COVID-19 Megathread 6: Return of the Omicron

[pbrower2a]

Even those who supported the initial lockdowns were looking for safe ways in which to relax it. Opening golf courses and tennis courts might be politically incorrect when basketball courts are closed... but two of those ar comparatively safe and the other isn't.

Big Business has called many of the shots, especially on customer behavior. It took until July, but Wal*Mart where I live finally started enforcing mask rules. If you came without one, you get one. 

[pbrower2a]

Students can be obliged to wear masks at all times from getting on school buses to leaving them.  Playing band instruments can be exceptions, but social distancing can be enforced for band and lunch.
Or perhaps face masks can be used by band players.

[pbrower2a]

https://www.politico.com/states/california/story/2020/11/18/state-sanctioned-segregation-californias-school-closure-debate-boils-over-1336593
‘State-sanctioned segregation’: California’s school closure debate boils over

Pandemic politics have reached a boiling point in California’s school reopening debate.

A hands-off approach by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom and public pressure from powerful labor unions has led the state’s biggest city districts to keep schools shuttered, leaving most of California’s 6 million public schoolchildren learning at home. Even San Francisco, which has had one of the lowest infection rates for any U.S. city, hasn’t attempted in-person teaching.

As the pandemic wears on, more Democrats are sounding the alarm after staying silent earlier this fall. They are increasingly distressed that California's approach has widened the gap between low-income communities of color and wealthier white families.

Frustrations hit a new level in October, when Newsom said his own children had returned to private school in Sacramento — while public school students in the surrounding neighborhoods remained home. Now leaders in the governor's own party are turning on him, saying the status quo has left the state with crisis-level inequity.

California's system amounts to "state-sanctioned segregation," Patrick O'Donnell (D-Long Beach), the chair of the state Assembly Education Committee, said in an interview — a frank declaration for a Democrat consistently supported by the California Teachers Association.

“Some kids get to go and some don’t. That's not what California stands for," he said. “I think we need to move faster but remain thoughtful.”

Well, if he said it before the election, I'd respect him. As I were saying for weeks now, White Wealthy Libs has been screwing poor/minority kids to screw Trump. Gee, most people of this forum didn't give a  either, though. The few people that shared my concerns were from Europe...

A lost generation of millions of kids.

The debate is complicated in the nation's most populous state, where the divide between rich and poor remains stark. For all of the wealth concentrated in the Silicon Valley and Hollywood, nearly 60 percent of California public schoolchildren live in low-income households that qualify for subsidized meals. Districts are reporting sharp increases in students failing, especially in lower-income neighborhoods.

Gee, Hollywood.

The most bluest (populous) states CA and NY are the ones who screwing poor kids most. Would be ironic and fun, if i wasn't so god damn terrible.

When schools are closed (which includes summer vacations) kids are effectively home-schooled... at best. Ideally someone tells the kids to turn off the idiot screen and use the computer for educational purposes instead of for playing video games. Middle-class parents are likely to make field trips out of vacations, so if the vacation is a trip from Ohio to southern California there might be a side trip (well, not much of a detour, really) to Petrified Forest National Park. You get kids reading maps and asking questions like "how far is it to Effingham, Illinois?" or "why is I-44 in Missouri so much curvier than I-70 in Illinois".  Oh, they have never been through the Ozarks? Nice geography lesson there!

One of the ironies of urban life is that kids so close to the cultural attractions that the middle class (and in America the middle class typically has college degrees) takes for granted as obvious destinations don't go there -- not to the art, science, technology, and history museums in which they might learn something. Such experiences may be one inexpensive bus ride away, but if one has no idea that such exist, then those might as well be on the dark side of the Moon.

That kids read matters greatly. That they practice music on instruments matters greatly. All in all, until one gets to the highly-specific professional schools, the habit of learning matters far more than what one learns (ruling out pseudoscience such as 'scientific creationism' and junk history such as Holocaust denial).   

COVID-19 has ensured that some children will have to take another year to get through school. This will be one of the long-term hidden costs of the Plague of Donald Trump.

[pbrower2a]

The death toll from COVID-19  in the USA now exceeds the population of Cleveland, Ohio, which among other things is the home of the Cleveland Indians, the troubled Cleveland Browns, one of the finest symphony orchestras in the world, and a Federal Reserve Bank Branch. That's #4 of #12

   
   

[pbrower2a]

We have two days with losses analogous to the total Allied losses on D-Day.

At least those who died invading the diabolical empire of Adolf Hitler were doing the LORD's work.  People dying of COVID-19 die of the blunders of our Coward-in-Chief. 

