COVID-19 Megathread 6: Return of the Omicron

[Inmate Trump]

Honestly it feels like this is never going to end.

We make progress, then we go two steps back.

It seems like it’s going to be a never ending cycle of infection/vaccination/infection/death over and over.  And it feels like we’re getting to a point where a future mutation will eventually completely evade vaccines altogether.

This is just the way the world is going to be now.

[Horus]

Honestly it feels like this is never going to end.

We make progress, then we go two steps back.

It seems like it’s going to be a never ending cycle of infection/vaccination/infection/death over and over.  And it feels like we’re getting to a point where a future mutation will eventually completely evade vaccines altogether.

This is just the way the world is going to be now.

I don't think so. The vaccines work amazingly and we're currently witnessing an overcorrection. Look at where we were last year in terms of masks/social distancing and compare it to today.

There's a light at the end of the tunnel and nothing is going to convince me otherwise here.

[Progressive Pessimist]

It’s clear at this point that Republicans are trying to prolong the pandemic in order to gain political points. They want Biden’s term to be as chaotic as possible to win in 2022, and then steal 2024.

Exactly what they accused Democrats of doing in 2020. That's the Gaslighting Obfuscating Projectionists for you.

[Inmate Trump]

Honestly it feels like this is never going to end.

We make progress, then we go two steps back.

It seems like it’s going to be a never ending cycle of infection/vaccination/infection/death over and over.  And it feels like we’re getting to a point where a future mutation will eventually completely evade vaccines altogether.

This is just the way the world is going to be now.

I don't think so. The vaccines work amazingly and we're currently witnessing an overcorrection. Look at where we were last year in terms of masks/social distancing and compare it to today.

There's a light at the end of the tunnel and nothing is going to convince me otherwise here.

I hope you’re right.

I’m prone to anxiety and especially with germs/disease. The entire last year and a half has been a whirlwind of anxiety for me tbh. It’s a struggle to work through it sometimes.

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://twitter.com/vashon_photo/status/1421906339090124801

[Calthrina950]

Well, I came back from work about an hour ago, and I can say that nobody has changed their masking habits (as of yet). I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of people ignore the CDC guidance and continue on as before. And it's highly unlikely that there will be any new mask mandates in Colorado at this point.

Providing an update to this, there does seem to have been an uptick in the number of customers wearing masks. I would say the figure is probably around 25% right now. But given where I live, I don't think it's going to turn into a majority of people again at this stage.

[compucomp]

Finally someone did a study on how the vaccine changes the odds of experiencing the dreaded "long COVID". According to this study, conditional on being infected, the odds of experiencing long COVID are half for vaccinated individuals compared to unvaccinated. This is a glass half full/empty situation, half is better than none but not enough to say the vaccine will prevent long COVID even if infected.

People who are double-jabbed are at half the risk of long Covid, according to Sage documents released yesterday.

They said research by the Office for National Statistics found that “in all age groups the odds of experiencing symptoms for more than 28 days after post-vaccination infection was approximately halved by two vaccinations”.

The summary of studies also highlighted research showing that women, older people and those who were overweight or obese were more likely to have lingering symptoms, with fatigue the most frequently reported.

The proportion of people suffering from long Covid 12 weeks after initial infection remains uncertain, with estimates varying between studies from 2.3 per cent to 37 per cent, the paper said.

https://archive.ph/20210731003123/https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/two-vaccine-doses-halves-long-covid-risk-uk-study-finds-8f0bdx29m#selection-917.0-966.0

[emailking]

The 2019 flu season saw 405k cases, and 22k deaths--twice as many cases per population, and 7x more deaths--so the vaccines are rendering covid significantly less potent than the flu.

This is exactly the kind of point that we need to be hammering home. Delta is "as infectious as the chickenpox" is a good point to make for anyone about my age and older. "Less deadly than the flu" is a good point to make for, well, anyone.

If you're vaccinated it's less deadly than the flu. If you're not vaccinated it's a lot more deadly.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Honestly it feels like this is never going to end.

We make progress, then we go two steps back.

It seems like it’s going to be a never ending cycle of infection/vaccination/infection/death over and over.  And it feels like we’re getting to a point where a future mutation will eventually completely evade vaccines altogether.

This is just the way the world is going to be now.

I doubt it. Having millions and millions of infected doesn't seem like it will be stable in the long term. Either enough people develop resistance (via infection and recovery, if nothing else) that it can no longer spread freely and the pandemic ends, or a variant turns smallpox-level deadly and the combination of megadeaths and fear means it can no longer spread freely and the pandemic ends. 

[pbrower2a]

https://twitter.com/vashon_photo/status/1421906339090124801

It's a forged federal document, so manufacturing, storing, dealing, buying, creating a market for dealing, keeping, or using one is a federal offense.

People who manufacture or deal these deserve at least the sorts of sentences that one associates with people who forge tax or postage stamps (the latter is rare)... that is a serious federal term. The schmucks who buy or use them  might get off if I were the judge with a suspended sentence. I would arrange to have the first injection necessary and revoke the sentence upon the second (if necessary) inoculation. (I trust that federal offenders get inoculated -- right?)

