COVID-19 Megathread 6: Return of the Omicron

[emailking]

If you're not vaccinated, wear a mask, for all of the reasons we've discussed. If you're vaccinated, you don't need to wear a mask because you're most likely not going to catch Covid. If you're one of the unlucky few who gets sick anyway, then sure wear a mask then.

[emailking]

Is it just around them they make you mask? You don't have to wear it in your room I hope.

[emailking]

Whether you call the pandemic over or not doesn't really matter. COVID-19's descendants are going to hang around, maybe for as long as humans do.

[emailking]

Whether you call the pandemic over or not doesn't really matter. COVID-19's descendants are going to hang around, maybe for as long as humans do.

Yeah, but who cares from a societal perspective?  If you’re vaccinated, you should see those as acceptable odds.  If you don’t, you should quarantine independently and probably stop doing things like drive a car or unplug power cords, lol.

I care. I'd rather not get the flu and colds, and someday some Covid variant, even if it's not that big of a deal. These things never ended and probably won't.

[emailking]

Is it just around them they make you mask? You don't have to wear it in your room I hope.

No, not in my room. But my stepmother reiterated to me what my father wants me to do this morning, and it's just compounding other issues I'm already facing. If he had gotten his vaccine by now, this probably wouldn't be an issue. And I still find it ironic, given that early in the pandemic, I was the one who was panicked, and he told me that I was overreacting and needed to calm down. Moreover, as I've said before, he is a two-time Trump voter, so that makes his views on this even more strange.

Adding to this today, I was out in the kitchen earlier, and my father came from the hallway. I wasn't wearing my mask, and he demanded to know where it was. I had to hastily put it on before he came into the kitchen. It's especially frustrating to have something like that happen on a day like this.

Your dad sounds super paranoid. People who love together shouldn't be wearing masks around each other unless someone is sick maybe.

[emailking]

Yeah probably nothing you can do unfortunately.

[emailking]

This data is from England and a few days old, but I think it shows the risk that the health system gets overwhelmed is pretty minimal. Unfortunately due to the Delta variant and vaccine hesitancy (in the US) there will be unnecessary deaths, but the justification for an outright lockdown was to protect the health system. Now that the vaccine is available, people will just have to take personal responsibility for their health. Mask mandates are pretty costless so a few limited restrictions to save lives are justifiable. And in countries like NZ that eliminated rather than tried to suppress the virus, we may be able to try a different strategy for our full return to normal.

I don't get why NZ hasn't been vaccinating more. You have no virus but don't you want to get rid of all the international travel restrictions & isolation?

[emailking]

There's a large segment of the population in this country that remains unvaccinated, not to mention those that are under 12 and cannot get the vaccine. This is only allowing for new mutations and variants to develop as the virus gets an exponential chance to keep replicating. It's apparently not common sense that stopping transmission stops replication. Every day and every chance this virus gets to mutate is one that could render our vaccines useless or even just far less effective.

Why don't you have this concern for the flu? Every person it infects is a chance for it to mutate into something deadlier that evades all our vaccines. Right?

[emailking]

Olivia Rodrigo to meet with Biden, Fauci to promote vaccines

Teen pop sensation Olivia Rodrigo will visit the White House Wednesday as part of the administration’s effort to promote vaccinations to young Americans.

According to a White House official, the 18-year-old former Disney Channel star will meet with President Biden and Dr. Anthony Fauci to film videos stressing why it's important for young people to be vaccinated, incorporating a question-and-answer format.

Rodrigo, known for her meteoric rise on the teen pop scene with music detailing heartbreak and empowerment, boasts an expansive following, particularly with members of Gen Z. The videos will be featured on her social platforms, which are followed by over 28 million people, as well as the various White House social media channels.

https://news.yahoo.com/olivia-rodrigo-to-meet-with-biden-fauci-to-promote-vaccines-191435446.html

[emailking]

We can't hold up society for those who won't get vaccinated, but nobody deserves COVID.

They should not be surprised if they get it of course.

[emailking]

Well the airline mask mandate ends Sept 13, although it's possible it could get extended again I suppose.

I saw a video of a family getting kicked off a flight because they couldn't get their 2 year old to wear a mask, and the attendants would not accept them holding the mask over her face. I didn't think that was right. This was like a year ago.

[emailking]

I think the vaccines work, but we were clearly sold a bill of goods when they said the release of vaccines would bring us back to normal.

The vaccines have been out for 7 months, yet places like California, Hawaii, and some other countries keep doubling down on restrictions. Things appear to be just fine in my small city, but other places aren't so lucky.

They said vaccines would mean the end of restrictions. They flat-out lied to us. They didn't make an honest mistake. They intentionally lied. When I say "they", I mean the media and government officials.

It seems to be only small areas of the country that are like this though. Most everywhere, things are back to normal except there are still some people voluntarily wearing masks inside.

[emailking]

It's not adapting to anything that's shot into your arm but it's adapting to the antibodies you develop as a result of that. Semantics.

[emailking]

If this is only impacting the unvaccinated, why is there a need for reintroducing restrictions?  The argument is that unvaccinated people are still spreading the illness to people who are wearing protection and vaccinated, but that doesn't really make sense. The surges seem to be in primarily urban (Democrat) areas, see the new mask mandate in Los Angeles County as an example.

