COVID-19 Megathread 6: Return of the Omicron

[Roll Roons]

https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1421229518749044739

My favorite four words to describe the media prove to be fitting once again.

Their behavior during COVID plays a big part in why I hate them so much. 

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https://twitter.com/DrArwady/status/1425832745851179023

TLDR: Lollapalooza, where hundreds of thousands of people were packed closely together at a festival, was NOT a superspreader. They required proof of vaccination or a daily negative test. It's almost like vaccines work or something?

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https://twitter.com/DrArwady/status/1425832745851179023
TLDR: Lollapalooza, where hundreds of thousands of people were packed closely together at a festival, was NOT a superspreader. They required proof of vaccination or a daily negative test. It's almost like vaccines work or something?

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?

I never said anything about the location or the partisan balance of Chicago/Illinois. My point is that very few cases results from Lolla despite it being a massive event with no distancing and few masks. This shows that vaccines remain very effective, despite you seemingly wishing for them to not be.

[Roll Roons]

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.

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I don't think people realize how much vaccine skepticism and hesitancy these booster shots are going to inspire. Booster shots every 8 months is shocking, if that's truly necessary (aside from the most vulnerable people in our population) then these vaccines are an embarrassing failure.

For the record, I don't believe that these vaccines are actually so useless as to need another in 8 months, but I'm saying that this announcement will destroy confidence in their effectiveness. 

At this point I don't care about vaccine hesitancy. If Trumpists refuse to take the vaccine because they think it contains 5G chips and it's a plot by Hillary Clinton and Bill Gates to mind control them, they can feel free to get sick and die of COVID. As a vaccinated person I need to know the truth about how effective the vaccine is against the dominant variant. If the vaccine has lost some potency against Delta and I need a booster to protect myself, then I'll happily get one. It would be a far greater sin to withhold this information in the name of a "noble white lie", we all saw how "Masks Don't Work" turned out.

Besides, I don't understand the big negative about a booster when yearly flu shots are well established. There is a bizarre notion on this forum that we must continue to insist that the vaccine is an impenetrable COVID repelling force field, in the face of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary about Delta, and if one says anything negative about the vaccine, he is a mouth-breathing antivaxxer. No, we cannot hold on to this lie, it would be far more productive to figure out how to adjust, be it simply accepting the risk, or wearing a mask and staying away from crowds, or getting a booster, or whatever.

Not really. Maybe they're not quite as effective as they were against the original strain, but they remain very good at stopping severe outcomes. They basically turn COVID into a cold. I think that's an acceptable level of risk.

Despite all the fearmongering about Provincetown, very few people were hospitalized and no one died. Lollapalooza had nearly 400000 attendees, but only 200 cases with no hospitalizations or deaths.

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New Zealand is locking down the whole country for 3 days over 1 case.

Absolute insanity. Their population is smaller than Colorado's. Is it that hard to vaccinate people?

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Interesting. Are there other organizations and facilities he can do this for?

Law enforcement, and other first responders?

IIRC, he's done it for federal workers. Speaking as one, that should include staff on Capitol Hill.

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Let’s see how the talking points are doing…

Florida is below the national average in cases per capita
Florida is below the national average in deaths per capita
Florida is near the middle of the pack in cases per capita
Florida is near the middle of the pack in deaths per capita
Florida is doing better than New York/New Jersey in cases per capita
Florida is doing better* than New York/New Jersey in deaths per capita
Florida had a spike but it’s getting better now and it’ll fall below other states

*For obvious reasons that ignore context.

Not looking especially good for DeSantis apologists here, unless we buy into the idea that the Covid statistics are largely beyond his control, which undercuts the argument that people made (conveniently when the statistics looked better) that he had done a “great job” with the pandemic because of the statistics. If the death statistics get worse for Florida, what is the new talking point going to be?

The obvious reason being that Cuomo and Murphy did objectively terrible jobs. You can admit this fact without necessarily being an apologist for DeSantis.

Plus if people chose to not get vaccinated by now, it's on them for being idiots. Government can only do so much.

[Roll Roons]

Let’s see how the talking points are doing…

Florida is below the national average in cases per capita
Florida is below the national average in deaths per capita
Florida is near the middle of the pack in cases per capita
Florida is near the middle of the pack in deaths per capita
Florida is doing better than New York/New Jersey in cases per capita
Florida is doing better* than New York/New Jersey in deaths per capita
Florida had a spike but it’s getting better now and it’ll fall below other states

*For obvious reasons that ignore context.