[Never Made it to Graceland]

https://www.wfla.com/community/health/coronavirus/grim-milestone-florida-sets-new-record-for-covid-19-hospitalizations-as-variant-cases-surge/

Hard to believe there are still R hacks on here excited about "Ron DeSantis 2024". This guy has failed in just about every respect.

[Beet]

https://www.wfla.com/community/health/coronavirus/grim-milestone-florida-sets-new-record-for-covid-19-hospitalizations-as-variant-cases-surge/

Hard to believe there are still R hacks on here excited about "Ron DeSantis 2024". This guy has failed in just about every respect.

The more cases there are, the more Republicans will like him.

[FrancoAgo]

The 2019 flu season saw 405k cases, and 22k deaths--

idk what country you are talking but the lethality % look too high for the flu

[Dr Oz Lost Party!]

https://www.wfla.com/community/health/coronavirus/grim-milestone-florida-sets-new-record-for-covid-19-hospitalizations-as-variant-cases-surge/

Hard to believe there are still R hacks on here excited about "Ron DeSantis 2024". This guy has failed in just about every respect.

“How Ron DeSantis won the pandemic.”

[Lief 🗽]

We need to start dissolving the teachers unions. This is totally absurd. They are actively working against the health and well-being of their students at this point (not to mention the wider public).
https://twitter.com/morganfmckay/status/1422225909994737674?s=21

[Bandit3 the Worker]

We need to start dissolving the teachers unions.

We should pass laws saying that unions that kept our schools from opening normally lose their monopoly bargaining power. This would let teachers form unions that actually care about teachers and children, instead of ruining our schools and letting teachers get Zoomed out of a job.

[Hammy]

The 2019 flu season saw 405k cases, and 22k deaths--

idk what country you are talking but the lethality % look too high for the flu

Thanks for catching that, I double checked and that 405,000 the hospitalization rate--cases were 35.5 million. But it further illustrates how reduced covid transmission is with the vaccine.

[compucomp]

https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1422226552444514304

Nate Silver makes a very good point here which I agree with strongly. For awhile the message from public health authorities, politicians and the media was "get the vaccine, you're safe from COVID-19, everything goes back to normal". Any warning that the vaccine is not 100% effective was treated like a disclaimer in the fine print.

The truthful message would have been that the hierarchy of activities according to COVID risk (something like this) still holds; although the vaccine lowers the risk of everything substantially, the risk is not zero, the activities at the bottom could still be risky even if vaccinated, and the risk may fluctuate based on local transmission and the variants. So even when vaccinated one may want to abstain from the most risky activities and/or continue masking according to his/her risk tolerance. This message is still true right now and would not have forced the kind of "about-face" or "reversal" that we've seen in the last week. Maybe the more optimistic message encouraged more people to get the vaccine but now the public health authorities have serious egg on their face and that could have been avoided by telling the whole truth.

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://twitter.com/LindseyGrahamSC/status/1422272144059289602

[roxas11]

https://twitter.com/LindseyGrahamSC/status/1422272144059289602

Thank goodness Lindsey made it very clear that things could have been a lot worse had he not been vaccinated. For once he did the right thing by not feeding into the BS Anti-Vax narrative and also making sure people see that this symptom only ended being mild because he had gotten the shot

had someone like Marjorie Taylor Greene or any other far right nutcase had contracted the virus after getting vaccinated they would have would have used that news as a way to further raise questions about the vaccine's effectiveness on social media

[compucomp]

Guess what the President, along with everyone else in the room, was photographed wearing today at a meeting of his COVID-19 team?

https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1422282055715594245

[DabbingSanta]

Louisiana is a prime example of why you do not elect "moderate" Democrats.  Their "moderate" governor just passed a mask mandate.  Disgusting display of government overreach.

[pppolitics]

Louisiana is a prime example of why you do not elect "moderate" Democrats.  Their "moderate" governor just passed a mask mandate.  Disgusting display of government overreach.

...and what's the problem with a mask mandate?

Are masks so expensive that they're taking a big chunk out of your paychecks?

[DabbingSanta]

Louisiana is a prime example of why you do not elect "moderate" Democrats.  Their "moderate" governor just passed a mask mandate.  Disgusting display of government overreach.

...and what's the problem with a mask mandate?

Are masks so expensive that they're taking a big chunk out of your paychecks?

No, they violate our freedoms.  It's no different than burqas or hijabs being mandated in Islamic nations.  If you think masks work, you are welcome to wear them.  They obviously don't work given how they literally did nothing to slow cases last year, but that's another story...

[pppolitics]

Louisiana is a prime example of why you do not elect "moderate" Democrats.  Their "moderate" governor just passed a mask mandate.  Disgusting display of government overreach.

...and what's the problem with a mask mandate?

Are masks so expensive that they're taking a big chunk out of your paychecks?

No, they violate our freedoms.  It's no different than burqas or hijabs being mandated in Islamic nations.  If you think masks work, you are welcome to wear them.  They obviously don't work given how they literally did nothing to slow cases last year, but that's another story...

Do you also tell the policeman that you don't wear a seatbelt because it violates your freedom?

The argument is not going to fly.