COVID-19 Megathread 6: Return of the Omicron

[compucomp]

Looks like someone's seen some scary internals: https://twitter.com/RepSeanMaloney/status/1491404726436769794?cxt=HHwWhMDR-cysxL...
But I was told that people who took this position were basically murderers like tRUmPkin and DEatHsaNtis.

Politicians are slaves to their approval rating, news at 11. I'm not going to criticize Democrats too harshly on this because they are still infinitely superior to Republicans on COVID, but there's no way I'm going to take their word for it uncritically, nor the word of Fauci for whom the roles of epidemiologist and administration COVID spokesman have merged and it's impossible to tell in what capacity he's speaking.

I will say that they are making a big bet that we will never see another surge like this Omicron one, and if they're wrong their approval rating will go in the toilet, just like it did in July when Delta made a mockery of Biden's promise that we "declared independence from COVID". Given the usual timings of waning COVID immunity it could be a most nasty October Surprise coming. If I were Biden I would do everything in my power to delay the next surge until after Nov. 8.

[Zohranism is OUR future]

Looks like someone's seen some scary internals: https://twitter.com/RepSeanMaloney/status/1491404726436769794?cxt=HHwWhMDR-cysxL...

But I was told that people who took this position were basically murderers like tRUmPkin and DEatHsaNtis.

Hospitalizations are down AND we have the vaccine, Loon.
Whatever, you would moan like a b**ch no matter what Dems did.
They want masks? MUH FREEDOM.
They see masks aren’t necessary based on numbers? MUH POLLS.

[compucomp]

This tweet was from last week but I'm still posting it to make the point that despite what this forum thinks there is genuine grassroots support for masking from a substantial portion of the population. This support will persist no matter what the government does, and this forum will still be dissatisfied and triggered because they will still see masks in public even with no mandate. If you want to go beyond the realm of arguing public policy and start attacking people for their beliefs, go ahead, but you'll get a proportionate response in terms of personal insults and character attacks.

https://twitter.com/News_MTorres/status/1489364161440231426

[Bandit3 the Worker]

This tweet was from last week but I'm still posting it to make the point that despite what this forum thinks there is genuine grassroots support for masking from a substantial portion of the population.

There's no grassroots support. It's just a few elites, the media, and laptoppers.

Around here, it's never the blue-collar types who bop around in masks.

[compucomp]

This tweet was from last week but I'm still posting it to make the point that despite what this forum thinks there is genuine grassroots support for masking from a substantial portion of the population.

There's no grassroots support. It's just a few elites, the media, and laptoppers.

Around here, it's never the blue-collar types who bop around in masks.

You're totally wrong. There's no mask mandate in this grocery store, and about 80% of the customers in this clip are masked. The same is true where I live. In fact I look out my window right now and about 50% are walking outside wearing a mask. Maybe you need to see some other parts of the country before making statements like that.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

You're totally wrong. There's no mask mandate in this grocery store, and about 80% of the customers in this clip are masked. The same is true where I live. In fact I look out my window right now and about 50% are walking outside wearing a mask. Maybe you need to see some other parts of the country before making statements like that.

I went on several road trips just a few months ago. Even in New Mexico, which is one of the most masky states, there were a lot of people not wearing masks inside gas stations and other businesses. Illinois was like this too. And those were states with mask mandates.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

This tweet was from last week but I'm still posting it to make the point that despite what this forum thinks there is genuine grassroots support for masking from a substantial portion of the population.

There's no grassroots support. It's just a few elites, the media, and laptoppers.

Around here, it's never the blue-collar types who bop around in masks.

You're totally wrong. There's no mask mandate in this grocery store, and about 80% of the customers in this clip are masked. The same is true where I live. In fact I look out my window right now and about 50% are walking outside wearing a mask. Maybe you need to see some other parts of the country before making statements like that.

There's a difference between choosing to wear a mask and a mask mandate.
I agree that there are a lot of people that will continue to feel more comfortable wearing a mask in public for the near future.  And they should feel free to do so.

So it doesn't surprise me that a majority of customers in an Alexandria grocery store would be wearing a mask.  But only one customer was harassing Youngkin for not wearing one himself.  (Also I doubt that even this woman would harass a random person not wearing a mask; she probably did it mostly in the hope of getting media attention.)

