COVID-19 Megathread 6: Return of the Omicron

[Calthrina950]

The dumbest thing of all of this is that there is all this rage and hatred towards mask mandates, the mitigation measure that is low cost, low effort, and doesn't prevent anyone from doing anything. You'd think we were talking about business closures or something that actually hurt the economy and peoples' livelihoods with this kind of rancor.

The only thing masks don't prevent, is spreading Omicron. They are extremely high cost, high effort and extremely if any low efficacy. Probably high efficacy on polluting Earth, though 

There is, though, a thing extremely low cost, zero effort and extremely high efficacy. It spells:
V-A-C-C-I-N-E.

Taking the focus from vaccines to masks is dangerous.

Hearing that masks are "low cost" that don't prevent anyone from doing anything is disheartening. I'm curious to know if compucomp supports both mask and vaccine mandates. He favors the former, but may very well oppose the latter.

[GeneralMacArthur]

The dumbest thing of all of this is that there is all this rage and hatred towards mask mandates, the mitigation measure that is low cost, low effort, and doesn't prevent anyone from doing anything. You'd think we were talking about business closures or something that actually hurt the economy and peoples' livelihoods with this kind of rancor.

The only thing masks don't prevent, is spreading Omicron. They are extremely high cost, high effort and extremely if any low efficacy. Probably high efficacy on polluting Earth, though 

There is, though, a thing extremely low cost, zero effort and extremely high efficacy. It spells:
V-A-C-C-I-N-E.

Taking the focus from vaccines to masks is dangerous.

Hearing that masks are "low cost" that don't prevent anyone from doing anything is disheartening. I'm curious to know if compucomp supports both mask and vaccine mandates. He favors the former, but may very well oppose the latter.

KN-95 masks are literally being given out for free by the government, cheap medical masks are available for free at plenty of establishments, and comfortable washable cloth masks like the kind I wear go for about $2-3 apiece.  So yes, they are low cost.

Masks have not prevented me from doing anything and I don't really see how they're preventing anyone else from doing anything.  What is the activity that requires you to be in close proximity with others AND not wear a mask?  Being in a choir?

[Torie]

The dumbest thing of all of this is that there is all this rage and hatred towards mask mandates, the mitigation measure that is low cost, low effort, and doesn't prevent anyone from doing anything. You'd think we were talking about business closures or something that actually hurt the economy and peoples' livelihoods with this kind of rancor.

The only thing masks don't prevent, is spreading Omicron. They are extremely high cost, high effort and extremely if any low efficacy. Probably high efficacy on polluting Earth, though  

There is, though, a thing extremely low cost, zero effort and extremely high efficacy. It spells:
V-A-C-C-I-N-E.

Taking the focus from vaccines to masks is dangerous.

https://health.clevelandclinic.org/are-cloth-masks-enough-against-omicron/

Dan and I wear KN95 masks per the above. Your assertion of fact is a bit too broad in its scope.

[soundchaser]

The dumbest thing of all of this is that there is all this rage and hatred towards mask mandates, the mitigation measure that is low cost, low effort, and doesn't prevent anyone from doing anything. You'd think we were talking about business closures or something that actually hurt the economy and peoples' livelihoods with this kind of rancor.

The only thing masks don't prevent, is spreading Omicron. They are extremely high cost, high effort and extremely if any low efficacy. Probably high efficacy on polluting Earth, though 

There is, though, a thing extremely low cost, zero effort and extremely high efficacy. It spells:
V-A-C-C-I-N-E.

Taking the focus from vaccines to masks is dangerous.

Hearing that masks are "low cost" that don't prevent anyone from doing anything is disheartening. I'm curious to know if compucomp supports both mask and vaccine mandates. He favors the former, but may very well oppose the latter.

KN-95 masks are literally being given out for free by the government, cheap medical masks are available for free at plenty of establishments, and comfortable washable cloth masks like the kind I wear go for about $2-3 apiece.  So yes, they are low cost.

Masks have not prevented me from doing anything and I don't really see how they're preventing anyone else from doing anything.  What is the activity that requires you to be in close proximity with others AND not wear a mask?  Being in a choir?

They also don't do squat to prevent the transmission of Omicron.

[Calthrina950]

The dumbest thing of all of this is that there is all this rage and hatred towards mask mandates, the mitigation measure that is low cost, low effort, and doesn't prevent anyone from doing anything. You'd think we were talking about business closures or something that actually hurt the economy and peoples' livelihoods with this kind of rancor.

The only thing masks don't prevent, is spreading Omicron. They are extremely high cost, high effort and extremely if any low efficacy. Probably high efficacy on polluting Earth, though 

There is, though, a thing extremely low cost, zero effort and extremely high efficacy. It spells:
V-A-C-C-I-N-E.

Taking the focus from vaccines to masks is dangerous.

Hearing that masks are "low cost" that don't prevent anyone from doing anything is disheartening. I'm curious to know if compucomp supports both mask and vaccine mandates. He favors the former, but may very well oppose the latter.

KN-95 masks are literally being given out for free by the government, cheap medical masks are available for free at plenty of establishments, and comfortable washable cloth masks like the kind I wear go for about $2-3 apiece.  So yes, they are low cost.

Masks have not prevented me from doing anything and I don't really see how they're preventing anyone else from doing anything.  What is the activity that requires you to be in close proximity with others AND not wear a mask?  Being in a choir?

I wasn't saying that masks aren't freely accessible. I'm saying that there are not of a low cost, socially or psychologically. I have had to wear a mask at my job for nearly two years now. Your opinion is different if you have to spend seven or eight hours wearing one.

Let me ask you this. Would you support imposing permanent mask mandates? I've said before that it's obvious there's a large segment of the population that accepts masks as part of being the new normal.

[It’s so Joever]

The dumbest thing of all of this is that there is all this rage and hatred towards mask mandates, the mitigation measure that is low cost, low effort, and doesn't prevent anyone from doing anything. You'd think we were talking about business closures or something that actually hurt the economy and peoples' livelihoods with this kind of rancor.

The only thing masks don't prevent, is spreading Omicron. They are extremely high cost, high effort and extremely if any low efficacy. Probably high efficacy on polluting Earth, though  

There is, though, a thing extremely low cost, zero effort and extremely high efficacy. It spells:
V-A-C-C-I-N-E.

Taking the focus from vaccines to masks is dangerous.

Hearing that masks are "low cost" that don't prevent anyone from doing anything is disheartening. I'm curious to know if compucomp supports both mask and vaccine mandates. He favors the former, but may very well oppose the latter.

KN-95 masks are literally being given out for free by the government, cheap medical masks are available for free at plenty of establishments, and comfortable washable cloth masks like the kind I wear go for about $2-3 apiece.  So yes, they are low cost.

Masks have not prevented me from doing anything and I don't really see how they're preventing anyone else from doing anything.  What is the activity that requires you to be in close proximity with others AND not wear a mask?  Being in a choir?

I wasn't saying that masks aren't freely accessible. I'm saying that there are not of a low cost, socially or psychologically. I have had to wear a mask at my job for nearly two years now. Your opinion is different if you have to spend seven or eight hours wearing one.

Let me ask you this. Would you support imposing permanent mask mandates? I've said before that it's obvious there's a large segment of the population that accepts masks as part of being the new normal.

I wore a hard N-95 for the entire school day until I was vaccinated last year.
I have since been wearing a KF-94, and I have definitely worn that for those seven-eight hours you describe.
You are describing an extremely light surgical mask. Unless your job is performing heavy manual labor (in which case I understand) I still am puzzled.

