COVID-19 Megathread 6: Return of the Omicron

[Horus]

I could see maybe 40% of the country taking the time to get a booster.

We were told vaccines would let us return to normal life. Obviously that's not the case, we will quite likely be masking for the foreseeable future, probably indefinitely, and social distancing mandates are coming back, so why get another one?

Because I'd rather not be intubated.

Well, good luck getting the vast majority of the country to listen. We haven't even hit 70% for the first two shots, a booster will go nowhere. The messaging is absolutely horrendous.

And if you've already had two shots, intubation is extremely unlikely unless you're very old or immunocompromised or something. Seems like a needlessly panicky way to go through life.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It's an incredible comment on American insularity that absolutely none of the discourse around dEltA and the vaccines incorporates... you know... places that have had significant outbreaks of it with large numbers of the population vaccinated.

[ProudModerate2]

I could see maybe 40% of the country taking the time to get a booster.

We were told vaccines would let us return to normal life. Obviously that's not the case, we will quite likely be masking for the foreseeable future, probably indefinitely, and social distancing mandates are coming back, so why get another one?

Because I'd rather not be intubated.

Well, good luck getting the vast majority of the country to listen. We haven't even hit 70% for the first two shots, a booster will go nowhere. The messaging is absolutely horrendous.

And if you've already had two shots, intubation is extremely unlikely unless you're very old or immunocompromised or something. Seems like a needlessly panicky way to go through life.

Nothing wrong with the "very old or immunocompromised or something" getting it, if it will help their chances.
I know alot of "old" people who get a flu shot every year. It's just a simple shot, takes one minute. There is nothing "needlessly panicky" thing about it.

[emailking]

I could see maybe 40% of the country taking the time to get a booster.

We were told vaccines would let us return to normal life. Obviously that's not the case, we will quite likely be masking for the foreseeable future, probably indefinitely, and social distancing mandates are coming back, so why get another one?

Because I'd rather not be intubated.

Well, good luck getting the vast majority of the country to listen. We haven't even hit 70% for the first two shots, a booster will go nowhere. The messaging is absolutely horrendous.

And if you've already had two shots, intubation is extremely unlikely unless you're very old or immunocompromised or something. Seems like a needlessly panicky way to go through life.

Well if they say it's not needed I won't get it. If they say it is, I will.

[ProudModerate2]

School openings so far reveal science is right -- masking works.

... In some places where schools have been open for a while now, such as Georgia and Hawaii, public health experts notice what happens when schools follow the science: classes go on without disruption as long staff and students wear masks.

But when staff and students do not wear masks, Covid-19 can spread, forcing people to stay home to quarantine and classes returning to virtual learning.
In just this week schools have closed, at least temporarily, in Georgia, Indiana and Mississippi due to cluster outbreaks among students and staff.

https://us.cnn.com/2021/08/12/health/covid-19-schools-openings-masks-wellness/index.html

[Roll Roons]

https://twitter.com/DrArwady/status/1425832745851179023

TLDR: Lollapalooza, where hundreds of thousands of people were packed closely together at a festival, was NOT a superspreader. They required proof of vaccination or a daily negative test. It's almost like vaccines work or something?

[compucomp]

https://twitter.com/DrArwady/status/1425832745851179023
TLDR: Lollapalooza, where hundreds of thousands of people were packed closely together at a festival, was NOT a superspreader. They required proof of vaccination or a daily negative test. It's almost like vaccines work or something?

Wait, I'm confused, I thought you were arguing that since Lollapalooza was a liberal event held in Chicago the authorities there must be fudging their numbers and playing down the spread for ideological purposes?

[Donerail]

Wait, I'm confused, I thought you were arguing that since Lollapalooza was a liberal event held in Chicago the authorities there must be fudging their numbers and playing down the spread for ideological purposes?

Do you genuinely have him confused with someone else or are we doing the thing where we impute every blue avi's words to every other blue avi?

[Roll Roons]

https://twitter.com/DrArwady/status/1425832745851179023
TLDR: Lollapalooza, where hundreds of thousands of people were packed closely together at a festival, was NOT a superspreader. They required proof of vaccination or a daily negative test. It's almost like vaccines work or something?

Wait, I'm confused, I thought you were arguing that since Lollapalooza was a liberal event held in Chicago the authorities there must be fudging their numbers and playing down the spread for ideological purposes?

I never said anything about the location or the partisan balance of Chicago/Illinois. My point is that very few cases results from Lolla despite it being a massive event with no distancing and few masks. This shows that vaccines remain very effective, despite you seemingly wishing for them to not be.

[compucomp]

Several pages earlier in this thread there were many posts from R's saying that Lollapalooza was likely to be a superspreader event and that public health authorities are hypocrites for criticizing Sturgis while not Lollapalooza. We heard similar things last summer about BLM protests. While that is a legitimate point of view, and honestly I have a lot of sympathy for it, it's crazy to turn around and immediately claim a win because Lollapalooza didn't cause massive spread? While two weeks ago you were saying Lolla would be a disaster and this shows that the public health officials are hypocrites and in the bag for Dems?

[Hammy]

One of two things is true. Either:

1.) Vaccines work, in which case we don't need any restrictions.

2.) Vaccines don't work, and we were lied to about their efficacy.

Which is it?

I think #1 is true, but if #2 is true instead, I'm going to be even angrier.

This sort of brainless, illogical black and white thinking is exactly what got us into this situation in the first place. You cannot unilaterally decide that the 90% of reality between those two points does not exist because you don't like it.

