COVID-19 Megathread 6: Return of the Omicron

[Not Me, Us]

India just came in at an eye-watering 386,452 new daily cases with many cases going undiagnosed in the country.

The corollary of record breaking cases will be felt in 3 weeks time.

It does not look like they have the necessary social infrastructure to back out of this one.

Terrible. I have to say though, I'm surprised a country as densely populated as India did so well for so long. Unfortunately, I think this was bound to happen eventually.

[Not Me, Us]

https://twitter.com/PennLive/status/1389628343146930179

PA to lift all restrictions except masking on May 31. Mask mandate will be lifted when 70% of PA adults are fully vaccinated, which I kind of doubt will ever happen tbh. Hopefully they lift it once they realize that's an unattainable goal.

[Not Me, Us]

https://twitter.com/EricFisherSBG/status/1389971982100402179

Clever idea.

This is the type of stuff that needs to be done more if we want to reach herd immunity. Doesn't change the fact that Cuomo is a scumbag and needs to resign.

[Not Me, Us]

Ohio holding a lottery only open to people who have been vaccinated:

https://twitter.com/GovMikeDeWine/status/1392597174014332929

This is a really good idea. Hopefully more states implement something like this.

[Not Me, Us]

https://twitter.com/AP/status/1392890690108104706

CDC finally starts to partly follow science 🤌

Amazing decision! The science is clear that the vaccines are incredibly safe and effective. There is absolutely no reason why a fully vaccinated individual should have to wear a mask if they aren't exhibiting symptoms. As soon as the mandate is lifted in PA, I will no longer be wearing a mask.

[Not Me, Us]

So basically, COVID is on it's last legs? Or is it premature to assume that?

At this point, barring some kind of apocalyptic variant, COVID-19 will not be able to significantly rebound in the United States. We could see brief plateaus or rises in cases at some point, but deaths and hospitalizations will continue to drop and it will never get as bad as it was in the winter. With the amount of vaccinated people here, we are well past the point of no return.

[Not Me, Us]

Great to see vaccinations climbing again. Hopefully the combination of 12-15 year olds being allowed to get it and the rescinding of the mask mandate for fully vaccinated people will cause a sustained increase.

[Not Me, Us]

https://twitter.com/aslavitt46/status/1397612582815551488

PA has surpassed my expectations and hit 70% of the adult population with at least one dose.

[Not Me, Us]

https://twitter.com/PennLive/status/1397939362789302273

Now that PA has reached 70% of adults with at least one dose, they've set an official end date to the mask mandate. Good decision, I think. Since the CDC guidelines changed, it has become pretty much impossible to enforce a mask mandate, so keeping one around was pointless.

[Not Me, Us]

https://twitter.com/Tylerjoelb/status/1402285299888181249
https://twitter.com/Tylerjoelb/status/1402288748575002632

Man I wish my vaccine turned me into Magneto.

I'm usually not one for stereotyping, but why is is that anti-vaxxers always seem to fit into the same kind of demographic profile, in terms of gender, race, and socioeconomic status?

Wealthy Boomers who retired years ago have no real problems to concern themselves with, have too much time on their hands, and are inexperienced when it comes to social media misinformation. It's sort of the perfect storm.

[Not Me, Us]

I have a Fauci bobble head.

I have the Fauci “We Trust Science” t-shirt as well.

I am convinced you are a troll trying to make all people who advocate a strong approach to Covid look bad.

I am actually not. I am very paranoid and anxious about COVID and don’t want to get sick or infect others if I contract it (though the risk of me getting it is low because I am vaccinated). The reason why I am anxious about COVID is because I had a moderately severe case of it last April and almost required hospitalization. I also knew a lot of people who either died of COVID or had a severe illness because of it.

BTW, I remember you were much more vigilant regarding COVID a few months back and shared the same concerns I have about it.

How long do you plan on living like this? I'm not trying to criticize, and there's nothing wrong with continuing to wear a mask, I'm just curious.

[Not Me, Us]

Went to Target & the local supermarket. Today is the second day without California's mask mandates, capacity limits or social distancing. It honestly doesn't look any more different than the last month. I'd say 95% of the folks indoors were masked and the only ones not following social distancing were the 5% of unmasked folks.

It seems at the theme parks, there's a lot less mask-wearing & social distancing going on. But as far as day-to-day indoor shopping, same as it ever was.

I wouldn't be surprised if the numbers go down considerably over the next few weeks. Today, I went back to my job after having been on "vacation" for the past week and a half. I would say that around 80-85% of customers and employees are no longer wearing masks, and about 10-15% still are. At this point, the only remaining mask wearers at my job, I suspect, are the ones who don't feel comfortable with discarding the masks yet or may still be waiting for the two-week period before they are fully vaccinated.

Second this. I work at Target, and mask-wearing was still quite common for a couple weeks after the mandate was modified so fully-vaxxed don't have to wear them, but I'd say less than 25% of guests still wear them, with maybe 40% of employees. I expect that to drop even further after the mandate is dropped altogether on the 28th.

[Not Me, Us]

Delta variant is more likely to put a young adult in the hospital, though the chances are still small. If you're vaccinated your chances of that are still very small.

In other words, they should stop imposing restrictions on people who are vaccinated.