You know, I hear a lot about how “oh humans are social creatures and weren’t meant to be behind a mask” and yeah you’re right. Humans also weren’t meant to be working sedentary 9-5 office jobs under incandescent light. Humans also weren’t meant to have these devices that let you communicate with others so far away, but are extremely addicting to the point it’s basically a drug. Yet nobody expect maybe a few anarchists primitivists complain on here.

Now I don’t think we should have mandates in a few weeks at all if current tends hold anymore at all outside of hospitals and senior centers, but your argument is silly.

[It’s so Joever]

Interesting that the two groups that make heavy use of the term "sterilizing immunity" are the vaccine-hesitant as well as the forever-Coviders. They employ it for the same purpose as well - to cast doubt on the effectiveness of the vaccine.

Two sides of the same coin, really.

Are you still insisting that the vaccine makes us safe from COVID and is an impenetrable virus repelling shield? How can you stick to that position, especially after this Omicron wave, where it seemed like everyone you know, their parents, their cats, and their dogs all caught Omicron, when all of them were vaccinated? I wish the vaccine conferred sterilizing immunity but it's just not true. So the public must know that if they want to protect themselves from COVID, they need to take additional measures beyond getting the vaccine. This information cannot be suppressed because it is the plain and obvious truth. If some idiots use this to justify not getting the vaccine, then that's their fault for making a grave error in judgement.

Lots of vaccinated people may have caught it, but their symptoms were either very mild (cough, sore throat, sniffles) or nonexistent. Yes, vaccines overwhelmingly do still keep us safe. Stop spreading lies.

Catching COVID despite being vaccinated means one was not safe from COVID. The vaccine may have kept the disease manageable but given that breakthrough infections are now commonplace it is simply false to claim that the vaccine makes one safe from COVID.
Stop trying to change the plain meaning of English words to justify your lie.

"Safe" means "protected from danger or risk" - if vaccinated people catch it without serious symptoms (which, by and large, they do), then the definition still holds.

I don't know about you, but I consider being bedridden with high fever, chills, and body ache and then suffering decreased lung function, brain fog, loss of smell and taste for months or years afterwards "serious symptoms". However this is considered "mild" case of COVID-19 because it didn't involve hospitalization because there was no shortness of breath or low blood oxygen. This is a common breakthrough case of Delta, there was a study done that vaccination was only 50% protective against long COVID symptoms. Omicron changed this prognosis and breakthrough cases are probably milder now, and more study is needed especially over time, but I don't think it has been reduced to the level of the common cold. In short it's wrong to say that there is no risk or danger from a breakthrough infection, and Omicron made it so that breakthrough infections are common events. The public needs to be informed of what the risk and dangers are, not have the information suppressed to exaggerate the vaccine's efficacy.

Those are moderate symptoms because they won’t actually kill you. Yeah your life will be uncomfortable but you will survive fine.

[GeneralMacArthur]

The dumbest thing of all of this is that there is all this rage and hatred towards mask mandates, the mitigation measure that is low cost, low effort, and doesn't prevent anyone from doing anything. You'd think we were talking about business closures or something that actually hurt the economy and peoples' livelihoods with this kind of rancor.

The only thing masks don't prevent, is spreading Omicron. They are extremely high cost, high effort and extremely if any low efficacy. Probably high efficacy on polluting Earth, though  

There is, though, a thing extremely low cost, zero effort and extremely high efficacy. It spells:
V-A-C-C-I-N-E.

Taking the focus from vaccines to masks is dangerous.

Hearing that masks are "low cost" that don't prevent anyone from doing anything is disheartening. I'm curious to know if compucomp supports both mask and vaccine mandates. He favors the former, but may very well oppose the latter.

KN-95 masks are literally being given out for free by the government, cheap medical masks are available for free at plenty of establishments, and comfortable washable cloth masks like the kind I wear go for about $2-3 apiece.  So yes, they are low cost.

Masks have not prevented me from doing anything and I don't really see how they're preventing anyone else from doing anything.  What is the activity that requires you to be in close proximity with others AND not wear a mask?  Being in a choir?

I wasn't saying that masks aren't freely accessible. I'm saying that there are not of a low cost, socially or psychologically. I have had to wear a mask at my job for nearly two years now. Your opinion is different if you have to spend seven or eight hours wearing one.

Let me ask you this. Would you support imposing permanent mask mandates? I've said before that it's obvious there's a large segment of the population that accepts masks as part of being the new normal.

No, I do not support permanent mask mandates.  I think we can get rid of mask mandates once two conditions are met.  The meeting of both of these conditions will, in my book, be sufficient to reduce COVID to an endemic flu nature.

Here are my conditions:

1) The spread is no longer at absurdly high numbers, overwhelming hospitals and in particular ICUs.  So long as hospitals are completely overwhelmed even with the safety measures in place, it is beyond foolish to remove those safety measures, thus overwhelming hospitals to an even greater degree.

2)  Sufficient protection is available such people have the capability to no longer be threatened by COVID.  Most likely this comes from good vaccine technology, but it could also come from COVID rates being so low that it's no longer a threat.  The point being, I should be able to go out and enjoy my life without being afraid of unmasked people giving me COVID and seriously harming my life.  This was not true for most of 2020 and 2021 when running around unmasked among other unmasked people was a good way to get a very serious disease.  Here in 2022, so long as Omicron remains the variant responsible for almost all cases and can be easily combatted with the vaccine, I consider this condition satisfied.

So (1) will probably be satisfied in about 1-2 weeks as cases continue to collapse and hospitals regain the ability to manage COVID -- so it's not irresponsible for the government to increase their burden.

(2) I consider already satisfied.  But that could change if there is another new variant.

I consider both conditions (1) and (2) to have been satisfied from about May-August of 2021, in that lovely window where we had effective vaccines but Delta had not hit yet.

I also think vaccine mandates can be removed at the same time, since the point of the vaccine mandates is also to satisfy (1) by keeping people from overwhelming hospitals with severe COVID.  I don't agree with the Horus take that anti-vaxxers should just be left on the street to die.  However, I do think it is reasonable for the government to add the COVID vaccine to the normal vaccine schedule required for the military, schools, foreign entry, etc. and to heavily encourage people to get any annual boosters required to keep the virus -- especially in its original and Delta forms -- at bay.

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

The dumbest thing of all of this is that there is all this rage and hatred towards mask mandates, the mitigation measure that is low cost, low effort, and doesn't prevent anyone from doing anything. You'd think we were talking about business closures or something that actually hurt the economy and peoples' livelihoods with this kind of rancor.

The only thing masks don't prevent, is spreading Omicron. They are extremely high cost, high effort and extremely if any low efficacy. Probably high efficacy on polluting Earth, though  

There is, though, a thing extremely low cost, zero effort and extremely high efficacy. It spells:
V-A-C-C-I-N-E.

Taking the focus from vaccines to masks is dangerous.

https://health.clevelandclinic.org/are-cloth-masks-enough-against-omicron/

Dan and I wear KN95 masks per the above. Your assertion of fact is a bit too broad in its scope.

Haha, it was, of course, more of a joke then an assessment. The point is that if you're vaccinated, you decrease your chances to get "severe" ill by 99%. If you then use mask caually - by 99.1% (I am being very generous).

So basically WH indirectly admit that normie masks doesn't work (and never did). N95 gives at least some defense.




Though, this wave is likely over in couple of weeks, so 90% of people will be "vaccinated" anyway.