[pbrower2a]

1/13 (Today): <W>
Cases: 23,616,345 (+248,120 | ΔW Change: ↓11.07% | Σ Increase: ↑1.06%)
Deaths: 393,928 (+4,329 | ΔW Change: ↓0.94% | Σ Increase: ↑1.11%)

The death toll has already surpassed


52   Bakersfield California   384,145

53   Cleveland    Ohio   381,009

54   Aurora    Colorado   379,289

55   Anaheim    California   350,365

56   Honolulu    Hawaii   345,064

America's biggest tropical tourist destination, Home of Disney's Magic Kingdom, home of one of the finest symphony orchestras in America (as well as the Cleveland baseball, basketball, and football teams), and "Nashville West".

Next two stops on the grisly tour of urban comparisons:

51   Wichita    Kansas   389,938

50   New Orleans    Louisiana   390,144

I could make a sick pun about New Orleans being "The Big Easy"... there's nothing easy about dying of COVID-19.

Almost certainly within the next few days:

49   Arlington    Texas   398,854

The Dallas Cowboys and the Texas Rangers play here.  One of America's biggest suburbs.  

48   Tampa    Florida   399,700

47   Tulsa         Oklahoma   401,190

Probably the same day as Arlington, Texas.

-- and probably in time for Inauguration Day:

46   Minneapolis    Minnesota   429,606

45   Oakland    California   433,031

Home of Clorox Corporation, which strongly disparages President Trump's suggested (internal) use of its bleach products. (Use it to clean surfaces, of course!)

[pbrower2a]

I think it's time to change the thread title (I don't know to what though).

My suggestion: "Aftermath" replaces "Dawn".  Or start over with a new thread.

[pbrower2a]

(deleted due to unnecessary duplication)

Thank you for changing the title.

[pbrower2a]

I am tempted to believe that the insurrection of January 6 is the last big "Presidential super-spreader event". 

[pbrower2a]

We just lost the equivalent of Oakland, California and had surpassed Minneapolis.

It keeps getting worse. Speaking of Oakland: it is the home of Clorox Corporation, a company that strongly deprecates how President Trump suggested that people use its product. Never for internal use! Surfaces, OK.

[pbrower2a]

Maybe flu particles are more transmissible than Covid particles ... what other reason would there be that the flu has perished other than masks and social distancing ?

Also, there's a lot of people who simply don't practice masks and social distancing. Social distancing couldn't have wiped out the flu when people just don't practice it anymore.

I recognized the flu as particularly dangerous because it would cause one to be sent to the hospital where COVID-19 would be lurking. People took flu shots more seriously.

[pbrower2a]

The number of new cases is going down.

Great news! The farmers are getting the blizzards that their crops need in Michigan, driving conditions are getting hazardous, and people won't be out and about spreading COVID-19.

Deaths from COVID-19 are a lagging indicator, although they remain a tragedy. The Grim Reaper has taken more lives in America now than the population of Miami (42nd-largest city in the USA) from COVID-19 alone.

Wear the d@mn mask if you do go out! 

[pbrower2a]

https://twitter.com/MrOlmos/status/1368261041696632832

Sad to see those children swept up in that.

It's hard to believe that people could do that. Then I hear some of the talk, and it doesn't sound like what I would expect from people who graduated near the tops of their high-school classes.

[pbrower2a]

We have just lost the equivalent of the population of Albuquerque, the 32nd-largest city in the United States. Sure, Albuquerque is a dump, but that is nothing like the body-dumping that we Americans have had to do. By now more Americans are inoculated against COVID-19 (SARS-2) than have contracted it, so we are approaching the time of "herd immunity". Americans are herding themselves into inoculation sites.

I got bad side-effects from the inoculation, which tells me that (1) I did a good job of evading 'Rona, and (2) it was a good thing that I did. I had some nasty muscle pains and a simulated URI... and the older that I get the worse any URI gets. Unless I die a violent death (which includes vehicle crashes, fires, and falls) ny death certificate is almost certain to have pneumonia as a contributing factor.   

[pbrower2a]

Michigan, a state that has seen unprecedented and unconstitutional restrictions implemented in response to the coronavirus, is seeing a record surge.  Yesterday, the state recorded over 8000 cases.

Texas, a state which lifted their remaining restrictions a month ago, is near an all time low in cases.  They are nearly 3x the population of Michigan, but they only recorded 2500 cases yesterday.

It is clear what works and what doesn't.  If you still support lockdowns and mask mandates at this point, there is no point having a reasonable conversation.  If you only selectively support "freedom" and democracy when it benefits your side, you are part of the problem.  It is time to reopen America now, and fully, before it is too late.

When it is a matter of life and death, then perhaps freedom and democracy are worthy of some compromise. I am obliged to wear a seatbelt in a car and I am precluded from driving while drunk. As for democracy -- every lynch mob of which I have ever known has made its decisions on the basis of a majority vote. Even if I have gotten my second inoculation three weeks ago I still wear a mask in public.

