COVID-19 Megathread 6: Return of the Omicron

[QAnonKelly]

I’m in France and have been vaccinated since mid-April and just had to get tested to come home. Boy I’d forgotten how nasty the test is.

[LabourJersey]

https://twitter.com/AdamJKucharski/status/1415587170941874178

where does this guy get an R-value of 6 from?

[Green Line]

People actually thought that having a widely available vaccine would be enough to placate the hypochondria induced neurosis of the authoriatian left in this country?  Cute.

We'll all continue paying the price for years to come for the mass hysteria of March 2020.  Its their world now.

[Darthpi – Anti-Florida Activist]

People actually thought that having a widely available vaccine would be enough to placate the hypochondria induced neurosis of the authoriatian left in this country?  Cute.

We'll all continue paying the price for years to come for the mass hysteria of March 2020.  Its their world now.

We had a president try to nullify the election results in an effort to stay in power illegitimately and you think the LEFT is authoritarian?

What f***ing planet are you living on.

[jamestroll]

I will not fight against indoor mask mandates. Especially in crowded venues.

I will! I’ve done my part — I’ve worn the masks, got the vaccine, did the year+ of social isolation and online work and online school. I’ve done everything asked of me, the whole time. And I’m done! No more. Vaccinated people are much less likely to shed virus, much less likely to contract it, and are almost never hospitalized. The only reason to impose a mask mandate on the vaccinated is security theater to coddle people who have already been offered and refused a vaccine.

We’re headed toward a country where half the people are unvaccinated and doing whatever they want, and the vaccinated half is stuck doing masks/isolation/whatever else in a futile attempt to accommodate the other half. I’m tired of it. If some antivaxxers want to risk it, that’s on them, but the rest of us need to stop moving the goalposts and get back to normal life. In the county I work in, we’re at 89.4% of 16+ year olds vaccinated. 99%+ of hospitalizations are among the unvaccinated, and we only have a dozen patients hospitalized with COVID. The hospitals aren’t being overrun, we’ve vaccinated nearly everybody, and the vaccines work. We can't let the small handful of unvaccinated take our lives hostage.

I am not going to push a mask mandate but I will not rally against one either. Bigger fish to fry.

I just DEMAND businesses and schools remain open.

[pbrower2a]

People actually thought that having a widely available vaccine would be enough to placate the hypochondria induced neurosis of the authoriatian left in this country?  Cute.

We'll all continue paying the price for years to come for the mass hysteria of March 2020.  Its their world now.

How long do dead people pay the price for doing something that kills them or neglecting doing something that can save their lives? If you did what was expected of you in Michigan -- you wore a mask, got inoculated, did social distancing, washed your hands for twenty seconds, and used germicidal wipes on about everything, then you survived... and you may have gotten a job that paid more after someone who didn't do such things died. Employers are offering wages unthinkable before the Plague of Donald Trump. 

Delta Is Driving a Wedge Through Missouri

For America, the pandemic might be fading. For places like southwest Missouri, this year will be worse than last.

By Ed Yong

Many experts have argued that, even with Delta, the United States is unlikely to revisit the horrors of last winter. Even now, the country’s hospitalizations are one-seventh as high as they were in mid-January. But national optimism glosses over local reality. For many communities, this year will be worse than last. Springfield’s health-care workers and public-health specialists are experiencing the same ordeals they thought they had left behind. “But it feels worse this time because we’ve seen it before,” Amelia Montgomery, a nurse at CoxHealth, told me. “Walking back into the COVID ICU was demoralizing.”

Those ICUs are also filling with younger patients, in their 20s, 30s, and 40s, including many with no underlying health problems. In part, that’s because elderly people have been more likely to get vaccinated, leaving Delta with a younger pool of vulnerable hosts. While experts are still uncertain if Delta is deadlier than the original coronavirus, every physician and nurse in Missouri whom I spoke with told me that the 30- and 40-something COVID-19 patients they’re now seeing are much sicker than those they saw last year. “That age group did get COVID before, but they didn’t usually end up in the ICU like they are now,” Jonathan Brown, a respiratory therapist at Mercy, told me. Nurses are watching families navigate end-of-life decisions for young people who have no advance directives or other legal documents in place.

