COVID-19 Megathread 6: Return of the Omicron

[TJ in Oregon]

A question: Why does anyone (usually the media) consider lockdowns to be "liberal"? Last I checked, placing an entire state or country on house arrest isn't "liberal."

Today, a family member (who is actually considered somewhat conservative) even pointed out that it's not "liberal."

"Liberal" signifies whatever is associated with the Democrats, however loosely. "Conservative" signifies whatever is associated with Republicans however loosely. The words themselves have no meaning in the United States.

[TJ in Oregon]

at this point, it's vaccine or bust for america

Realistically this was always the case once the virus escaped the initial outbreak in China. The rest is just damage control. Even if we were able to suppress it here, we'd keep getting bombarded by new cases from abroad and have to continue social distancing policies.

[TJ in Oregon]

If herd immunity isn't real, how do we explain the decline in cases in places that were already hit the hardest?

It isn't a strategy. It's just something that's already happened. We can't reverse it now that it's happened already.

Cyclical cause and effect.  Places that get hit hard go in for more social distancing (whether mandated or not).  Then when cases understandably go down as a result, social distancing relaxes and cases go back up again.  

Herd immunity has not been reached to any significant degree anywhere in the U.S. except possibly the New York City area.

I’m not sure how you explain the trends in Arizona other than herd immunity.  They had the highest per capita case rate for quite a while, and then cases suddenly dropped almost 90% over the last eight weeks.  Did they really do anything drastically different than any other state?

It’s a combination of temporary immunity, mask usage, and some (but not a lot) of decrease in activity.

But nowhere else has seen a 90% drop in cases in the last two months.  Has Arizona really enforced masks and decreased activity that much better than everywhere else?

When considering herd immunity there's more complexity to it than just taking 1 - (1/R0). The simple notion assumes that each person has the same probability of spreading and receiving the virus. However, people aren't so interchangeable as that. If there is a subpopulation that is vastly more likely to get the virus and spread it (e.g. college students who go bar hopping), then once they reach herd immunity within that subgroup the transmission of the virus will fall dramatically, even if the number of high spreaders is relatively small. The assumption that each person has the same spread rate is the worst case scenario.

[TJ in Oregon]

My mom and sister are public school teachers in Ohio and have been teaching in-person classes wearing masks to students (also wearing masks) kept 3 feet apart with plastic dividers between them since September. I was initially skeptical they would be able to contain the virus from running rampant in the schools, but they have actually done pretty well at keeping things under control. Most of the cases they have had came through known spreading events outside the school walls.

In Ohio, these policies have been left up to the school district thus far; however, the state has allowed teachers priority in vaccination in order to reopen all schools in the state for 100% in person teaching by March 1st. I agree with these policies and believe that if done properly the virus can be contained that way. It's time to get aspects of life 'back to normal' in a mask wearing, socially distanced kind of way.

[TJ in Oregon]

It's a jump to blame changes in guidance specifically on teacher's unions, but one of the problems seen around the country has been for schools to accept vaccinations for their teachers and then renege on their promise to reopen.

[TJ in Oregon]

That's because inner city districts are basically the only ones in Ohio that are not already having in-person instruction:


Source: Ohio Department of Education

Gov. DeWine (smartly) has realized that this is creating two different standards for education, one half-hearted token version for poor inner-city students online, and one in person socially distanced version that is almost back to normal for everyone else. By requiring schools to reopen, he is trying to eliminate the double standard.