FWIW, I also know several people who have refused to eat at an indoor restaurant for the last two years, despite most being fully open for at least the last year.  Just because some people still don't feel comfortable doing this doesn't mean we should force restaurants to stay closed for everyone.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Looks like someone's seen some scary internals

But I was told that people who took this position were basically murderers like tRUmPkin and DEatHsaNtis.

Are Republicans really incapable of distinguishing between 1,000,000 cases per day and a rapidly-declining 200K per day, or are you just pretending to not understand this so you can dunk on Democrats and hope nobody spends more than half a second processing your posts?

[DaleCooper]

This tweet was from last week but I'm still posting it to make the point that despite what this forum thinks there is genuine grassroots support for masking from a substantial portion of the population.

There's no grassroots support. It's just a few elites, the media, and laptoppers.

Around here, it's never the blue-collar types who bop around in masks.

This cultural divide is tough to overstate. To this day, I have only met one blue-collar worker personally that wears a mask purely by choice, and even he is a college-educated blue-collar worker.

The support for masking is now more than ever a top down thing, as far as class and especially education goes.

[TheTide]

Brave and admirable of these Democratic governors. There are still vast numbers of Zero Covidists out there.

[Can't Bear]

Looks like someone's seen some scary internals

But I was told that people who took this position were basically murderers like tRUmPkin and DEatHsaNtis.

Are Republicans really incapable of distinguishing between 1,000,000 cases per day and a rapidly-declining 200K per day, or are you just pretending to not understand this so you can dunk on Democrats and hope nobody spends more than half a second processing your posts?

The CASE trajectory was clear since mid January. Everyone with basic algebra could predict it. But it seems like Biden Admin is still "processing" it. Lucky GOP.

[Can't Bear]

https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1490308693711368193

[Zohranism is OUR future]

This tweet was from last week but I'm still posting it to make the point that despite what this forum thinks there is genuine grassroots support for masking from a substantial portion of the population.

There's no grassroots support. It's just a few elites, the media, and laptoppers.

Around here, it's never the blue-collar types who bop around in masks.

This cultural divide is tough to overstate. To this day, I have only met one blue-collar worker personally that wears a mask purely by choice, and even he is a college-educated blue-collar worker.

The support for masking is now more than ever a top down thing, as far as class and especially education goes.

I’m not a conspiracy type so I guess I wouldn’t know, but if I was and there was something all the elites and educated people were doing that regular people weren’t, I’d be trying to do the former and not the latter.

[compucomp]

This tweet was from last week but I'm still posting it to make the point that despite what this forum thinks there is genuine grassroots support for masking from a substantial portion of the population.

There's no grassroots support. It's just a few elites, the media, and laptoppers.

Around here, it's never the blue-collar types who bop around in masks.

This cultural divide is tough to overstate. To this day, I have only met one blue-collar worker personally that wears a mask purely by choice, and even he is a college-educated blue-collar worker.

The support for masking is now more than ever a top down thing, as far as class and especially education goes.

The "top" you refer to is the 40% of the population that is college educated. College educated people are just as grassroots as non-college educated people. It's not 1980 anymore.

There's a difference between choosing to wear a mask and a mask mandate.
I agree that there are a lot of people that will continue to feel more comfortable wearing a mask in public for the near future.  And they should feel free to do so.

So it doesn't surprise me that a majority of customers in an Alexandria grocery store would be wearing a mask.  But only one customer was harassing Youngkin for not wearing one himself.  (Also I doubt that even this woman would harass a random person not wearing a mask; she probably did it mostly in the hope of getting media attention.)

FWIW, I also know several people who have refused to eat at an indoor restaurant for the last two years, despite most being fully open for at least the last year.  Just because some people still don't feel comfortable doing this doesn't mean we should force restaurants to stay closed for everyone.

If you're able to appreciate the difference and are arguing against mask mandates, then I'm fine with that even if I disagree with you. However, many posters on this forum go much farther and hate the sight of public masking altogether; this thread has many posts complaining "ugh why are people in my area wearing masks when there are no mask mandates" and more recently attacking Biden for merely encouraging masking. My point is that these posts amount to directly attacking a moral value held by a substantial group of people, and thus is quite inflammatory and likely to descend into personal insults and character attacks.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

It's not 1980 anymore.