Almost every COVID-19 patient in Springfield’s hospitals is unvaccinated, and the dozen or so exceptions are all either elderly or immunocompromised people. The vaccines are working as intended, but the number of people who have refused to get their shots is crushing morale. Vaccines were meant to be the end of the pandemic. If people don’t get them, the actual end will look more like Springfield’s present: a succession of COVID-19 waves that will break unevenly across the country until everyone has either been vaccinated or infected. “You hear post-pandemic a lot,” Frederick said. “We’re clearly not post-pandemic. New York threw a ticker-tape parade for its health-care heroes, and ours are knee-deep in COVID.”

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/07/delta-missouri-pandemic-surge/619456/

Don't expect to see Homer, Marge, Bart, or Lisa Simpson in this "Springfield".  Unlike Illinois and Kentucky,  Missouri generally (except for metropolitan St. Louis and Kansas City) did practically nothing to thwart COVID-19. The Delta variant may be even more dangerous -- more contagious and (of all things) more destructive.  The state government wanted the tax revenues from the entertainment venues of nearby Branson and from some of Missouri's other tourist attractions such as its recreational waters, and the state and its residents are now paying a huge price.

That it is infecting people under 50 means that it can wreak great damage that can mess up critical organs severely. Heck, because that really gets people by the literal balls, I would put emphasis on sexual dysfunction as a possible consequence. Compromised livers, kidneys, or lungs will make life miserable. Heart trouble? It cripples.

Missouri may be the "Show Me" State... but COVID-19 has certainly shown Missouri what it can do.   

[morgieb]

I will not fight against indoor mask mandates. Especially in crowded venues.

I will! I’ve done my part — I’ve worn the masks, got the vaccine, did the year+ of social isolation and online work and online school. I’ve done everything asked of me, the whole time. And I’m done! No more. Vaccinated people are much less likely to shed virus, much less likely to contract it, and are almost never hospitalized. The only reason to impose a mask mandate on the vaccinated is security theater to coddle people who have already been offered and refused a vaccine.

We’re headed toward a country where half the people are unvaccinated and doing whatever they want, and the vaccinated half is stuck doing masks/isolation/whatever else in a futile attempt to accommodate the other half. I’m tired of it. If some antivaxxers want to risk it, that’s on them, but the rest of us need to stop moving the goalposts and get back to normal life. In the county I work in, we’re at 89.4% of 16+ year olds vaccinated. 99%+ of hospitalizations are among the unvaccinated, and we only have a dozen patients hospitalized with COVID. The hospitals aren’t being overrun, we’ve vaccinated nearly everybody, and the vaccines work. We can't let the small handful of unvaccinated take our lives hostage.

I am not going to push a mask mandate but I will not rally against one either. Bigger fish to fry.

I just DEMAND businesses and schools remain open.

Unless there's a high proportion of "breakthrough infections" I think places closing isn't a genuine concern. Even most of the anti-vaxxers tend to be congregated in red states.

[Hammy]

I will not fight against indoor mask mandates. Especially in crowded venues.

I will! I’ve done my part — I’ve worn the masks, got the vaccine, did the year+ of social isolation and online work and online school. I’ve done everything asked of me, the whole time. And I’m done! No more. Vaccinated people are much less likely to shed virus, much less likely to contract it, and are almost never hospitalized. The only reason to impose a mask mandate on the vaccinated is security theater to coddle people who have already been offered and refused a vaccine.

