COVID-19 Megathread 6: Return of the Omicron

[roxas11]

Here's a good new article from Vox by an epidemiologist summarizing the scientific evidence about covid transmission in schools:

https://www.vox.com/2021/2/15/22280763/kids-covid-vaccine-teachers-unions-schools-reopening-cdc

Everyone who was criticizing virus skeptics last year for not listening to the scientists and doctors should start following their own advice on the issue of school reopening.

Lately I've been hearing a bunch of arguments from people who are irrationally afraid of covid in schools based on conspiracy theories and speculation completely unsupported by evidence.  This can be just as damaging as conspiracies and irrational arguments on the other side like "Plandemic" or the collodial silver cure.

There are people who are forced to go to work and put their lives on the line everyday since this coivd craziness started.

If Nurses, Doctors, and everybody else do not get to say "They will not show up for work unless it is safe" than neither should these teachers. I'm sorry but at this point if you are that afraid of stepping back into a classroom than Maybe it is simply time to find a new line of work

Here is the harsh reality for the teachers union
The second Biden passes his Covid bill a lot of Dems will use that as political cover to go after them a lot more aggressively than they currently are right now.

Its one thing for them to close down the schools based on what the the science said at the time.
Its another to keep them closed when the science now makes its clear that they can be safely reopen. It is time for the teachers union to either listen to the science or face a growing backlash against them from both the left and the right

[roxas11]

Why would people who oppose masks be vindicated?

Lockdowns and masks clearly don't work, but it appears as if vaccines do.

and this is where you completely lost me.....

[roxas11]

Ironically enough trump himself ended up showing the world just how quickly things can go wrong when you have a group of people sitting together who refuse to wear a mask

A lot of the people in this photo including Trump may have not ended up getting Covid had they simply chose to wear a mask that day



So far nothing close to this has happened with the mask wearing Biden white house

[roxas11]

Thank you Senator, very cool!

https://twitter.com/ryanstruyk/status/1367515798735097862

didnt the Neanderthals go extinct over 40,000 years ago....

Maybe Blackburn is the one who needs to rethink what she is saying.

[roxas11]

Increasing cases us bad news for Ds

I'm not buying it because Trump and GOP saw huge Increases in both covid cases and deaths during 2020 yet trump still barely lost the elections and the Republicans actually gained a lot of seats.

I just think that the politics behind covid is too polarizing for any party to get hurt by it at this point.

The Bottom line, if Biden continues to do well on vaccine distribution and actually succeeds in making the vaccine widely available to the American people than I think he and the Dems will be fine even if there is a rise in cases

[roxas11]

I said rising Covid cases isn't good news for D's and the border crisis, it looks like Biden won't get his amnesty program thru, he won't break Filibuster

Again, where is your evidence of this?


You are speaking as if you have just seen a new poll or data that that shows that rising cases is going to hurt the Dems in a way that it did not even do to the Republicans in 2020. Trump barley lost the election and Republicans gained seats despite that that both deaths and cases were rising way more than they are right now

If anything, these results show that rising cases have very little impact on either party because Covid has become such politically polarizing issue

Also, I said it before and will say it again If Biden and Dems succeed in Making the vaccines widely available to people than I believe that fact alone will help them even if cases do rise

[roxas11]

Even if this situation turns out to be nothing in the end the damage is Done

Johnson and Johnson may have just made the vaccine hesitancy issue even worse. Now right wing conspiracy theorists online are going to use this moment to convince a lot of trump supporters to never take any vaccine including moderna

[roxas11]

So we are never going to get out of this pandemic? We will not have open schools nor open businesses until the inevitable GOP sweep in even blue states in the 2022 midterms are we?? And wait for them to take office in January 2023 to force reopenings?

Is there any chance the FDA/CDC emergency meeting on Wednesday may allow for continued usage of Johnson and Johnson?

Not even Im that pessimistic
I ultimately still believe that we are going to beat this virus in the end and still optimistic that we can still reopen a lot of schools and business by the end of the year

[roxas11]

It's crazy to me that The risk of blood clots from birth control pills is 1 in 1,000 and it is considered a low-risk side effect. Yet Woman takes those pills every year and I don't see anybody going crazy over that

But when 6 out 7 million people gets blood clots from the Johnson and Johnson. That is apparently more than enough evidence for them to pause the Vaccine during a pandemic

I can't believe I'm actually agreeing with Ben Shapiro of all people on this
https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status/1381941944167899146

[roxas11]

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/547888-white-house-johnson-johnson-pause-wont-have-significant-impact-on

Well the good news is that the White house has confirmed the the pause on the Johnson & Johnson vaccine won’t have a “significant impact” on its national vaccination effort as the Pfizer and Moderna vaccine supply remains steady and the Johnson & Johnson vaccine makes up less than 5 percent of the recorded shots in arms in the United States to date

[roxas11]

Even if this situation turns out to be nothing in the end the damage is Done

Johnson and Johnson may have just made the vaccine hesitancy issue even worse. Now right wing conspiracy theorists online are going to use this moment to convince a lot of trump supporters to never take any vaccine including moderna

To be fair, isn't the FDA (a neutral, scientific Federal agency headed by a Biden appointee, no less) suspending use of the J&J vaccine actually a pretty good reason to be more hesitant about the rush to quick, universal vaccination?  And that's to say nothing of how much worse it would be for vaccine hesitancy for a potentially dangerous vaccine to remain on market?  

