COVID-19 Megathread 6: Return of the Omicron

[Horus]

Covid is over.

Nope, not even close.

For vaccinated Americans, COVID is over.

Also a nope.

It's very much a yes. Let me guess, you're a "long COVID" alarmist? lmao

Or do you just distrust vaccine efficacy like most eternal maskers?

It’s very much a no because people are still being infected and there are still too many who are not vaccinated. Classy of you to just assume things about me that are 100% incorrect.

Got it so you're in the zero COVID camp? That's even less logical.

COVID is endemic. It will be infecting people for the rest of our lives. If you are fully vaccinated, it is over for you as much as the flu is, if not moreso.

Nope, not in that camp either. You’re doing really well here!

It’s just too early for anyone to declare it being over. This won’t go on forever, I’m pretty sure of that.

It's over when society decides it's over. Obviously we have different definitions of over because for me and my loved ones, it is. You can wait for your impossible to reach and always changing benchmarks if you'd like.

There you go again with an incorrect assumption. My benchmarks haven’t changed at all and aren’t impossible to reach. We are slowly getting to a certain point, we just aren’t quite there. I don’t necessarily enjoy wearing a mask, but it’s not the end of the world. Eventually, we won’t have to wear them.

Eventually is now. I don't wear my mask much of anywhere. Just the doctor and the airport.

And "not quite there" is a far cry from "not even close" which is what you were saying yesterday.

[cg41386]

Covid is over.

Nope, not even close.

For vaccinated Americans, COVID is over.

Also a nope.

It's very much a yes. Let me guess, you're a "long COVID" alarmist? lmao

Or do you just distrust vaccine efficacy like most eternal maskers?

It’s very much a no because people are still being infected and there are still too many who are not vaccinated. Classy of you to just assume things about me that are 100% incorrect.

Got it so you're in the zero COVID camp? That's even less logical.

COVID is endemic. It will be infecting people for the rest of our lives. If you are fully vaccinated, it is over for you as much as the flu is, if not moreso.

Nope, not in that camp either. You’re doing really well here!

It’s just too early for anyone to declare it being over. This won’t go on forever, I’m pretty sure of that.

It's over when society decides it's over. Obviously we have different definitions of over because for me and my loved ones, it is. You can wait for your impossible to reach and always changing benchmarks if you'd like.

There you go again with an incorrect assumption. My benchmarks haven’t changed at all and aren’t impossible to reach. We are slowly getting to a certain point, we just aren’t quite there. I don’t necessarily enjoy wearing a mask, but it’s not the end of the world. Eventually, we won’t have to wear them.

Eventually is now. I don't wear my mask much of anywhere. Just the doctor and the airport.

And "not quite there" is a far cry from "not even close" which is what you were saying yesterday.

Well good for you. I’ll declare it “over” when I’m no longer required to wear a mask at work. And I’m not expecting that to happen for a little while.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

Are there people out there who are vaccinated but still actively trying to avoid getting Omicron?
If this is you…why???  What exactly are you afraid of?

[cg41386]

Are there people out there who are vaccinated but still actively trying to avoid getting Omicron?
If this is you…why???  What exactly are you afraid of?

Some people (like me) are immunocompromised and are just acting out of caution. I'm not afraid of anything, but thanks for the concern.

[compucomp]

Previous rules of virus are 'out the window'

The latest surge, which has sent case numbers exploding across the globe, is fueled by the Omicron variant, the most contagious coronavirus strain yet, health experts say.

The virus is now "extraordinarily contagious" and previous mitigation measures that used to help now may not be as helpful, CNN medical analyst Dr. Jonathan Reiner told CNN on Friday.

"At the beginning of this pandemic... we all were taught, you have a significant exposure if you're within six feet of somebody and you're in contact with them for more than 15 minutes. All these rules are out the window," Reiner said. "This is a hyper-contagious virus."

