COVID-19 Megathread 6: Return of the Omicron

[Hammy]

Looks like the airlines are using Omicron as an excuse to cancel a lot of flights and strand people at airports. I've got some family traveling so I'm hoping they don't get stuck.

This decision never made sense to me. Instead of having 200 or so people in a plane, they're turning these stranded passengers who now have to wait in a crowded airport into a massive super spreader event.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Looks like the airlines are using Omicron as an excuse to cancel a lot of flights and strand people at airports. I've got some family traveling so I'm hoping they don't get stuck.

This decision never made sense to me. Instead of having 200 or so people in a plane, they're turning these stranded passengers who now have to wait in a crowded airport into a massive super spreader event.

The cancellations are primarily due to having too many pilots and flight attendants out.

[roxas11]

We should be looking at deaths rather than cases to determine how bad things are

if we looked at deaths or hospitalizations instead of case numbers no reason for hysteria

If Omicron was what the virus had started as in 2019, I wonder how world would have reacted

exactly the same. the goal was to get trump out of office somehow by triggering a recession, with it being kept up because enriching billionaires with lockdowns/new restrictions/mandates is something popular among politicians of both parties

So let me get this straight you are actually blaming others for Trump being an incompetent president at the start of the pandemic

In 2020 nobody put a gun to his head and forced him to say idiotic stuff like this...



by the end of the day the buck stops with the president so stop blaming everybody else for his failures

[DaleCooper]

Looks like the airlines are using Omicron as an excuse to cancel a lot of flights and strand people at airports. I've got some family traveling so I'm hoping they don't get stuck.

This decision never made sense to me. Instead of having 200 or so people in a plane, they're turning these stranded passengers who now have to wait in a crowded airport into a massive super spreader event.

The cancellations are primarily due to having too many pilots and flight attendants out.

Yes, but how many of those people are out for two weeks because of asymptomatic cases?

[Hammy]

Looks like the airlines are using Omicron as an excuse to cancel a lot of flights and strand people at airports. I've got some family traveling so I'm hoping they don't get stuck.

This decision never made sense to me. Instead of having 200 or so people in a plane, they're turning these stranded passengers who now have to wait in a crowded airport into a massive super spreader event.

The cancellations are primarily due to having too many pilots and flight attendants out.

Yes, but how many of those people are out for two weeks because of asymptomatic cases?

Not sure I'd trust a pilot with any virus to fly a plane given you'll still be tired even in the lack of any other symptoms.

[DaleCooper]

Looks like the airlines are using Omicron as an excuse to cancel a lot of flights and strand people at airports. I've got some family traveling so I'm hoping they don't get stuck.

This decision never made sense to me. Instead of having 200 or so people in a plane, they're turning these stranded passengers who now have to wait in a crowded airport into a massive super spreader event.

The cancellations are primarily due to having too many pilots and flight attendants out.

Yes, but how many of those people are out for two weeks because of asymptomatic cases?

Not sure I'd trust a pilot with any virus to fly a plane given you'll still be tired even in the lack of any other symptoms.

I was reading an article (I believe from NPR but can't quite recall) that specifically said pilots are allowed to fly even if symptomatic of cold and flu bugs, but not if they're asymptomatic with COVID.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

I tested positive for covid via a home antigen test this morning.  I was feeling very fatigued yesterday (Dec 25), and has a rough fever and cough last night, but pretty much feel fine now except for some general congestion.

The weird thing about this is the context in which I apparently got it, which is most likely from my 2-year old daughter.  She could have been potentially exposed in several ways over the last week, since she was visiting a new day care room and attended a small christmas party with other kids.  And she became sick with a fever and cough 3 days ago (Dec. 23).

She seemed to be feeling better the next day (Dec 24), but I took her to a rapid care center to get a professional covid test anyway that morning.  And she tested negative. 

I’m not really surprised that I got covid eventually, and I’m not at all surprised that I got sick a few days after she got sick.  But it’s confusing to me how I got sick with covid from someone who tested negative for covid.