Are there any places still doing that? PA has had strong COVID restrictions throughout the pandemic, but there haven't been any for vaccinated people in like a month. I don't think any state has any restrictions for vaccinated people, though I could be wrong.

[Not Me, Us]

As far as I'm concerned, there is no point in lockdowns. The only people who are truly at risk for COVID are the unvaccinated, and if you still refuse to get the vaccine at this point, I don't care what happens to you, unless you have a legitimate medical reason for not doing so. If the antivaxxers want to play with fire, let them get burned. We should not place restrictions on the vaccinated because the minority refuses the vaccine. It's an issue of personal responsibility at this point.

[Not Me, Us]

Cases dropped again in the U.K. today. Not by quite as much as the last few days, but still a promising sign.

Do we know why this is happening? Did the UK re-implement a mask mandate or capacity restrictions?

[Not Me, Us]

We need a vaccine mandate. Life can't fully return to normal unless everyone, or at least like 90%, is vaccinated.

[Not Me, Us]

Not sure if this is happening elsewhere in the US as well, or if this is a one-off:

https://sfist.com/2021/08/03/if-you-got-the-johnson-johnson-shot-sf-general-will-give-you-a-supplemental/

Starting later this week, if you received the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine, you're eligible to drop into the vaccination clinic at SF General and get a "supplemental" mRNA vaccine dose — but don't call it a booster.

The decision was made Monday by Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital (ZSFG) and San Francisco's Department of Public Health (SFDPH), as ABC 7 reports, following multiple reports that the J&J vaccine may not be as effective in preventing infection from the Delta variant as mRNA-based Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. With the first variants of COVID-19 that were spreading last year, the J&J vaccine was seen as highly effective in preventing severe illness, but new data suggests that the mRNA vaccines provide strong protection against what appears to be a stronger and more infectious variant.

But they are being careful to call it a "supplemental dose," not a booster.

Are they only getting one dose or the full two dose set?

[Not Me, Us]

I've been exposed to someone who was exposed.

Me and the person who was exposed are fully vaccinated.

The person who was exposed was around the sick person about 10-15 minutes on Monday, before they knew they had covid.  Found out today the girl has covid.

I was around the person who was exposed at various times, sometimes close contact, yesterday and today.

I'm worried, and I'm not sure if I should be.  Guess I'm hoping someone here can reassure me.

You'll be fine. I work retail without a mask and I'm sure have been exposed to numerous unvaccinated people or even people who were positive, and I have yet to catch the virus since I'm fully vaccinated.

[Not Me, Us]

do the corrected death tolls or whatever count people who committed suicide or overdosed due to social isolation, mental illness, or financial stress?

If they are, they shouldn’t be.

[Not Me, Us]

Will we get back to 2000 deaths in a day again?

Definitely not. Enough people are vaccinated that death numbers that high are virtually impossible.

[Not Me, Us]

Just curious…

Any vaccinated people starting wearing masks again when going out?  Any choosing not to mask up?

I'm in Washington, DC for college currently and wear masks in all university buildings and indoors due to Mayor Bowser's mandate. However, I don't wear masks when I hang out inside the lounge and stuff with friends, since my school mandated the vaccine.

[Not Me, Us]

If you need any more proof that vaccines work, my university just released COVID numbers after students have been on campus for 2 weeks. There is a vaccine mandate for all staff and students, a total of over 17,000 people, including grad students. There is also an indoor mask mandate in place, though it is only really enforced in classes, of which almost all are in person. There have only been 22 positive cases in the first 2 weeks and zero hospitalizations, which is pretty great if you ask me.

[Not Me, Us]

The 7-day average of new cases in the U.S. is on a pretty clear downward slope again. Today was the lowest since Aug. 21.

In 8 days, it's fallen from 163,006 to 147,207.

There does appear to be a peak on September 1, but I'd give it a few weeks to see if there's a spike from labor day. Otherwise it's pretty clear that it's slowly going down, held back by a few states that are still on the rise.

Except for Labor Day messing with the averages (one day where there were only four days of reported cases) Georgia's seven day average has dropped every day this month.

Importantly, the COVID "wall" in the eastern, urbanized half of VA continues to hold.  That's encouraging for the North in the fall.  Remember, VA and FL vaccination rates are comparable on paper.

While that's a good sign for high vaxx areas in the north, the Midwest is going to be hit hard. PA's cases are rising a lot, and that's with decent vaxx %. Ohio, Wisconsin, and Michigan especially are going to fair badly, I think.

[Not Me, Us]

https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1445220954813128705

This is discouraging.

The vaccines are a lifesaver, but they need to last longer to be practical.  Most people aren't going to get a covid shot twice a year.

Most people willing to get the shot for a return to normal would get booster doses. The people who will refuse are the ones refusing to get vaccinated in the first place.

Seriously, people are acting like having to get a booster shot is literally 1984. It's maybe 30 minutes out of your day, once or twice a year. You'll live.

This. Getting my first two doses was a huge hassle for me, but there are numerous places in walking distance where I can get my booster really easily. If people were willing to go out of their way to get the shot the first time, I have a hard time believing that they won’t very minorly incovenience themselves to get a booster.

[Not Me, Us]

I think it’s a bit premature to start declaring victory. People were saying similar things back in June, and look what happened after that. I certainly hope this will be the last major wave, but I find it hard to believe that.