That you chalk such a reaction up to "right-wing conspiracy theory" shows zealously irrational the "pro-science" virtue signaling has gotten in certain corners, lol

Wow taking about twisiting my words

I have never been the type on here to virtue signal to anybody about science nor Have I been one of those people who wanted to just keep things locked down forever. The fact it rather you or I like it or not there is a real Vacaccine hesitancy among Trump supporters right now.

This is not something that I am just making up, nor was it something I was saying in order to show trump supporter how Pro science I am lol

The harsh truth is sadly there are people on the right who are going on social media and spreading Disinformation about these vacancies. Again, I'm not saying that to put down trump supporters nor I'm saying it to virtue signal to them about science. I'm saying it because I don't want anybody on the left or on the right to die from the horrible virus and my fear is that those conspiracy theorist are going to use this info to scare more people away from taking every vaccine not just Johnson & Johnson

[roxas11]

Even if this situation turns out to be nothing in the end the damage is Done

Johnson and Johnson may have just made the vaccine hesitancy issue even worse. Now right wing conspiracy theorists online are going to use this moment to convince a lot of trump supporters to never take any vaccine including moderna

To be fair, isn't the FDA (a neutral, scientific Federal agency headed by a Biden appointee, no less) suspending use of the J&J vaccine actually a pretty good reason to be more hesitant about the rush to quick, universal vaccination?  And that's to say nothing of how much worse it would be for vaccine hesitancy for a potentially dangerous vaccine to remain on market?  

That you chalk such a reaction up to "right-wing conspiracy theory" shows zealously irrational the "pro-science" virtue signaling has gotten in certain corners, lol

Wow taking about twisiting my words

I have never been the type on here to virtue signal to anybody about science nor Have I been one of those people who wanted to just keep things locked down forever. The fact it rather you or I like it or not there is a real Vacaccine hesitancy among Trump supporters right now.

This is not something that I am just making up, nor was it something I was saying in order to show trump supporter how Pro science I am lol

The harsh truth is sadly there are people on the right who are going on social media and spreading Disinformation about these vacancies. Again, I'm not saying that to put down trump supporters nor I'm saying it to virtue signal to them about science. I'm saying it because I don't want anybody on the left or on the right to die from the horrible virus and my fear is that those conspiracy theorist are going to use this info to scare more people away from taking every vaccine not just Johnson & Johnson

"Disinformation" on social media drives a lot less vaccine hesitancy than young, otherwise healthy people not being bothered to get a vaccine for what is overwhelmingly a non-lethal disease.  If our goal is to make people more confident in the vaccine's safety and efficacy, then the FDA is absolutely making the right call.  Keeping potentially unsafe vaccines on the shelf ruins confidence in safer ones.  

People who "use" the FDA's action as a reason to be more hesitant about getting vaccinated are justified in doing such, at least in the short term.  They're taking in credible information and adjusting their behavior accordingly. Waxing about "right-wing conspirarcy theories" is an insult to common sense.  

But we can't just ignore the role that some Right-wing media figures on social media are playing when it comes to spreading fear among Trump supporters

Now you are correct that maybe I could have used a better way to express my concern Because taking what was perceived as a cheap shot against trump supporters was never my intention and sorry if it came off that way.

but I do stand by my overall point that some media figures on social media will use the News about Johnson & Johnson to spread fear about vaccines among trump supporters and even among those who may not have even supported trump or the GOP  

[roxas11]

Fauce
https://twitter.com/cspan/status/1382029523781292036
https://twitter.com/CBSNews/status/1382018481084887042

vs

Trump
https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1382019197170036739


Choose your fighter!

Im not choosing the guy who suggested that I should drink bleach or other disinfectants in order to not get Covid lol

[roxas11]

https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1382695551322447876

Fun fact: Trump would never let Fauci pause his precious vaccines. Follow the sciene.

Trump acts as if he is embarrassed to be even associated with those precious vaccines and He did not even want to be seen on camera taking it.

This is a guy who did not mind selling and promoting a crappy products like this


yet when it when comes to the vaccines he barely even talks about it and he is not really making any serious attempt to convince his supporters to take it.