As far as I'm concerned, it is.

[DaleCooper]

This tweet was from last week but I'm still posting it to make the point that despite what this forum thinks there is genuine grassroots support for masking from a substantial portion of the population.

There's no grassroots support. It's just a few elites, the media, and laptoppers.

Around here, it's never the blue-collar types who bop around in masks.

This cultural divide is tough to overstate. To this day, I have only met one blue-collar worker personally that wears a mask purely by choice, and even he is a college-educated blue-collar worker.

The support for masking is now more than ever a top down thing, as far as class and especially education goes.

The "top" you refer to is the 40% of the population that is college educated. College educated people are just as grassroots as non-college educated people. It's not 1980 anymore.

In many ways, it's worse than 1980 for non-college educated people.

[beesley]

https://twitter.com/FinancialTimes/status/1491412978700361734?t=e5lmMhfBeNA9Y9wu...

Whether you believe this is the right time or not, this should be the end goal. But how much difference would changing this rule make in the US, especially with people not being tested for Omicron due to its lesser symptoms?

[Mr. Illini]

The Gov makes it official. Worth noting that there is a mandate on the local level in Chicago. No word from Lightfoot's office on whether she intends to roll it back as well.

https://twitter.com/GovPritzker/status/1491507086601211911?s=20&t=RmjWKaJyia...

[Raccoon]

My estimates on masking in Nova:

Arlington/Falls Church/Alexandria maybe 60%

Fairfax County 50 to 55%

Prince William County: 20 to 30% lol

Loudoun East- 50%

Loudoun West and South : 20%

[Raccoon]

https://twitter.com/WhyBlitz/status/1491492217155895303

Why are Democrats being so stupid on this issue???

This is not the San Francisco Bay Area.. the back lash to Covid restrictions in Nova is real..and should have been obvious over a year ago when the area largely functioning pre-pandemic while other wealthy Democratic areas had their populations double masked, wearing bio hazard suits and not leaving their home since March 2020.

[ملكة كرينجيتوك]

This tweet was from last week but I'm still posting it to make the point that despite what this forum thinks there is genuine grassroots support for masking from a substantial portion of the population.

There's no grassroots support. It's just a few elites, the media, and laptoppers.

Around here, it's never the blue-collar types who bop around in masks.

This cultural divide is tough to overstate. To this day, I have only met one blue-collar worker personally that wears a mask purely by choice, and even he is a college-educated blue-collar worker.

The support for masking is now more than ever a top down thing, as far as class and especially education goes.

Yeah it’s kinda sad that opposition to the possibility of seasonal mask mandates has gotten like this.

[Meclazine for Israel]

Life After CoVID-19

https://theconversation.com/life-after-covid-most-people-dont-want-a-return-to-normal-they-want-a-fairer-more-sustainable-future-173290

"most people don’t want a return to normal"

Stephan Lewandowsky
Chair of Cognitive Psychology, University of Bristol

Ullrich Ecker
Professor of Cognitive Psychology and Australian Research Council Future Fellow, The University of Western Australia

[Lief 🗽]

This tweet was from last week but I'm still posting it to make the point that despite what this forum thinks there is genuine grassroots support for masking from a substantial portion of the population.

There's no grassroots support. It's just a few elites, the media, and laptoppers.

Around here, it's never the blue-collar types who bop around in masks.

This cultural divide is tough to overstate. To this day, I have only met one blue-collar worker personally that wears a mask purely by choice, and even he is a college-educated blue-collar worker.

The support for masking is now more than ever a top down thing, as far as class and especially education goes.

Yeah it’s kinda sad that opposition to the possibility of seasonal mask mandates has gotten like this.

As far as I know, schools in Japan did not require children to wear masks all day (maybe they do now but not pre-covid). People voluntarily wearing masks when they are ill or when cases are spiking is totally different.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

As far as I know, schools in Japan did not require children to wear masks all day (maybe they do now but not pre-covid). People voluntarily wearing masks when they are ill or when cases are spiking is totally different.

I read that people mostly wore them because of air pollution and allergens.

[Roll Roons]

https://twitter.com/townhallcom/status/1491485602407190537
This administration is breathtakingly incompetent.