Coronavirus: Already In a Neighborhood Near You

[Motor City Sonics]

7 hours ago, casimir said:

It'll be gone by Easter.

Yes it will, and the new strains will be in full effect.  When they run out of Greek letters, how will they name them?   Dead Presidents.   That Buchanan Strain was bad, but this Fillmore Strain is awful.  

[Motor City Sonics]

It probably is time for a new policy.   If you have been vaccinated and are asymptomatic but test positive you are okay to take part in........whatever.      If you are unvaccinated and test positive you can't take part in whatever and if you lie about your vaccination status you have to sit in a room and listen the song Liar by Rollins Band for one full month on a continuous loop.   

[Motor City Sonics]

♫ Ho Ho, Hey Hey

Covid strains are here to stay ♫

 

This is the Earth's immune system fighting it's biggest cancer.............us.  

 

[chasfh]

19 hours ago, oblong said:

I’ve come to realize, with Pearl Harbor day last week, that our nation and world would not hold back and defeat a nazi threat today as we did 80 years ago. The response to the pandemic taught me that.   We’d have YouTube videos telling us Nazis aren’t that bad. “Very fine people” I think is the words. Just enough people would believe it to make our spineless politicians not have the will go make the tough decisions.  Rations? War effort?  Are you kidding?  For some foreigners?  What about the economy?  Nope. 

A high percentage of people back then felt exactly like that. The difference is that FDR didn’t give a **** because he had a third term mandate and super duper majorities in both houses of Congress. 

[Hongbit]

3 hours ago, oblong said:

Strictly speaking just for covid on an individual level, there's no reason to be that worried about you or your family.  But collectively it looks like it's going to crash things in our hospitals which are already at a breaking point.   The people that work there have been at this for 2 years.  They really cannot take much more.  I wish there was a way to make that point known to everyone.  They can't have cameras in there to show what it looks like to see a lot of people on ventilators and ECMO machines.  This is where we are now prior to Omicron.  Yes the data suggests it might not be as bad as previous waves but it's not a sure thing as we don't know enough about who it has hit.   The speed of Omicron is the dangerous part.  Given where our systems are now an exponential growth of cases, even at a lower severity, could put us back to field hospitals and parking garages, etc.  The next 3-4 weeks could be disruptive.  I'm anticipating some virtual things as more people test positive and have to quarantine, or just simply have a cold(covid) but are not tested but staying away.

I'm not saying I know what the answer is because I don't see how it's avoided at this point. If you've had your booster then you'll pretty much be fine.  But a lot of people didn't and even a small % impact of severity will put a big stress on our hospitals.

I'd avoid things that can lead to injury more than I would crowds.  You might not have any place to go.

Prior infection as a defense against Omicron is looking to be useless, as could be the J&J vaccine.

 

 

Thanks.   This is a great explanation.  I feel for all of our healthcare workers going on 2 years of being on the front lines.  They are heroes.  
 

I was not aware that prior infection possibly could present no immunity to Omicron.    This will be a huge problem.   There are millions that didn’t get the shot because they got Covid and felt their natural immunity was not only enough but actually better than the vax (Thanks to Joe Rogan).   I really hope these people get their shots asap and don’t end up very sick.    I can see the potential nightmare now so let’s hope that results come back that immunity is stronger than first predicted.  

[mtutiger]

20 hours ago, oblong said:

I’ve come to realize, with Pearl Harbor day last week, that our nation and world would not hold back and defeat a nazi threat today as we did 80 years ago. The response to the pandemic taught me that.   We’d have YouTube videos telling us Nazis aren’t that bad. “Very fine people” I think is the words. Just enough people would believe it to make our spineless politicians not have the will go make the tough decisions.  Rations? War effort?  Are you kidding?  For some foreigners?  What about the economy?  Nope. 

I want to disagree, but I really cannot.

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, Motor City Sonics said:

♫ Ho Ho, Hey Hey

Covid strains are here to stay ♫

 

This is the Earth's immune system fighting it's biggest cancer.............us.  

 

thank you, Agent Smith.

[gehringer_2]

2 hours ago, Motor City Sonics said:

♫ Ho Ho, Hey Hey

Covid strains are here to stay ♫

 

This is the Earth's immune system fighting it's biggest cancer.............us.  

 

I think of it as a huge test that humanity, and especially the US, is failing - and miserably. I mean if you were 'Q' and you really wanted to put humanity on trial, who needs tachyons? Just a virus. A virus that could be defeated by concerted unify of purpose, a reasonable dose of altruism, a dedication to seeking and following the logic dictated by the facts as we have the capability to discover them, and a rejection of tribalism and superstition. 

Or another metaphor would be that all the cultural trees seeded by the Enlightenment that grew up to support western culture have reached senescence in the US, and instead of tending to their seedlings we are content just leaving them to be choked out by weeds.

Edited December 17, 2021 by gehringer_2

[Jim Cowan]

Canada just dropped the dumbass travel restrictions against those 10 African countries.  Instead, there will be increased screening of arrivals from every country.

Today's daily cases in Ontario is 3,100, and the 3 day progression is 1,800 - 2,400 - 3,100.  Two thirds of the new cases are fully vaccinated.  Two thirds.

