Coronavirus: Already In a Neighborhood Near You

[buddha]

28 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

I think what is still missed when it is said that vaxxed people are still infectious with Omicron is that will still likely have a shorter period of infection - you may even be asymptomatic. You will shed virus for fewer days if you have an asymptomatic case than if you are unvaxxed and have symptoms for several days. CDC says you are infectious until X (5?/10?) days after your symptoms are gone so if they are gone sooner you are infections for less days. You count from the day your symptoms end.  So you can spread under both circumstances, but since you will shed fewer days if vaxxed and have a shorter course, you will spread less over less time and so less in practice. That said, another argument with omicron was that it is *so* infectious that you don't get the R value to less than 1.0 even among a fully vaxxed population, but that has clearly not really turned out to be true because Omicron is fading fast and and clearly *everybody* didn't get it in this round.

not to mention that masks dont seem to stop omicron either.

are the very very marginal differences youre talking about enough to warrant a vax mandate to enter a place of business?  i dont think so, but my risk tolerance (and denmark's) is higher than yours.

the goal from the beginning was to not oberwhelm the hospitals.  they are not overwhelmed in most areas, eve  with omicron.  to me that says we can start to open things up and end things like mask mandates in schools and vax mandates to enter businesses.  its not warranted anymore.

but your risk tolerance may be less than mine.  which i dont think is a right/wrong answer.

[Sports_Freak]

1 hour ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

No of course not, he is/was a fool. As are the many who thought he holds the key to their power control basically sold their soul.

These idiots don’t represent me or my beliefs. Neither do the far left who think killing babies, letting boys pretend to be girls and play girl sports or wiping student loan debt among other things.

Biden is moderate and I think he is doing great. Other than the way he pulled out of Afghanistan I would vote for him if Trump or one of his cronies run against him.

Agreed. My concern is the GOP will find someone just as bad as Trump, only intelligent. They have a pretty large base.

The issues you bring up are all something that needs to be worked out, as Americans, rationally. Trump used to talk about ripping babies out of mothers and killing them. That never happened and there are rules about how far along a woman can be. I'm pro-choice but as a man, I'm willing to let a women decide. And as the numbers of Trans folks grow, they need recognition. Otherwise, it really is discrimination. And if religion is the reason some may be against it, they should be reminded about the separation of church and state. Their religion may not be the same as someone else's (or even lack of).

And I've heard it said, over and over, that a pullout, after a 20 year war, was going to be messy. And don't forget who gave us the pullout timeline....yes, Donald Trump.

I actually consider myself a conservative in my personal life. Would I want a loved one to get an abortion? Nope. But do I care if some woman 10 miles away gets one? Her business.

But, back OT, how quickly will everything get back to normal? I hope it's not rushed like it was before.

[mtutiger]

49 minutes ago, buddha said:

 to me that says we can start to open things up and end things like mask mandates in schools and vax mandates to enter businesses.  its not warranted anymore.

But ultimately, while the CDC needs can issue guidance (and maybe they should revise their guidance!), we don't have a system where the feds can tell all schools what to do or not do. At the state level they are trying in some, but even here a lot of districts (including ones that aren't exactly liberal hot beds) haven't always followed suit and have defied that order at points of time.

Ultimately, I don't think mask mandates go away until the general public in all of these individual school districts and communities start to demand it in a meaningful way. And I just dont think we are there yet... ultimately its gonna take putting Omicron fully behind us before I see it happening 

Edited February 7, 2022 by mtutiger

[Sports_Freak]

3 hours ago, buddha said:

i agree.  but it doesnt stop the spread of omicron.  the point of keeping people out of restaurants and bars unless they were vaccinated was to slow the spread.  but it doesnt slow the spread, which undercuts the purpose.

in fact, the stated purpose has now changed from slowing the spread to incentivizing people to get vaccinated.  which, ok, but the original reasoning was - again - flawed.