Now, even a quick, transient encounter can lead to an infection, Reiner added, including if someone's mask is loose, or a person quickly pulls their mask down, or an individual enters an elevator in which someone else has just coughed.

"This is how you can contract this virus," Reiner said.

I'm sure all the anti-restriction people on this forum want this information suppressed, like Trump would. If this were widely known, a substantial portion of the population would lock themselves down, and then large parts of the hospitality industry would likely close due to suddenly being unprofitable, all of this with zero intervention by the government. This would be totally unacceptable to these people who demand their hospitality options open at all times come hell or high water.

I don't understand this post: the kind of people who would 'lock themselves down' are the kind of people who already know everything there is to know about the new variant anyway and would act accordingly.

Omicron Covid is one of the most infectious diseases known to humanity, rendering anything other than the most authoritarian, dystopian NPIs ineffectual. If anything, this means we need fewer restrictions, not more, since they will have nothing but the most vanishingly marginal impact on actual transmissibility and will only make people's lives more miserable with no meaningful change to the trajectory of the pandemic.

Unless you want people to be welded into their homes like in Wuhan there is no plausible level of social/economic restriction that will do anything to prevent everyone contracting Covid now. This is grounds for celebration, because it's extraordinarly mild compared to prior variants.

This will be over soon: the pandemic is transitioning from a medical phenomenon to a social/political one. If original Covid had been as mild as omicron and as transmissible we would never have heard of the phrase 'lockdown' because there would never have been any case for such a measure. The only reason we're even talking about public health restrictions now is because it's been normalised over the last two years.

I think you missed my point. I've long given up on government NPI's in the USA, aside from mask mandates, because they will not be put in place even if Omicron had the lethality of Ebola and corpses were piling up in the streets. I'm speaking of actions by cautious individuals in response to this news. I believe there is a substantial proportion of the population, who thought they were being mostly safe but if they were informed just how contagious Omicron is, would cancel that vacation, stop dining out, cancel that gathering they were going to hold, etc. This could then move the market and make hospitality unprofitable, forcing firms there to shut down, all of this with zero intervention by the government.

One could call this a "grassroots lockdown", and based on the posts on this forum, it would trigger people just as much as a government lockdown, which honestly undermines their "freedom" arguments since it would force hospitality firms to operate for their pleasure despite adverse market conditions.

Time will tell whether we see any effect like this, but I have seen several articles in December saying that restaurants in NYC were experiencing mass cancellations of reservations. My firm asked that we WFH for the first two weeks of January unless necessary and several of our competitors have done the same.

Why? That's just postponing the inevitable by a week or two. Every single person in the world is going to get omicron.

Your triple masking does nothing, omicron will come for you all the same.

You're entitled to your opinion. I believe there are many who believe otherwise, particularly if this doctor is right and his statement becomes widely known, enough to move the market. We'll see who is right.

However, if I'm right and the hospitality industry starts to contract simply due to market conditions, then if you're bashing "lockdowns", like many have already done on this forum, you've totally undermined your "pro-freedom" arguments and have shown that you're authoritarian in the other direction. You're demanding that the hospitality sector stay open for your pleasure, regardless of what Omicron does and what market conditions dictate.

People can believe whatever they'd like about the transmissibility of the omicron variant. The facts are, it will get all of us at some point in at most the next 60 days, probably less, if it hasn't already. Nothing I stated was an opinion.

And I'm not demanding anyone stay open. If a business wants to lose money and shut down, they have that right. Virtually none will.

No, it's your opinion. It's still possible to avoid being infected by avoiding all human contact and sanitizing everything. I don't believe Omicron has evolved to be Lysol resistant. Also getting a booster does help a bit to prevent infection. If one can't tolerate avoiding human contact, then one incurs risk of catching it. How much human contact you need and how much risk you want to incur, that's up to personal opinion.