We’re headed toward a country where half the people are unvaccinated and doing whatever they want, and the vaccinated half is stuck doing masks/isolation/whatever else in a futile attempt to accommodate the other half. I’m tired of it. If some antivaxxers want to risk it, that’s on them, but the rest of us need to stop moving the goalposts and get back to normal life. In the county I work in, we’re at 89.4% of 16+ year olds vaccinated. 99%+ of hospitalizations are among the unvaccinated, and we only have a dozen patients hospitalized with COVID. The hospitals aren’t being overrun, we’ve vaccinated nearly everybody, and the vaccines work. We can't let the small handful of unvaccinated take our lives hostage.

I am not going to push a mask mandate but I will not rally against one either. Bigger fish to fry.

I just DEMAND businesses and schools remain open.

No need to demand not to do something that nobody is advocating in the first place.

[politicallefty]

There's a large segment of the population in this country that remains unvaccinated, not to mention those that are under 12 and cannot get the vaccine. This is only allowing for new mutations and variants to develop as the virus gets an exponential chance to keep replicating. It's apparently not common sense that stopping transmission stops replication. Every day and every chance this virus gets to mutate is one that could render our vaccines useless or even just far less effective.

Why don't you have this concern for the flu? Every person it infects is a chance for it to mutate into something deadlier that evades all our vaccines. Right?

I have some understanding of virology. Coronaviruses and influenza viruses are very different. These vaccines we currently have are the first vaccines to ever be used against a human coronavirus. We should all be lucky they are as effective as they currently are. Influenza vaccines are generally made in advance of the upcoming season and often have a fairly low efficacy rate. (So far, we're lucky that the highly lethal avian strains haven't passed from human to human. They appear to be harder to vaccinate against. From what I recall, something in either human respiratory physiology or the shape of the virus makes it currently virtually impossible to pass from person-to-person. That prospect does scare me.) In recent years, influenza vaccine efficacy rates have varied from 10-60%. However, the flu is of highest concern among the elderly, the very young, and the immunocompromised. Vaccines in general may either be problematic or not even work for those that are immunocompromised. As for coronaviruses in general, this virus (SARS-CoV-2) is the third known fatal coronavirus in humans. Its predecessors were SARS (SARS-CoV-1) with a fatality rate of about 10% and MERS (MERS-CoV) with a fatality rate of about 35%. Generally, viruses trade off virulence for transmissibility. However, that are many instances of viruses becoming more virulent with time (examples include Ebola, West Nile, and the Spanish flu).

Right now, we have a virus running rampant across the world and replicating exponentially in every new host. So far, the vaccines are holding up, although not as much as when they were first released to the general public. But we're always one mutation away from something that will render our vaccines either useless or far less effective. I believe in erring on the side of caution. Wear masks in most indoor places when you're with strangers and maintain a certain distance from those you don't know. In restaurants, go ahead and eat normally if you're vaccinated. I plan on going to the movies soon and I'm not going to wear a mask watching the movie (but I'll still wear it other indoor public places). I want businesses to be open, but considerations need to be made, particularly in restaurants (such as reduced capacity or working to space people apart more effectively or asking for vaccine status). I think this is all a matter of risk mitigation and balancing.

I am not going to push a mask mandate but I will not rally against one either. Bigger fish to fry.

I just DEMAND businesses and schools remain open.

You'll get no disagreement from me on businesses, but schools concern me since those under 12 likely won't be getting vaccines until at least January 2022. I'm not saying close schools (unless severe conditions warrant it, such as a massive outbreak), but I think schools across the country should have mask mandates and strict social distancing. If I had a kid that couldn't be vaccinated (either under 12 or otherwise), I would not want to send them to school unless schools were operating under those conditions.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

I think the vaccines work, but we were clearly sold a bill of goods when they said the release of vaccines would bring us back to normal.

The vaccines have been out for 7 months, yet places like California, Hawaii, and some other countries keep doubling down on restrictions. Things appear to be just fine in my small city, but other places aren't so lucky.

They said vaccines would mean the end of restrictions. They flat-out lied to us. They didn't make an honest mistake. They intentionally lied. When I say "they", I mean the media and government officials.