Not looking especially good for DeSantis apologists here, unless we buy into the idea that the Covid statistics are largely beyond his control, which undercuts the argument that people made (conveniently when the statistics looked better) that he had done a “great job” with the pandemic because of the statistics. If the death statistics get worse for Florida, what is the new talking point going to be?

The obvious reason being that Cuomo and Murphy did objectively terrible jobs. You can admit this fact without necessarily being an apologist for DeSantis.

Plus if people chose to not get vaccinated by now, it's on them for being idiots. Government can only do so much.

If you seriously think the only reason New York and New Jersey have such high deaths per capita is the incompetency of both governors...you really shouldn’t ever be posting on here. It’s a part of it, but that ignores a lot of context. That’s like arguing the leadership of Bergamo is somehow worse than the leadership of say, Bergamo is completely at fault for having relatively higher death rates from Covid (but ironically low case rates in total because of testing discrepancies)

The first place in the US to experience an outbreak was actually Seattle. But Inslee didn't go and throw positive patients in nursing homes.

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190K cases today, a record for this wave.

I'm guessing deaths will be a record too once the backlog comes through.

Everyone is just shrugging their shoulders at this point. I just got home from a trip to Virginia, and it basically looked like normal times.

yeah... everyone besides the terminally media poisoned has stopped caring and for good reason too

I wish you were right. I'm a congressional staffer and the US Capitol is still not open to visitors unless they're accompanied by a staff member.

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https://twitter.com/accnetwork/status/1433916233599143944

Resistance libs getting up in arms about this video without realizing that Virginia Tech has a vaccine mandate.

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https://twitter.com/accnetwork/status/1433916233599143944
Resistance libs getting up in arms about this video without realizing that Virginia Tech has a vaccine mandate.

The stadium is open to the public, did they impose the mandate on everyone? Did they check the vaccine card at the door? I highly doubt it.

I didn't say the stadium should have been closed, there are economic costs to that which at this point nobody has the will to pay. But it's clearly a highly risky activity and people who want to avoid catching COVID-19 should stay away. It's entirely reasonable for public health officials to message against it and discourage people from attending. People who attend do so at their own risk, there are plenty of allowed activities that involve taking on personal risk.

Guess what? People die in car accidents. People die from bee stings. People die from alcohol poisoning. People die from falling down stairs. Risk is inherently a part of life.

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I think right now the U.S. is at 21 days in a row of declining cases. This hasn't happened since May.

Also, it does look like Alabama may be the first state to have full herd immunity.

If they are, they made it much harder than it needed to be.

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Bear in mind that at this time last year, cases were already starting to rise.

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Parent sues Wisconsin school district after child contracts COVID from unmasked, symptomatic classmate

According to the lawsuit, the board in May removed a student mask requirement and other Covid-19 mitigation measures. One of Jensen’s son’s classmates allegedly came to school with symptoms in September and didn’t wear a mask. Jensen’s son was seated next to the sick student and was wearing a mask but still became infected. Jensen’s other two sons later tested positive as well.

Politics followers probably won't have much trouble guessing which county this occurred in.

Is it crucial?

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How many counties have 90%+ of the eligible population vaccinated? Do any?

I read that in Montgomery County, Md., it was 99% or something.

I grew up in Montgomery County, MD, and it would not surprise me at all if it had the highest vax rate in the country.  I read somewhere that Montgomery County also had the lowest smoking rate in the country (even lower than every county in Utah!).

Ironically, I now live in Montgomery County, Virginia…and it’s just not the same lol.

Kudos to Montgomery County MD, but why is it like that?  I'm not familiar with its demographics.

It's a very affluent and educated county right next to DC. The NIH is actually based there and it's a hub for biotech research. Given all these factors, I'm not surprised at all about its vaccination rate being extremely high.

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In general, why is it that black people seem to have lower vaccination rates than Hispanics/Natives? It’s something that sticks out on that map.

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Alright Democrats, get ready for 2010 on steroids.

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https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1466776769369976839
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/03/world/omicron-norway-christmas-party.html
A Christmas party in Norway becomes a possible Omicron-spreading event.