If you're willing to stick to what you said about voluntary business shutdowns, then I will respect your opinion. But there are multiple active threads where people are whining about "lockdowns" which are really voluntary business shutdowns and that really is not a respectable opinion since their "pro-freedom" arguments turn into hypocrisy.

Do you do this?

No, not religiously, but I adjust my activities based on the perceived risk. Omicron might be ultra contagious but it's still true that if I expose myself less, then I have a lower chance to be infected. Right now the risk of being infected is very high so I restrict my social activities and mobility. That's my opinion on what I should do. Fine, you perceive the risk differently, so you have a different opinion and go about your life as if it were 2019. However there are clearly many people who think along the same lines as me since restaurants in NYC were reporting mass cancellations of reservations in December.

I really don’t mean to criticize you or your opinion, but when would you feel comfortable abandoning COVID NPIs such as masking and staying at home unless for essential activities?

I think the most realistic scenario to hope for is when science conclusively establishes that the severity of omicron is similar to the common cold for vaccinated people. Right now it looks like it could be true, or it might be somewhere between common cold and flu, we're not sure. What scares me most about breakthrough infections is not that I'll get hospitalized, but that I'll suffer a "mild case" where I am bedridden with fever, body aches, and chills and then suffer long term effects like loss of smell and taste, decreased lung function, brain fog, etc. This was common with breakthrough Delta infections, but if we can be sure breakthrough omicron is like the common cold and this kind of disease severity is rare, then it should cause far less concern.

[pbrower2a]

Lysol literally never helped us combat the virus, but ok.

At one time it was assumed that COVID-19 could be spread by surface contact with, for example, a doorknob or a dinner table. The omicron variant seems less deadly but more durable, so that might come back.  Masks were the best defense until the vaccine became available.

Because of its origin the omicron variant must remain suspect until proved otherwise. Viruses tend to evolve to be less immediately lethal but more contagious. This said, the earlier two variants have had some bad effects even without a quick demise:

diabetes
organ damage
cognitive loss
sexual dysfunction
stillbirths

Cancer and birth defects are not yet established, but I would not be surprised.

Some diseases such as chickenpox, rubella, and rheumatic fever can be comparatively slight at the onset but have a second and worse effect later. I trust any variant of SARS-2 about like I trust a dog to not grab a piece of meat within reach of its paws and snout.  

 

[compucomp]

Lysol literally never helped us combat the virus, but ok.

Yes, the primary way to get infected is airborne, but fomite transmission is possible, and avoiding human contact is definitely the hard part while sanitizing is easy in comparison. If you're making the effort to avoid infection by avoiding people, it would be dumb to get infected because you didn't bother to take five minutes or whatever to wipe stuff down with disinfectant.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

Previous rules of virus are 'out the window'

The latest surge, which has sent case numbers exploding across the globe, is fueled by the Omicron variant, the most contagious coronavirus strain yet, health experts say.

The virus is now "extraordinarily contagious" and previous mitigation measures that used to help now may not be as helpful, CNN medical analyst Dr. Jonathan Reiner told CNN on Friday.

"At the beginning of this pandemic... we all were taught, you have a significant exposure if you're within six feet of somebody and you're in contact with them for more than 15 minutes. All these rules are out the window," Reiner said. "This is a hyper-contagious virus."

Now, even a quick, transient encounter can lead to an infection, Reiner added, including if someone's mask is loose, or a person quickly pulls their mask down, or an individual enters an elevator in which someone else has just coughed.

"This is how you can contract this virus," Reiner said.

I'm sure all the anti-restriction people on this forum want this information suppressed, like Trump would. If this were widely known, a substantial portion of the population would lock themselves down, and then large parts of the hospitality industry would likely close due to suddenly being unprofitable, all of this with zero intervention by the government. This would be totally unacceptable to these people who demand their hospitality options open at all times come hell or high water.

I don't understand this post: the kind of people who would 'lock themselves down' are the kind of people who already know everything there is to know about the new variant anyway and would act accordingly.

