COVID-19 Megathread 6: Return of the Omicron

[GP270watch]

https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1487247488780316672

Man lost his job, his life, widowed his wife and left 4 children fatherless, crazy.

 More police died of Covid-19 the past 2 years than anything else, this is the deadliest thing going for cops.

I can certainly sympathize with his family, given my own father's death back in November. But exactly how many law enforcement officers have died from the virus? I've never seen any figures.

Covid-19 was the leading cause of death among U.S. police officers in 2021, a report says.

A total of 458 officers died in the line of duty in the country last year, making it the deadliest year in more than 90 years and a 55 percent increase from 2020, according to preliminary data compiled by the organization. Of those, it found that 301 federal, state, tribal and local law enforcement officers had died because of Covid-19.

 

[GP270watch]

Day 1 of no restrictions here in Denmark. Feels great. Case numbers are extremely high - more than 40k a day (10 times more than the peak last winter)- but basically nobody gets seriously sick from Omicron here. The total number of people in intensive care is now a paltry 28 persons and is now the lowest since october, which was pre-Omicron. Basically, we have had record high infections throughout january while at the very same time the number of infected in intensive care has fallen by 60%. This is because basically everybody who needed intensive care from COVID had the Delta variant and now that we basically only have Omicron nobody needs intensive care anymore. The remaining 28 are mostly NOT there because of their Omicron infection, but just happen to have it. This is even more pronounced when you look at deaths, where pretty much everyone currently registrered as dying from COVID is actually dying WITH COVID instead, unlike earlier in the pandemic.  

I have supported restrictions and mandates since the beginning, but people need to start to realize that the Omicron variant really isn't very dangerous and that we have ALL the medical tools to combat this disease now in vaccines and therapeutics (most notably Paxlovid from Pfizer). I have no idea why other countries aren't doing like Denmark and the UK at this point. I imagine it has to be right around the corner.

Also, from a political perspective, democrats are gonna get killed if they insist on heavy restrictions way after they cease to be necessary.

 The Dominican Republic opened up travel to foreigners with very few restrictions but they organized a national campaign to vaccinate every hospitality worker that is expected to interact with tourist. So they prioritized vaccinating some 174,000 people. So far this has worked, tourism is rebounding to record levels and the death rate and cases is lower than United States and many of the European countries the travelers are coming from.

Why Is Everyone Going to the Dominican Republic?

[GP270watch]

 Covid cases are crashing and politicians are dropping Covid-19 measures, it's amazing how that works.

[GP270watch]

 You would think the fact that hundreds of million of people have got various Covid-19 vaccines all around the globe and there is no trail of death would be enough for these morons.

[GP270watch]

I just do not see the use of masking outside.

Allergies are still a thing and it's not uncommon in spring and summer (even before covid) to see people wearing surgical masks while on riding mowers.

 I was using a N95 mask for yardwork and woodworking long before Covid-19. They work fantastically.