COVID-19 Megathread 6: Return of the Omicron

[It’s so Joever]

It's very frustrating being in a blue city where people take COVID19 measures seriously. Virtually everyone I see wears a mask (even outdoors), practices distancing etc. And yet we'll lock down and red states won't. At some point it's not sustainable to have such a spotty response. For our mental health included.

Don’t worry!
It just means your future healthcare costs will be lower!

[Progressive]

It's very frustrating being in a blue city where people take COVID19 measures seriously. Virtually everyone I see wears a mask (even outdoors), practices distancing etc. And yet we'll lock down and red states won't. At some point it's not sustainable to have such a spotty response. For our mental health included.

Don’t worry!
It just means your future healthcare costs will be lower!

Lol yes when it's 2022 and we're still locked down it will be a pleasure to pay my health care goblins a little bit less

[Fargobison]

is this a scorched earth policy? Biden entering with 2k dead per day and uncontrolled spread in 48 states?

He did help to get an effective vaccine so not completely scorched Earth, hopefully operation warp speed ends up being the best accomplishment of his presidency.

That said, we should be locking down in some areas right now but that will never happen without another stimulus and him actively pushing for more restrictive measures. So Biden is going to take over in a dark place but we could have a quarter of the population vaccinated a month into his term.

[Silent Hunter]

How did Trump help to get a vaccine?

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

The reality is that a vast majority of people would be better off getting the virus than being forced to shut down the economy, or uphend their daily lives in other ways.  So it might be fair to call people who oppose further restrictions selfish, but it is not necessarily fair to call them stupid.  

And we should have been crafting a national response that acknowledges this reality from the outset, rather than just trying to gin up uniform fear of the virus that anyone who has seen the basic statistics behind is knows is misleading.

[Dr. Arch]

The reality is that a vast majority of people would be better off getting the virus than being forced to shut down the economy, or uphend their daily lives in other ways.  So it might be fair to call people who oppose further restrictions selfish, but it is not necessarily fair to call them stupid.  

And we should have been crafting a national response that acknowledges this reality from the outset, rather than just trying to gin up uniform fear of the virus that anyone who has seen the basic statistics behind is knows is misleading.

We'll see how well your sacred economy will hold up once the healthcare system collapses and the mortality rate skyrockets.

Ignorance at its finest.

[Horus]

The reality is that a vast majority of people would be better off getting the virus than being forced to shut down the economy, or uphend their daily lives in other ways.  So it might be fair to call people who oppose further restrictions selfish, but it is not necessarily fair to call them stupid.  

And we should have been crafting a national response that acknowledges this reality from the outset, rather than just trying to gin up uniform fear of the virus that anyone who has seen the basic statistics behind is knows is misleading.

We'll see how well your sacred economy will hold up once the healthcare system collapses and the mortality rate skyrockets.

Ignorance at its finest.

Both of you make very good points. This is real quagmire.

[Darthpi – Anti-Florida Activist]

The reality is that a vast majority of people would be better off getting the virus than being forced to shut down the economy, or uphend their daily lives in other ways.  So it might be fair to call people who oppose further restrictions selfish, but it is not necessarily fair to call them stupid.  

And we should have been crafting a national response that acknowledges this reality from the outset, rather than just trying to gin up uniform fear of the virus that anyone who has seen the basic statistics behind is knows is misleading.

Considering how it is already well established that COVID can cause lung damage and other long-term problems, you would be condemning literally tens of millions of people to reduced lifespans and quality of life.

[It’s so Joever]

The reality is that a vast majority of people would be better off getting the virus than being forced to shut down the economy, or uphend their daily lives in other ways.  So it might be fair to call people who oppose further restrictions selfish, but it is not necessarily fair to call them stupid.  

And we should have been crafting a national response that acknowledges this reality from the outset, rather than just trying to gin up uniform fear of the virus that anyone who has seen the basic statistics behind is knows is misleading.

Put your money where your mouth is and deliberately infect yourself.
Also don’t use hospital services no matter what because you need to simulate the inevitable collapse if we did pursue your strategy.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

The reality is that a vast majority of people would be better off getting the virus than being forced to shut down the economy, or uphend their daily lives in other ways.  So it might be fair to call people who oppose further restrictions selfish, but it is not necessarily fair to call them stupid.  