I also don't understand why doctors are suggesting children be forced to wear masks for the 2021-22 school year.  I thought all the vulnerable people have already been vaccinated?  Only 336 children have died of COVID-19 since the pandemic began.  Seems like a massive overreaction, again.

I'm proud to say I do not believe the fake news media, and haven't really bought into this "pandemic" from the start.  People like Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott are going to have huge bursts in popularity when Democrat run areas continue to be run into the ground by useless and unnecessary restrictions.  The vax rate is never going over 60% in America, so I guess you'll either be living in this sh**tty "new normal" or giving up and living your life at some point.  Will the left still be wearing masks in 2022? What about 2024 or 2028? It's hilarious but really sad.

I don't think the kids should be required to wear masks in schools anymore. But you don't need to put pandemic in scare quotes. It absolutely is a pandemic by any reasonable standard of what that entails.

And I agree this is probably going to get merged into Part 6. If not, oh well.

[emailking]

The Delta Force Awakens might work too.

[emailking]

https://twitter.com/MeidasTouch/status/1417158581258899456

I'm pretty sure all this means is that if they self report their vaccination they no longer have to take and self-report their temperature before entering the workplace. I guess it's kind of a vaccine passport, but they don't have to prove it and they're not prevented from going anywhere, just have to do the temp screening.

[emailking]

FoX News now has a vaccine passport for its employees.

LMAO.
Are you sh**tting me?

I posted in Part 6 but I don't think it really constitutes a vaccine passport. Currently they have to take their temperature and self-report that everyday before entering the workplace. If they self-report they're vaccinated, they don't have to do that anymore. They don't have to prove they're vaccinated, and being vaccinated just lets them skip the self-reported daily health screening.

[emailking]

On USG maybe but I think the 2020 election night thread (over 800 pages) is the longest.

[emailking]

US life expectancy falls by more than a year due to Covid-19 pandemic, CDC study says

Life expectancy in the United States fell by a year and a half in 2020 primarily due to increases in death due to the Covid-19 pandemic, according to early data released by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"U.S. life expectancy at birth for 2020, based on nearly final data, was 77.3 years, the lowest it has been since 2003," researchers at the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics wrote in a new report published on Wednesday.

US life expectancy declined from 78.8 years in 2019 to 77.3 years in 2020, the researchers reported, and Covid-19 deaths contributed to 73.8% of that decline.

The report was based on provisional data from death and birth records for the year 2020, processed by the National Center for Health Statistics. Since the study relied on recorded deaths and births, some deaths or births that had not yet been counted or recorded were not included in the early data.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/21/health/life-expectancy-covid-19-pandemic-cdc-study-wellness/index.html

I feel like this was reported a few months ago, but this is apparently a new study.

[emailking]

It sounds to me like they just made this life expectancy calculation based on the 2020 data and nothing else.  In other words, they are assuming that 2020 represents the new normal going forward, and that covid will be the 3rd leading cause of death in the US for the foreseeable future.  Which is just unbelievably stupid.

Hmm?

Life expectancy is just an average. Weighted maybe, but an average. If a bunch of people die unexpectedly, however that happens, life expectancy goes down because of it, even if we know that won't repeat.

[emailking]

I don’t care how many secondary effects you care to count; it still doesn’t get anywhere close to this estimate.  Has anyone defending this actually tried to think through the numbers they are implying?

It seems surprising to me but I'd be very reticent to declare their analysis wrong, which has probably been reviewed by several experts. Maybe CNN is misinterpreting it? I don't know.

[emailking]

And this is exactly what I’ve been suggested is wrong with this study.  I think it is assuming that 2020 is now a representative year, and that if 0.2% of people died of covid that year, we should assume thjat 0.2% of people will keep dying of covid every year going forward.  And this is just silly.

But is it assuming that against best practices for calculating life expectancy, or is that just how a life expectancy calculation works? In other words, don't the other years where the extra Covid deaths don't happen have to elapse first before they have the impact you suggested, even if we're highly confident they will elapse that way?

[emailking]

Here's the CDC report:

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/vsrr/VSRR015-508.pdf

Nothing jumps out at me as an error. It seems that's just how it's calculated. I don't think there's an issue with reporting it. You've given the caveats. Covid deaths will likely decline so life expectancy will likely go back up.

[emailking]

NFL says coronavirus outbreaks among unvaccinated players may lead to forfeits this season

If a National Football League game cannot be rescheduled and is canceled due to a Covid-19 outbreak among unvaccinated players, that team will have to forfeit and will be credited with a loss, the NFL said in a league-wide memo obtained by CNN.

The new rule makes being unvaccinated a competitive disadvantage this year, all part of the league's push to get players and staff inoculated ahead of the coming season. The NFL has also said that any team that vaccinates 85% of its players and staff can relax their safety protocols and has applied looser rules to vaccinated players.

"If a game cannot be rescheduled within the current 18-week schedule and is cancelled due to a Covid outbreak among non-vaccinated players on one of the competing teams, the club with the outbreak will forfeit the contest and will be deemed to have played 16 games for purposes of draft, waiver priority, etc. For the purposes of playoff seeding, the forfeiting team will be credited with a loss and the other team will be credited with a win," the NFL memo sent Thursday states.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/22/sport/nfl-covid-forfeit-vaccine/index.html

[emailking]

67,000 cases today.