COVID-19 Megathread 6: Return of the Omicron

[compucomp]

Sonia Sotomayor spewed more false information about Covid today in the Supreme Court than MTG or any anti vaxxer could ever hope to.  Hopefully she is relentlessly censored and fact checked by big tech (i know, lol).  Amazing and frightening that these out of touch, zero-Covid boomers are in positions of such high authority.

https://twitter.com/greg_price11/status/1479500787583758346

Fine then, also kick out Gorsuch for overestimating annual flu deaths by an order of magnitude to pretend that "COVID is like the flu":

https://twitter.com/ElieNYC/status/1479497902653329408

If the hearing was about mandating a flu vaccine, you might have a point!

You're way smarter than this. You know exactly what pro-COVID numbskulls have tried to do from the beginning when bringing up the flu in comparison to COVID. You're either one of them or you're a blind partisan who thinks of everything as a sports match, where your team never commits a foul but the opposing team commits a foul on every play.

Ok, lol "foul" on Gorsuch for flubbing flu numbers.  When he tries mandating people take a vaccine against their will based on his poor understanding of the flu, I'll be very displeased with him.  Until then, not concerned.  Not going to play the false equivalency game with you and pretend all statements are somehow equvalent to each other.  Go play with someone else.

You're purposefully being obtuse, or more likely you are a pro-COVID numbskull yourself. You know exactly the argument he is making with the false flu number. Claiming that COVID-19 is no worse than the flu is a longstanding and utterly false pro-COVID argument. For Gorsuch to resort to it is despicable. His statement is equally disqualifying as whatever Sotomayor said.

[Migrant Crime]

Sonia Sotomayor spewed more false information about Covid today in the Supreme Court than MTG or any anti vaxxer could ever hope to.  Hopefully she is relentlessly censored and fact checked by big tech (i know, lol).  Amazing and frightening that these out of touch, zero-Covid boomers are in positions of such high authority.

https://twitter.com/greg_price11/status/1479500787583758346

Fine then, also kick out Gorsuch for overestimating annual flu deaths by an order of magnitude to pretend that "COVID is like the flu":

https://twitter.com/ElieNYC/status/1479497902653329408

If the hearing was about mandating a flu vaccine, you might have a point!

You're way smarter than this. You know exactly what pro-COVID numbskulls have tried to do from the beginning when bringing up the flu in comparison to COVID. You're either one of them or you're a blind partisan who thinks of everything as a sports match, where your team never commits a foul but the opposing team commits a foul on every play.

Ok, lol "foul" on Gorsuch for flubbing flu numbers.  When he tries mandating people take a vaccine against their will based on his poor understanding of the flu, I'll be very displeased with him.  Until then, not concerned.  Not going to play the false equivalency game with you and pretend all statements are somehow equvalent to each other.  Go play with someone else.

You're purposefully being obtuse, or more likely you are a pro-COVID numbskull yourself. You know exactly the argument he is making with the false flu number. Claiming that COVID-19 is no worse than the flu is a longstanding and utterly false pro-COVID argument. For Gorsuch to resort to it is despicable. His statement is equally disqualifying as whatever Sotomayor said.

Lmao, "pro-Covid". You're like a meme.  Nah, I understand your dumb point, I already said I don't agree.  Its like, your opinion, bro.  You posting some totally different comment another person made and whining that I'm not treating them as equal (because they're not) is not interesting to me.

[compucomp]

Sonia Sotomayor spewed more false information about Covid today in the Supreme Court than MTG or any anti vaxxer could ever hope to.  Hopefully she is relentlessly censored and fact checked by big tech (i know, lol).  Amazing and frightening that these out of touch, zero-Covid boomers are in positions of such high authority.

https://twitter.com/greg_price11/status/1479500787583758346

Fine then, also kick out Gorsuch for overestimating annual flu deaths by an order of magnitude to pretend that "COVID is like the flu":

https://twitter.com/ElieNYC/status/1479497902653329408

If the hearing was about mandating a flu vaccine, you might have a point!

You're way smarter than this. You know exactly what pro-COVID numbskulls have tried to do from the beginning when bringing up the flu in comparison to COVID. You're either one of them or you're a blind partisan who thinks of everything as a sports match, where your team never commits a foul but the opposing team commits a foul on every play.