Note, though, that it's from 2020/early 2021. Pre-Omicron and even Pre-Delta.

[T'Chenka]

The dumbest thing of all of this is that there is all this rage and hatred towards mask mandates, the mitigation measure that is low cost, low effort, and doesn't prevent anyone from doing anything. You'd think we were talking about business closures or something that actually hurt the economy and peoples' livelihoods with this kind of rancor.

The only thing masks don't prevent, is spreading Omicron. They are extremely high cost, high effort and extremely if any low efficacy. Probably high efficacy on polluting Earth, though 

There is, though, a thing extremely low cost, zero effort and extremely high efficacy. It spells:
V-A-C-C-I-N-E.

Taking the focus from vaccines to masks is dangerous.

Hearing that masks are "low cost" that don't prevent anyone from doing anything is disheartening. I'm curious to know if compucomp supports both mask and vaccine mandates. He favors the former, but may very well oppose the latter.

KN-95 masks are literally being given out for free by the government, cheap medical masks are available for free at plenty of establishments, and comfortable washable cloth masks like the kind I wear go for about $2-3 apiece.  So yes, they are low cost.

Masks have not prevented me from doing anything and I don't really see how they're preventing anyone else from doing anything.  What is the activity that requires you to be in close proximity with others AND not wear a mask?  Being in a choir?

They also don't do squat to prevent the transmission of Omicron.

Blatantly false and hyperbolic. Obviously they aren't as effective as everybody would like them to be.

[HagridOfTheDeep]

The dumbest thing of all of this is that there is all this rage and hatred towards mask mandates, the mitigation measure that is low cost, low effort, and doesn't prevent anyone from doing anything. You'd think we were talking about business closures or something that actually hurt the economy and peoples' livelihoods with this kind of rancor.

The only thing masks don't prevent, is spreading Omicron. They are extremely high cost, high effort and extremely if any low efficacy. Probably high efficacy on polluting Earth, though  

There is, though, a thing extremely low cost, zero effort and extremely high efficacy. It spells:
V-A-C-C-I-N-E.

Taking the focus from vaccines to masks is dangerous.

Hearing that masks are "low cost" that don't prevent anyone from doing anything is disheartening. I'm curious to know if compucomp supports both mask and vaccine mandates. He favors the former, but may very well oppose the latter.

KN-95 masks are literally being given out for free by the government, cheap medical masks are available for free at plenty of establishments, and comfortable washable cloth masks like the kind I wear go for about $2-3 apiece.  So yes, they are low cost.

Masks have not prevented me from doing anything and I don't really see how they're preventing anyone else from doing anything.  What is the activity that requires you to be in close proximity with others AND not wear a mask?  Being in a choir?

I wasn't saying that masks aren't freely accessible. I'm saying that there are not of a low cost, socially or psychologically. I have had to wear a mask at my job for nearly two years now. Your opinion is different if you have to spend seven or eight hours wearing one.

Let me ask you this. Would you support imposing permanent mask mandates? I've said before that it's obvious there's a large segment of the population that accepts masks as part of being the new normal.

No, I do not support permanent mask mandates.  I think we can get rid of mask mandates once two conditions are met.  The meeting of both of these conditions will, in my book, be sufficient to reduce COVID to an endemic flu nature.

Here are my conditions:

1) The spread is no longer at absurdly high numbers, overwhelming hospitals and in particular ICUs.  So long as hospitals are completely overwhelmed even with the safety measures in place, it is beyond foolish to remove those safety measures, thus overwhelming hospitals to an even greater degree.

2)  Sufficient protection is available such people have the capability to no longer be threatened by COVID.  Most likely this comes from good vaccine technology, but it could also come from COVID rates being so low that it's no longer a threat.  The point being, I should be able to go out and enjoy my life without being afraid of unmasked people giving me COVID and seriously harming my life.  This was not true for most of 2020 and 2021 when running around unmasked among other unmasked people was a good way to get a very serious disease.  Here in 2022, so long as Omicron remains the variant responsible for almost all cases and can be easily combatted with the vaccine, I consider this condition satisfied.

So (1) will probably be satisfied in about 1-2 weeks as cases continue to collapse and hospitals regain the ability to manage COVID -- so it's not irresponsible for the government to increase their burden.

(2) I consider already satisfied.  But that could change if there is another new variant.

I consider both conditions (1) and (2) to have been satisfied from about May-August of 2021, in that lovely window where we had effective vaccines but Delta had not hit yet.

I also think vaccine mandates can be removed at the same time, since the point of the vaccine mandates is also to satisfy (1) by keeping people from overwhelming hospitals with severe COVID.  I don't agree with the Horus take that anti-vaxxers should just be left on the street to die.  However, I do think it is reasonable for the government to add the COVID vaccine to the normal vaccine schedule required for the military, schools, foreign entry, etc. and to heavily encourage people to get any annual boosters required to keep the virus -- especially in its original and Delta forms -- at bay.

See, to me, this is all very reasonable and it’s exactly the kind of messaging we need from governments. We need a plan out of this pandemic, even if we’re not quite there. Right now, it feels like a lot of these very left-wing places are reacting to the virus without considering whether the public actually wants their reaction. If the instinct is always to react without a clear focus on why, we will be doing this forever.

The only things our responses should be coupled to are the science of what works and the vulnerability of our health care systems.

[Torie]

The dumbest thing of all of this is that there is all this rage and hatred towards mask mandates, the mitigation measure that is low cost, low effort, and doesn't prevent anyone from doing anything. You'd think we were talking about business closures or something that actually hurt the economy and peoples' livelihoods with this kind of rancor.

The only thing masks don't prevent, is spreading Omicron. They are extremely high cost, high effort and extremely if any low efficacy. Probably high efficacy on polluting Earth, though  

There is, though, a thing extremely low cost, zero effort and extremely high efficacy. It spells:
V-A-C-C-I-N-E.

Taking the focus from vaccines to masks is dangerous.

https://health.clevelandclinic.org/are-cloth-masks-enough-against-omicron/

Dan and I wear KN95 masks per the above. Your assertion of fact is a bit too broad in its scope.

Haha, it was, of course, more of a joke then an assessment. The point is that if you're vaccinated, you decrease your chances to get "severe" ill by 99%. If you then use mask caually - by 99.1% (I am being very generous).

So basically WH indirectly admit that normie masks doesn't work (and never did). N95 gives at least some defense.




Though, this wave is likely over in couple of weeks, so 90% of people will be "vaccinated" anyway.

Note, though, that it's from 2020/early 2021. Pre-Omicron and even Pre-Delta.

Yes, if one had to choose between masks and vaccines, you would be nutter to choose masks.
I still have not seen good data as to the odds of getting very sick from omicron, or whether it causes lasting health damage, among high risk populations, and what high risk means. I am old, with a heart condition, but not obese and do not have diabetes. I find the lack of data very frustrating, because it makes it hard for me to parse the risk reward ratio in a high stakes game. And also relevant, is whether the Pfizer pill or whatever will mitigate my risk of how sick I get, and how long I have to endure living in the twilight zone. I am done with hospitals.

[T'Chenka]

The dumbest thing of all of this is that there is all this rage and hatred towards mask mandates, the mitigation measure that is low cost, low effort, and doesn't prevent anyone from doing anything. You'd think we were talking about business closures or something that actually hurt the economy and peoples' livelihoods with this kind of rancor.

