COVID-19 Megathread 6: Return of the Omicron

[Pericles]

Who really has a Christmas party with 100 people anyway?

[Pericles]

How have the grey cardboard vaccine cards still not been modernized? Driver's licenses switched to plastic 50 years ago for a reason.

Wouldn't you just use a QR code?

[Pericles]

These people are worse than politicians, just awful that they have the ego to be major policy makers and that the rest of the country lets them get away with it.

[Pericles]

Obviously masks have a cost, and they shouldn't be legally required forever. It's a pretty mild cost, and it's fine to wear it for many hours at a time. It has so far provided a much greater benefit in terms of the reduced spread of Covid and lives saved to the cost. It's the wrong time to abandon all measures when it's still sensible to spread out how many people get infected and use the easy measures to prevent infections if possible. Once the death toll is not in the thousands every day and hundreds of thousands every year, then it will be sensible to cautiously take the final steps out of legal restrictions. I have mixed feelings about what people should do with their personal responsibility-it would be good for public health if we wore masks more than in 2019 but I don't actually like wearing masks and once I don't need to I'd prefer to not wear them.

[Pericles]

It is ridiculous we are being asked to take these vaccines every six months or so when once a year should suffice:

Pfizer: Vaccine targeting Omicron will be ready in March

The vaccines were only just invented and it's understandable that they aren't perfect. The scientific progress has been amazing and if this had happened any earlier, the world would have had to get through the pandemic without vaccines for at least several years. As time goes on, the protection we have is going to keep on increasing, even if more variants are some more bumps in the road.

[Pericles]

2 is false, every new variant has been deadlier than the previous ones until Omicron miraculously became milder. It should also never be a goal for people with Covid to live their lives if they feel up to it. People should stay home until they're not infectious whenever they're sick, not just with Covid, and the government should support people so they can do this. We should not think it is OK to infect others.

[Pericles]

Do boosters limit the spread of Omicron like second doses did with Delta, or what kind of effect do they have? If they do limit the spread, then this would be a point in favor of measures that limit transmission-though it's now hard to argue that a full lockdown would be an overreaction to Omicron. Very few countries have high booster rates yet so the real world evidence isn't there yet, the UK is one of the highest in the world and their cases happen to be plummeting but this could also just be a fluke of timing.

A second question, why does the gap between first doses and second doses seem to be so large? Taking the data at face value, 13% of those 12 and over are just single dosed. I doubt that many people just forgot or didn't bother, and the vaccine rollout has been going for a long time now.

[Pericles]

It looks like the Omicron wave has just peaked nationally anyway, so hopefully the US will be in a much better position soon.

[Pericles]

The midterms are going to be a total and complete slaughter.

The framing of this question isn't great. It's possible to think that America shouldn't pursue an elimination strategy, that Covid will be something to live with, but there may be some restrictions that are right now still worth it. Plus the goal should be to make hospitalisations and deaths fall to a much lower and normal amount. 

[Pericles]

Omicron at the moment is a bad trade because cases have increased more than its virulence has reduced compared to Delta. However, cases are clearly falling so in the long-term the death toll from Omicron should be lower.

[Pericles]

The study isn't even peer-reviewed, it is nonsense that goes against easily observable experiences from different countries and common sense.

[Pericles]

There's been 900,000 deaths. If you know 350 Americans there's a good chance you know someone who died. I do!

Meanwhile I don't know anyone living in New Zealand who has got Covid. I have been worried about my family in Europe though.

[Pericles]

One more thing about the John Hopkins study-it seems to get the correlation the wrong way around. More Covid spread and more deaths can be correlated with longer lockdowns, but the longer lockdown is the effect of the situation being worse when the lockdown began. The study excluded early, preventative lockdowns, which were the type used by countries that eliminated Covid.

[Pericles]

Illinois Gov. Pritzker set to announce the end of the indoor mask mandate for non-school settings tomorrow. Such an order is set to take effect before March 1st.

https://twitter.com/MaryAnnAhernNBC/status/1491227463338311681

It should be dropped for schools first but kids don't vote.

[Pericles]

My estimates of maskage at various places around here:

My local Kroger was maybe 60 to 80% masked at the height of mask mania. Now it's about 20 to 30%. Even some employees are unmasked.

Kroger stores in rich neighborhoods were almost 100% masked.

Convenience stores were often 0% masked even at the height of mask mania.

Outdoor areas are usually 0% masked, except for small groups who gather on the sidewalks in front of high-end specialty shops. Downtown Cincinnati where "serious" business and financial types go is usually more masky.