[smr-nj]

I feel sorry for folks who came back as tourists to NYC for the Christmas season, and the surging virus is pretty much putting a damper on Broadway shows, and now the radio city incredible Christmas show. 

[1984Echoes]

4 hours ago, Motor City Sonics said:

♫ Ho Ho, Hey Hey

Covid strains are here to stay ♫

This is the Earth's immune system fighting it's biggest cancer.............us.  

"Hey, hey, my, my,

Rock and Roll will never die"

 

The earth's immune system is not going to stop humans from continuing to crap all over it. Only we can stop that ourselves...

Working on it... working on it...

[gehringer_2]

so the 6th circuit appeals court ruled in favor of the OSHA vaccine mandate, contradicting the 5th circuit and more or less forcing   SCOTUS to take up the issue. However, I want to know how such morons get on the court as the Trump appointee (OK nevermind, just answered the question...) who dissented from the majority with the following logic:
 

“The virus that causes COVID-19 is not, of course, uniquely a workplace condition. Its potency lies in the fact that it exists everywhere an infected person may be — home, school, or grocery store, to name a few,” wrote Larsen, a nominee of President Donald Trump. “So how can OSHA regulate an employee’s exposure to it?”

OK - lets parse this out. Are ladders ubiquitous in peoples' non-workplace exposure to them? Power tools? Dust in the air? Electricity? Is there a single thing you can think of that OSHA regulates by virtue of workers only experiencing it in the workplace? His argument falls apart within 30 seconds of consideration of what OSHA actually does. OSHA's legal mandate is not to insure people's safety  everywhere, it is to insure it  in the workplace.

It's one thing to argue disingenuously to reach a desired political end, but one could at least have the competence to do it with with some skill.   It is both laughable and tragic that such a moron could achieve a seat on an appeals bench.

Edited December 18, 2021 by gehringer_2

[oblong]

3 hours ago, Jim Cowan said:

Canada just dropped the dumbass travel restrictions against those 10 African countries.  Instead, there will be increased screening of arrivals from every country.

Today's daily cases in Ontario is 3,100, and the 3 day progression is 1,800 - 2,400 - 3,100.  Two thirds of the new cases are fully vaccinated.  Two thirds.

MIchigan with 2/3 the population of Ontario has had twice that number consistently for like 6 weeks. My wife’s best friend was going to come over for a visit, haven’t seen her in 2 years.  Not now. 

[Jim Cowan]

3 minutes ago, oblong said:

MIchigan with 2/3 the population of Ontario has had twice that number consistently for like 6 weeks. My wife’s best friend was going to come over for a visit, haven’t seen her in 2 years.  Not now. 

Restaurants are going back to 50% capacity.  I think we are headed for another lockdown, experts are forecasting daily cases at 10,000 by Christmas Day.  

[casimir]

14 hours ago, Mr.TaterSalad said:

What are the odds that Donald Trump even knows who Robert Taft is?

What are the odds Trump got stuck in the bathtub and had to pried out of it by six people, too?

[chasfh]

14 hours ago, Jim Cowan said:

Canada just dropped the dumbass travel restrictions against those 10 African countries.  Instead, there will be increased screening of arrivals from every country.

Today's daily cases in Ontario is 3,100, and the 3 day progression is 1,800 - 2,400 - 3,100.  Two thirds of the new cases are fully vaccinated.  Two thirds.

I hear factoids like this and I always wonder what's below the hood.

I would really like to find some website, some data source, that would tell us how many cases there are, how many hospitalizations, how many deaths, broken out by age and gender, whether they were vaccinated, which brand they vaccinated with, and whether they've received one, two or three shots. Also, whether the person contracting can be is classified as immunocompromised.

For example, I want to know what percent of otherwise-healthy people age 40-59 who have gotten three Pzifer shots contracted it and were hospitalized and died, versus those the same age and condition who got one J&J shot. That kind of thing.

Otherwise, when I hear things like two-thirds of people getting COVID during such and such a period were fully vaccinated, I simply don't know how seriously to take it, or how worried I should be as a triple-vaxxed healthy guy. I hope that's not by design.

[Jim Cowan]

When you hear "fully vaccinated" it means two, not three.  Data about "boosted" is not revealed yet because there aren't enough of them to matter.  I think that the answer to "how worried should I be" depends upon your habits.  If you maintain social distancing and keep to 100% mask discipline, you should be at relatively safe.  Of course, "100% mask discipline" means that you don't go to restaurants, or anywhere else where food consumption is used as an excuse to remove masks.

[gehringer_2]

20 minutes ago, chasfh said:

I hear factoids like this and I always wonder what's below the hood.

I would really like to find some website, some data source, that would tell us how many cases there are, how many hospitalizations, how many deaths, broken out by age and gender, whether they were vaccinated, which brand they vaccinated with, and whether they've received one, two or three shots. Also, whether the person contracting can be is classified as immunocompromised.

For example, I want to know what percent of otherwise-healthy people age 40-59 who have gotten three Pzifer shots contracted it and were hospitalized and died, versus those the same age and condition who got one J&J shot. That kind of thing.