So one of the following things had to be true, each of which independently seems unlikely:
1.) My daughter had a false negative test, despite getting a high quality test from a medical professional
2.) I had a false positive test, despite clearly having covid symptoms
3.) My daughter was sick from an unrelated illness, and I got covid from an unrelated source, despite us both having very similar symptoms two days apart

[Hammy]

Looks like the airlines are using Omicron as an excuse to cancel a lot of flights and strand people at airports. I've got some family traveling so I'm hoping they don't get stuck.

This decision never made sense to me. Instead of having 200 or so people in a plane, they're turning these stranded passengers who now have to wait in a crowded airport into a massive super spreader event.

The cancellations are primarily due to having too many pilots and flight attendants out.

Yes, but how many of those people are out for two weeks because of asymptomatic cases?

Not sure I'd trust a pilot with any virus to fly a plane given you'll still be tired even in the lack of any other symptoms.

I was reading an article (I believe from NPR but can't quite recall) that specifically said pilots are allowed to fly even if symptomatic of cold and flu bugs, but not if they're asymptomatic with COVID.

I'm glad I don't fly anymore, is all I have to say about that. The standard should be applied evenly when it comes to operating a plane or any other transportation.

[compucomp]

I tested positive for covid via a home antigen test this morning.  I was feeling very fatigued yesterday (Dec 25), and has a rough fever and cough last night, but pretty much feel fine now except for some general congestion.

The weird thing about this is the context in which I apparently got it, which is most likely from my 2-year old daughter.  She could have been potentially exposed in several ways over the last week, since she was visiting a new day care room and attended a small christmas party with other kids.  And she became sick with a fever and cough 3 days ago (Dec. 23).

She seemed to be feeling better the next day (Dec 24), but I took her to a rapid care center to get a professional covid test anyway that morning.  And she tested negative. 

I’m not really surprised that I got covid eventually, and I’m not at all surprised that I got sick a few days after she got sick.  But it’s confusing to me how I got sick with covid from someone who tested negative for covid.

So one of the following things had to be true, each of which independently seems unlikely:
1.) My daughter had a false negative test, despite getting a high quality test from a medical professional
2.) I had a false positive test, despite clearly having covid symptoms
3.) My daughter was sick from an unrelated illness, and I got covid from an unrelated source, despite us both having very similar symptoms two days apart

Sorry to hear you've been infected. False positive rates for home COVID tests are rather low (source), unlike false negative rates. The typical home test also contains two tests so you could test again with the other one. I'd guess a false negative for your daughter is more likely.

[emailking]

If Omicron was what the virus had started as in 2019, I wonder how world would have reacted

I don't think it's as mild as everyone many in this thread seem to think it is, I think a lot of that is from existing immunity. Molecularly there's no reason to think the virus would cause milder symptoms, although it seems to have more trouble infecting the lungs. So yes it's possibly milder than the Wuhan strain. But it's way more contagious, and maybe would have been very unlikely to be that way for patient 0 in humans.

So, hypothetically, if you drop Omicron in Wuhan in like 9/2019 or something it would have been everywhere a lot more quickly, and it might have done even more damage/death. A lockdown of Wuhan might have been pointless. I guess the question is would we have all shrugged our shoulders and said we'll just deal with it or would we have locked down even harder. Who knows.

Or maybe it's super mild even with no immunity and we wouldn't have noticed it as anything other than another cold strain going around. :shrug:

[Meclazine for Israel]

1 case reported in Perth, Western Australia bringing total cases in community to 7.

Hence lockdown extended by 1 week to January 4 2022. No indoor gatherings without masks. No concerts, no night clubs.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-12-27/wa-extends-covid-restrictions-one-new-case-in-hotel-quarantine/100726876

Two people arrested and jailed for not following isolation protocol.

2 jab vaccination rate at 84%.

[Horus]

1 case reported in Perth, Western Australia bringing total cases in community to 7.