And we should have been crafting a national response that acknowledges this reality from the outset, rather than just trying to gin up uniform fear of the virus that anyone who has seen the basic statistics behind is knows is misleading.

Put your money where your mouth is and deliberately infect yourself.
Also don’t use hospital services no matter what because you need to simulate the inevitable collapse if we did pursue your strategy.

I don't even know how I would go about doing this.  And I certainly wouldn't want to infect anyone else in the process.  That's the problem.

I do believe that we would have arrived at a much better outcome by pursuing a strategy of controlled voluntary infection and quarantine.  As long as infections and quarantining were done under close medical supervision, we could have cut infections to vulnerable populations to a small fraction of what they were, and in the process used far less hospital resources are produced far fewer deaths.

Of course, there's really no hope for that now; we just have to wait around for a vaccine.
But even if you can't see the argument for voluntary infection to produce herd immunity, I hope most people can agree that it was absolutely criminal that we weren't conducting human challenge trial to speed up vaccine production.  This is easily the worst and most obvious mistake that we have collective made throughout the entire pandemic.

[It’s so Joever]

The reality is that a vast majority of people would be better off getting the virus than being forced to shut down the economy, or uphend their daily lives in other ways.  So it might be fair to call people who oppose further restrictions selfish, but it is not necessarily fair to call them stupid.  

And we should have been crafting a national response that acknowledges this reality from the outset, rather than just trying to gin up uniform fear of the virus that anyone who has seen the basic statistics behind is knows is misleading.

Put your money where your mouth is and deliberately infect yourself.
Also don’t use hospital services no matter what because you need to simulate the inevitable collapse if we did pursue your strategy.

I don't even know how I would go about doing this.  And I certainly wouldn't want to infect anyone else in the process.  That's the problem.

I do believe that we would have arrived at a much better outcome by pursuing a strategy of controlled voluntary infection and quarantine.  As long as infections and quarantining were done under close medical supervision, we could have cut infections to vulnerable populations to a small fraction of what they were, and in the process used far less hospital resources are produced far fewer deaths.

Of course, there's really no hope for that now; we just have to wait around for a vaccine.
But even if you can't see the argument for voluntary infection to produce herd immunity, I hope most people can agree that it was absolutely criminal that we weren't conducting human challenge trial to speed up vaccine production.  This is easily the worst and most obvious mistake that we have collective made throughout the entire pandemic.

I’m guessing there were ethical concerns, although I don’t really understand either.

[Dr. Arch]

The updated numbers for COVID-19 in the U.S. are in for 11/15 per: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

I'm keeping track of these updates daily and updating at the end of the day, whenever all states finish reporting for that day.

ΔW Change: Comparisons of Weekly Day-to-day Growth or Decline of COVID-19 Spread/Deaths.

• IE: Comparing the numbers to the same day of last week, are we flattening the curve enough?

Σ Increase: A day's contribution to overall percentage growth of COVID-19 cases/deaths.

• IE: What's the overall change in the total?

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11/8: <Sunday>

• Cases: 10,288,480 (+105,662 | ΔW Change: ↑48.15% | Σ Increase: ↑1.04%)
• Deaths: 243,768 (+511 | ΔW Change: ↑28.07% | Σ Increase: ↑0.21%)

11/9: <M>

• Cases: 10,421,956 (+133,476 | ΔW Change: ↑43.22% | Σ Increase: ↑1.30%)
• Deaths: 244,448 (+680 | ΔW Change: ↑32.81% | Σ Increase: ↑0.28%)

11/10: <T>

• Cases: 10,559,184 (+137,228 | ΔW Change: ↑8.46% | Σ Increase: ↑1.32%)
• Deaths: 245,799 (+1,351 | ΔW Change: ↓19.25% | Σ Increase: ↑0.55%)

11/11: <W>

• Cases: 10,708,728 (+149,544 | ΔW Change: ↑38.82% | Σ Increase: ↑1.42%)
• Deaths: 247,398 (+1,599 | ΔW Change: ↑36.32% | Σ Increase: ↑0.65%)