The only thing masks don't prevent, is spreading Omicron. They are extremely high cost, high effort and extremely if any low efficacy. Probably high efficacy on polluting Earth, though  

There is, though, a thing extremely low cost, zero effort and extremely high efficacy. It spells:
V-A-C-C-I-N-E.

Taking the focus from vaccines to masks is dangerous.

Hearing that masks are "low cost" that don't prevent anyone from doing anything is disheartening. I'm curious to know if compucomp supports both mask and vaccine mandates. He favors the former, but may very well oppose the latter.

KN-95 masks are literally being given out for free by the government, cheap medical masks are available for free at plenty of establishments, and comfortable washable cloth masks like the kind I wear go for about $2-3 apiece.  So yes, they are low cost.

Masks have not prevented me from doing anything and I don't really see how they're preventing anyone else from doing anything.  What is the activity that requires you to be in close proximity with others AND not wear a mask?  Being in a choir?

I wasn't saying that masks aren't freely accessible. I'm saying that there are not of a low cost, socially or psychologically. I have had to wear a mask at my job for nearly two years now. Your opinion is different if you have to spend seven or eight hours wearing one.

Let me ask you this. Would you support imposing permanent mask mandates? I've said before that it's obvious there's a large segment of the population that accepts masks as part of being the new normal.

No, I do not support permanent mask mandates.  I think we can get rid of mask mandates once two conditions are met.  The meeting of both of these conditions will, in my book, be sufficient to reduce COVID to an endemic flu nature.

Here are my conditions:

1) The spread is no longer at absurdly high numbers, overwhelming hospitals and in particular ICUs.  So long as hospitals are completely overwhelmed even with the safety measures in place, it is beyond foolish to remove those safety measures, thus overwhelming hospitals to an even greater degree.

2)  Sufficient protection is available such people have the capability to no longer be threatened by COVID.  Most likely this comes from good vaccine technology, but it could also come from COVID rates being so low that it's no longer a threat.  The point being, I should be able to go out and enjoy my life without being afraid of unmasked people giving me COVID and seriously harming my life.  This was not true for most of 2020 and 2021 when running around unmasked among other unmasked people was a good way to get a very serious disease.  Here in 2022, so long as Omicron remains the variant responsible for almost all cases and can be easily combatted with the vaccine, I consider this condition satisfied.

So (1) will probably be satisfied in about 1-2 weeks as cases continue to collapse and hospitals regain the ability to manage COVID -- so it's not irresponsible for the government to increase their burden.

(2) I consider already satisfied.  But that could change if there is another new variant.

I consider both conditions (1) and (2) to have been satisfied from about May-August of 2021, in that lovely window where we had effective vaccines but Delta had not hit yet.

I also think vaccine mandates can be removed at the same time, since the point of the vaccine mandates is also to satisfy (1) by keeping people from overwhelming hospitals with severe COVID.  I don't agree with the Horus take that anti-vaxxers should just be left on the street to die.  However, I do think it is reasonable for the government to add the COVID vaccine to the normal vaccine schedule required for the military, schools, foreign entry, etc. and to heavily encourage people to get any annual boosters required to keep the virus -- especially in its original and Delta forms -- at bay.

See, to me, this is all very reasonable and it’s exactly the kind of messaging we need from governments. We need a plan out of this pandemic, even if we’re not quite there. Right now, it feels like a lot of these very left-wing places are reacting to the virus without considering whether the public actually wants their reaction. If the instinct is always to react without a clear focus on why, we will be doing this forever.

The only things our responses should be coupled to are the science of what works and the vulnerability of our health care systems.

We need a plan out of the pandemic, but it also needs to come with a Plan B, Plan C, Plan D, Plan E and Plan F. Developing a rigid plan to get out of the pandemic and sticking to it no matter what is EXTREMELY dangerous in such a fluid situation.

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

Yes, if one had to choose between masks and vaccines, you would be nutter to choose masks.
I still have not seen good data as to the odds of getting very sick from omicron, or whether it causes lasting health damage, among high risk populations, and what high risk means. I am old, with a heart condition, but not obese and do not have diabetes. I find the lack of data very frustrating, because it makes it hard for me to parse the risk reward ratio in a high stakes game. And also relevant, is whether the Pfizer pill or whatever will mitigate my risk of how sick I get, and how long I have to endure living in the twilight zone. I am done with hospitals.

Per French data, the risk of a boosted 70-year old for admitting to  ICU given a positive test is ~0.25%.

The real risk should likely be even [much?] lesser, because arguably there are many (esp among vaccinated) 70-year-old people who either are asymptomatic, don't test or test privately.

https://www.ft.com/content/03aa46e2-ac3a-4c16-82be-431ea4c43e58

According to data published on Friday by the French directorate of research, studies, evaluation and statistics, an unvaccinated 70-year-old who tests positive for Omicron is still about twice as likely to end up in an intensive care unit as an unvaccinated 40-year-old with Delta. However, the risk is cut in half from 1.9 per cent to 0.9 per cent if they have received two vaccine doses. A booster dose takes their risk down three-fold again to just 0.3 per cent, one-third of the risk of the unvaccinated 40-year-old with Delta.

“The truth is that an 80-year-old that’s vaccinated and boosted and gets Covid most of the time has nothing more than a cold,” said Phillip Coule, professor of emergency medicine at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University. By contrast, he added, “a healthy 50-year-old who’s a little bit overweight, has problems with blood pressure or diabetes and is not vaccinated at all ends up in the ICU”.

[compucomp]

The dumbest thing of all of this is that there is all this rage and hatred towards mask mandates, the mitigation measure that is low cost, low effort, and doesn't prevent anyone from doing anything. You'd think we were talking about business closures or something that actually hurt the economy and peoples' livelihoods with this kind of rancor.

The only thing masks don't prevent, is spreading Omicron. They are extremely high cost, high effort and extremely if any low efficacy. Probably high efficacy on polluting Earth, though 

There is, though, a thing extremely low cost, zero effort and extremely high efficacy. It spells:
V-A-C-C-I-N-E.

Taking the focus from vaccines to masks is dangerous.

Hearing that masks are "low cost" that don't prevent anyone from doing anything is disheartening. I'm curious to know if compucomp supports both mask and vaccine mandates. He favors the former, but may very well oppose the latter.

I support vaccine mandates but I think they are much more intrusive than mask mandates; they require people to inject a substance into their bodies, and then to enforce it requires scanning QR codes or showing ID everywhere, adding a layer of government surveillance on society. The argument that vaccine mandates violate freedom is much stronger than the argument that mask mandates violate freedom. Ironically, a mask mandate actually makes it HARDER for the government to track everyone as it ruins facial recognition technology.

[Don Vito Corleone]

No, I do not support permanent mask mandates.  I think we can get rid of mask mandates once two conditions are met.  The meeting of both of these conditions will, in my book, be sufficient to reduce COVID to an endemic flu nature.

Here are my conditions:

1) The spread is no longer at absurdly high numbers, overwhelming hospitals and in particular ICUs.  So long as hospitals are completely overwhelmed even with the safety measures in place, it is beyond foolish to remove those safety measures, thus overwhelming hospitals to an even greater degree.

2)  Sufficient protection is available such people have the capability to no longer be threatened by COVID.  Most likely this comes from good vaccine technology, but it could also come from COVID rates being so low that it's no longer a threat.  The point being, I should be able to go out and enjoy my life without being afraid of unmasked people giving me COVID and seriously harming my life.  This was not true for most of 2020 and 2021 when running around unmasked among other unmasked people was a good way to get a very serious disease.  Here in 2022, so long as Omicron remains the variant responsible for almost all cases and can be easily combatted with the vaccine, I consider this condition satisfied.

