YOU!
Yes, I'm talking to YOU! Not the guy next to you. You!
Unless you're planning to stay in your house for the next 2 months and wear a space helmet or double N-95 every time you dash into CVS to pick up your anti-anxiety pills, you're going to be exposed to Omicron at some point over the next couple of months (if you haven't already). That's the bad news.
More bad news: You're also going to be exposed to a cold/flu/RSV virus at some point this winter (probably more than one).
Sorry about that.
So, here's the good news.
Relax. Assuming you live on Earth, you're probably starting with some level of COVID immunity. If you're afraid enough to have been careful, you're vaccinated. Otherwise, you've already been exposed to COVID. Many of you are both previously exposed and vaccinated.
You're probably going to be fine. Get your vaccine or booster if you can and want to and live your life. And if you do get sick, ask your doctor about Fluvoxamine, MaB treatments, Molunipiravir, Paxlovid, inhaled steroids and all of the other gamut of treatments available. If your doctor says no and you're not in the mood to fight, stay on the couch and use Tylenol and fluids for a few days and you'll probably be fine anyway. All the available evidence indicates that Omicron is less severe than the other COVID variants, for whatever reason or combination of reasons.
If you're extremely vulnerable, such as age 75+ or severely overweight or immunocompromised, you might consider sheltering in your basement until about March 1 and post angry messages to Twitter all day about how the selfish Eloi above who are runing it for you. We'll see you in the Spring.
But for the rest of us, live your life.
That is all.
@sh76 saidAnd where a mask to protect others you selfish little 💩s,
YOU!
Yes, I'm talking to YOU! Not the guy next to you. You!
Unless you're planning to stay in your house for the next 2 months and wear a space helmet or double N-95 every time you dash into CVS to pick up your anti-anxiety pills, you're going to be exposed to Omicron at some point over the next couple of months (if you haven't already). That's the bad news.
More bad ne ...[text shortened]... it for you. We'll see you in the Spring.
But for the rest of us, live your life.
That is all.
@sh76 saidI hope you realize this little public service announcement is causing a drop in the stock of most space helmet manufacturers. Alibada is down 12% as we speak.
YOU!
Yes, I'm talking to YOU! Not the guy next to you. You!
Unless you're planning to stay in your house for the next 2 months and wear a space helmet or double N-95 every time you dash into CVS to pick up your anti-anxiety pills, you're going to be exposed to Omicron at some point over the next couple of months (if you haven't already). That's the bad news.
More bad ne ...[text shortened]... it for you. We'll see you in the Spring.
But for the rest of us, live your life.
That is all.
Socialists like you are destroying our capitalist system! ðŸ˜
@sh76 saidMeanwhile back in the real world rather than SH76's "what me worry" one: https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/16/health/us-coronavirus-thursday/index.html
YOU!
Yes, I'm talking to YOU! Not the guy next to you. You!
Unless you're planning to stay in your house for the next 2 months and wear a space helmet or double N-95 every time you dash into CVS to pick up your anti-anxiety pills, you're going to be exposed to Omicron at some point over the next couple of months (if you haven't already). That's the bad news.
More bad ne ...[text shortened]... it for you. We'll see you in the Spring.
But for the rest of us, live your life.
That is all.
Deaths are still at somewhere around 1300 a day and hospitalizations are up 40% in a month. And the most effective strategy for prevention - mass vaccination - is being slowed by actions taken by politicians like DeSantis that SH has been singing odes to for months.
@no1marauder saidAlmost all the deaths are undoubtedly left over Delta deaths, as deaths lag at least a month from infection.
Meanwhile back in the real world rather than SH76's "what me worry" one: https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/16/health/us-coronavirus-thursday/index.html
Deaths are still at somewhere around 1300 a day and hospitalizations are up 40% in a month. And the most effective strategy for prevention - mass vaccination - is being slowed by actions taken by politicians like DeSantis that SH has been singing odes to for months.
I'm all for vaccination; just not forced vaccination. I know you will never truly internalize the difference, but I need to keep saying it.
@sh76 saidYou need to stop thinking of freedom as an absolute. Freedom is relative.
Almost all the deaths are undoubtedly left over Delta deaths, as deaths lag at least a month from infection.
I'm all for vaccination; just not forced vaccination. I know you will never truly internalize the difference, but I need to keep saying it.
Just look at the anti-abortion laws being pushed in Texas.
The freedom of one person ends at the freedom of another.
If someone exercises their freedom to refuse forced vaccination and ends up taking a hospital bed from someone with cancer, then that freedom comes into question.
We have governments because someone has to be saddled with the decisions that freedom loving people never have to make.
Internalize that.
@mghrn55 saidPeople's health decisions are traditionally left to them. We don't ban cane sugar or trans fat or force people to show proof of gym attendance to access their jobs.
You need to stop thinking of freedom as an absolute. Freedom is relative.
Just look at the anti-abortion laws being pushed in Texas.
The freedom of one person ends at the freedom of another.
If someone exercises their freedom to refuse forced vaccination and ends up taking a hospital bed from someone with cancer, then that freedom comes into question.
We have governm ...[text shortened]... to be saddled with the decisions that freedom loving people never have to make.
Internalize that.