Omicron Covid is one of the most infectious diseases known to humanity, rendering anything other than the most authoritarian, dystopian NPIs ineffectual. If anything, this means we need fewer restrictions, not more, since they will have nothing but the most vanishingly marginal impact on actual transmissibility and will only make people's lives more miserable with no meaningful change to the trajectory of the pandemic.

Unless you want people to be welded into their homes like in Wuhan there is no plausible level of social/economic restriction that will do anything to prevent everyone contracting Covid now. This is grounds for celebration, because it's extraordinarly mild compared to prior variants.

This will be over soon: the pandemic is transitioning from a medical phenomenon to a social/political one. If original Covid had been as mild as omicron and as transmissible we would never have heard of the phrase 'lockdown' because there would never have been any case for such a measure. The only reason we're even talking about public health restrictions now is because it's been normalised over the last two years.

I think you missed my point. I've long given up on government NPI's in the USA, aside from mask mandates, because they will not be put in place even if Omicron had the lethality of Ebola and corpses were piling up in the streets. I'm speaking of actions by cautious individuals in response to this news. I believe there is a substantial proportion of the population, who thought they were being mostly safe but if they were informed just how contagious Omicron is, would cancel that vacation, stop dining out, cancel that gathering they were going to hold, etc. This could then move the market and make hospitality unprofitable, forcing firms there to shut down, all of this with zero intervention by the government.

One could call this a "grassroots lockdown", and based on the posts on this forum, it would trigger people just as much as a government lockdown, which honestly undermines their "freedom" arguments since it would force hospitality firms to operate for their pleasure despite adverse market conditions.

Time will tell whether we see any effect like this, but I have seen several articles in December saying that restaurants in NYC were experiencing mass cancellations of reservations. My firm asked that we WFH for the first two weeks of January unless necessary and several of our competitors have done the same.

Why? That's just postponing the inevitable by a week or two. Every single person in the world is going to get omicron.

Your triple masking does nothing, omicron will come for you all the same.

You're entitled to your opinion. I believe there are many who believe otherwise, particularly if this doctor is right and his statement becomes widely known, enough to move the market. We'll see who is right.

However, if I'm right and the hospitality industry starts to contract simply due to market conditions, then if you're bashing "lockdowns", like many have already done on this forum, you've totally undermined your "pro-freedom" arguments and have shown that you're authoritarian in the other direction. You're demanding that the hospitality sector stay open for your pleasure, regardless of what Omicron does and what market conditions dictate.

People can believe whatever they'd like about the transmissibility of the omicron variant. The facts are, it will get all of us at some point in at most the next 60 days, probably less, if it hasn't already. Nothing I stated was an opinion.

And I'm not demanding anyone stay open. If a business wants to lose money and shut down, they have that right. Virtually none will.

No, it's your opinion. It's still possible to avoid being infected by avoiding all human contact and sanitizing everything. I don't believe Omicron has evolved to be Lysol resistant. Also getting a booster does help a bit to prevent infection. If one can't tolerate avoiding human contact, then one incurs risk of catching it. How much human contact you need and how much risk you want to incur, that's up to personal opinion.

If you're willing to stick to what you said about voluntary business shutdowns, then I will respect your opinion. But there are multiple active threads where people are whining about "lockdowns" which are really voluntary business shutdowns and that really is not a respectable opinion since their "pro-freedom" arguments turn into hypocrisy.

Do you do this?

No, not religiously, but I adjust my activities based on the perceived risk. Omicron might be ultra contagious but it's still true that if I expose myself less, then I have a lower chance to be infected. Right now the risk of being infected is very high so I restrict my social activities and mobility. That's my opinion on what I should do. Fine, you perceive the risk differently, so you have a different opinion and go about your life as if it were 2019. However there are clearly many people who think along the same lines as me since restaurants in NYC were reporting mass cancellations of reservations in December.