Michigan was hit early and hard, and took hard measures early -- with good results after the first hit. Note well that many Michiganders (so-called "sunbirds") have just returned from such places as Arizona, Florida, and Texas which have had at the best weak measures against COVID-19. 

[pbrower2a]

The only reason lockdowns don’t work is because callous, selfish people are choosing to break them in large enough percentages. Perhaps that is reason enough not to bother with the lockdowns at all, but if we’re going to say they don’t work, I think it’s worth pointing out why. The idea itself is not fruitless.

Don't forget that some callous, selfish people encourage people to break the lockdowns, exploiting very short-term desires. Many people are unable to subordinate short term gratification even to long-term survival, and some people seek profits from that.

And, yes, there were people stupid enough to not wear masks when masks might have prevented the spread of the infection. Donald Trump had his rallies... masks optional. Trump was quite willing to accommodate human recklessness and folly. Much of the time the recklessness and folly that people think that they are enjoying is an illusion. When the danger is real and people disregard such, then tragedy happens.      

I will admit, though, that I go back and forth on my feelings around the health measures and sometimes struggle to crystallize my internal thoughts or even hold a consistent opinion. On the one hand, I am feeling like it’s true that the mortality rate is, overall, very low, and it kind of pisses me off to think of the ways our response has ruined me over the last year (I’m absolutely living in a spiral of depression, exhaustion, and self-destructive choices), especially when I stop and realize it’s very possible I’d get this thing and have no symptoms at all. The lockdowns were originally marketed as a way to prevent non-COVID deaths and deaths from severe but treatable COVID because we’d be keeping hospitals from overflowing so the doctors could still do their jobs. It seemed, at first, like there was an understanding and acceptance that this virus would kill people. We would let nature run its course—in essence, we’d “let” the virus spread—but do it in a way that would not claim people who should otherwise have been able to recover from it. The goalposts did move.

In the early months, the fatality rate was rather high -- higher than that of rattlesnake bites. Add to this, COVID-19 causes organ damage. I was not going to give up fifteen years of a potentially good remainder of my life for one binge of some pleasure usually harmless but then dangerous. Maybe that is because I have recently gone through some miserable times with the concentration of much grief and loss -- and an introduction to the degrading qualities of poverty in a plutocracy that sees anyone having a hard time as expendable.  

We can talk about the merits of that movement, but it’s no longer about the hospitals and it’s now about spread in general. I absolutely believe we should all be taking reasonable precautions like masking, trying to stay distanced, and washing our hands, but I don’t think everything should shut down when many people are really suffering as a result of these measures, despite the fact that the vast majority of people are not going to die from COVID. Maybe the people who are more likely to die should be the ones staying home. I get that spread in the community still poses a higher risk to them, but we are reaching the point where—I can’t believe I’m going to say this—“it is what it is.” People are losing their livelihoods.

Much of what we consider relaxation of the restrictions comes as people start to find that some of the restrictions are pointless or can be made unnecessary with some clever measures. Finding new ways to do things is very much a part of the American way of life. I am satisfied that things will go back to normal.

That said, the reason I am not prepared to say I’m “anti-lockdown” or any of that is because there are so many proud and stupid people who are just making ridiculously terrible choices, and I don’t want to be thrown in with them either. Going to a restaurant with six people all from different households is a hugely dumb thing to do while others are making sacrifices. Lifting mask mandates is ridiculous when wearing a mask is such a simple way to add a layer of protection. Having full stadiums of sports fans spits in the face of the realities many people are facing in this pandemic.

It's the stupid stuff that gets people hurt or killed. "Hurt" includes diabetes and organ damage. I look at a mask as a way to get a chance to do things that I would not otherwise do, like go to a library.

So I guess where I stand is this: Full lockdowns and the shuttering of businesses are not fair and probably not even going to accomplish much. We need to stop handwringing and fussing about the pandemic. This doesn’t mean we stop doing the really basic things we can do to make a small difference. We all know what those things are, and we can all identify what would be a ridiculous choice and what wouldn’t. But if you’re not willing to do those easy things, I’m out of respect for you. The conversation changes slightly when we’re talking about fully vaccinated folks, but here in Canada we’re so embarrassingly far from that discussion that it’s not worth visiting. Do your part, weigh what you really need to do against what you can sacrifice, and consider your risk. If everyone had consistently been taking a moment to be even a little considerate while making choices in this pandemic, it wouldn’t have been so bad.

This turned into a rant. I’m just sick of this f-cking COVID bullish-t.

I have gotten my two inoculations, but just to be safe and to encourage others, I still wear a mask. I keep a certificate to that effect, and I keep a photo of that card on my camera and cell phone.