If someone exercises their freedom to live on ice cream and chips for 20 years and ends up taking a hospital bed from someone with cancer, we don't pull that person's freedom.
Though I firmly believe the vaccinations are the most awesome healthcare thing since Asprin, it is indisputable that the come with risks and those risks need to be measured by each individual and come to his or her own determination.
A 12 year old boy who already had COVID 3 months ago is absolutely more at risk from 2 mRNA shots than from a COVID re-infection. A 70 year old is absolutely more at risk from COVID than from the vaccines. As you move between the poles, the calculus shifts. The vax mandates are overbroad, scientifically unsound and plainly unjustified restrictions on freedom.
Vaccines don't stop the spread of COVID. They may slow it down marginally, but no vaccine that we have today, if administered to every person on Earth, would stop Omicron from spreading. The data is plain on that. Whether a person chooses to get a vax primarily affects that person, as with the flu shot and the chicken pox vaccine.
If the vaccine were truly sterilizing and COVID were SARS-1 or MERS or even Measles, I'd be more open to the idea. But please stop pretending we can or should legislate behavior that will govern people's healthcare risk taking decisions.
@vivify saidMeasels and Polio mandates for school I support. Sterilizing vaccines and serious illness (Measels is a closer question than Polio).
Do you support banning inoculation requirements for kids to start school? Are you pro stripping vaccine requirements for chicken pox, Measles, and Polio for children?
Chicken Pox vax mandate for school, no. The vax isn't sterilizing and the disease is unlikely to be severe for children. But at least it's a much closer question than COVID. The COVID vaccine barely slows the spread against Omicron (it does prevent serious illness in adults, which is why it's good) and children are at less risk from Omicron than from the flu.
For children in schools, mandating COVID vaccine is an excellent analogy to mandating a flu vaccine, which we have never done.
@sh76 saidIs 800,000 deaths in less than two years serious enough? How about emergency rooms so overcrowded, Navy ships and stadiums had to be used as makeshift hospitals?
Measels and Polio mandates for school I support. Sterilizing vaccines and serious illness
What is serious enough for you? How many deaths and people on ventilators are needed before COVID is serious enough?
Good grief.
Seriously. Nearly two years on. But I’ll repeat it again: lockdown measures, masks, vaccines, etc. are all aimed at managing the health system.
Omicron looks like a third jab is needed to create enough antibodies to be effective.
So, people who have already had corona or two vaccinations, look to be ripe to still get omicron.
Now, it will all depend on how severe omicron is, how many hospital beds are going to get filled.
The delta variant is 10x more likely to kill an adult than the flu.
And the hospitalisation numbers are incredibly high. If it wasn’t for mass vaccinations, there would have been serious problems (probably complete lockdowns for months on end).
Now, even if omicron is 10x less severe than Delta, so, 1 hospitalisation instead of 10, since it’s reinfecting and getting past 2 shots, and since it’s spreading at a very high speed (doubling daily, which means by the end of January the preverbial 💩 will hit the fan) it looks like, if nothing is done, no health system will be able to cope.
So, basically, countries have about 4 weeks to get their 💩 in order.
Of course, there is a chance that omicron is waaaaay less severe and that it doesn’t hospitalise (or only rarely). But you can’t take that chance.
Societies don’t fare well when diseased people are dying on the streets, because there’s no way to take care of them.
This is what it’s all about.
@sh76 saidMandatory measures to slow the spread of deadly, contagious diseases have been accepted uses of the government's police powers for hundreds of years. "Upon the principle of self-defense, of paramount necessity, a community has the right to protect itself against an epidemic of disease which threatens the safety of its members. " https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/197/11/
People's health decisions are traditionally left to them. We don't ban cane sugar or trans fat or force people to show proof of gym attendance to access their jobs.
If someone exercises their freedom to live on ice cream and chips for 20 years and ends up taking a hospital bed from someone with cancer, we don't pull that person's freedom.
Though I firmly believe the vaccin ...[text shortened]... ding we can or should legislate behavior that will govern people's healthcare risk taking decisions.
"Freedom" does not encompass a "right" to spread disease to your fellow Man.
Moreover, the measures proposed do not even mandate vaccination as you well know; they do limit the ability of the unvaccinated to spread disease in public places like those of employment.
@sh76 saidI largely agree with most of what you are saying, but I do take issue with this statement you made:
People's health decisions are traditionally left to them. We don't ban cane sugar or trans fat or force people to show proof of gym attendance to access their jobs.
If someone exercises their freedom to live on ice cream and chips for 20 years and ends up taking a hospital bed from someone with cancer, we don't pull that person's freedom.
Though I firmly believe the vaccin ...[text shortened]... ding we can or should legislate behavior that will govern people's healthcare risk taking decisions.
"They may slow it down marginally"
There is no evidence of that. Even if you could show that there is less viral load (no evidence of that either) or something like that it would not prove it would reduce the spread at all. You have to consider human behavior before coming to that conclusion.
Do vaccinated people socialize with people more? Give hugs more? Travel more? Wear masks less? Wash their hands less? Socially distance less? Pick their noses less?
You should not assume they may slow it down marginally. Too many factors. Do the states with the highest vaccination rates have less covid infections? I doubt there is a correlation there either.