11/12: <Þ>

• Cases: 10,873,936 (+165,208 | ΔW Change: ↑39.81% | Σ Increase: ↑1.54%)
• Deaths: 248,585 (+1,187 | ΔW Change: ↑5.60% | Σ Increase: ↑0.48%)

11/13: <F>

• Cases: 11,064,364 (+190,428 | ΔW Change: ↑36.94% | Σ Increase: ↑1.75%)
• Deaths: 249,975 (+1,390 | ΔW Change: ↑8.85% | Σ Increase: ↑0.56%)

11/14 (Yesterday): <S>

• Cases: 11,226,038 (+161,674 | ΔW Change: ↑30.14% | Σ Increase: ↑1.46%)
• Deaths: 251,256 (+1,281 | ΔW Change: ↑24.73% | Σ Increase: ↑0.51%)

11/15 (Today): <Sunday>

• Cases: 11,366,379 (+140,341 | ΔW Change: ↑32.82% | Σ Increase: ↑1.25%)
• Deaths: 251,832 (+576 | ΔW Change: ↑12.72% | Σ Increase: ↑0.23%)

[Fargobison]

How did Trump help to get a vaccine?

Well billions and billions of dollars have been flushed into various companies to develop a vaccine and billions more to distribute it. That did help.

[emailking]

I know there's a delay but deaths don't seem to be going up as much as I would have thought by now...we've been exponential or nearly for a few weeks. It was similar in the summer.

[It’s so Joever]

I know there's a delay but deaths don't seem to be going up as much as I would have thought by now...we've been exponential or nearly for a few weeks. It was similar in the summer.

Better treatments+more testing+lag.

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

https://twitter.com/PhilipRucker/status/1328314410318917633
Thank you, President Trump! Thank you, Big Greedy Pharma!

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1327816877301772291

[Omega21]

https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1327816877301772291

I mean, at this point we can't blame people...

Humans are social by nature, and unless the very old and sick are present, I'm fine with people celebrating their holidays together in private.

[T'Chenka]

https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1327816877301772291

I mean, at this point we can't blame people...

Humans are social by nature, and unless the very old and sick are present, I'm fine with people celebrating their holidays together in private.

Sad...

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/edyong209/status/1328053977720758273

While many of us intellectually realize this already, there's something about seeing it laid out that helps the magnitude of the disaster facing us in the final days of a President who has completely abandoned his responsibilities.

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

Of Europe's top 5 largest economies, only Germany is way better than US.
Cumulative deaths/capita as for Nov 15

Spain 866 death per million
UK 775
Italy 741
US 720
France 660




Germany 150.


As of new deaths France and Italy has each 3 times more a day than US>>



All of these countries has been hit economically way harder than US.

[ilikeverin]

https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1327816877301772291

I mean, at this point we can't blame people...

Humans are social by nature, and unless the very old and sick are present, I'm fine with people celebrating their holidays together in private.

Because in much of the US right now, in a group of 10 randomly selected adults, it's more likely than not that at least one of them will have COVID, and, during the course of the meal, will infect the other nine.

[Calthrina950]

https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1327816877301772291

I mean, at this point we can't blame people...

Humans are social by nature, and unless the very old and sick are present, I'm fine with people celebrating their holidays together in private.

Because in much of the US right now, in a group of 10 randomly selected adults, it's more likely than not that at least one of them will have COVID, and, during the course of the meal, will infect the other nine.

So that means we should all be planning on having a distanced Thanksgiving?

[T'Chenka]

https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1327816877301772291

I mean, at this point we can't blame people...

Humans are social by nature, and unless the very old and sick are present, I'm fine with people celebrating their holidays together in private.

Because in much of the US right now, in a group of 10 randomly selected adults, it's more likely than not that at least one of them will have COVID, and, during the course of the meal, will infect the other nine.

So that means we should all be planning on having a distanced Thanksgiving?

Yes. Or no Thanksgiving at all.

[Sir Mohamed]

Mr. Trump plans to take credit for vaccine again.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1328341927641681922