Ok, lol "foul" on Gorsuch for flubbing flu numbers.  When he tries mandating people take a vaccine against their will based on his poor understanding of the flu, I'll be very displeased with him.  Until then, not concerned.  Not going to play the false equivalency game with you and pretend all statements are somehow equvalent to each other.  Go play with someone else.

You're purposefully being obtuse, or more likely you are a pro-COVID numbskull yourself. You know exactly the argument he is making with the false flu number. Claiming that COVID-19 is no worse than the flu is a longstanding and utterly false pro-COVID argument. For Gorsuch to resort to it is despicable. His statement is equally disqualifying as whatever Sotomayor said.

Lmao, "pro-Covid". You're like a meme.  Nah, I understand your dumb point, I already said I don't agree.  Its like, your opinion, bro.

And it's your opinion that Sotomayor made bad misstatements and that Gorsuch made  irrelevant misstatements. Your misguided, deluded, partisan, pro-COVID opinion. If COVID-19 wanted to start a lobbying firm in Washington you should sign up for it.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

These people are worse than politicians, just awful that they have the ego to be major policy makers and that the rest of the country lets them get away with it.

And there's nothing you can do about them... they are there for life and completely unaccountable to anyone. I hate the Supreme Court.

[emailking]

These people are worse than politicians, just awful that they have the ego to be major policy makers and that the rest of the country lets them get away with it.

What's the alternative? Not have courts?

[Blue3]

Thankfully my site/branch of our nonprofit has decided to stay virtual at least a little longer. 5-10% of us have gotten COVID and probably more since half haven’t gotten tested yet (we mandated it upon coming back but there’s a long delay/shortage), and most of our AmeriCorps members are roommates with those on other teams. And we’ve had a vaccine mandate. Most boosted too.

One of our middle school partners has over 40 confirmed positive cases. And most elementary classes have only 3 to 6 students per classroom and 20 teachers out.

In very depressing news:
India just learned it undercounted and found 3 million of its citizens they thought were alive are dead. 600% more deaths than previously believed.
Covid death toll in India likely far higher than official record, research says
https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/covid-death-toll-india-likely-far-higher-official-record-research-says-rcna11357

[Migrant Crime]

Thankfully my site/branch of our nonprofit has decided to stay virtual at least a little longer. 5-10% of us have gotten COVID and probably more since half haven’t gotten tested yet (we mandated it upon coming back but there’s a long delay/shortage), and most of our AmeriCorps members are roommates with those on other teams. And we’ve had a vaccine mandate.

One of our middle school partners has over 40 confirmed positive cases. And most elementary classes have only 3 to 6 students per classroom and 20 teachers out.

Sounds like you all should stop obsessively testing yourselves, continue to live your lives, and stay home if you're too sick to work.  What insanity this is.  You'll continue to get Omicron over and over again for years to come.  Feel sorry for all the healthy children that are at home "sick" because of mass hysteria.

[Zohranism is OUR future]

https://twitter.com/alykatzz/status/1479552490764967940

Very good news.
What this shows is that higher spikes can be better handled due to changes in the virus. We should be adjusting our policy to reflect these changes.

[Blue3]

Thankfully my site/branch of our nonprofit has decided to stay virtual at least a little longer. 5-10% of us have gotten COVID and probably more since half haven’t gotten tested yet (we mandated it upon coming back but there’s a long delay/shortage), and most of our AmeriCorps members are roommates with those on other teams. And we’ve had a vaccine mandate.

One of our middle school partners has over 40 confirmed positive cases. And most elementary classes have only 3 to 6 students per classroom and 20 teachers out.

Sounds like you all should stop obsessively testing yourselves, continue to live your lives, and stay home if you're too sick to work.  What insanity this is.  You'll continue to get Omicron over and over again for years to come.  Feel sorry for all the healthy children that are at home "sick" because of mass hysteria.

Did you not read my post? We’ve been virtual this week and now next week. It’s the first time this year we required to be tested, after New Years.

[Migrant Crime]

Thankfully my site/branch of our nonprofit has decided to stay virtual at least a little longer. 5-10% of us have gotten COVID and probably more since half haven’t gotten tested yet (we mandated it upon coming back but there’s a long delay/shortage), and most of our AmeriCorps members are roommates with those on other teams. And we’ve had a vaccine mandate.

One of our middle school partners has over 40 confirmed positive cases. And most elementary classes have only 3 to 6 students per classroom and 20 teachers out.

