoms.

While waiting in line for his turn, two other people got in the line behind Lopez. Both of them, he says, sat down on the floor immediately. They eventually laid down “sick and moaning.” Lopez, 59, told the Times-Union the woman pictured in yellow was dragging herself on the floor as the line slowly moved forward.

Lopez took a photo and sent it to his wife.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

An Alabama man who called himself the 'vaccine police' told pharmacists at a Missouri Walmart that they will be 'executed' if they continued giving COVID-19 shots


A man, who calls himself the "vaccine police," entered a Walmart in Springfield, Missouri to put staff "on public notice," telling pharmacists they could be "executed" if they carry out COVID-19 vaccine shots, according to reports.

The man identified as Christopher Key, an anti-vaxxer from Alabama, live-streamed the confrontation on Facebook last week, on August 16, according to the Springfield News-Leader.

The video shows Key and a handful of supporters praying in the parking lot of the supercenter before entering. During the prayer, a person could be heard saying: "Thank you, Lord Jesus, for waking up Springfield" and "help us put the fear of God in these pharmacists."

"Okay, guys, this is the vaccine police. We're outside of Walmart about to go in. We're going to put Walmart and the pharmacists on notice to let them know that there in violation of the Nuremberg Code," Key said in the 30-minute live stream.

Apparently he's going around to different places doing this.

https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1428076221427032067?s=20

See, this is why we don't need to stay in Afghanistan. We have our very own Taliban here at home.  (Hopefully we'll be more successful at defeating them than their Afghani counterparts.)

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Pressley Stutts, leader in Greenville County GOP takeover, dies of COVID-19

One of the chief architects behind a takeover of the Greenville County Republican Party that pledged support to former President Donald Trump has succumbed to COVID-19.

Pressley Stutts Jr., who three weeks ago was admitted to an Upstate hospital emergency wing and regularly posted on Facebook updates about his deteriorating condition, died Aug. 19, according to a morning post on his professional page.

Throughout his prolifically self-documented treatment, the 64-year-old U.S. Navy retiree remained steadfast in his opposition of requiring masks to mitigate spread and maintained vaccination should be a personal choice.

After sharing hope his condition would improve, Stutts posted for the final time on Aug. 13, when he announced he would be put on a ventilator.

This is my OWN decision,” he said. “I trust God to keep me. I ask you to trust Him, too.”

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Every time I see one of you posting a smug headline about an antivaxer/republican/libertarian dying of covid or being hospitalized for it I use one of my 57 twitter sockpuppets to do anti-vaccine posting.

So you're admitting to aiding biological terrorism.

That has a disproportionate impact on the supports of the political party to which he purports to belong.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1429823392992145416

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/mikememoli/status/1429834509340626950

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Is there any data on what % of new COVID cases, hospitalizations, and deaths are breakthrough cases?

The only data I could find was from Virginia.

Unfortunately, the CDC stopped collecting data on breakthrough cases back several months ago when they (along with Biden) were in full "mission accomplished" mode. And they haven't resumed it either, even now that it is very clear that they should.

Thus, we lack good clear information about what is going on in the US. The best sources of information on the US is probably the recent Mayo Clinic study. That only applies to what they are seeing in their particular hospitals, but it is presumably fairly similar in other hospitals in the US in other hospital systems.

That is not entirely accurate. Found after less than a minute googling:

State health departments voluntarily report vaccine breakthrough cases to CDC.  As of May 1, 2021, CDC transitioned from publicly reporting the passive surveillance of all vaccine breakthrough cases on the website to focus on hospitalized or fatal vaccine breakthrough cases due to any cause. This shift helped maximize the quality of the data collected on cases of greatest clinical and public health importance. Some health departments continue to report all vaccine breakthrough cases to the national database and continue to submit specimens to CDC for sequencing.  Previous data on all vaccine breakthrough cases reported to CDC from January–April 2021 are available.

