COVID-19 Megathread 6: Return of the Omicron

[Bandit3 the Worker]

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."

[Bandit3 the Worker]

What if there is no vaccine? That remains a possibility, although I think it is an unlikely one at this point. The restrictions we are seeing now cannot continue indefinitely.

I think some of our public officials actually would continue them indefinitely - forever if they could. Even if covid is eradicated, I think they'd try to continue some of them. Just because they can.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

I also think there will be attempts to outlaw publications that acknowledge the negative effects of lockdowns. But I don't think it will pass.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

I was perplexed to see that Iowa reported almost 2300 new cases today after averaging 400-500 cases per day consistently for the last two months. 

But apparently, Iowa suddenly decided to start counting positive antigen test results as confirmed cases.  Didn't we already thoroughly hash through this issue months ago?  How is this still happening?

Also, a prison in Fort Dodge just reported hundreds (maybe thousands) of cases.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

Since May I've yet to see someone in the grocery store without a mask, and I'm in a conservative area. Granted I'm never in one for very long. But I wonder why compliance is only 80%+ in your store Calthrina.

I've actually been to convenience stores lately with 0% compliance (including the clerk). This is in a state with a mask order, and at a store chain with a mask order.

But Kroger has more compliance, maybe 60%.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

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.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

It's dropping nationwide, but in how many states is it still increasing? I think Hawaii is starting to drop a little, so are there any left outside the Midwest?

Kentucky is at sort of a plateau, but it was always one of the lowest to begin with (and accomplished this without tossing people in jail over a stay-at-home order).

I think Iowa is leveling off, and I'm not sure why it had that really bad day a few days ago. That might have been a backlog.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

I like going on Snap Maps and looking at pictures that people recently uploaded from all over the world. I look at Barcelona a lot, and most people are unmasked.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

Even  my high school refunded part of my tuition when I got expelled.

But tuition at Northeastern is almost $40,000, and they won't refund any of it - even though the semester is just starting.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

Who are we kidding? Throughout the summer, people of all ages, all over America (maybe the world) have been socializing almost like normal - without masks or social distancing. Maybe not everyone, but a vast majority. This goes back to probably July, maybe earlier.

Is limiting what college students do really gonna stop covid? There's so many places it can spread that you can't stop it that way. Plus, I'm pretty sure herd immunity is already starting to appear, even in states like South Dakota that were only recently hot spots. Herd immunity has swept New York and Arizona for sure.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

Positivity rate in the U.S. yesterday was 4.1%, the lowest since MARCH 4, back when the U.S. had only a handful of cases.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

Are most people still wearing masks in your area? I went out for the first time in a while and about 80% of people weren't even wearing masks. Kind of shows you why Biden and Harris backtracked on the mask mandate.

Outdoors it's zero.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

So they want us to believe 50% of people who went to Sturgis got covid.

And people wonder why I don't trust the media. As if their 40 years of Big Pharma apologia wasn't enough of a reason.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

BLM wasn't a superspreader event.

Sturgis wasn't a superspreader event.

The bubble gum blowing contest at some county fair in Wisconsin wasn't a superspreader event.

None of that stuff was. This is not March. We're past that.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

So they want us to believe 50% of people who went to Sturgis got covid.

That would be absurd. Fortunately, that's not anywhere close to what it actually says. It estimates 250k cases as a result of Sturgis.

Grossly oversimplifying: if 2,500 people at Sturgis had it, and each of them spread it to ten people while they were there, and each of those 25,000 infected two more people over the week after, and each of those people infected two more the next week, and each of them two more the next week (three weeks, bringing us from the end of Sturgis to now) you get 250k cases.

This wouldn't have happened in such a short period of time, since the R0 isn't high enough. It would have been more likely to happen in mid-March, when there was real exponential growth because there were more susceptible people who hadn't been exposed yet.

Also, this study was done by some economists who tried to track smartphone locations. I haven't seen any epidemiologists confirm it yet.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/halloween-trick-or-treat-not-allowed-los-angeles-county-coronavirus/

Door-to-door trick-or-treating will not be allowed in Los Angeles County this Halloween, according to the county's health department. The L.A. County Department of Public Health put out guidance on how to celebrate Halloween safely, saying some of the traditional ways of celebrating do "not allow you to minimize contact with non-household members."


"The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health would like to share information on how to take part in this holiday in a manner that reduces your risk of developing COVID-19," the new guidance reads.

Trick-or-treating at houses is not permitted and neither are "trunk-or-treating" events, in which children go from car to car instead of door to door.

 
Gatherings and parties with non-household members, as well as carnivals, festivals, live entertainment and haunted house attractions, are also not permitted.

The stupidity continues.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

The nation has moved on

I think Los Angeles reversing its Halloween ban may be a turning point.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

Some of you folks give the impression you think the pandemic is all but over.  Do you really think that?  If so, why?

Most people around here don't seem to be worried about it anymore. The only sign of it here is that you see a few people in masks.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

So I think we have all heard how the Sturgis motorcycle rally proved to be a super-spreader event -for comparison's sake, have there been any updated figures on the impact of Black Lives Matter protests on the spread of COVID-19?  The only articles I can find on the subject are from late June into early July, which all say that the protests somehow did not become super-spreader events.  Welcome as the news was, I thought it was a bit early at the time to be drawing those conclusions.  It's been more than two months now since then.  Has anything changed?

I think we've pretty much established that neither BLM nor Sturgis was a superspreader. I went to a BLM rally where there were lots of people without masks, and nobody seemed to spread anything. The idea that there were 250,000 cases linked to Sturgis has been pretty much debunked as a complete joke. Like I said, that was just some economist trying to trace smartphone data and linking any unusual rise in cases to Sturgis.

In fact, BLM and Sturgis both seem to have a negative R0 somehow.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

I just got home from a trip to Ocean City, Md., and Shenandoah National Park. Yes, I vacationed during a pandemic.

If not for the fact that I did see some people with masks, it was hard to tell there was a pandemic. But mask compliance was near zero at many businesses and rest areas along the way.

My health and finances are both lousy, so I really don't vacation very much.

Here I'm on the boardwalk in Ocean City...

[Bandit3 the Worker]

Finally...

https://youtu.be/m2Zrvo6cvAc

[Bandit3 the Worker]

The positivity rate in the U.S. was only 3.74% today - the first time it's even been under 4% since March 4 when it was 2.97%.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

Scottsdale, Ariz., and Rutherford County, Tenn., have repealed their local mask mandates.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

Oh great we're heading right back up to 60K new cases per day, if the current trends hold.

Worldometers is actually reporting only 35k new cases today, a very slight week-over-week decline.  If total cases increased by 51k, there must have been some backlog reported.

There was a huge backlog from South Carolina that had cases going back to March.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

I don't want to defend DeSanits on most issues, but at this point, what could he really do? Do we really expect things to be closed forever? Is that what we want?