Otherwise, when I hear things like two-thirds of people getting COVID during such and such a period were fully vaccinated, I simply don't know how seriously to take it, or how worried I should be as a triple-vaxxed healthy guy. I hope that's not by design.

when you consider how many ways the data can be sliced and diced, the number of possible factors, I have some sympathy with the data collection not being what we might wish it were. But the bottom line remains that the US has 50 millions confirmed cases, so probably at least 80 million for real, and out of that 800K have succumbed, which is 1%. Consider mortalities figures weight at least 10/1 toward those over 65 and obese, and the healthy working age general public is still looking at roughly a 1 in a thousand chance of it killing them. That's sort of the worst region for risk evaluation. Too low to make it obvious 'everything possible' needs be done at all times, too high not be worried all the time.

If you add vaccination that is another order of magnitude reduction, but the problem is that the average person has no way of knowing if they in the minority whose vaccination didn't 'take' until they get sick.

Edited December 18, 2021 by gehringer_2

[oblong]

 

[oblong]

 

[gehringer_2]

17 minutes ago, oblong said:

 

this really isn't so much news as confirmation in the sense that everyone looking at the data for 1st vs 2nd shots could see that 2nd shots were either being missed or counted as more 1sts. How likely is it that 10% of the people who went to get their first shot in a place like Washtenaw county never went for their 2nd?

[Jim Cowan]

Hey I didn't know that Bobby Kennedy Jr is a leading anti-vaxxer and dog-whistle racist.  I just read about him in The Guardian.  You sometimes just have to laugh at how stupid some of these second generation political royalty kids are.

[chasfh]

7 hours ago, Jim Cowan said:

When you hear "fully vaccinated" it means two, not three.  Data about "boosted" is not revealed yet because there aren't enough of them to matter.  I think that the answer to "how worried should I be" depends upon your habits.  If you maintain social distancing and keep to 100% mask discipline, you should be at relatively safe.  Of course, "100% mask discipline" means that you don't go to restaurants, or anywhere else where food consumption is used as an excuse to remove masks.

Yeah, well, I didn't get triple-vaccinated just so I can continue to be masked at all times and never go to restaurants. Shit, I could have stayed unvaccinated for that.

I'm inclined to disagree that "how worried should I be" depends 100% on my habits, because that would suggest that if I am fully vaxxed and unmasked, I should still be just as worried as someone who is completely unvaccinated and unmasked, because only my habits would determine whether I am in real danger. I gotta believe that being vaccinated makes a positive difference when I am unmasked out in the world, which is sometimes. That's why I wish we could have the data on people who get COVID, knowing what level of vaxxed they are, which brand of vax they got, and whether they were hospitalized or have died. It would give me some sense of scale as to whether I should be really worried because the vax doesn't matter after all, or whether I can be reasonably confident that I'll be OK.

Here's a simple example of what I mean, and let's make up some numbers for it. Suppose one million people get Omicron, and that 500,000 are unvaccinated, and 500,000 are fully vaccinated. Let's pretend Omicron gives you zero protection from getting COVID in the first place.

If 50,000 (10%) unvaxxed Omicron carriers get hospitalized and 5,000 (1%) of them die, and 50,000 (10%) vaxxed carriers are hospitalized and 5,000 (1%) die, then I'm going to be plenty worried, because that means I have as much chance of dying from Omicron as literally anyone, regardless of my vax status.

On the other hand, if 50,000 (10%) unvaxxed Omicron carriers get hospitalized and 5,000 (1%) of them die, but only 5,000 (1%) vaxxed carriers are hospitalized and just 50 (0.01%) of them die, then I'm going to be basically not worried at all, because instead of having a 1 in 100 chance of dying from Omicron if I get it, I'd have a 1 in 10,000 chance instead which, to my way of thinking, is too low to even think about. That means my vax status makes a huge difference.

If we had this kind of information at our disposal, we who are triple-vaxxed could determine a level of risk that right for each one of us, and I think strictly due to our diligence, we've earned that right.

Again, I recognize that always being masked everywhere all the time gives me the maximum protection. But also again, that ain't what I vaxxed up for.

 

 

Edited December 18, 2021 by chasfh

[Jim Cowan]

I don't think that anyone can answer your Omicron questions yet, it is too new.  Where you and I differ is that I didn't get vaxxed so that I can stop wearing a mask, the vaccine was never advertised that way.  I might stop wearing a mask when the virus reaches some long term stability, with infection rates of less than 100 per day in a population of 14 million.  Or I might not.

[gehringer_2]

47 minutes ago, chasfh said:

On the other hand, if 50,000 (10%) unvaxxed Omicron carriers

Washtenaw county does publish vaxxed vs unvaxxed status on hospitalizations but not by type and it does not breakdown vaxxed/unvaxxed deaths. That said the % of vaxxed people among COVID admissions even prior to Omicron is alarming, reaching ~40% in Nov. Anecdotally I hear a lot of physicians saying that despite the hospitalizations, vaxxed patients are not dying but that certainly is not categorically true, so like you I'd like to see some real numbers.