I really don’t mean to criticize you or your opinion, but when would you feel comfortable abandoning COVID NPIs such as masking and staying at home unless for essential activities?

I think the most realistic scenario to hope for is when science conclusively establishes that the severity of omicron is similar to the common cold for vaccinated people. Right now it looks like it could be true, or it might be somewhere between common cold and flu, we're not sure. What scares me most about breakthrough infections is not that I'll get hospitalized, but that I'll suffer a "mild case" where I am bedridden with fever, body aches, and chills and then suffer long term effects like loss of smell and taste, decreased lung function, brain fog, etc. This was common with breakthrough Delta infections, but if we can be sure breakthrough omicron is like the common cold and this kind of disease severity is rare, then it should cause far less concern.

Loss of smell and taste is not common with the Omicron variant.

[Hammy]

Loss of smell and taste is not common with the Omicron variant.

Kind of interesting given they discovered this was neurological rather than mechanical (such as losing smell due to congestion) so another possible indicator or weakened potency.

[Mr.Bakari-Sellers]

Are there people out there who are vaccinated but still actively trying to avoid getting Omicron?
If this is you…why???  What exactly are you afraid of?

Some people (like me) are immunocompromised and are just acting out of caution. I'm not afraid of anything, but thanks for the concern.

It's called vitamins and if you get the flu medications aspirin for fever and Theraflu for cough, sneezing and sore throat

[roxas11]

This has to be the most self-centred population in recent history. It's a good thing most of you weren't alive during WWII or we would almost certainly have lost. It's no wonder this country is fracturing as it is. There is no common cause or common sacrifice anymore. It's all about "me", "me", and "me'. Being forced to wear a mask in a grocery store? That's apparently the new oppression. That is despite the fact that one lives in the United States, where one is not oppressed.

But hey, let's all try to get this virus transmitted across the population as quickly as possible. That's what most of you want. Obviously, mitigation efforts are too oppressive for some people. I honestly say "f-ck you" to those that think a mask somehow inhibits a trip the grocery store. I have no respect for those that think only of themselves.

I can't speak for everyone else on this, but that is not how I feel at all

I would honestly prefer if people would just get vaccinated over contracting this virus. Omicron may be mild compared to previous variants, but I still would not tell anybody to go out and purposely get it just because it may give them some immunity. I just think the reality is there are many people in the country who will never get vaccinated or even wear as mask and nothing you or I say is ever going to change that

I hate to say it, but at this point omicron may be the best change at getting unvaccinated people some protection against future variants. It's sad that it has even come to this, but that is the crazy world that we now live in

As I said at the start I wish people would just get vaccinated or at least wear as mask but at this point if Omicron spreading to the unvaccinated is what it takes to get us out of this mess than so be it


 

[emailking]

Are there people out there who are vaccinated but still actively trying to avoid getting Omicron?
If this is you…why???  What exactly are you afraid of?

Yes. I don't want to get sick. Not even a cold. I'm not afraid. I just don't want it.

I don't think it's inevitable that everybody gets it either. I also don't think it's a cause for celebration.

At least until this super wave is over I'm going to try to avoid getting it.

[MATTROSE94]

Previous rules of virus are 'out the window'

The latest surge, which has sent case numbers exploding across the globe, is fueled by the Omicron variant, the most contagious coronavirus strain yet, health experts say.

The virus is now "extraordinarily contagious" and previous mitigation measures that used to help now may not be as helpful, CNN medical analyst Dr. Jonathan Reiner told CNN on Friday.

"At the beginning of this pandemic... we all were taught, you have a significant exposure if you're within six feet of somebody and you're in contact with them for more than 15 minutes. All these rules are out the window," Reiner said. "This is a hyper-contagious virus."

Now, even a quick, transient encounter can lead to an infection, Reiner added, including if someone's mask is loose, or a person quickly pulls their mask down, or an individual enters an elevator in which someone else has just coughed.

"This is how you can contract this virus," Reiner said.