[GeorgiaModerate]

I think the vaccines work, but we were clearly sold a bill of goods when they said the release of vaccines would bring us back to normal.

The vaccines have been out for 7 months, yet places like California, Hawaii, and some other countries keep doubling down on restrictions. Things appear to be just fine in my small city, but other places aren't so lucky.

They said vaccines would mean the end of restrictions. They flat-out lied to us. They didn't make an honest mistake. They intentionally lied. When I say "they", I mean the media and government officials.

You are missing the target.

The vaccines are extremely effective and would bring us back to normal only if a high enough percentage of the population was vaccinated.  That hasn't happened, and we all know why.  The blame for the pandemic dragging on in the U.S. lies entirely on those who refuse to get the vaccine and those who push lies to discourage it.  Not on the government, which has done everything it can to encourage people to get the vaccine.

[politicallefty]

I think the vaccines work, but we were clearly sold a bill of goods when they said the release of vaccines would bring us back to normal.

The vaccines have been out for 7 months, yet places like California, Hawaii, and some other countries keep doubling down on restrictions. Things appear to be just fine in my small city, but other places aren't so lucky.

They said vaccines would mean the end of restrictions. They flat-out lied to us. They didn't make an honest mistake. They intentionally lied. When I say "they", I mean the media and government officials.

You are missing the target.

The vaccines are extremely effective and would bring us back to normal only if a high enough percentage of the population was vaccinated.  That hasn't happened, and we all know why.  The blame for the pandemic dragging on in the U.S. lies entirely on those who refuse to get the vaccine and those who push lies to discourage it.  Not on the government, which has done everything it can to encourage people to get the vaccine.

I think you're totally right. Suddenly a lot of people on the left that have been vaccinated are acting like Republicans. They're all "Me! Me! Me!" and "It's all about ME!". So much for "we're all in this together". This all goes back to the disastrous decision by the CDC to stop recommending masks for the vaccinated back in May. I'm almost certain that at least 80-90% of the people that are still wearing masks are vaccinated. All that did was give cover to those that aren't vaccinated to remove their masks since very few entities are asking for proof of vaccination. A fourth wave this summer will be look relatively suppressed due to vaccines, but it's also summer. If we were in fall or winter months, it'd be especially ugly.

[Donerail]

I think you're totally right. Suddenly a lot of people on the left that have been vaccinated are acting like Republicans. They're all "Me! Me! Me!" and "It's all about ME!". So much for "we're all in this together". This all goes back to the disastrous decision by the CDC to stop recommending masks for the vaccinated back in May. I'm almost certain that at least 80-90% of the people that are still wearing masks are vaccinated. All that did was give cover to those that aren't vaccinated to remove their masks since very few entities are asking for proof of vaccination. A fourth wave this summer will be look relatively suppressed due to vaccines, but it's also summer. If we were in fall or winter months, it'd be especially ugly.

A very large section of the population already figured out that "we're all in this together" was for suckers, right around the time they decided they wouldn't be getting vaccinated. I don't plan to make any sacrifices for people who clearly do not have any level of regard for their own life or the lives of others, and the government shouldn't be making decisions to cater to them either.

[politicallefty]

I think you're totally right. Suddenly a lot of people on the left that have been vaccinated are acting like Republicans. They're all "Me! Me! Me!" and "It's all about ME!". So much for "we're all in this together". This all goes back to the disastrous decision by the CDC to stop recommending masks for the vaccinated back in May. I'm almost certain that at least 80-90% of the people that are still wearing masks are vaccinated. All that did was give cover to those that aren't vaccinated to remove their masks since very few entities are asking for proof of vaccination. A fourth wave this summer will be look relatively suppressed due to vaccines, but it's also summer. If we were in fall or winter months, it'd be especially ugly.

