COVID-19 Megathread 6: Return of the Omicron

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Remember when they said it would be two weeks to flatten the curve?

Pepperidge Farms remembers

I remember the two years and more since, during which Americans (overwhelmingly Republicans) have adamantly refused to follow the advice they were given then.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

This country is in such an abject condition that being on the receiving end of deranged schizophrenic rants from street-dwelling drug addicts is widely accepted as an unavoidable fact of life. It doesn't have to be this way.

If we don't remember to vote Democratic, we'll end up having deranged schizophrenic rants from White House-dwelling madmen instead.
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1253448500676898818

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/charles_gaba/status/1523612439027195904

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Okay, so wear your mask forever. No one is stopping you. Leave the rest of us alone.

That isn't what I'm saying. I'm saying there is a time and a place for masks. People like you seem to think it's the most egregious violation of human rights ever.

True, those places are called medical facilities. I have no issue wearing a mask at the doctor for the rest of my life. Anywhere else? Passe and close to pointless.

Enjoy all that smoke, paint, metal, dust and other particulates in your lungs - or spend your entire life never making a single damned thing while avoiding painting, fires, construction and industrial spaces.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/YouGovAmerica/status/1573005455634231296

This is genuinely surprising  

Democrats are scared of their own shadow and a lot of Republicans don't want to credit Biden.

I think Biden is doing a good job overall, but he and his administration have seriously dropped the ball on COVID  at this point. The US should have a national contact tracing system, mask mandates should be mandatory in areas where it's still spreading. There are still hundreds of deaths from it per day.

Whether COVID is technically still a pandemic I don't know, but it is neither gone nor done. Perhaps the Biden Administration is bending to popular will as it increasingly seems to ignore COVID, but I do not think it is well done. What's being ignored is a horror show with vast impact not just now and over the last two and a half years, but forward for decades.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

I don't know what you're talking about. I went to CVS recently to get my flu shot, and I'd say most people weren't wearing masks.

That's because everyone stopped when they realized it didn't work.

Almost everyone, at any rate. You still have ~10% or so of the public where I live donning masks. I occasionally still see entire families where everyone, parents and children alike, are masked. In fact, I had to check out such a family at my job just yesterday. A half-dozen of my coworkers are still masking up, and one of them told me that she's "gotten used to" and seems intent on masking up permanently from now on. My stepmother still masks up whenever she goes out in public and has no intentions of stopping anytime soon. It's obvious that there will be a segment of the population masking up in perpetuity. It's their right, but it's unfortunate.

So unfortunate that people are choosing to protect themselves from the #3 cause of death in the United States, making the MAGAT death cult sad. (Whether or not masking makes sense depends on likelihood of exposure, to COVID (and other pathogens), which is still far too high in much of the US.)