Hence lockdown extended by 1 week to January 4 2022. No indoor gatherings without masks. No concerts, no night clubs.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-12-27/wa-extends-covid-restrictions-one-new-case-in-hotel-quarantine/100726876

Two people arrested and jailed for not following isolation protocol.

2 jab vaccination rate at 84%.

You guys are insane. 84% vaccination rate yet you're still locked down and still arresting people? Everyone is going to get COVID either way, you are simply postponing the inevitable.

Do you really think this is normal and okay? Freedom House really needs to downgrade that part of the world. There is no way in hell you guys have more freedoms than we do.

[Frodo]

In my state, there will be no statewide mask mandate or restrictions as Omicron spreads.  And this is with a Democratic trifecta still in place:

Virginia’s Governor says no mask mandates or restrictions as Omicron variant spreads

So you can definitely count on Republicans to at least continue this policy when Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin is inaugurated with a Republican-controlled House. 

[Meclazine for Israel]

1 case reported in Perth, Western Australia bringing total cases in community to 7.

Hence lockdown extended by 1 week to January 4 2022. No indoor gatherings without masks. No concerts, no night clubs.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-12-27/wa-extends-covid-restrictions-one-new-case-in-hotel-quarantine/100726876

Two people arrested and jailed for not following isolation protocol.

2 jab vaccination rate at 84%.

You guys are insane. 84% vaccination rate yet you're still locked down and still arresting people? Everyone is going to get COVID either way, you are simply postponing the inevitable.

Do you really think this is normal and okay? Freedom House really needs to downgrade that part of the world. There is no way in hell you guys have more freedoms than we do.

I just report the truth. The politics of freedom and the left wing Labor governments strategy employed here are above my pay grade.

In 1933, we voted to become our own country, and people are thinking it again in 2022.


(https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-12-27/will-states-keep-newfound-power-history-of-australia-federation/100697002)

Those Eastern States are not bringing much. When South Australia sends its people, they're sending people that have lots of problems. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people. South Australia are not bringing their best, so we are going to build a wall,....a big, beautiful wall.

I cannot say I really like Mark McGowan, but with essentially zero COVID transmission thus far (after ~2 years), it is hard to argue that this Premier has done a bad job. His political approval numbers are above 90% so everyone is delighted with the result after essentially shutting the rest of the world, and hence COVID-19, out.

Now we have had one French backpacker penetrate 'Fortress WA' and was roaming through our clean population of 2 Million people whilst infectious and gave COVID (Delta) to 7 people.

He should not have been allowed in the state given our vaccination rules (i.e. Need to be double vaccinated to come here on a plane).

Whether or not you support putting people in jail for not following the medical directive to isolate, WA is doing the best job it can to keep the virus out.

Mark McGowan predicts that as of February 5 2022, WA will have 90% vaccination rates and will re-open the border to the world.

[CEO Mindset]

We should be looking at deaths rather than cases to determine how bad things are

if we looked at deaths or hospitalizations instead of case numbers no reason for hysteria

If Omicron was what the virus had started as in 2019, I wonder how world would have reacted

exactly the same. the goal was to get trump out of office somehow by triggering a recession, with it being kept up because enriching billionaires with lockdowns/new restrictions/mandates is something popular among politicians of both parties

So let me get this straight you are actually blaming others for Trump being an incompetent president at the start of the pandemic

In 2020 nobody put a gun to his head and forced him to say idiotic stuff like this...



by the end of the day the buck stops with the president so stop blaming everybody else for his failures

True. Trump was a dumb dumb who bought into covid instead of using his powers to block or restrict various pandemic measures.

[compucomp]

https://twitter.com/Craig_A_Spencer/status/1475325900766031874

This is not a scientific study but I am cautiously encouraged by what Dr. Spencer is saying in this thread.  Previously a "mild case" of COVID could mean a weeklong miserable slog with fever, malaise, body aches and long term symptoms like loss of smell and taste, reduced lung function, brain fog. In my opinion this is not mild at all and thus I have expended considerable personal effort to avoid COVID. However, if COVID can truly be reduced to the severity of the common cold, then I wouldn't be concerned with it and it can be downgraded as a public health threat.