I'm sure all the anti-restriction people on this forum want this information suppressed, like Trump would. If this were widely known, a substantial portion of the population would lock themselves down, and then large parts of the hospitality industry would likely close due to suddenly being unprofitable, all of this with zero intervention by the government. This would be totally unacceptable to these people who demand their hospitality options open at all times come hell or high water.

I don't understand this post: the kind of people who would 'lock themselves down' are the kind of people who already know everything there is to know about the new variant anyway and would act accordingly.

Omicron Covid is one of the most infectious diseases known to humanity, rendering anything other than the most authoritarian, dystopian NPIs ineffectual. If anything, this means we need fewer restrictions, not more, since they will have nothing but the most vanishingly marginal impact on actual transmissibility and will only make people's lives more miserable with no meaningful change to the trajectory of the pandemic.

Unless you want people to be welded into their homes like in Wuhan there is no plausible level of social/economic restriction that will do anything to prevent everyone contracting Covid now. This is grounds for celebration, because it's extraordinarly mild compared to prior variants.

This will be over soon: the pandemic is transitioning from a medical phenomenon to a social/political one. If original Covid had been as mild as omicron and as transmissible we would never have heard of the phrase 'lockdown' because there would never have been any case for such a measure. The only reason we're even talking about public health restrictions now is because it's been normalised over the last two years.

I think you missed my point. I've long given up on government NPI's in the USA, aside from mask mandates, because they will not be put in place even if Omicron had the lethality of Ebola and corpses were piling up in the streets. I'm speaking of actions by cautious individuals in response to this news. I believe there is a substantial proportion of the population, who thought they were being mostly safe but if they were informed just how contagious Omicron is, would cancel that vacation, stop dining out, cancel that gathering they were going to hold, etc. This could then move the market and make hospitality unprofitable, forcing firms there to shut down, all of this with zero intervention by the government.

One could call this a "grassroots lockdown", and based on the posts on this forum, it would trigger people just as much as a government lockdown, which honestly undermines their "freedom" arguments since it would force hospitality firms to operate for their pleasure despite adverse market conditions.

Time will tell whether we see any effect like this, but I have seen several articles in December saying that restaurants in NYC were experiencing mass cancellations of reservations. My firm asked that we WFH for the first two weeks of January unless necessary and several of our competitors have done the same.

Why? That's just postponing the inevitable by a week or two. Every single person in the world is going to get omicron.

Your triple masking does nothing, omicron will come for you all the same.

You're entitled to your opinion. I believe there are many who believe otherwise, particularly if this doctor is right and his statement becomes widely known, enough to move the market. We'll see who is right.

However, if I'm right and the hospitality industry starts to contract simply due to market conditions, then if you're bashing "lockdowns", like many have already done on this forum, you've totally undermined your "pro-freedom" arguments and have shown that you're authoritarian in the other direction. You're demanding that the hospitality sector stay open for your pleasure, regardless of what Omicron does and what market conditions dictate.

People can believe whatever they'd like about the transmissibility of the omicron variant. The facts are, it will get all of us at some point in at most the next 60 days, probably less, if it hasn't already. Nothing I stated was an opinion.

And I'm not demanding anyone stay open. If a business wants to lose money and shut down, they have that right. Virtually none will.

No, it's your opinion. It's still possible to avoid being infected by avoiding all human contact and sanitizing everything. I don't believe Omicron has evolved to be Lysol resistant. Also getting a booster does help a bit to prevent infection. If one can't tolerate avoiding human contact, then one incurs risk of catching it. How much human contact you need and how much risk you want to incur, that's up to personal opinion.

If you're willing to stick to what you said about voluntary business shutdowns, then I will respect your opinion. But there are multiple active threads where people are whining about "lockdowns" which are really voluntary business shutdowns and that really is not a respectable opinion since their "pro-freedom" arguments turn into hypocrisy.

Do you do this?