A very large section of the population already figured out that "we're all in this together" was for suckers, right around the time they decided they wouldn't be getting vaccinated. I don't plan to make any sacrifices for people who clearly do not have any level of regard for their own life or the lives of others, and the government shouldn't be making decisions to cater to them either.

We already know from cell phone data that how serious the general public takes this pandemic depends on how serious the general public perceives it. Measures such as wearing a mask in a grocery store reminds us all that the virus is still here. News reports are constantly reminding people. When people feel things are getting more serious, they become less mobile. They go out to the store less. They're less likely to do things in public. As I've said before, I'm concerned that with so many people still contracting and spreading the virus that we will end up with a new strain that evades or significantly diminishes our vaccines before the end of the year.

I didn't get two doses of Pfizer-BioNTech because it felt good (my arm was sore after both and I felt like shi-t the day after my 2nd). I did it to protect myself and others and help get us all out of this pandemic. We're not out of the woods. It's just that people like you and me have a suit of armor. Some of us want to wear a shield as well.

[GeneralMacArthur]

I'm here in Seattle, which is 80%+ vaccinated, and life is almost completely back to normal here.

Bars and restaurants are all reopened.  Some of my favorites are still trying to hire people to get back on their feet, but nothing is closed up anymore.  The mayor is trying to encourage new businesses to open up.  I went to Trader Joe's the other day and nobody was even wearing a mask -- when they first stopped requiring masks, everyone was still wearing them, but now people are more comfortable going unmasked.

We're down to under 20 new cases per day in the entire city.  The only things that are still closed are the dance clubs, which are also the only thing I would probably still avoid.

[emailking]

I think the vaccines work, but we were clearly sold a bill of goods when they said the release of vaccines would bring us back to normal.

The vaccines have been out for 7 months, yet places like California, Hawaii, and some other countries keep doubling down on restrictions. Things appear to be just fine in my small city, but other places aren't so lucky.

They said vaccines would mean the end of restrictions. They flat-out lied to us. They didn't make an honest mistake. They intentionally lied. When I say "they", I mean the media and government officials.

It seems to be only small areas of the country that are like this though. Most everywhere, things are back to normal except there are still some people voluntarily wearing masks inside.

[Calthrina950]

I think the vaccines work, but we were clearly sold a bill of goods when they said the release of vaccines would bring us back to normal.

The vaccines have been out for 7 months, yet places like California, Hawaii, and some other countries keep doubling down on restrictions. Things appear to be just fine in my small city, but other places aren't so lucky.

They said vaccines would mean the end of restrictions. They flat-out lied to us. They didn't make an honest mistake. They intentionally lied. When I say "they", I mean the media and government officials.

You are missing the target.

The vaccines are extremely effective and would bring us back to normal only if a high enough percentage of the population was vaccinated.  That hasn't happened, and we all know why.  The blame for the pandemic dragging on in the U.S. lies entirely on those who refuse to get the vaccine and those who push lies to discourage it.  Not on the government, which has done everything it can to encourage people to get the vaccine.

I think you're totally right. Suddenly a lot of people on the left that have been vaccinated are acting like Republicans. They're all "Me! Me! Me!" and "It's all about ME!". So much for "we're all in this together". This all goes back to the disastrous decision by the CDC to stop recommending masks for the vaccinated back in May. I'm almost certain that at least 80-90% of the people that are still wearing masks are vaccinated. All that did was give cover to those that aren't vaccinated to remove their masks since very few entities are asking for proof of vaccination. A fourth wave this summer will be look relatively suppressed due to vaccines, but it's also summer. If we were in fall or winter months, it'd be especially ugly.