I regret that America has so many people who, for whatever perverse belief, think (as if that were the operative word) that they are somehow charmed. "No little virus can kill me" said some AIDS denialists about forty years ago. Some of them got AIDS and died. I remember people disputing the highly-available, undeniable evidence that smoking causes lung cancer, and many who denied that evidence kept smoking... and dying earlier than they might otherwise have.

When Pope Francis can order all Catholic Churches worldwide to close to prevent the spread of COVID-19 (the Catholic Church has some fine scientists in its employ)... I take notice. When the movie studios cut their productions in progress because movie houses would become charnel houses, I take notice. When the highly-profitable major league sports teams abort seasons, I take notice.

The real bullsh-t is the denial that COVID-19 is dangerous and (as the B-117 variant) even more contagious.  

We have some thoroughly awful politicians in America, people who exploit superstition, bigotry, and overt falsehood for political advantage. Donald Trump, one of the worst in American history, got elected once... and he still got 74 million votes despite a horrific disgrace as President even before the Putsch of January 6.    

[pbrower2a]

https://twitter.com/DavidJollyFL/status/1381741680903262212

This is sheer idiocy by DeSantis.  Cruising is one industry that needs to take every possible safeguard against the virus.

Cruise ships were some of the worst spreaders of COVID-19. They can be made safe if crews and staffs are appropriately immunized against COVID-19. I treat my vaccination card as if it were a passport. Maybe the proof of inoculation can be an official amendment to a passport or part of an application to a initial or renewed passport.

Cruise lines need to allay fears of COVID-19.

[pbrower2a]

When I get a dog, I will insist that people who get close be vaccinated against COVID-19. It will be some time before there will be veterinary inoculations. Dogs have contracted and died from COVID-19. I do not take the death of a beloved pooch lightly.

Just for the sake of the family pet -- get inoculated!

[pbrower2a]

Video: Ted Nugent contracts Covid-19 after saying 'it's not a real pandemic.'

Click here to watch ... https://us.cnn.com/videos/us/2021/04/21/ted-nugent-covid-orig-jk.cnn

This idiot, even after getting the virus, talks to his followers/audience and downplays the virus, vaccine, sickness dangers, etc.

He has Cat Scratch Fever, don't you know!

[pbrower2a]

The one year anniversary of this:

Trump suggests 'injection' of disinfectant to beat coronavirus and 'clean' the lungs

The depressing part is that this ended up being fairly irrelevant in the end.

Trump would have won if he'd appeared more competent on Covid. I doubt the bleach gaffe alone cost him the election, but it was symbolic of how he blew it.

You may be right, but in general those who held Trump at fault for handling COVID-19 as badly as he did had much else on which to hold him in contempt electorally. An even shift of 0.64% would have delivered Georgia, Arizona, and Wisconsin to Trump and had a tie in the Electoral College. State delegations would have decided in favor of Trump in that case. Joe Biden would have had an absolute majority in the popular vote and still lost.

Joe Biden got an impressive share of the popular vote, in fact a higher share than Ronald Reagan got in 1980. Still, Democrats run up overwhelming vote percentages in several medium-to-large states on the West Coast and in the Northeast while losing plenty of states close to the national average. This time Biden won those. 

[pbrower2a]

Michigan has lots of elderly "snowbirds" returning from Florida.

[pbrower2a]

This is finally looking like the real bottoming-out that comes with mass vaccination. The death rate was being a bit stubborn for a while, but it's catching up now.

More of this and we can follow Israel eventually.

Deaths are a lagging indicator, as COVID-19 is not a quick kill. If people do not contract it, then they will not get sick, then deathly ill, then dead.  

[pbrower2a]

More inoculations
far fewer infections
not so many deaths

[pbrower2a]

From what I understand, Orthodox Jews are highly respectful of medicine.

[pbrower2a]

COVID Linked to Long-Term Erectile Dysfunction

The results only examined tissues from only four men — two with a history of COVID infection, and two without — who underwent penile prosthesis surgery to treat erectile dysfunction. That’s a very small sample size and may or may not be generalizable to the greater population, but the work builds on separate research, published earlier this year in the journal Andrology, which found that men who had previously had COVID were six times as likely as other men to develop erectile dysfunction.

“Our research shows that COVID-19 can cause widespread endothelial dysfunction in organ systems beyond the lungs and kidneys,” said University of Miami Miller School of Medicine researcher and author Ranjith Ramasamy, in a statement. “The underlying endothelial dysfunction that happens because of COVID-19 can enter the endothelial cells and affect many organs, including the penis.”

https://futurism.com/neoscope/covid-linked-long-term-erectile-dysfunction

More bad news.

Considering the importance of the sex drive to so many people -- that should be very convincing. That argument has been used against steroids.