Around half of the people who attended an office Christmas party in Oslo, where only vaccinated employees were admitted, have tested positive for the coronavirus after one guest recently returned from South Africa was found to carry the new Omicron variant, local health authorities said on Friday.

More than 120 people attended the event, held a week ago by a solar power company. Of the positive tests sequenced so far, between 15 and 20 were likely to be the Omicron variant, according to Dr. Tine Ravlo, a local chief physician involved in tracking the outbreak, who added that not all of the 60 coronavirus cases found so far had yet been fully checked for the variant.

“We are expecting more of them to likely be Omicron infections,” she said.

A spokesman for the company, Scatec, said that only vaccinated staff had been admitted to the party, and everyone had tested negative for the coronavirus before the event.

Wow! Everyone's vaccinated. Everyone's tested negative prior to the party. Most for on the "younger" side. 60 of 120 got the virus. At least 15-20 Omicron (the rest of the tests hasn't been sequenced yet?).

A lot still unclear - how old they were, were they boosted, when they got vaccinated, does the rest got Delta etc - but wow, Omicron seems to be a game-changer.

The relevant question is: were they hospitalized and how sick did they get?

This times a thousand. I remember the doomers were fearmongering about vaccines supposedly being ineffective after a bunch of people got infected at Provincetown over Fourth of July weekend, but it turned out that very few of them got seriously ill and none died.

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https://twitter.com/Timodc/status/1469399268716777474

Polis is my favorite Democratic governor by a mile.

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I'm confused as to why you all are so strung up over wearing masks. You have the freedom to do literally whatever you did pre-pandemic, yet you're all acting as if we're still living under March 2020-era lockdowns because some places want you to wear a face covering.

Do you still have a hard time breathing with it on, or something?

It’s obviously not on the scale of March 2020, but it is definitely not true that everything that was open pre-pandemic is now available.  Concerts, festivals, and conventions are still being postponed.  International travel is still really difficult.  And many of the restaurants around me still have not reopened for in-person dining.

I'm a staffer on Capitol Hill and the complex still isn't open to the public unless you have a staff escort. They don't even seem to have any sort of plan or timeline and it really pisses me off.

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I'm confused as to why you all are so strung up over wearing masks. You have the freedom to do literally whatever you did pre-pandemic, yet you're all acting as if we're still living under March 2020-era lockdowns because some places want you to wear a face covering.

Do you still have a hard time breathing with it on, or something?

It’s obviously not on the scale of March 2020, but it is definitely not true that everything that was open pre-pandemic is now available.  Concerts, festivals, and conventions are still being postponed.  International travel is still really difficult.  And many of the restaurants around me still have not reopened for in-person dining.

At this point the only point where there is still government intervention is international travel, and issues are most likely due to the actions of foreign governments as the US travel policies are rather mild, just get vaccinated and tested. All the other points are the free market reacting to the new normal. So what's your problem? You want to force the free market to cater towards the old normal that no longer exists? Force conventions and concerts to be held despite lack of demand and at risk of legal liability for hosting superspreader events?

lacK Of DeMAnd: https://blockclubchicago.org/2021/08/02/lollapalooza-had-more-than-385000-people-officials-announce-after-lightfoot-defended-holding-fest-during-pandemic/

lacK Of DeMAnd: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/29/spider-man-no-way-home-ticket-demand-crashed-box-office-sites.html

lacK Of DeMAnd: https://wolverineswire.usatoday.com/2021/12/01/michigan-football-vs-ohio-state-ratings-most-watched-college-football-game/

I'm seeing the new Spider-Man movie next Thursday night and the theater is almost completely booked. This is in Washington DC, not Trump Country Oklahoma. You may not be ready and probably never will be for the rest of your life, but most people are.

Last year, gas was cheap because people weren't getting out that much. But guess what? Gas prices have gone up this year because people are traveling again.

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Well, Trump is apparently a huge germaphobe. But it's not clear if these rules were set by Trump Org or by the state/city.

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Assuming he's vaccinated (which I would think he almost certainly is), a positive test by itself is meaningless. This is only newsworthy if he ends up in the hospital.

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https://ew.com/movies/spider-man-no-way-home-second-best-opening-day-in-box-office-history/

But the doomers were saying no one would ever want to leave their houses ever again.