Sounds like you all should stop obsessively testing yourselves, continue to live your lives, and stay home if you're too sick to work.  What insanity this is.  You'll continue to get Omicron over and over again for years to come.  Feel sorry for all the healthy children that are at home "sick" because of mass hysteria.

Did you not read my post? We’ve been virtual this week and now next week. It’s the first time this year we required to be tested, after New Years.

Yes?  Thats my point.  Go back to work unless you're too sick to work.  You shouldn't even be required to get tested, its insane.  You can't hide from Omicron.

[Blue3]

Thankfully my site/branch of our nonprofit has decided to stay virtual at least a little longer. 5-10% of us have gotten COVID and probably more since half haven’t gotten tested yet (we mandated it upon coming back but there’s a long delay/shortage), and most of our AmeriCorps members are roommates with those on other teams. And we’ve had a vaccine mandate.

One of our middle school partners has over 40 confirmed positive cases. And most elementary classes have only 3 to 6 students per classroom and 20 teachers out.

Sounds like you all should stop obsessively testing yourselves, continue to live your lives, and stay home if you're too sick to work.  What insanity this is.  You'll continue to get Omicron over and over again for years to come.  Feel sorry for all the healthy children that are at home "sick" because of mass hysteria.

Did you not read my post? We’ve been virtual this week and now next week. It’s the first time this year we required to be tested, after New Years.

Yes?  Thats my point.  Go back to work unless you're too sick to work.  You shouldn't even be required to get tested, its insane.  You can't hide from Omicron.

It requires 5 days since travel and isolation to be considered effective for a test. Due to delays, many of our people couldn’t return to our site physically until today. I’m an experienced manager, with other managers and a national organization. We’ve seen the data. We know we are making the best decision for us.

And you don’t seem to understand. Omicron is a variant, not its own virus. It will keep having more mutations.

Plus I don’t want to deal with someone saying to me it will be our fault if a grandparent of one of our students dies and how they would take it up with us, as happened in December when one of our members was positive and gone for 3 weeks but DOH never told them they were a close contact. Or about our members who live with a parent with cancer or members who are immuno-compromised themselves (like me).

And in case you missed the international news in my post, because I doubt India is the only one who has undercounted:

Thankfully my site/branch of our nonprofit has decided to stay virtual at least a little longer. 5-10% of us have gotten COVID and probably more since half haven’t gotten tested yet (we mandated it upon coming back but there’s a long delay/shortage), and most of our AmeriCorps members are roommates with those on other teams. And we’ve had a vaccine mandate. Most boosted too.

One of our middle school partners has over 40 confirmed positive cases. And most elementary classes have only 3 to 6 students per classroom and 20 teachers out.

In very depressing news:
India just learned it undercounted and found 3 million of its citizens they thought were alive are dead. 600% more deaths than previously believed.
Covid death toll in India likely far higher than official record, research says
https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/covid-death-toll-india-likely-far-higher-official-record-research-says-rcna11357

[riceowl]

I went to New Orleans last weekend. I'm boosted. I fully expected to get it when I went. And I have a PCR scheduled this afternoon.

and in the least shocking of news I tested + today
feelin fine! a little throat tickle.

[Zohranism is OUR future]

I went to New Orleans last weekend. I'm boosted. I fully expected to get it when I went. And I have a PCR scheduled this afternoon.

and in the least shocking of news I tested + today
feelin fine! a little throat tickle.

Common omicron symptom.

[Calthrina950]

Sonia Sotomayor spewed more false information about Covid today in the Supreme Court than MTG or any anti vaxxer could ever hope to.  Hopefully she is relentlessly censored and fact checked by big tech (i know, lol).  Amazing and frightening that these out of touch, zero-Covid boomers are in positions of such high authority.

https://twitter.com/greg_price11/status/1479500787583758346

I heard about this. Most observers seem to believe that the Court is leaning against the OSHA vaccine mandate, but it's likely to be a closely divided decision. As of right now, I'm thinking that it might be 5-4, with Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett voting to strike down the mandate, and Roberts, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan voting to uphold it, although Roberts could plausibly go the other way.

Interestingly enough, Sotomayor is the only Justice who wears a mask on the bench during oral arguments. Of course, she has diabetes and is in more perilous health than her colleagues, so that makes sense.