However, I'd say it's not so encouraging that we may need boosters to reach this outcome; recent studies indicate that we may need boosters every 3 months. This vaccine definitely has side effects and there is a limit to how often I'm willing to tolerate it. Also it's impossible to keep the whole population boosted in perpetuity so hospitals will likely experience surges and capacity issues and have to increase permanent capacity. Also medical personnel have started to quit already due to the strain of treating COVID patients, and to keep them in their jobs hospitals will probably have to pay them more. Ultimately this will ultimately raise medical costs for everyone.

I think this is a "median" type scenario for how COVID-19 becomes endemic, and honestly it's pretty mediocre. Containment measures will fade away and activity levels will go back to 2019 but society is decidedly worse than it was before.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

https://twitter.com/Craig_A_Spencer/status/1475325900766031874

This is not a scientific study but I am cautiously encouraged by what Dr. Spencer is saying in this thread.  Previously a "mild case" of COVID could mean a weeklong miserable slog with fever, malaise, body aches and long term symptoms like loss of smell and taste, reduced lung function, brain fog. In my opinion this is not mild at all and thus I have expended considerable personal effort to avoid COVID. However, if COVID can truly be reduced to the severity of the common cold, then I wouldn't be concerned with it and it can be downgraded as a public health threat.

However, I'd say it's not so encouraging that we may need boosters to reach this outcome; recent studies indicate that we may need boosters every 3 months. This vaccine definitely has side effects and there is a limit to how often I'm willing to tolerate it. Also it's impossible to keep the whole population boosted in perpetuity so hospitals will likely experience surges and capacity issues and have to increase permanent capacity. Also medical personnel have started to quit already due to the strain of treating COVID patients, and to keep them in their jobs hospitals will probably have to pay them more. Ultimately this will ultimately raise medical costs for everyone.

I think this is a "median" type scenario for how COVID-19 becomes endemic, and honestly it's pretty mediocre. Containment measures will fade away and activity levels will go back to 2019 but society is decidedly worse than it was before.

https://twitter.com/Craig_A_Spencer/status/1475325902267551746?s=20
This is exactly what I experienced the last few days: sore throat and fatigue.
I am wondering why so many people with only these symptoms are going to the ER though.

[Green Line]

Outdoor mask wearing is back up to well over 50% in my neck of the woods.  Things are going backwards fast!

[Crumpets]

Probably helped by (although not entirely attributable to) Christmas reporting lags, we're currently at our lowest global weekly death rate since October 2020.

[emailking]

Outdoor mask wearing is back up to well over 50% in my neck of the woods.  Things are going backwards fast!

As long as it's optional, who cares? People can dress however they want.

[Green Line]

Outdoor mask wearing is back up to well over 50% in my neck of the woods.  Things are going backwards fast!

As long as it's optional, who cares? People can dress however they want.

People can wear whatever they want.  Its a sign of liberal neurosis and mass hysteria, however, that so many people are wearing cloth face coverings in open air, in a neighborhood that is over 90% vaccinated.  I will continue to comment on the illogical things I see.

And for the record, people in Chicago can’t dress however they want.  They have to wear a mask indoors pretty much everywhere.  Once Im allowed to dress however I want, Ill feel less need to comment on the choices of others.  This is the new normal we live in now.  I didn’t create it or ask for it, so don’t blame me.

[emailking]

I meant outdoors.

[Lief 🗽]

I wear a mask outdoors because it’s cold as hell right now.

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

I wear a mask outdoors year-round because it means homeless people don't harass me. Much more consistently than I wear one indoors.

[riceowl]

CDC has updated their guidance - no quarantine needed if boosted and exposed; 5 days of isolation instead of 10 if you get a test.