Ultimately, CDC will use the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System (NNDSS) to identify vaccine breakthrough cases. Once CDC has confirmed that a state can report vaccination history data to NNDSS, CDC will identify vaccine breakthrough cases through that system. At that time, the state health departments can stop reporting cases directly into the REDCap database. After this change, CDC will upload the available data reported to NNDSS into REDCap database for further review and confirmation by the state health department.

Hospitalized or fatal COVID-19 vaccine breakthrough cases reported to CDC as of August 16, 2021

As of August 16, 2021, more than 168 million people in the United States had been fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

During the same time, CDC received reports from 49 U.S. states and territories of 9,716 patients with COVID-19 vaccine breakthrough infection who were hospitalized or died.
Total number of vaccine breakthrough infections reported to CDC
   Deaths [Total=1,829]    Hospitalized, non-fatal [Total=7,887]

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/TheTNHoller/status/1431320431064195075

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/TheTNHoller/status/1431320431064195075

People have to pay for this animal de-worming BS, and yet the vaccine is free.
A de-wormer specifically made for pigs or horses, versus a vaccine made for human beings.
I don't get it. It's maddening.

Everyone is getting vaccinated. Not getting vaccinated, and taking (or claiming to be taking) some non-standard treatment is a shibboleth. It also serves as a test of faith - "are you a real Republican, or are you a RINO?" As with many right-wing stupidities, It also serves as a demonstration of power, "See, you can't make us take your vaccine! We don't even need it!" And it serves as reinforcement; once you've committed yourself to rejecting vaccines and chugging livestock drugs, accepting that you were wrong means admitting that you were dangerously, abysmally stupid, which is a hard thing to do. There's also an element of patent-medicine con artistry: there's an element of 'truthiness' (it is a medical dug), it's unlikely to have immediate deleterious effects, and COVID isn't so deadly that no one recovers, all of which let it play on a multitude of cognitive biases and errors that human beings are prone to.

In short, it's because the Republican Party is a cult.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

The Delta variant is ripping through western Sydney's ethnic communities and starting up in Melbourne. Once in a household, it infects everyone who is unvaccinated.

When Dec 2021-Jan 2022 comes around in the US, watch out:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/health/2021-08-28/nsw-covid-number-high-lockdowns-victoria-cases/100409856

This a previous R factor of 1.3, things were manageable for COVID-19.

But the Delta variant has an estimated R factor of between 5-9. This will be near-impossible to stop in the winter months in the US in Dec/Jan.

It is estimated that in the next 10 years, based on those numbers, every person in the western world will get COVID-19 three times.

What would happen if COVID became as deadly for people under 60 as much as it was for the those over 70?

Republicans would end up losing a lot more elections.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

The Delta variant is ripping through western Sydney's ethnic communities and starting up in Melbourne. Once in a household, it infects everyone who is unvaccinated.

When Dec 2021-Jan 2022 comes around in the US, watch out:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/health/2021-08-28/nsw-covid-number-high-lockdowns-victoria-cases/100409856

This a previous R factor of 1.3, things were manageable for COVID-19.

But the Delta variant has an estimated R factor of between 5-9. This will be near-impossible to stop in the winter months in the US in Dec/Jan.

It is estimated that in the next 10 years, based on those numbers, every person in the western world will get COVID-19 three times.

What would happen if COVID became as deadly for people under 60 as much as it was for the those over 70?

Republicans would end up losing a lot more elections.

Unfortunately I’m not so sure that they would.

https://www.vox.com/22587443/covid-19-vaccine-refusal-hesitancy-variant-delta-cases-rate

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

And now children are being hit.
This is what the RINO Toms and Del Tacos of the World give you.
They are pro death, no way around it.

I've called the GOP a death cult, but I'm not sure that's the best way to describe them. It's not that they actively want to ill people for the sake of killing people.  It's that they demonstrate complete and total disregard for the life, safety and welfare of anyone else; depraved neglect. The GOP will quite literally kill thousands rather than don mildly uncomfortable clothing in public indoor spaces or recognize their own cognitive dissonance.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/daithaigilbert/status/1432329444652355587

Mr Steele (no known relation to Christopher Steele of Steele Report fame), was also know for his accusations that NASA operates a Martian child slavery ring.