[roxas11]

Glad about the trends, but given how far off the rails things have gotten in India and Brazil wouldn't be surprised to see one more modest wave to work it way through the US.

I'm not sure I buy the comparison with the India or Brazil.


In India case they completely dropped their guard thanks to seeing very low cases by January. Their numbers were far lower than anything we have seen in the US and those low numbers made the Indian government believe that they did not even have to prepare for a possible second wave. In fact the government was so confident that the worst was behind them they allowed thousands of people to gather by the Ganges River


In Brazil case President Bolsonaro response to covid has always been awful, so sadly it is not surprising that things are still not going well for them

[roxas11]

This is a terrible decision unless they're going to mandate proof of vaccination, otherwise it's just going to encourage unvaccinated people to lie and spread the virus more.

The people you described will never take the vaccine anyway, no matter what The CDC says or does


The reality is there is a big difference between someone who is simply hesitant about the vaccines because of side effects, but can still be convinced to take it.

compared to someone who has no intention of ever being vaccinated and is purposely going around spreading lies about the vaccine online

At this point I think we should all focus on the unvaccinated people who can by persuaded instead wasting our time worrying about what The Anti-vaxxers online think about the New CDC guidlines

[roxas11]

Do yourself a favor and look at the replies: bunch of anti-masker psychos

https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1392935847863934987

I said it before and I will say it again

Twitter is not the real world and the idiots who are replying to a Bidens post with anti-mask or anti Vaxx BS do not a reflect how the vast majority of the American people really feel about the president's handling of covid

[roxas11]

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/17/nyregion/vaccinated-masks-cdc.html
They’re Vaccinated and Keeping Their Masks On, Maybe Forever
Face coverings have been a political flash point for more than a year. But now, the backlash is directed at people who don’t plan to take them off.

Whenever Joe Glickman heads out for groceries, he places an N95 mask over his face and tugs a cloth mask on top of it. He then pulls on a pair of goggles.

He has used this safety protocol for the past 14 months. It did not change after he contracted the coronavirus last November. It didn’t budge when, earlier this month, he became fully vaccinated. And even though President Biden said on Thursday that fully vaccinated people do not have to wear a mask, Mr. Glickman said he planned to stay the course.

In fact, he said, he plans to do his grocery run double-masked and goggled for at least the next five years.

Even as a combination of evolving public health recommendations and pandemic fatigue lead more Americans to toss the masks they’ve worn for more than a year, Mr. Glickman is among those who say they plan to keep their faces covered in public indefinitely.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/cdc-mask-guidelines-confuse-americans/2021/05/15/e6d37726-b4f1-11eb-ab43-bebddc5a0f65_story.html
Confused Americans grapple with CDC’s new mask rules: ‘It caught us off guard’

Rebecca Kee, another San Francisco resident, has seen how divisive the new guidance can be.

After the CDC said fully vaccinated people don’t need masks outside last week, she decided to walk barefaced in her neighborhood.

Then a man with two children, all masked, darted into the street to avoid her. When she told him there was new guidance, the man told Kee she was lying and he hoped her family would get sick and die.

“It shook me to my core and made me really feel horrible,” said Kee, 38. “I think in a time of deep instability and real fear, the mask became a symbol of caring for your neighbor that we all clung to.”

I honestly don't see what the big deal is
People in Japan and other Asian countries have been wearing mask long before Covid and they will continue to do it long after Covid





The American people have every right to wear a mask for as long as they personally choose to, just like those who now can stop wearing a mask if they no longer want to.

[roxas11]

VRB, are you trying to say that, all else being equal, wearing a mask while infected with Covid does not reduce the risk of spreading the disease to someone else?

Sigh... No, I'm saying that you shouldn't have killed the economy by imposing totally ineffective mask mandates, though the schools closures/no fast re-openings were even more stupidly anti-science and devastating for kids.

Science has been pretty clear. You only needs mask if you can't keep a physical distancing [99%] inside. And basically it is what people have done in states with no mask mandate/less restrictions. And now you have the data, that shows that there is no significant difference between less och more restricted states. That is that the [mostly Democrat] states with more restrictions kept poors, especially kids, down in vain.

With this 1 line Vaccinated Russian Bear managed to undermine what was otherwise a solid argument when it came to showing what the science actually shows us about mask. Being against the lockdown measures is 1 thing, but claiming that the mask mandates was responsible for killing the economy is ridiculous lol

If anything I think the trump himself would have been politically better off had he actually pushed the mask mandates as an alternative to the lockdowns. ​trump then could have easily used his super pro mask stance as a way to shield himself from democrats attacks and he could have gone after Dems as being a pro lockdown while claiming that he is the one fighting to keep the county open

Bottom line Vaccinated Russian Bear did help himself at all with that silly mask mandates killed the economy claim

[roxas11]

I think Biden has done all he can when it comes to making sure that every American can get vaccinated if they choose to but by the end of the day the reality is there is a large segment of people in our county who will never get vaccinated and nothing Biden does will ever change that

bringing back mask mandates or trying to push vaccine mandates will only make things worse because people on the far right will just use that to further demonise the vaccines and Republican governors will most likely fight back against any attempt at bring back those types of policies

At this point all we can do is hope or pray that we will not see this virus mutate into something far more dangerous as it goes on to infect and kill many people in the low vaccinated southern states

[roxas11]

Reported for misinformation and vaccine denialism.

