COVID-19 Megathread 6: Return of the Omicron

[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.

I do know of a few businesses who overreacted to the Omicron stuff and either shut down or reinstituted capacity restrictions and N95 mask mandates. Most are still open at least where I live, though they will have to modify their operations when and if Phil Murphy implements new COVID NPIs.

[soundchaser]

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

[Horus]

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?

[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.

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?

[MATTROSE94]

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

I remember early on when COVID first hit that my job at the time (Kmart in West Long Branch, New Jersey) required gloves as opposed to masks and required us to spray down high traffic areas with Lysol. The store closed down permanently a few days after the statewide mask mandate was implemented, so most of the employees and customers weren’t wearing masks. Also, because the store was in liquidation, no one  really cared about COVID that much.

[Calthrina950]

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

I remember early on when COVID first hit that my job at the time (Kmart in West Long Branch, New Jersey) required gloves as opposed to masks and required us to spray down high traffic areas with Lysol. The store closed down permanently a few days after the statewide mask mandate was implemented, so most of the employees and customers weren’t wearing masks. Also, because the store was in liquidation, no one  really cared about COVID that much.

You worked at Kmart? It must have been something to deal with the early stages of the pandemic while your store was in the process of closing. Kmart has almost entirely disappeared at this point, just like Blockbusters.

[cg41386]

Covid is over.

Nope, not even close.

For vaccinated Americans, COVID is over.

Also a nope.

[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?

[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.

[cg41386]

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

[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.

And when you give smart ass one sentence responses without explaining your views, what do you expect people to think?

[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.

[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.

[MATTROSE94]

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

I remember early on when COVID first hit that my job at the time (Kmart in West Long Branch, New Jersey) required gloves as opposed to masks and required us to spray down high traffic areas with Lysol. The store closed down permanently a few days after the statewide mask mandate was implemented, so most of the employees and customers weren’t wearing masks. Also, because the store was in liquidation, no one  really cared about COVID that much.

You worked at Kmart? It must have been something to deal with the early stages of the pandemic while your store was in the process of closing. Kmart has almost entirely disappeared at this point, just like Blockbusters.

Yup. I worked for Kmart for almost 10 years. I started at the Hazlet store when I was 16 in 2010 and then went over to the West Long Branch store after Hazlet closed down in 2016. It was very odd working at Kmart when COVID first hit, as we had a lot of panic buying and were able to get the store cleared out ahead of schedule. Right now I work in an Aldi store and see a lot of COVID hygiene theater and virtue signaling from the customers. Also, the store where I work is very strict with masks and requires all employees to wear at least KN95s.

[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.

If the original covid had been omicron, I'm not even sure we ever would have heard of covid in the first place.  At most, there would have been a few people talking about a "spring cold" going around in 2020.

[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.

[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.