Festivals and big outdoor public parties are maybe 5% if that.

Restaurants have a low maskage rate.

Parks are 0% now and were maybe 5% at the peak. Playgrounds are and were 0%.

I haven't been to a library or the indoor part of a school or college since this started, so I don't know about those. The outdoor parts of colleges were maybe 20 or 30% at the peak.

I think the only sporting event I've been to since this started was a high school baseball game last March. It was maybe 10% among the fans, possibly 0% among players.

Masks actually were mandatory at some of the places listed here, yet usually there was not full compliance, because this isn't a military dictatorship.

Or a society where people look out for each other. No wonder the results were so poor.

[Pericles]

https://twitter.com/ForecasterEnten/status/1491421262522064899

Tick-tack, Biden...

The Omicron variant was discovered about two months ago and the wave has now passed. It would have been silly to make that curve even steeper.

[Pericles]

It is time for them for once to trust the people and stop demanding they deserve special respect just cause of their title. No they should have to earn it like everyone else

Uh, have you ever met the people?  They're shooting horse worm goo up their butts and claiming it cures the covid.

The vast majority of people arent like that

Personal responsibility isn't a realistic pandemic policy if you want to limit the spread of the virus. Enough people will be irresponsible to spread a deadly virus and their choices affect the rest of society.

[Pericles]

I genuinely hope masks stay as a fashion thing. Not because I like it, but ONLY because it will be a very slight bit of joy in an otherwise dark time (the early RP state will be the worst prolly) to see the conservatives getting upset.

Yes my parents may be gone, I may be in a cell, but at least the cons will be a bit triggered.

Study: Masks make people look more attractive. I wouldn't know if this is accurate, but I know for some people the area covered by the mask is less attractive than the rest of their face.

[Pericles]

I wouldn't know if this is accurate, but I know for some people the area covered by the mask is less attractive than the rest of their face.

I shouldn't be forced to wear a mask just because of other people's insecurities.

If you think that's what I said, you're an idiot.

[Pericles]

Oh by the way, the pandemic is far from over and COVID will come back in force. Mask mandates will come back. My bet remains open to any takers.

It is why Republicans should put up ballot measures in blue states that ban the government from having the power to implement mask mandates.

And if a new pandemic comes around that can kill lots more people, those governments will still have the power to lock down almost everyone.

[Pericles]

Maybe it should have been linked to a vaccination target? That would both provide clarity and give people an incentive to get vaccinated.

Of course it's hard to know what's achievable, in America you can barely achieve 70% of adults double dosed while in New Zealand it takes three months of all adults being eligible to get to 90%.

[Pericles]

One thing I have thought of is how Long COVID and permanent damage from COVID will be dealt with. How will this change our fiscal direction, our social insurance programs, and how will these sorts of medical conditions be dealt with on a medical grounds. Will there be treatments for these things?

I don't think Long Covid is a severe enough threat to limit people's freedoms and even hurt the economy.

[Pericles]

Look at the situation in Hong Kong right now. Trying to eradicate covid was always going to back fire.

https://twitter.com/hkfp/status/1502229722884804610

As has been pointed out, NZ has similar case numbers but hospitals are coping and deaths are small-7 a day is the record so far. This is because when we had low cases we got vaccinated and boosted, elderly Hong Kongers didn't.

[Pericles]

Two years ago WHO declared Covid a pandemic...

I am proud I have been skeptical and fighting against Covid measures since that time!

So you're the one responsible for the million deaths in the US?

I can not be held responsible for that. And many deaths were not entirely related to covid.

It's more likely that Covid deaths were undercounted because not every death would have been tested for Covid and excess deaths were a bit higher. Anyway, the US failed because it didn't stop enough people getting infected before they could get vaccinated and protected, and then failed to get enough of their population vaccinated. The next pandemic, hopefully a century away but plausibly sooner, the government needs to step up more and people themselves also need to be more responsible.

[Pericles]

The way to do it would be to get the vaccination rate up. However, that would have to be done by forcing people to protect themselves when they clearly don't want it, so I understand why that might not be a viable option. I feel like the booster rollout has been neglected, from the CDC data it seems like only a third of 12+ have been boosted. That's quite different from other countries, in the UK it's 2/3rds and 60% in New Zealand (in those examples, only 18+ are eligible but out of fairness I'm using 12+). The vibe I've been getting is that it hasn't been promoted that heavily.