I think the bolded part is correct. I have anecdotal proof of this at my job. Out of two hundred some employees there, only about a dozen are still wearing masks. And almost all of that dozen are fully vaccinated, but don't feel comfortable with discarding the masks. One coworker actually told me that she knows for a fact that many of the other employees there are unvaccinated and are lying about their status, and she's continuing to wear one because she doesn't trust them.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It's been well over a year now and you cannot reasonably expect people to live thoroughly restricted lives on an indefinite basis. I suppose it's easy to say 'look it's just another year' if you are healthy, young and arrogant, but a year is a not-insignificant proportion of ones life and not everyone has the assurance that they have plenty of them more to come. Extreme measures can really only be justified in extreme circumstances, and most of the measures put in place across the world during this pandemic have been, and are, extreme. A lot of cruelty has been inflicted over the past year and a half: that at least some of it has been the necessary price to avoid something worse does not lessen the blow. Public health policy is a matter of balance, not of utopianism.

That, by the way, is not an argument for 'no restrictions at all', but to say that any restrictions (by this point) must be proportionate, must be properly justified and must be carefully balanced alongside other factors. It is also an argument against screaming tones of judgment, of which there really has been too much. This has been a horrible time. It will continue to be unpleasant for a while (if significantly less do due to vaccinations). People are not detestable because they have found it difficult.

[Former President tack50]

There's a large segment of the population in this country that remains unvaccinated, not to mention those that are under 12 and cannot get the vaccine. This is only allowing for new mutations and variants to develop as the virus gets an exponential chance to keep replicating. It's apparently not common sense that stopping transmission stops replication. Every day and every chance this virus gets to mutate is one that could render our vaccines useless or even just far less effective.

Why don't you have this concern for the flu? Every person it infects is a chance for it to mutate into something deadlier that evades all our vaccines. Right?

I have some understanding of virology. Coronaviruses and influenza viruses are very different. These vaccines we currently have are the first vaccines to ever be used against a human coronavirus. We should all be lucky they are as effective as they currently are. Influenza vaccines are generally made in advance of the upcoming season and often have a fairly low efficacy rate. (So far, we're lucky that the highly lethal avian strains haven't passed from human to human. They appear to be harder to vaccinate against. From what I recall, something in either human respiratory physiology or the shape of the virus makes it currently virtually impossible to pass from person-to-person. That prospect does scare me.) In recent years, influenza vaccine efficacy rates have varied from 10-60%. However, the flu is of highest concern among the elderly, the very young, and the immunocompromised. Vaccines in general may either be problematic or not even work for those that are immunocompromised. As for coronaviruses in general, this virus (SARS-CoV-2) is the third known fatal coronavirus in humans. Its predecessors were SARS (SARS-CoV-1) with a fatality rate of about 10% and MERS (MERS-CoV) with a fatality rate of about 35%. Generally, viruses trade off virulence for transmissibility. However, that are many instances of viruses becoming more virulent with time (examples include Ebola, West Nile, and the Spanish flu).

Right now, we have a virus running rampant across the world and replicating exponentially in every new host. So far, the vaccines are holding up, although not as much as when they were first released to the general public. But we're always one mutation away from something that will render our vaccines either useless or far less effective. I believe in erring on the side of caution. Wear masks in most indoor places when you're with strangers and maintain a certain distance from those you don't know. In restaurants, go ahead and eat normally if you're vaccinated. I plan on going to the movies soon and I'm not going to wear a mask watching the movie (but I'll still wear it other indoor public places). I want businesses to be open, but considerations need to be made, particularly in restaurants (such as reduced capacity or working to space people apart more effectively or asking for vaccine status). I think this is all a matter of risk mitigation and balancing.

Since you seem more knowledgeable than others on the issue, I have to actually ask a question. Given the extremely high risk of a mutation rendering the vaccines useless, I've long asked myself the question of: Would humanity actually be better off if a vaccine had not been developed?

My reasoning here is quite similar as to why the excessive use of anti-biotics is allowing the creation of anti-biotic resistent bacteria. People taking needless antibiotics means the bacteria can somehow "learn" how to defeat the antibiotics and create a mutation that makes it anti-biotic resistance.

So similarly, is the fact that covid is spreading to vaccinated people, and in some cases being able to infect them and what not creating a vaccine-resistant strain of covid?