If 10 vaxxed people spread the virus among themselves, chances are very great they'll get a mild enough case where they won't need hospitalization. Throw a few unvaxxed people in there and there's a risk of death to them. So what you're saying is the heck with the unvaxxed? OK, most of the county is doing just that. There's no mandates where I live. But the hospitals really need a break after Delta and then Omicron.

And again, the original reasoning was correct. The vaccine stopped the spread of the Delta variant. Not so much with Omicron but we did catch a break by it making the virus less severe.

Look, as someone who's been vaxxed, you can go to restaurants. As someone who is immune compromised, I don't dare go to one. 

[Tiger337]

6 minutes ago, Sports_Freak said:

Look, as someone who's been vaxxed, you can go to restaurants. As someone who is immune compromised, I don't dare go to one. 

I don't like going to restaurants, so Covid has been a good excuse not to go!  I prefer takeout.  

[Sports_Freak]

16 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

But ultimately, while the CDC needs can issue guidance (and maybe they should revise their guidance!), we don't have a system where the feds can tell all schools what to do or not do. At the state level they are trying in some, but even here a lot of districts (including ones that aren't exactly liberal hot beds) haven't always followed suit and have defied that order at points of time.

Ultimately, I don't think mask mandates go away until the general public in all of these individual school districts and communities start to demand it in a meaningful way. And I just dont think we are there yet... ultimately its gonna take putting Omicron fully behind us before I see it happening 

I don't agree. I think people all want an end to covid and to masks. And again, there's some evidence that cloth masks really don't offer much protection. If cases keep dropping this quickly, maybe we'll see in a couple/few weeks.

[mtutiger]

5 minutes ago, Sports_Freak said:

I don't agree. I think people all want an end to covid and to masks. And again, there's some evidence that cloth masks really don't offer much protection. If cases keep dropping this quickly, maybe we'll see in a couple/few weeks.

To be clear, I think everyone wants COVID/Masks to end. I certainly want it all to end.

But the population at-large may be savvy enough to be able to distinguish between what they want and what they feel is necessary. Certainly the poll referenced from Texas earlier would suggest that. 

Edited February 7, 2022 by mtutiger

[gehringer_2]

2 hours ago, buddha said:

the goal from the beginning was to not oberwhelm the hospitals.swer.

It's pretty pointless to look back to spring 2020 assumptions since so many have turned out to be wrong. 'Flattening the curve' was based on two premises, one of which was correct and one which was incorrect. The incorrect one was that effective treatments would become available so that the people that went to the hospital would be saved in large numbers. Turns out that was by and large untrue. There has been some effective therapy progress but reality has been a far worst case than anyone ever imagined. That is beginning to change with a couple of drugs finally hitting, but overall the prognosis for those that ended up on a ventilator stayed pretty crappy for a long time into this. The other was to hold back wide scale infection as long as possible on the hope a vaccine would appear. Of course lo and behold the biotech guys got us the vaccine, and the idiot public has refused to adopt to a high enough degree to put an end to the generalized public health risk. So here we are in a position where there are still vulnerable people (immuno compromised, the 5% that don't respond to the vaccine, etc) that are left with a risk level that is unnecessary but for their uncaring neighbors. You mention "your risk tolerance"is low. Well it's not my tolerance, I worked in person with 18 yr old petri dishes right through the whole thing. It's the risk that I think it's fair to leave the vulnerable with when it's so unnecessary.

Edited February 7, 2022 by gehringer_2

[Tigeraholic1]

37 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

To be clear, I think everyone wants COVID/Masks to end. I certainly want it all to end.

But the population at-large may be savvy enough to be able to distinguish between what they want and what they feel is necessary. Certainly the poll referenced from Texas earlier would suggest that. 

So in this vision. China, U.S., Canada do a total lock down. They crush Covid maybe even getting vax rate +75% in their respected country.

Africa, Argentina, Columbia and Afghanistan, etc. do not. Do the countries  who have stomped out Covid stay Covid free? Do they creep back up 6 months later? Do we wear  masks forever?  Do we go to booster X, XI. XII and so on?
 

Without a total world order I don’t see a different end game.