[roxas11]

I don't know if this has been posted yet
https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1425878518127382533

[soundchaser]

https://twitter.com/NOLAnews/status/1425881868864471043?s=20

Good. Wish Jefferson Parish would do this as well.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

An early piece of evidence against those claiming today’s Supreme Courts would rule vaccine mandates unconstitutional:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-covid-vaccine-mandate-indiana/2021/08/12/a2dcc2d2-fbac-11eb-9c0e-97e29906a970_story.html

[Progressive Pessimist]

Picture that I found on Twitter that succinctly addresses the situation:

The comic makes a good point, but people aren't as reasonable as this comic character is.

In reality, making the AR-15 comparison would probably devolve into a conversation about the actual definition of what an "assault weapon is," knowing who the unvaccinated tend to be, and at that point you'll probably just want to walk away and let that person to take their chances in getting infected with the virus, sparing yourself the frustration and futility.

[Dr. MB]

Stanford is now mandating covid tests every week for both unvaccinated AND vaccinated students. What the hell? What kinda stupid logic is this?

[CEO Mindset]

fire all unionized teachers imo

hire new teachers on new non-union contracts with unionization being expressedly prohibited from day one

the sheer ATTITUDE of american public school teachers since covid has made me go from someone voting third party if i bothered voting to voting gop in all fields

an im someone who supports weed, late term abortions, looser gun laws than even republicans support, a basic income, national healthcare, banning business from a whole host of employment-related practices etc and not, like some libertarian

[emailking]

Stanford is now mandating covid tests every week for both unvaccinated AND vaccinated students. What the hell? What kinda stupid logic is this?

I assume because the CDC found some evidence that vaccinated vectors can spread the virus as efficiently as unvaccinated efforts. That's not confirmed or anything but I assume that's why, so that anyone infected isolates and doesn't spread the infection to someone who might have a bad breakthrough case.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

They stopped testing and tracing, there used to be testing sites that now are vaccinations sites this is why they have the Delta Variet and they use to give out free food and H2O at those sites, now with vaccines they stopped giving those and hand out shot only


The free food and H2O sites were and infinitive to get people tested, without the incentive, no homeless person is gonna gravitate to those

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

It's an incredible comment on American insularity that absolutely none of the discourse around dEltA and the vaccines incorporates... you know... places that have had significant outbreaks of it with large numbers of the population vaccinated.

Yeah. You'd think that would be the kind of thing that the CDC and national news organizations might pay attention to.
CDC reverses indoor mask policy, saying fully vaccinated people and kids should wear them indoors
 
Vaccinated People With Breakthrough Infections Can Spread The Delta Variant, CDC Says

masks indoors in much of the country, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was criticized for not citing data in making that move.

Now it has — and the data is sobering.

The study details a COVID-19 outbreak that started July 3 in Provincetown, Mass., involving 469 cases. It found that three-quarters of cases occurred in fully vaccinated people. Massachusetts has a high rate of vaccination: about 69% among eligible adults in the state at the time of the study.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

Mississippi's hospital system could collapse within the next ten days at current infection rates

[Hammy]

It's an incredible comment on American insularity that absolutely none of the discourse around dEltA and the vaccines incorporates... you know... places that have had significant outbreaks of it with large numbers of the population vaccinated.

Yeah. You'd think that would be the kind of thing that the CDC and national news organizations might pay attention to.
CDC reverses indoor mask policy, saying fully vaccinated people and kids should wear them indoors
 
Vaccinated People With Breakthrough Infections Can Spread The Delta Variant, CDC Says

masks indoors in much of the country, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was criticized for not citing data in making that move.

Now it has — and the data is sobering.

The study details a COVID-19 outbreak that started July 3 in Provincetown, Mass., involving 469 cases. It found that three-quarters of cases occurred in fully vaccinated people. Massachusetts has a high rate of vaccination: about 69% among eligible adults in the state at the time of the study.

Context, context, context. That's what the media insists on ignoring--Provincetown has about 3500 people and is almost fully vaccinated. The higher number of vaccinated you have, the higher percentage of breakthrough cases you will have. So those cases represent 10% (or less) of the population, as these originated at large gatherings with many (unvaccinated) out of towners--these were not people going about their normal out and about activities.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

Here’s another strong piece of evidence for why we should not expect a surge in covid deaths in highly vaccinated areas: the comparison to the UK.

The “third wave” of covid cases in the UK peaked in early January around 60,000 per day.  About 3 weeks later, deaths peaked at around 1,200/day.  Which is exactly what we would expect in given the consistent unvaccinated CFR of ~2%.

Compare that to the “fourth wave”, which peaked around July 21 at 47,000 cases/day. It is now more than 3 weeks later, and the UK is averaging only ~80 deaths/day, a more than 10-fold decrease in CFR compared to the unvaccinated waves.

[OSR stands with Israel]

https://twitter.com/StevenTDennis/status/1425919692372332547?s=20

[GeorgiaModerate]

Interesting development: a close relative of mine had COVID (positive test, symptomatic) early this year. He then got fully vaccinated when he became eligible last Spring. Yesterday he was feeling sick with COVID symptoms again and it was confirmed by multiple positive tests.

Update: that relative has apparently infected another fully vaccinated one (textbook symptoms starting today, waiting for test results). Fortunately I haven’t been in contact with either of them lately.

Another update: the second relative does have COVID, but it turns out that he was actually not vaccinated (I was misinformed that he was).  So only one of the two is a breakthrough case.