No, not religiously, but I adjust my activities based on the perceived risk. Omicron might be ultra contagious but it's still true that if I expose myself less, then I have a lower chance to be infected. Right now the risk of being infected is very high so I restrict my social activities and mobility. That's my opinion on what I should do. Fine, you perceive the risk differently, so you have a different opinion and go about your life as if it were 2019. However there are clearly many people who think along the same lines as me since restaurants in NYC were reporting mass cancellations of reservations in December.

I really don’t mean to criticize you or your opinion, but when would you feel comfortable abandoning COVID NPIs such as masking and staying at home unless for essential activities?

I think the most realistic scenario to hope for is when science conclusively establishes that the severity of omicron is similar to the common cold for vaccinated people. Right now it looks like it could be true, or it might be somewhere between common cold and flu, we're not sure. What scares me most about breakthrough infections is not that I'll get hospitalized, but that I'll suffer a "mild case" where I am bedridden with fever, body aches, and chills and then suffer long term effects like loss of smell and taste, decreased lung function, brain fog, etc. This was common with breakthrough Delta infections, but if we can be sure breakthrough omicron is like the common cold and this kind of disease severity is rare, then it should cause far less concern.

This is a pretty fair opinion. Omicron doesn’t seem to be ad bad as Alpha or Delta, but is still killing around 1,200 people per day, which is a lot better than the 5,000 per day Alpha killed in the US and the 10,000 per day Delta killed in India last spring. BTW, I see that you mentioned that you worked for a firm, is it a law firm or a different type of firm?

[Meclazine for Israel]

..... physical fitness.....we know is the single best defense against this virus.

You are correct....in general.

Vaccination is the best primary defence against this virus.

Second would be natural immunity where the lungs don't suffer from an over-responsive immune system and you drown in your own alveoli.

An overweight 45 y.o. German woman can have a great immune system whilst a superfit 24 y.o Australian athlete can have a skewed immune system and get much sicker.

Being in good shape helps build your natural immunity, but fitness is not the primary defence.

It's all to do with your immune response.

[Meclazine for Israel]

Let me be clear, it will be over, but it isn’t yet.

There was an epidemiologist in Adelaide, SA who forecast (6-12 months ago) through modelling that with regard to the pre-Omicron variants; it is highly probable that everyone on the planet will get COVID-19 three times in the next ten years.

Vaccination is therefore the only solution.

With Omicron, and more variants to come, this could turn into an annual flu-like situation with an immunisation booster.

The medical advice from nurses in 1918 is the real solution if you want to avoid COVID-19:

1. Wash your hands for 20 seconds in warm soapy water;
2. Wear a mask.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

I would much rather be somewhat sick for a few days than miss a concert or sporting event I really want to go to.  Or certainly cancel an international trip or major conference.  And we’ve been missing these for most of two years now.  I just can’t fathom how people think this trade-off is sensible (at least now that we’re vaccinated).

[Frodo]

Omicron Variant Might Help Defend Against Delta, Lab Study Suggests
In the lab, antibodies produced during an Omicron infection protected against Delta. If Omicron dominates in the real world, that could lead to a less dire future.

People who have recovered from an infection with the new Omicron coronavirus variant may be able to fend off later infections from the Delta variant, according to a new laboratory study carried out by South African scientists.

If further experiments confirm these findings, they could suggest a less dire future for the pandemic. In the short term, Omicron is expected to create a surge of cases that will put a massive strain on economies and health care systems around the world. But in the longer term, the new research suggests that an Omicron-dominated world might experience fewer hospitalizations and deaths than one in which Delta continues to rage.

“Omicron is likely to push Delta out,” said Alex Sigal, a virologist at the Africa Health Research Institute in Durban, South Africa, who led the new study. “Maybe pushing Delta out is actually a good thing, and we’re looking at something we can live with more easily and that will disrupt us less than the previous variants.”

He posted the new study on the institute’s website on Monday. It has not yet been published in a scientific journal.