[gehringer_2]

2 minutes ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

So in this vision. China, U.S., Canada do a total lock down. They crush Covid maybe even getting vax rate +75% in their respected country.

Africa, Argentina, Columbia and Afghanistan, etc. do not. Do the countries  who have stomped out Covid stay Covid free? Do they creep back up 6 months later? Do we wear  masks forever?  Do we go to booster X, XI. XII and so on?
 

Without a total world order I don’t see a different end game.

Fair question - we never got close enough for it to be interesting. Asian countries, Canada, Australia used pretty strict entry rules and have been able to avoid much re-infection from outside - granted that may have been much more difficult for the US. On the other hand, it's like anything else - the 1st world could afford to mitigate the problem world wide - or at least in enough of the world that travel for commerce could go on. 

Covid may well end up compounded into the annual flu shot or as as side by side with annual updates for variants. Again, that's really not a particularly big deal - something like 50-60% of the country already gets a flu shot every year  -  we already do these things at close enough to the scale needed that it's no great logistics challenge.

Masks should go away when infection rates fall, which they inevitably have to, and in fact Omicron did us a backhanded favor in that regard. Between the vaccinated and the previously infected the numbers left are shrinking. It's a matter of probability, when there aren't many infected people around, there is no point in people wearing masks. Or the next variant may be even less virulent and at some point we won't care if it just circulates around causing the sniffles. Of course if the rest of the people would get vaccinated, this could all happen faster than waiting for nature to take its course.

[Sports_Freak]

1 hour ago, mtutiger said:

To be clear, I think everyone wants COVID/Masks to end. I certainly want it all to end.

But the population at-large may be savvy enough to be able to distinguish between what they want and what they feel is necessary. Certainly the poll referenced from Texas earlier would suggest that. 

Around here, very few people wear masks at the grocery stores. Close to 50-50. Our restaurants don't require vax cards. There's really not much restrictions, other than some schools. And in Canada, there are huge protests going on. If Omicron rates drop again in the next couple of weeks like they have been and no new variant pops up, I could see a rush to eliminate mask wearing.

[Jim Cowan]

15 minutes ago, Sports_Freak said:

... And in Canada, there are huge protests going on. 

90% of the population wants those people to shut up, go home, and get a shot.  They aren't going to change anyone's mind.  They are assholes who are emboldened by what they see on TV.

[mtutiger]

2 hours ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

So in this vision. China, U.S., Canada do a total lock down. They crush Covid maybe even getting vax rate +75% in their respected country.

Africa, Argentina, Columbia and Afghanistan, etc. do not. Do the countries  who have stomped out Covid stay Covid free? Do they creep back up 6 months later? Do we wear  masks forever?  Do we go to booster X, XI. XII and so on?
 

Without a total world order I don’t see a different end game.

I'm not really presenting a vision more than the status quo as it currently exists may not be as unpopular as some seem to believe.

Whether that remains the case in time? I dont know. I just see a lot of dialogue (mostly on social media and in mainstream media) about how politically suicidal mask mandates in schools are when there is data out there that, at this current point in time, give or take a couple of weeks, that suggests that it isn't.

And ultimately, it may take public opinion moving in order to see these mask mandates go. That may happen when Omicron fades, we shall see.

Edited February 7, 2022 by mtutiger

[ewsieg]

 

[casimir]

8 hours ago, ewsieg said:

 

Yup, bad move.  Heck, not just the masked kids, look at the masked adults in the background.  Everybody in that picture but one person is masked.

[ewsieg]

15 hours ago, oblong said:

Vaccines do slow the spread. It doesn’t prevent everyone from getting it and spreading it but over time a mix of 1,000 vaccinated people will spread less virus than a mix of 1,000 vaxxed and unvaxxed. Even if it’s marginal, the act of requiring masks and vaccines is a small thing to ask. If people don’t want to do their part then don’t participate in society. To live in your hole. Going to a restaurant is not needed to survive.  I’m not sure where the idea that you are just as likely to get infected and spread it whether vaxxed or not came from but it’s not true. 