So (1) will probably be satisfied in about 1-2 weeks as cases continue to collapse and hospitals regain the ability to manage COVID -- so it's not irresponsible for the government to increase their burden.

(2) I consider already satisfied.  But that could change if there is another new variant.

I consider both conditions (1) and (2) to have been satisfied from about May-August of 2021, in that lovely window where we had effective vaccines but Delta had not hit yet.

I also think vaccine mandates can be removed at the same time, since the point of the vaccine mandates is also to satisfy (1) by keeping people from overwhelming hospitals with severe COVID.  I don't agree with the Horus take that anti-vaxxers should just be left on the street to die.  However, I do think it is reasonable for the government to add the COVID vaccine to the normal vaccine schedule required for the military, schools, foreign entry, etc. and to heavily encourage people to get any annual boosters required to keep the virus -- especially in its original and Delta forms -- at bay.

This is honestly a fairly reasonable post. At the least I'm glad you're not in the forever COVID camp, unlike compcomp who opposed the lifting of mask mandates for vaccinated people even when COVID was at its nadir last spring and proved that nothing would ever be good enough.

[compucomp]

No, I do not support permanent mask mandates.  I think we can get rid of mask mandates once two conditions are met.  The meeting of both of these conditions will, in my book, be sufficient to reduce COVID to an endemic flu nature.

Here are my conditions:

1) The spread is no longer at absurdly high numbers, overwhelming hospitals and in particular ICUs.  So long as hospitals are completely overwhelmed even with the safety measures in place, it is beyond foolish to remove those safety measures, thus overwhelming hospitals to an even greater degree.

2)  Sufficient protection is available such people have the capability to no longer be threatened by COVID.  Most likely this comes from good vaccine technology, but it could also come from COVID rates being so low that it's no longer a threat.  The point being, I should be able to go out and enjoy my life without being afraid of unmasked people giving me COVID and seriously harming my life.  This was not true for most of 2020 and 2021 when running around unmasked among other unmasked people was a good way to get a very serious disease.  Here in 2022, so long as Omicron remains the variant responsible for almost all cases and can be easily combatted with the vaccine, I consider this condition satisfied.

So (1) will probably be satisfied in about 1-2 weeks as cases continue to collapse and hospitals regain the ability to manage COVID -- so it's not irresponsible for the government to increase their burden.

(2) I consider already satisfied.  But that could change if there is another new variant.

I consider both conditions (1) and (2) to have been satisfied from about May-August of 2021, in that lovely window where we had effective vaccines but Delta had not hit yet.

I also think vaccine mandates can be removed at the same time, since the point of the vaccine mandates is also to satisfy (1) by keeping people from overwhelming hospitals with severe COVID.  I don't agree with the Horus take that anti-vaxxers should just be left on the street to die.  However, I do think it is reasonable for the government to add the COVID vaccine to the normal vaccine schedule required for the military, schools, foreign entry, etc. and to heavily encourage people to get any annual boosters required to keep the virus -- especially in its original and Delta forms -- at bay.

This is honestly a fairly reasonable post. At the least I'm glad you're not in the forever COVID camp, unlike compcomp who opposed the lifting of mask mandates for vaccinated people even when COVID was at its nadir last spring and proved that nothing would ever be good enough.

That's because masks are low cost, low effort, and don't prevent anyone from doing anything. It's literally putting on a piece of clothing. I said at the time, and maintain now, that it was a huge public health messaging blunder to put together social distancing and masks. There is good reason to hate social distancing, since it can cause serious economic damage and ruin people's livelihoods, and it's not a sustainable practice. On the other hand, masks could totally be sustainable long term if people just would get over themselves and get used to them.

[Don Vito Corleone]

No, I do not support permanent mask mandates.  I think we can get rid of mask mandates once two conditions are met.  The meeting of both of these conditions will, in my book, be sufficient to reduce COVID to an endemic flu nature.

Here are my conditions:

1) The spread is no longer at absurdly high numbers, overwhelming hospitals and in particular ICUs.  So long as hospitals are completely overwhelmed even with the safety measures in place, it is beyond foolish to remove those safety measures, thus overwhelming hospitals to an even greater degree.

2)  Sufficient protection is available such people have the capability to no longer be threatened by COVID.  Most likely this comes from good vaccine technology, but it could also come from COVID rates being so low that it's no longer a threat.  The point being, I should be able to go out and enjoy my life without being afraid of unmasked people giving me COVID and seriously harming my life.  This was not true for most of 2020 and 2021 when running around unmasked among other unmasked people was a good way to get a very serious disease.  Here in 2022, so long as Omicron remains the variant responsible for almost all cases and can be easily combatted with the vaccine, I consider this condition satisfied.

So (1) will probably be satisfied in about 1-2 weeks as cases continue to collapse and hospitals regain the ability to manage COVID -- so it's not irresponsible for the government to increase their burden.

(2) I consider already satisfied.  But that could change if there is another new variant.

I consider both conditions (1) and (2) to have been satisfied from about May-August of 2021, in that lovely window where we had effective vaccines but Delta had not hit yet.

I also think vaccine mandates can be removed at the same time, since the point of the vaccine mandates is also to satisfy (1) by keeping people from overwhelming hospitals with severe COVID.  I don't agree with the Horus take that anti-vaxxers should just be left on the street to die.  However, I do think it is reasonable for the government to add the COVID vaccine to the normal vaccine schedule required for the military, schools, foreign entry, etc. and to heavily encourage people to get any annual boosters required to keep the virus -- especially in its original and Delta forms -- at bay.

This is honestly a fairly reasonable post. At the least I'm glad you're not in the forever COVID camp, unlike compcomp who opposed the lifting of mask mandates for vaccinated people even when COVID was at its nadir last spring and proved that nothing would ever be good enough.

That's because masks are low cost, low effort, and don't prevent anyone from doing anything. It's literally putting on a piece of clothing. I said at the time, and maintain now, that it was a huge public health messaging blunder to put together social distancing and masks. There is good reason to hate social distancing, since it can cause serious economic damage and ruin people's livelihoods, and it's not a sustainable practice. On the other hand, masks could totally be sustainable long term if people just would get over themselves and get used to them.

You can feel that way if you want. Just don't complain when people accuse you of wanting this to go on forever, because you very clearly do.

[It’s so Joever]

Listen Compucomp, I know that I have traditionally been more hawkish on Covid, but I do think that others on here are correct this time to a certain extent. I thinkwe need to understand, that the end goal is not the eradication of Covid-19 from the Earth. I would hope we can all acknowledge the sheer impossibility of such a task at this point, and nearly every country has stopped zero covid approaches. As for masks, I do agree with your assessment that they are a low cost measure, but low cost doesn't mean no cost. The impact on mental health is severely exaggerated, but the more pressing problem is that mandates actually take resources to enforce. And unlike say, seatbelt laws where realistically only the person wearing the seatbelt themself gets hurt from not complying, this impacts other people, meaning we can't rely on the lax enforcement as we do with seatbelt laws. Lets understand, that hospitalizations have been about as high as last winter wave despite tons of more cases, and that they are trending downwards. Now, I do believe mandates should absolutely be implemented and enforced in areas where the rate of hospitalizations is so high, but if these current trends continue, I do think we should be phasing mask mandates out for a time. I get the frustration, and I understand your perspective, but things have changed, we are better equipped to fight a less virulent virus than before, so lets shift our policy to reflect these changes. Masks were never supposed to be a permanent measure, they are a supplementary measure designed to support a system during emergency. If the hospitals are not over capacity, the emergency is not really an emergency.