Meanwhile with no vaccine, humanity would be worse off in the short term, but covid would be unable to "learn" how to become vaccine resistant (since there would be no vaccine) and eventually it would be gone in 3 years or so (much like every other epidemic in human history).

Basically my fear is that partial vaccination might somehow drag on the pandemic (meaning instead of lasting for 3-4 years it lasts a whole decade) as well as giving the virus more chances to mutate and create a worse version of itself.

Note I am borderline biology-illiterate given I dropped that class in year 7 or so so perhaps I am just saying stupid things.

[politicallefty]

Since you seem more knowledgeable than others on the issue, I have to actually ask a question. Given the extremely high risk of a mutation rendering the vaccines useless, I've long asked myself the question of: Would humanity actually be better off if a vaccine had not been developed?

My reasoning here is quite similar as to why the excessive use of anti-biotics is allowing the creation of anti-biotic resistent bacteria. People taking needless antibiotics means the bacteria can somehow "learn" how to defeat the antibiotics and create a mutation that makes it anti-biotic resistance.

So similarly, is the fact that covid is spreading to vaccinated people, and in some cases being able to infect them and what not creating a vaccine-resistant strain of covid?

Meanwhile with no vaccine, humanity would be worse off in the short term, but covid would be unable to "learn" how to become vaccine resistant (since there would be no vaccine) and eventually it would be gone in 3 years or so (much like every other epidemic in human history).

Basically my fear is that partial vaccination might somehow drag on the pandemic (meaning instead of lasting for 3-4 years it lasts a whole decade) as well as giving the virus more chances to mutate and create a worse version of itself.

Note I am borderline biology-illiterate given I dropped that class in year 7 or so so perhaps I am just saying stupid things.

Based on the numbers, we are absolutely better off with these vaccines. They are effective and they work, but they were at most 95% efficient. The new variants change things considerably.

Viruses are not living organisms like bacteria. They don't build resistance in the same way. However, they do mutate to evade vaccines. This virus won't attack the strong first (i.e. the vaccinated). It's working on the easy targets, all those that remain unvaccinated. Even there, natural selection is at play, constantly selecting for a virus that will be even better at propagating itself. The virus running rampant amongst the unvaccinated is giving us far more mutations that we need. I'm not interested in rolling the dice.

Partial vaccination is better than nothing. Just do what you can do to get the 2nd dose.

[Matty]

https://mobile.twitter.com/DailyCaller/status/1416460490298077187

[Tintrlvr]

There's a large segment of the population in this country that remains unvaccinated, not to mention those that are under 12 and cannot get the vaccine. This is only allowing for new mutations and variants to develop as the virus gets an exponential chance to keep replicating. It's apparently not common sense that stopping transmission stops replication. Every day and every chance this virus gets to mutate is one that could render our vaccines useless or even just far less effective.

Why don't you have this concern for the flu? Every person it infects is a chance for it to mutate into something deadlier that evades all our vaccines. Right?

I have some understanding of virology. Coronaviruses and influenza viruses are very different. These vaccines we currently have are the first vaccines to ever be used against a human coronavirus. We should all be lucky they are as effective as they currently are. Influenza vaccines are generally made in advance of the upcoming season and often have a fairly low efficacy rate. (So far, we're lucky that the highly lethal avian strains haven't passed from human to human. They appear to be harder to vaccinate against. From what I recall, something in either human respiratory physiology or the shape of the virus makes it currently virtually impossible to pass from person-to-person. That prospect does scare me.) In recent years, influenza vaccine efficacy rates have varied from 10-60%. However, the flu is of highest concern among the elderly, the very young, and the immunocompromised. Vaccines in general may either be problematic or not even work for those that are immunocompromised. As for coronaviruses in general, this virus (SARS-CoV-2) is the third known fatal coronavirus in humans. Its predecessors were SARS (SARS-CoV-1) with a fatality rate of about 10% and MERS (MERS-CoV) with a fatality rate of about 35%. Generally, viruses trade off virulence for transmissibility. However, that are many instances of viruses becoming more virulent with time (examples include Ebola, West Nile, and the Spanish flu).

