COVID-19 Megathread 6: Return of the Omicron

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Which states are in an actual lockdown right now, rather than just social distancing restrictions?

I don't think there's any in the U.S. that are under a "stay-at-home" order right now, but I don't know if Kentucky ever officially lifted theirs. I think Kentucky just sort of gave up on it last May.

I think California and New Mexico were the only states that issued a second "stay-at-home" order.

I'm not sure about cities/regions, but I think California is the only state that's still what most people would consider "locked down", with restaurants and most attractions closed.

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Israel says that Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine effectively stops the spread of Covid-19 according to their vaccine data which is extensive.

Pfizer-BioNTech Shot Stops Covid’s Spread, Israeli Study Shows

And that's confirmation of the silver bullet we were waiting for.

If Moderna follows suit (and I have little doubt it will), the pandemic will be a minor annoyance by summer.

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Well, the streak had to end eventually.

Still a good trend in cases and no sign of reversing.

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I'm not sure if this article by Dr. Julia Marcus has been posted here yet, but it crystalizes a lot of the feelings I've had about how the messaging re: vaccines has been totally mishandled. I hope in the next few weeks we'll have better guidance from the CDC, because telling people "do nothing differently" is not a way to drive vaccination rates up, even if it is the only 100% sure way of risk mitigation. (As Marcus points out, "trying to eliminate even the lowest-risk changes in behavior both underestimates people’s need to be close to one another and discourages the very thing that will get everyone out of this mess: vaccine uptake.")

Thoughts from anyone smarter than I? Am I misreading the whole situation?

It hasn't been a serious problem yet, demand for vaccine still outstrips supply but it was extremely stupid to discourage the vaccine so much.

I get that being overly pessimistic isn't helpful but what?

They might be referring to the sensationalistic way the media trumpets every single side effect or post-vaccination infection in dark tones, without emphasizing just how rare these are.

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Why are cases still going up? We're vaccinating more people and there haven't been any major superspreader events, so what gives?

Case increases over the last week have been modest, with the highest cases still being less than half what we were seeing at the peak, and it's coming after a week with both a holiday and a blizzard/deep freeze. We don't have enough data to say if it's a blip or something else yet.

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We'll see what the next week holds, but this definitely looks more like the bad week was a statistical blip due to the holiday/blizzard than the start of a new wave.

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Yes good. Let's keep this energy going.

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https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/03/health/bishops-catholics-johnson-and-johnson-vaccine/index.html

ugh wtf

It's an abortion/stem cells thing, I think.

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I think we're pretty deep in herd immunity territory already. Big Horn County is one of few places in Montana that's had a lot of cases. It had a very high number until very recently. But now on the New York Times map, it's had no recent cases - at all. None.

Immunity from getting COVID lasts all of about three months, often less. As long as there continue to be new cases (not a rise in new cases, but new cases at all) without a widespread rapid vaccination program, we're going to remain light years away from anything resembling herd immunity. Not to mention you need 60-80% even if immunity lasted, and right now roughly 25% of the population has had COVID or a vaccine, and that's assuming there's zero overlap.

If that was the case, we would be seeing a wave of reinfections. All indications are that while antibodies might fade, cell immunity persists a lot longer.

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Back to a full week of declines!

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Is that the first under 1K death in...I don't even know how many months?

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Is that the first under 1K death in...I don't even know how many months?

Lowest since Nov. 15.

And with that, again no more red on the charts.

We're probably getting into the range where vaccines are making a difference, and it doesn't seem like the new variants are wreaking too much havoc yet. Might be that so many cases were undetected in March/April that we have a lot more residual immunity than we know. Let's hope it continues.

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Who was the one Democrat nay?

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Masks are not fully going away, but they'll become fully voluntary. No public would stand for a post-pandemic mask order and any business that chooses to keep a mandate would likely lose a chunk of their customer base. It'll become a personal safety thing and we might wind up seeing about 20-30% of people keep using them during the cold and flu season.

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I think as long as we keep charging ahead with vaccines, even the decrease in distancing won't be enough to create too much of an increase. We might see some up-and-down for a while on cases but probably not on deaths. It's two unstoppable forces butting up against each other, and that'll keep us from a full-fledged fourth wave.

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This is finally looking like the real bottoming-out that comes with mass vaccination. The death rate was being a bit stubborn for a while, but it's catching up now.

More of this and we can follow Israel eventually.