I must correct myself on this. Today was the first oral argument in which the majority of the Justices were masked. Gorsuch was the only Justice who was unmasked. And Sotomayor was not there in person, but participated remotely, either through one of the virtual meeting platforms such as Zoom or by phone.

[emailking]

850 today and yesterday revised up to 800. I'm guessing we break a million next week.

The death wave is pretty concerning too now that deaths are clearly rising. Our death wave does not look like South Africa's. Not sure how much you can blame Delta if Omicron has been crowding it out for weeks now. Hopefully it drops soon but I am dubious.

[Zohranism is OUR future]

850 today and yesterday revised up to 800. I'm guessing we break a million next week.

The death wave is pretty concerning too now that deaths are clearly rising. Our death wave does not look like South Africa's. Not sure how much you can blame Delta if Omicron has been crowding it out for weeks now. Hopefully it drops soon but I am dubious.

You may want to keep in mind the winter holidays could have artificially lowered numbers/created potential backlog. The trend is still inconclusive right now, we may want at least another week of consistent rise to be able to say this isn’t just a data anomaly.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

Also, my spreadsheet document tries to compute the death rate by computing the deaths divided by known cases. Right now it's only 0.26%, the lowest of the entire pandemic. Just 3 weeks ago it was 0.93%, and in June it was over 2%.

[emailking]

Yeah it's not as deadly as Delta it seems. Yes let's see where we are a week from now, in case holiday is still affecting it.

[Crumpets]

Since December 20th, when Omicron really began to take off in the US, about 2.28% of the US population has tested positive for COVID. The idea that Omicron will just work its way through the entire population, and we'll reach some level of herd immunity probably has some truth to it (assuming no new variants in the near future), but it still has a long way to go, if that's the plan.

Most tests are at home nowadays, and I suspect most positive home test results are not getting reported to the govt. I've read that some counties, notably Fairfax VA, are not even accepting submission of home test results.

There is also tons of asymptomatic omicron that is presumably not being tested for.

Not to mention that plenty of mildly symptomatic people across the country probably aren’t even bothering to get tested in the first place.

Yes, it's true that the official count has always been an undercount of infections, but I will push back a bit on the "most tests are at home" line. I don't think that's true, at least in a lot of areas. Here at least, home tests are much harder to come by than the "official" drive-through tests. I don't know anyone who has been able to get access to at-home tests since they hit the market. Demand is high, but supply is still very low. At least, I don't think we can say that the combination of unofficial tests and asymptomatic untested cases is enough to drive that figure up more than a few more percentage points.

[Meclazine for Israel]

WA had one new COVID case with community transmission. 7 in hotel quarantine from interstate.

Population statistics for vaccination.

1st jab : 93.5%
2nd jab : 85.7%
Booster : 12.2%

[Hollywood]

WA had one new COVID case with community transmission. 7 in hotel quarantine from interstate.

Population statistics for vaccination.

1st jab : 93.5%
2nd jab : 85.7%
Booster : 12.2%

WA had like 16 thousand news cases.  Are politicians trying to blame interstate travelers again.  Yeah.  Stop doing that S$$$. 

[Zohranism is OUR future]

Also, my spreadsheet document tries to compute the death rate by computing the deaths divided by known cases. Right now it's only 0.26%, the lowest of the entire pandemic. Just 3 weeks ago it was 0.93%, and in June it was over 2%.

What’s the case-death lag period you account for in your spreadsheet?

[ElectionsGuy]

Yeah it's not as deadly as Delta it seems. Yes let's see where we are a week from now, in case holiday is still affecting it.

No kidding, that's been known for some time now. You'd think a supreme court justice would know basic facts like that.

[Doomer]

I got a negative test.

Last Saturday it started with a little throat tickle that lasted until Wednesday when I started having a slight cough.  Thursday was lots of congestion, less cough, no more sore throat.  Friday added a headache and even more congestion.

But negative test, so I guess it's a sinus infection?

[Meclazine for Israel]

WA had one new COVID case with community transmission. 7 in hotel quarantine from interstate.

Population statistics for vaccination.

1st jab : 93.5%
2nd jab : 85.7%
Booster : 12.2%

WA had like 16 thousand news cases.  Are politicians trying to blame interstate travelers again.  Yeah.  Stop doing that S$$$. 

WA - Western Australia not Washington State.

16,000 is next level.