To note, 1000 vaccinated adults will spread less virus than a mix of 1000 adults of mixed status for the reasons you state.  Children have shown not to be affected like adults with this disease, resulting in more asymptomatic cases and overall less duration for them too.  That is something that the anti-mask for school kids point out that gets screamed over with stats that are focused on adults.

If your argument is that they should be masked up, as should all adults regardless of status, that's at least consistent.  But this is the comment that struck a nerve with me, "Going to a restaurant is not needed to survive".  To that restaurant, wiping out 30 percent of the population that can even go to them, might be needed for them to survive.

 

 

[oblong]

18 minutes ago, ewsieg said:

To note, 1000 vaccinated adults will spread less virus than a mix of 1000 adults of mixed status for the reasons you state.  Children have shown not to be affected like adults with this disease, resulting in more asymptomatic cases and overall less duration for them too.  That is something that the anti-mask for school kids point out that gets screamed over with stats that are focused on adults.

If your argument is that they should be masked up, as should all adults regardless of status, that's at least consistent.  But this is the comment that struck a nerve with me, "Going to a restaurant is not needed to survive".  To that restaurant, wiping out 30 percent of the population that can even go to them, might be needed for them to survive.

 

 

others might be more likely to go if they knew everyone around them was vaccinated.  They also might have a more stable employee base knowing the customers were vaccinated.  I went to 4 concerts since Thanksgiving that all required proof of vaccination before being let in.  I would not have gone without that requirement.

Every restaurant we went by in Chicago on Friday and Saturday night last weekend was full and had a waiting list.

 

[1776]

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti told reporters on Wednesday that he held his breath while taking a photo last weekend with San Francisco Mayor London Breed and former NBA star Earvin “Magic” Johnson in which all three were not wearing masks.

Johnson posted the photo, taken at an NFL playoff game last Sunday between the San Francisco 49ers and the Los Angeles Rams, on hisTwitter account. Spectators at the game were required to wear masks. . . . “I wore my mask the entire game and when people ask for a photograph I hold my breath and put it here and people can see that,” the mayor said, referring to how he held his mask up next to him during pictures. “There is a zero percent chance of infection from that.”
———————

This guy should be a comedian. Those California politicians do it better than anyone. Newsome, Pelosi, Breed, and now this guy have publicly demonstrated that they are hypocrites and above the peasants they oversee. 

 

[oblong]

have leaders and those politicians ever said that you can NEVER remove your mask?

Taking your mask for a few seconds for a photo isn't a big deal. 

Manufactured outrage.

 

[mtutiger]

Starting to see movement, but I can already predict that this won't go far enough for some folks considering that local districts may still require them.

[casimir]

2 minutes ago, oblong said:

have leaders and those politicians ever said that you can NEVER remove your mask?

Taking your mask for a few seconds for a photo isn't a big deal. 

Manufactured outrage.

 

Is it manufactured outrage?  I mean, look at the Stacey Abrams photo.  Why was only one person maskless in the photo?  I watched the Rams-49ers game, and it seemed like there were plenty of shots of luxury boxes with maskless people in them.

[CMRivdogs]

Seem approbate considering current discussions.  

Edited February 7, 2022 by CMRivdogs

[mtutiger]

9 minutes ago, casimir said:

Is it manufactured outrage?  I mean, look at the Stacey Abrams photo.  Why was only one person maskless in the photo?  I watched the Rams-49ers game, and it seemed like there were plenty of shots of luxury boxes with maskless people in them.

There's no defending it, it's really dumb IMO.

I do question how much resonance it will have as a political issue, particularly if masks do largely go away come campaign season.

[1776]

2 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

There's no defending it, it's really dumb IMO.

I do question how much resonance it will have as a political issue, particularly if masks do largely go away come campaign season.

Rest assured, this won’t have one bit of impact on anything. The really silly part is the guy trying to explain and defend his action. His explanation about holding his breath tanked any credibility he tried to project. 

[Tigerbomb13]