Right now, we have a virus running rampant across the world and replicating exponentially in every new host. So far, the vaccines are holding up, although not as much as when they were first released to the general public. But we're always one mutation away from something that will render our vaccines either useless or far less effective. I believe in erring on the side of caution. Wear masks in most indoor places when you're with strangers and maintain a certain distance from those you don't know. In restaurants, go ahead and eat normally if you're vaccinated. I plan on going to the movies soon and I'm not going to wear a mask watching the movie (but I'll still wear it other indoor public places). I want businesses to be open, but considerations need to be made, particularly in restaurants (such as reduced capacity or working to space people apart more effectively or asking for vaccine status). I think this is all a matter of risk mitigation and balancing.

Since you seem more knowledgeable than others on the issue, I have to actually ask a question. Given the extremely high risk of a mutation rendering the vaccines useless, I've long asked myself the question of: Would humanity actually be better off if a vaccine had not been developed?

My reasoning here is quite similar as to why the excessive use of anti-biotics is allowing the creation of anti-biotic resistent bacteria. People taking needless antibiotics means the bacteria can somehow "learn" how to defeat the antibiotics and create a mutation that makes it anti-biotic resistance.

So similarly, is the fact that covid is spreading to vaccinated people, and in some cases being able to infect them and what not creating a vaccine-resistant strain of covid?

Meanwhile with no vaccine, humanity would be worse off in the short term, but covid would be unable to "learn" how to become vaccine resistant (since there would be no vaccine) and eventually it would be gone in 3 years or so (much like every other epidemic in human history).

Basically my fear is that partial vaccination might somehow drag on the pandemic (meaning instead of lasting for 3-4 years it lasts a whole decade) as well as giving the virus more chances to mutate and create a worse version of itself.

Note I am borderline biology-illiterate given I dropped that class in year 7 or so so perhaps I am just saying stupid things.

This makes zero sense. The no-vaccine scenario and the incomplete-vaccination scenario have the same ultimate result - eventually COVID burns itself out through infecting a large portion of the population. In the latter scenario, though, a significant number of vaccinated people are never infected and survive where in the no-vaccine scenario they would have died or had a serious illness with long-term effects and significant societal costs.

The concern re: bacteria and antibiotics is because we, humans, don't really develop much resistance to bacterial infections, and there are no vaccines for most common and dangerous bacterial infections. If you get exposed to strep again after a strep infection is cleared with antibiotics, you'll just get the same strep infection again. So the concern is that the next infection will become harder to treat if the second strep infection is antibiotic resistant. That's irrelevant for vaccines, though, since a vaccine isn't a treatment; it's prevention. And a virus (or bacteria, for that matter) that evades a vaccine isn't "stronger" than a virus that doesn't, it's just better attuned specifically to evading that particular vaccine (same is true for antibiotic-resistant bacteria, of course - the infection itself isn't worse, but it's harder to treat because the antibiotics don't work).

[ProudModerate2]

So you first found people having Covid as funny, with your title stating "LMAO."
What made you change your mind, to alter it to "Yikes"?

[Matty]

So you first found people having Covid as funny, with your title stating "LMAO."
What made you change your mind, to alter it to "Yikes"?

Because it is funny, sorry. They are all fully vaccinated. They’ll be fine

It’s just this whole stunt has blown up in their faces

Numerous Twitter personalities are laughing about it.

[ProudModerate2]

So you first found people having Covid as funny, with your title stating "LMAO."
What made you change your mind, to alter it to "Yikes"?

Because it is funny, sorry. They are all fully vaccinated. They’ll be fine
...

Well there you have it folks.
People catching deadly viruses is apparently "funny" to some _______.