[compucomp]

No, I do not support permanent mask mandates.  I think we can get rid of mask mandates once two conditions are met.  The meeting of both of these conditions will, in my book, be sufficient to reduce COVID to an endemic flu nature.

Here are my conditions:

1) The spread is no longer at absurdly high numbers, overwhelming hospitals and in particular ICUs.  So long as hospitals are completely overwhelmed even with the safety measures in place, it is beyond foolish to remove those safety measures, thus overwhelming hospitals to an even greater degree.

2)  Sufficient protection is available such people have the capability to no longer be threatened by COVID.  Most likely this comes from good vaccine technology, but it could also come from COVID rates being so low that it's no longer a threat.  The point being, I should be able to go out and enjoy my life without being afraid of unmasked people giving me COVID and seriously harming my life.  This was not true for most of 2020 and 2021 when running around unmasked among other unmasked people was a good way to get a very serious disease.  Here in 2022, so long as Omicron remains the variant responsible for almost all cases and can be easily combatted with the vaccine, I consider this condition satisfied.

So (1) will probably be satisfied in about 1-2 weeks as cases continue to collapse and hospitals regain the ability to manage COVID -- so it's not irresponsible for the government to increase their burden.

(2) I consider already satisfied.  But that could change if there is another new variant.

I consider both conditions (1) and (2) to have been satisfied from about May-August of 2021, in that lovely window where we had effective vaccines but Delta had not hit yet.

I also think vaccine mandates can be removed at the same time, since the point of the vaccine mandates is also to satisfy (1) by keeping people from overwhelming hospitals with severe COVID.  I don't agree with the Horus take that anti-vaxxers should just be left on the street to die.  However, I do think it is reasonable for the government to add the COVID vaccine to the normal vaccine schedule required for the military, schools, foreign entry, etc. and to heavily encourage people to get any annual boosters required to keep the virus -- especially in its original and Delta forms -- at bay.

This is honestly a fairly reasonable post. At the least I'm glad you're not in the forever COVID camp, unlike compcomp who opposed the lifting of mask mandates for vaccinated people even when COVID was at its nadir last spring and proved that nothing would ever be good enough.

That's because masks are low cost, low effort, and don't prevent anyone from doing anything. It's literally putting on a piece of clothing. I said at the time, and maintain now, that it was a huge public health messaging blunder to put together social distancing and masks. There is good reason to hate social distancing, since it can cause serious economic damage and ruin people's livelihoods, and it's not a sustainable practice. On the other hand, masks could totally be sustainable long term if people just would get over themselves and get used to them.

You can feel that way if you want. Just don't complain when people accuse you of wanting this to go on forever, because you very clearly do.

That's not for me to decide. That's for the virus to decide. Somewhere in the middle of all this discussion it was lost that there is a highly contagious respiratory pathogen that is still causing illness, hospitalization, and deaths far in excess of the seasonal flu, and has shown a capacity to evolve to our detriment. The virus is a force of nature and we don't get to dictate what it does, we can only react to what it does.

[Don Vito Corleone]

No, I do not support permanent mask mandates.  I think we can get rid of mask mandates once two conditions are met.  The meeting of both of these conditions will, in my book, be sufficient to reduce COVID to an endemic flu nature.

Here are my conditions:

1) The spread is no longer at absurdly high numbers, overwhelming hospitals and in particular ICUs.  So long as hospitals are completely overwhelmed even with the safety measures in place, it is beyond foolish to remove those safety measures, thus overwhelming hospitals to an even greater degree.

2)  Sufficient protection is available such people have the capability to no longer be threatened by COVID.  Most likely this comes from good vaccine technology, but it could also come from COVID rates being so low that it's no longer a threat.  The point being, I should be able to go out and enjoy my life without being afraid of unmasked people giving me COVID and seriously harming my life.  This was not true for most of 2020 and 2021 when running around unmasked among other unmasked people was a good way to get a very serious disease.  Here in 2022, so long as Omicron remains the variant responsible for almost all cases and can be easily combatted with the vaccine, I consider this condition satisfied.

So (1) will probably be satisfied in about 1-2 weeks as cases continue to collapse and hospitals regain the ability to manage COVID -- so it's not irresponsible for the government to increase their burden.

(2) I consider already satisfied.  But that could change if there is another new variant.

I consider both conditions (1) and (2) to have been satisfied from about May-August of 2021, in that lovely window where we had effective vaccines but Delta had not hit yet.

I also think vaccine mandates can be removed at the same time, since the point of the vaccine mandates is also to satisfy (1) by keeping people from overwhelming hospitals with severe COVID.  I don't agree with the Horus take that anti-vaxxers should just be left on the street to die.  However, I do think it is reasonable for the government to add the COVID vaccine to the normal vaccine schedule required for the military, schools, foreign entry, etc. and to heavily encourage people to get any annual boosters required to keep the virus -- especially in its original and Delta forms -- at bay.

This is honestly a fairly reasonable post. At the least I'm glad you're not in the forever COVID camp, unlike compcomp who opposed the lifting of mask mandates for vaccinated people even when COVID was at its nadir last spring and proved that nothing would ever be good enough.

That's because masks are low cost, low effort, and don't prevent anyone from doing anything. It's literally putting on a piece of clothing. I said at the time, and maintain now, that it was a huge public health messaging blunder to put together social distancing and masks. There is good reason to hate social distancing, since it can cause serious economic damage and ruin people's livelihoods, and it's not a sustainable practice. On the other hand, masks could totally be sustainable long term if people just would get over themselves and get used to them.

You can feel that way if you want. Just don't complain when people accuse you of wanting this to go on forever, because you very clearly do.

That's not for me to decide. That's for the virus to decide. Somewhere in the middle of all this discussion it was lost that there is a highly contagious respiratory pathogen that is still causing illness, hospitalization, and deaths far in excess of the seasonal flu, and has shown a capacity to evolve to our detriment. The virus is a force of nature and we don't get to dictate what it does, we can only react to what it does.

Except you just said that you favour mask mandates to continue indefinitely. And, even when the virus wasn't posing a threat to anyone last spring, you were still in favour of mask mandates. If you wanted to try the "it's not me, it's the virus" line, you shouldn't have just admitted to wanting mandates to continue indefinitely. This is clearly not about the virus, this is about you and the way you think society should be.

[It’s so Joever]

No, I do not support permanent mask mandates.  I think we can get rid of mask mandates once two conditions are met.  The meeting of both of these conditions will, in my book, be sufficient to reduce COVID to an endemic flu nature.

Here are my conditions:

1) The spread is no longer at absurdly high numbers, overwhelming hospitals and in particular ICUs.  So long as hospitals are completely overwhelmed even with the safety measures in place, it is beyond foolish to remove those safety measures, thus overwhelming hospitals to an even greater degree.

2)  Sufficient protection is available such people have the capability to no longer be threatened by COVID.  Most likely this comes from good vaccine technology, but it could also come from COVID rates being so low that it's no longer a threat.  The point being, I should be able to go out and enjoy my life without being afraid of unmasked people giving me COVID and seriously harming my life.  This was not true for most of 2020 and 2021 when running around unmasked among other unmasked people was a good way to get a very serious disease.  Here in 2022, so long as Omicron remains the variant responsible for almost all cases and can be easily combatted with the vaccine, I consider this condition satisfied.