Independent scientists said that the results of the South African experiment, though preliminary, were sound. Carl Pearson, an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said the findings were consistent with what is now happening in England.

[emailking]

I would much rather be somewhat sick for a few days than miss a concert or sporting event I really want to go to.  Or certainly cancel an international trip or major conference.  And we’ve been missing these for most of two years now.  I just can’t fathom how people think this trade-off is sensible (at least now that we’re vaccinated).

Ok? You've said this several times now I feel like.

I can fathom your position, I don't know why you can't fathom mine. In the long run I'm going to do that stuff, but for 2 months? I'll take staying at home over the high likelihood of a cold.

If you have a different cost benefit analysis, go for it. I support personal freedom.

[Suburbia]

I have two vaccines and I got boosted a couple days ago.

What next?

[Wrong about 2024 Ghost]

I would much rather be somewhat sick for a few days than miss a concert or sporting event I really want to go to.  Or certainly cancel an international trip or major conference.  And we’ve been missing these for most of two years now.  I just can’t fathom how people think this trade-off is sensible (at least now that we’re vaccinated).

Because we value keeping hospital space and staff available to those who have an urgent need for them over "not missing a concert or sporting event".

[Wrong about 2024 Ghost]

https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1476553395863711749

[Calthrina950]

I would much rather be somewhat sick for a few days than miss a concert or sporting event I really want to go to.  Or certainly cancel an international trip or major conference.  And we’ve been missing these for most of two years now.  I just can’t fathom how people think this trade-off is sensible (at least now that we’re vaccinated).

Because we value keeping hospital space and staff available to those who have an urgent need for them over "not missing a concert or sporting event".

Are you saying that we should be canceling events and reimposing lockdowns? Perhaps reimposing a statewide mask mandate? I'm not sure if people are going to tolerate such moves at this point.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

I would much rather be somewhat sick for a few days than miss a concert or sporting event I really want to go to.  Or certainly cancel an international trip or major conference.  And we’ve been missing these for most of two years now.  I just can’t fathom how people think this trade-off is sensible (at least now that we’re vaccinated).

Because we value keeping hospital space and staff available to those who have an urgent need for them over "not missing a concert or sporting event".

The fully vaccinated are highly unlikely to need hospital space and staff, especially from Omicron.

The unvaccinated dealing with Delta was essentially Russian Roulette. The vaccinated dealing with Omicron is largely comparable to crossing the street. Sure, things could go horribly wrong, but it's very long odds.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

I would much rather be somewhat sick for a few days than miss a concert or sporting event I really want to go to.  Or certainly cancel an international trip or major conference.  And we’ve been missing these for most of two years now.  I just can’t fathom how people think this trade-off is sensible (at least now that we’re vaccinated).

Because we value keeping hospital space and staff available to those who have an urgent need for them over "not missing a concert or sporting event".

Are you saying that we should be canceling events and reimposing lockdowns? Perhaps reimposing a statewide mask mandate? I'm not sure if people are going to tolerate such moves at this point.

I think mask mandates would largely be met with grumbling, but probably wouldn't help much anyway given how transmissible Omicron is.

Lockdowns and closures, there is no way for that to happen without mass unrest that would make 2020 look like nothing, I think.

[Hammy]

I would much rather be somewhat sick for a few days than miss a concert or sporting event I really want to go to.  Or certainly cancel an international trip or major conference.  And we’ve been missing these for most of two years now.  I just can’t fathom how people think this trade-off is sensible (at least now that we’re vaccinated).

Because we value keeping hospital space and staff available to those who have an urgent need for them over "not missing a concert or sporting event".

ICUs are almost 80% full, and 2/3 of those are non-covid patients, meaning even absent covid, nearly 60% of the country's ICU beds are in use. The pandemic is exposing a deeper problem, which is a shortage of hospital space caused by our for-profit system, and this is something that needs highlighted above all else at this point.