People are looking for ANY reason to reinstate covid restrictions forever.

No, people actually want the opposite. They want everyone to be vaccinated so we can reopen safely and not need to lockdown again. Rushing to reopen is going to necessitate another lockdown.

You sound deranged.

If people wanted more covid restrictions so bad, Democrats would not have almost lost the House of Representatives last November.

If people wanted less covid restrictions so bad, Trump would not have lost the election last November...

[roxas11]

The whole sentiment that instituting a vaccine mandate wouldn’t increase vaccination rates because people would just rebel against the mandate is perplexing to me.  

There’s lots of things that people don’t really want to do, but they still do only because they are legally required to, and they almost always just go along with it as opposed to like, starting a civil war or something.

I mean, how many people would voluntarily get a driver’s license if it wasn’t actually legally required to drive?  And yet, almost everyone who drives gets a license because they might go to jail if they don’t, and almost no one is forming a militia to protest license mandates.

you are naive if you honestly believe things are that simple

When I talked about people rebeling against the mandates I was not just talking about regular people on the street I was also taking about this guy...


make no mistake the second Joe Biden calls for a national mask or vaccines mandate Gregg Abbot, Ron DeSantis and many other Republican governors will use their power to make sure that people in their states will never have to follow it

Just look at how things played out with the obamacare individual mandate

A lot of people did not comply with it even if meant they got a fined for doing so and the republicans spent years actively fighting the individual mandate in court. They eventually succeeded in killing it and with the current supreme court, they most likely also succeed in killing any Joe Biden mandate when comes to mask or vaccines

[roxas11]

3. Kamala Harris’s Idiotic Pre-Election Statement

During the 2020 campaign, Vice President Kamala Harris said she would not trust the vaccine developed under the Trump administration.

“Well, I think that’s going to be an issue for all of us,” Harris told CNN’s Dana Bash in September. “I will say that I would not trust Donald Trump and it would have to be a credible source of information that talks about the efficacy and the reliability of whatever he’s talking about. I will not take his word for it.”

What a ridiculous comparison

first off Harris never told anybody not to get vaccinated nor did she ever go on Facebook to spread lies about the vaccines, like a lot of people on the far right are currently doing

She simply stated did not she no longer trusted trump when it came to giving credible information on covid and I don't blame her for feeling that way at all since trump spent much of 2020 lying about the virus

The reality is Harris comments did not in any way, shape or form stop Democrats from going to get vaccinated

On the other hand the anti-vax BS that Fox News and far right has been putting on social media is clearly having a negative impact on republicans.....

[roxas11]

Can someone explain or show me videos about this "promise."
I'm not trying to be snarky or negative, but I'm serious that I don't remember hearing "promises."

They promised it all the time.

It's just like how they promised lockdowns would be only 2 weeks.

It's like how they promised school would be 100% normal by New Year's 2021.

It's been a trail of broken promises and lies since day one.

[roxas11]

If numbers spike (still an if - look at what happened to Delta surges in London and India), it is indeed a massive failure by the Biden administration.

It was pretty clear to most back in the Spring that the solution that made the most sense would be a system that would allow you to identify vaccination status. This way, private and public entities could require vaccination for non-essential activities like going to restaurants, sporting events, etc. I remember people laminating their vaccine cards in anticipation of something like this.

For some reason, the administration decided not to go this route. When they abandoned the idea, I assumed that they knew something I didn't. I'm starting to question that assumption at this point.

Even more mind-boggling, governors and mayors in cities and states like mine decided to follow the administration and abandon the idea despite being progressive areas that would be unlikely to see much resistance to the idea.

Im sorry but i can not agree with you on this at all

If numbers spike that is not a failure of Biden.......
That is a failure of unvaccinated Americans who refused to take the Vaccine and I believe that is how most Americans will see it if the numbers do end up going up. Heck in 2020 the American people almost reelected trump despite his many real failures when it came to covid so I don't think most will blame Biden at all for a big spike in covid caeses

It would be one thing if Biden himself had actually failed when it came to Vaccine distribution because that is something that he and the white house are responsible for But in this case Biden succeeded in making sure every American can get a vaccine if they want to. It is not his failure nor is it his fault that many Americans choose not to get vaccinated.