So (1) will probably be satisfied in about 1-2 weeks as cases continue to collapse and hospitals regain the ability to manage COVID -- so it's not irresponsible for the government to increase their burden.

(2) I consider already satisfied.  But that could change if there is another new variant.

I consider both conditions (1) and (2) to have been satisfied from about May-August of 2021, in that lovely window where we had effective vaccines but Delta had not hit yet.

I also think vaccine mandates can be removed at the same time, since the point of the vaccine mandates is also to satisfy (1) by keeping people from overwhelming hospitals with severe COVID.  I don't agree with the Horus take that anti-vaxxers should just be left on the street to die.  However, I do think it is reasonable for the government to add the COVID vaccine to the normal vaccine schedule required for the military, schools, foreign entry, etc. and to heavily encourage people to get any annual boosters required to keep the virus -- especially in its original and Delta forms -- at bay.

This is honestly a fairly reasonable post. At the least I'm glad you're not in the forever COVID camp, unlike compcomp who opposed the lifting of mask mandates for vaccinated people even when COVID was at its nadir last spring and proved that nothing would ever be good enough.

That's because masks are low cost, low effort, and don't prevent anyone from doing anything. It's literally putting on a piece of clothing. I said at the time, and maintain now, that it was a huge public health messaging blunder to put together social distancing and masks. There is good reason to hate social distancing, since it can cause serious economic damage and ruin people's livelihoods, and it's not a sustainable practice. On the other hand, masks could totally be sustainable long term if people just would get over themselves and get used to them.

You can feel that way if you want. Just don't complain when people accuse you of wanting this to go on forever, because you very clearly do.

That's not for me to decide. That's for the virus to decide. Somewhere in the middle of all this discussion it was lost that there is a highly contagious respiratory pathogen that is still causing illness, hospitalization, and deaths far in excess of the seasonal flu, and has shown a capacity to evolve to our detriment. The virus is a force of nature and we don't get to dictate what it does, we can only react to what it does.

The virus will last forever. At what point do you believe we could end mask mandates? Serious question. What’s your criteria?

[compucomp]

No, I do not support permanent mask mandates.  I think we can get rid of mask mandates once two conditions are met.  The meeting of both of these conditions will, in my book, be sufficient to reduce COVID to an endemic flu nature.

Here are my conditions:

1) The spread is no longer at absurdly high numbers, overwhelming hospitals and in particular ICUs.  So long as hospitals are completely overwhelmed even with the safety measures in place, it is beyond foolish to remove those safety measures, thus overwhelming hospitals to an even greater degree.

2)  Sufficient protection is available such people have the capability to no longer be threatened by COVID.  Most likely this comes from good vaccine technology, but it could also come from COVID rates being so low that it's no longer a threat.  The point being, I should be able to go out and enjoy my life without being afraid of unmasked people giving me COVID and seriously harming my life.  This was not true for most of 2020 and 2021 when running around unmasked among other unmasked people was a good way to get a very serious disease.  Here in 2022, so long as Omicron remains the variant responsible for almost all cases and can be easily combatted with the vaccine, I consider this condition satisfied.

So (1) will probably be satisfied in about 1-2 weeks as cases continue to collapse and hospitals regain the ability to manage COVID -- so it's not irresponsible for the government to increase their burden.

(2) I consider already satisfied.  But that could change if there is another new variant.

I consider both conditions (1) and (2) to have been satisfied from about May-August of 2021, in that lovely window where we had effective vaccines but Delta had not hit yet.

I also think vaccine mandates can be removed at the same time, since the point of the vaccine mandates is also to satisfy (1) by keeping people from overwhelming hospitals with severe COVID.  I don't agree with the Horus take that anti-vaxxers should just be left on the street to die.  However, I do think it is reasonable for the government to add the COVID vaccine to the normal vaccine schedule required for the military, schools, foreign entry, etc. and to heavily encourage people to get any annual boosters required to keep the virus -- especially in its original and Delta forms -- at bay.

This is honestly a fairly reasonable post. At the least I'm glad you're not in the forever COVID camp, unlike compcomp who opposed the lifting of mask mandates for vaccinated people even when COVID was at its nadir last spring and proved that nothing would ever be good enough.

That's because masks are low cost, low effort, and don't prevent anyone from doing anything. It's literally putting on a piece of clothing. I said at the time, and maintain now, that it was a huge public health messaging blunder to put together social distancing and masks. There is good reason to hate social distancing, since it can cause serious economic damage and ruin people's livelihoods, and it's not a sustainable practice. On the other hand, masks could totally be sustainable long term if people just would get over themselves and get used to them.

You can feel that way if you want. Just don't complain when people accuse you of wanting this to go on forever, because you very clearly do.

That's not for me to decide. That's for the virus to decide. Somewhere in the middle of all this discussion it was lost that there is a highly contagious respiratory pathogen that is still causing illness, hospitalization, and deaths far in excess of the seasonal flu, and has shown a capacity to evolve to our detriment. The virus is a force of nature and we don't get to dictate what it does, we can only react to what it does.

Except you just said that you favour mask mandates to continue indefinitely. And, even when the virus wasn't posing a threat to anyone last spring, you were still in favour of mask mandates. If you wanted to try the "it's not me, it's the virus line", you shouldn't have just admitted to wanting mandates to continue indefinitely. This is clearly not about the virus, this is about you and the way you think society should be.

It's wrong to say the virus wasn't a threat to anyone last spring. The pandemic was heading on a trajectory towards zero, but it had not gotten anywhere close to zero, nor did we ever reach Fauci's 10K benchmark that would indicate the spread is under control. Also the lifting of mask mandates for vaccinated people is a cop-out, as we saw quite quickly it meant the lifting of mask mandates for everyone, and once that happened it was hard to bring the mask mandates back anywhere. Only the cartoonish case numbers of Omicron has managed to do that. It was essentially a risky bet that the near-sterilizing immunity of the vaccines would hold up, a bet which lost spectacularly when Delta and Omicron hit. In hindsight I was 100% correct to criticize the May CDC mask guidance.

[Don Vito Corleone]

No, I do not support permanent mask mandates.  I think we can get rid of mask mandates once two conditions are met.  The meeting of both of these conditions will, in my book, be sufficient to reduce COVID to an endemic flu nature.

Here are my conditions:

1) The spread is no longer at absurdly high numbers, overwhelming hospitals and in particular ICUs.  So long as hospitals are completely overwhelmed even with the safety measures in place, it is beyond foolish to remove those safety measures, thus overwhelming hospitals to an even greater degree.

2)  Sufficient protection is available such people have the capability to no longer be threatened by COVID.  Most likely this comes from good vaccine technology, but it could also come from COVID rates being so low that it's no longer a threat.  The point being, I should be able to go out and enjoy my life without being afraid of unmasked people giving me COVID and seriously harming my life.  This was not true for most of 2020 and 2021 when running around unmasked among other unmasked people was a good way to get a very serious disease.  Here in 2022, so long as Omicron remains the variant responsible for almost all cases and can be easily combatted with the vaccine, I consider this condition satisfied.

So (1) will probably be satisfied in about 1-2 weeks as cases continue to collapse and hospitals regain the ability to manage COVID -- so it's not irresponsible for the government to increase their burden.

(2) I consider already satisfied.  But that could change if there is another new variant.

I consider both conditions (1) and (2) to have been satisfied from about May-August of 2021, in that lovely window where we had effective vaccines but Delta had not hit yet.