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https://twitter.com/RepThomasMassie/status/1394749773140344833


https://twitter.com/GregAbbott_TX/status/1394730325612404741

But churches can. I guess that’s the hierarchy in Texas.

Churches, like any other private building, has the right to determine what people wear when they enter. He's not banning private businesses from keeping their mask mandates.

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Hot damn.

We'll probably see a notable decrease in deaths soon as well as it catches up.

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The fact that we're still seeing modest decreases the week after the holiday weekend is VERY good news.

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‍

This is utterly ridiculous...

LA schools are still going to require masks and testing every few weeks for all students and teachers for this upcoming fall, based on an agreement with the teacher unions and school admins.

https://news.yahoo.com/l-teachers-union-pact-mandates-021918050.html

...even if they’re vaccinated? What is wrong with these teacher’s unions

You can still spread COVID if you are vaccinated. Also, the US will soon be dealing with the Delta variant, which is 5% more vaccine resistant than the Alpha variant and the original COVID wild type strain. I think mask mandates should be permanently in effect for that reason and also that if someone refuses to wear a mask, they should be denied medical care if they contract COVID and require hospitalization.

This is anti vax propaganda.

Not really. The vaccine is meant to protect the person who gets the vaccine from COVID, whereas the mask protects others around them. Just to plat it safe, I think that fully vaccinated people should still be required to wear masks indoors, just like unvaccinated people. Outdoors, I would feel comfortable not wearing a mask.

You're both wrong!

There is no evidence that people who are vaccinated can spread Covid, but there's limited evidence that they can't due to the short time frame for testing. A lot of people advocate wearing masks out of an abundance of caution until we know for sure, but vaccines generally keep people from spreading and I doubt that's a little detail that would have been left out.

I wouldn't say it's anti-vax propaganda, but the evidence in Israel and vax-heavy areas of the US makes it look very much like the vaccine stops spread.

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Not really. The vaccine is meant to protect the person who gets the vaccine from COVID, whereas the mask protects others around them. Just to plat it safe, I think that fully vaccinated people should still be required to wear masks indoors, just like unvaccinated people. Outdoors, I would feel comfortable not wearing a mask.

The CDC says fully vaccinated people don't have to wear masks anymore except in certain settings. So that's good enough for me. I don't wear a mask in stores anymore (fully vaxed).

I guess we respectfully disagree here. I will always remain a radical masker and will continue to get my  advice on COVID from Dr. Fauci, Dr. Leana Wen, Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding, and Dr. Jonathan Reiner, who are all strong mask proponents. I feel that masks are a low cost tool that helps vaccinated people protect unvaccinated people.

Well, THAT's not going to help.

At this point, you're giving yourself anxiety more than anything. Masks are overall good and I'll probably continue to wear them in stores for a while out of general caution, simply because it's such a small thing to do, but it's important not to listen to alarmists who deny the fact that we're coming out of this pandemic fast right now.

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These death swings are wild when the numbers get low, but it looks like we're still moving in the right direction. And yeah, Dr. Feigl-Ding is sadly descending into fear porn.

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We HAVE a vaccine that neutralizes any variants — the mRNA vaccines are still wildly effective against them. And our case numbers are going down already, at a rapid pace.

I understand that you’re concerned about the Delta variant and the virus in general. But try to relax: the data we have continues to show that vaccinated people are almost totally safe.

Yep. A vaccine going from 99% effective to 90% effective, which seems like a rough estimate of what we're seeing in other countries, isn't great but is certainly enough to mostly neutralize a public health emergency.

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Some of today's posts have GOT to be S***posting.

The MRNA vaccines are a miracle. They've already been able to patch them to turn them into vaccines to completely different diseases. If a variant starts breaking through, they'll do the same and put out a booster.

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Some of today's posts have GOT to be S***posting.

The MRNA vaccines are a miracle. They've already been able to patch them to turn them into vaccines to completely different diseases. If a variant starts breaking through, they'll do the same and put out a booster.

Look up Eric Feigl-Ding to know the truth about what's going on with the Delta Variant. It is terrifying even for those who are vaccinated,

Eric Feigl-Ding is a crackpot fearmongering grifter who doesn't know when the grift is over. Very similar trajectory to Sarah Kendzior, who gave us several years of compelling if alarmist anti-Trump commentary, and then transitioned to talking about how Biden and Garland are obviously in league with Trump and American democracy has already fallen.