I also think vaccine mandates can be removed at the same time, since the point of the vaccine mandates is also to satisfy (1) by keeping people from overwhelming hospitals with severe COVID.  I don't agree with the Horus take that anti-vaxxers should just be left on the street to die.  However, I do think it is reasonable for the government to add the COVID vaccine to the normal vaccine schedule required for the military, schools, foreign entry, etc. and to heavily encourage people to get any annual boosters required to keep the virus -- especially in its original and Delta forms -- at bay.

This is honestly a fairly reasonable post. At the least I'm glad you're not in the forever COVID camp, unlike compcomp who opposed the lifting of mask mandates for vaccinated people even when COVID was at its nadir last spring and proved that nothing would ever be good enough.

That's because masks are low cost, low effort, and don't prevent anyone from doing anything. It's literally putting on a piece of clothing. I said at the time, and maintain now, that it was a huge public health messaging blunder to put together social distancing and masks. There is good reason to hate social distancing, since it can cause serious economic damage and ruin people's livelihoods, and it's not a sustainable practice. On the other hand, masks could totally be sustainable long term if people just would get over themselves and get used to them.

You can feel that way if you want. Just don't complain when people accuse you of wanting this to go on forever, because you very clearly do.

That's not for me to decide. That's for the virus to decide. Somewhere in the middle of all this discussion it was lost that there is a highly contagious respiratory pathogen that is still causing illness, hospitalization, and deaths far in excess of the seasonal flu, and has shown a capacity to evolve to our detriment. The virus is a force of nature and we don't get to dictate what it does, we can only react to what it does.

Except you just said that you favour mask mandates to continue indefinitely. And, even when the virus wasn't posing a threat to anyone last spring, you were still in favour of mask mandates. If you wanted to try the "it's not me, it's the virus line", you shouldn't have just admitted to wanting mandates to continue indefinitely. This is clearly not about the virus, this is about you and the way you think society should be.

It's wrong to say the virus wasn't a threat to anyone last spring. The pandemic was heading on a trajectory towards zero, but it had not gotten anywhere close to zero, nor did we ever reach Fauci's 10K benchmark that would indicate the spread is under control. Also the lifting of mask mandates for vaccinated people is a cop-out, as we saw quite quickly it meant the lifting of mask mandates for everyone, and once that happened it was hard to bring the mask mandates back anywhere. Only the cartoonish case numbers of Omicron has managed to do that. It was essentially a risky bet that the near-sterilizing immunity of the vaccines would hold up, a bet which lost spectacularly when Delta and Omicron hit. In hindsight I was 100% correct to criticize the May CDC mask guidance.

Again, you're perfectly free to feel that way. No one is stopping you from holding these views. Just don't complain when people accuse you of wanting this to go on forever, because as you have clearly demonstrated more than once now, you do in fact want it to go on forever.

[compucomp]

No, I do not support permanent mask mandates.  I think we can get rid of mask mandates once two conditions are met.  The meeting of both of these conditions will, in my book, be sufficient to reduce COVID to an endemic flu nature.

Here are my conditions:

1) The spread is no longer at absurdly high numbers, overwhelming hospitals and in particular ICUs.  So long as hospitals are completely overwhelmed even with the safety measures in place, it is beyond foolish to remove those safety measures, thus overwhelming hospitals to an even greater degree.

2)  Sufficient protection is available such people have the capability to no longer be threatened by COVID.  Most likely this comes from good vaccine technology, but it could also come from COVID rates being so low that it's no longer a threat.  The point being, I should be able to go out and enjoy my life without being afraid of unmasked people giving me COVID and seriously harming my life.  This was not true for most of 2020 and 2021 when running around unmasked among other unmasked people was a good way to get a very serious disease.  Here in 2022, so long as Omicron remains the variant responsible for almost all cases and can be easily combatted with the vaccine, I consider this condition satisfied.

So (1) will probably be satisfied in about 1-2 weeks as cases continue to collapse and hospitals regain the ability to manage COVID -- so it's not irresponsible for the government to increase their burden.

(2) I consider already satisfied.  But that could change if there is another new variant.

I consider both conditions (1) and (2) to have been satisfied from about May-August of 2021, in that lovely window where we had effective vaccines but Delta had not hit yet.

I also think vaccine mandates can be removed at the same time, since the point of the vaccine mandates is also to satisfy (1) by keeping people from overwhelming hospitals with severe COVID.  I don't agree with the Horus take that anti-vaxxers should just be left on the street to die.  However, I do think it is reasonable for the government to add the COVID vaccine to the normal vaccine schedule required for the military, schools, foreign entry, etc. and to heavily encourage people to get any annual boosters required to keep the virus -- especially in its original and Delta forms -- at bay.

This is honestly a fairly reasonable post. At the least I'm glad you're not in the forever COVID camp, unlike compcomp who opposed the lifting of mask mandates for vaccinated people even when COVID was at its nadir last spring and proved that nothing would ever be good enough.

That's because masks are low cost, low effort, and don't prevent anyone from doing anything. It's literally putting on a piece of clothing. I said at the time, and maintain now, that it was a huge public health messaging blunder to put together social distancing and masks. There is good reason to hate social distancing, since it can cause serious economic damage and ruin people's livelihoods, and it's not a sustainable practice. On the other hand, masks could totally be sustainable long term if people just would get over themselves and get used to them.

You can feel that way if you want. Just don't complain when people accuse you of wanting this to go on forever, because you very clearly do.

That's not for me to decide. That's for the virus to decide. Somewhere in the middle of all this discussion it was lost that there is a highly contagious respiratory pathogen that is still causing illness, hospitalization, and deaths far in excess of the seasonal flu, and has shown a capacity to evolve to our detriment. The virus is a force of nature and we don't get to dictate what it does, we can only react to what it does.

Except you just said that you favour mask mandates to continue indefinitely. And, even when the virus wasn't posing a threat to anyone last spring, you were still in favour of mask mandates. If you wanted to try the "it's not me, it's the virus line", you shouldn't have just admitted to wanting mandates to continue indefinitely. This is clearly not about the virus, this is about you and the way you think society should be.

It's wrong to say the virus wasn't a threat to anyone last spring. The pandemic was heading on a trajectory towards zero, but it had not gotten anywhere close to zero, nor did we ever reach Fauci's 10K benchmark that would indicate the spread is under control. Also the lifting of mask mandates for vaccinated people is a cop-out, as we saw quite quickly it meant the lifting of mask mandates for everyone, and once that happened it was hard to bring the mask mandates back anywhere. Only the cartoonish case numbers of Omicron has managed to do that. It was essentially a risky bet that the near-sterilizing immunity of the vaccines would hold up, a bet which lost spectacularly when Delta and Omicron hit. In hindsight I was 100% correct to criticize the May CDC mask guidance.

Again, you're perfectly free to feel that way. No one is stopping you from holding these views. Just don't complain when people accuse you of wanting this to go on forever, because as you have clearly demonstrated more than once now, you do in fact want it to go on forever.

Again, it doesn't matter what I want. It matters what the virus does. I strongly believe that at no point during the pandemic has the risk from COVID dropped to a level where the minimal cost incurred from mask mandates would not be worth the benefit gained, emphasis on minimal cost. If COVID magically disappears like SARS did, then fine, get rid of mask mandates. If we can really sustain 10K cases a day, then fine, get rid of mask mandates. But if we can't ever get there, and it's definitely plausible that we won't, then mask mandates should be in place forever. That doesn't mean I want the pandemic to go on forever, but if it does in fact go on forever we will need mask mandates forever.