Coronavirus All Purpose Thread: The unnecessary Dumb Dumb 4th wave

[woolymammoth]

Originally Posted by TorqueDog

Please let this be the case. If it is, I am mentally so ready to be all like...

Spoiler!

This has been true for covid-19 in general though.. "Fast spreading virus with mostly mild symptoms for the majority of the people who catch it" - sums up every Variant.

So mentally, you should have been all like your meme a long time ago.

[TorqueDog]

A long time ago I wasn't double vaccinated and on the cusp of getting my third, so yeah, things are a wee bit different now with the passage of time.

[Harry Lime]

The insinuation from that quote would be that the variant, that has been circulating for some time in the area, is not seeing the hospitalization rate of Delta.

If this is true, then Omicron taking over from Delta as the global primary strain would be a blessing in disguise.

[opendoor]

Anecdotal impressions from doctors aren't all that indicative of anything. How many times have we heard reports from doctors that "ICU patients are getting younger and younger", yet when the stats come out the severity by age is more or less unchanged? Particularly when they're saying something like this:

No one here in South Africa is known to have been hospitalised with the Omicron variant, nor is anyone here believed to have fallen seriously ill with it.

Hospitalizations have gone up 5x in a week in Guateng, is she really trying to say that none of those people have Omicron, despite it being estimated that it has completely outcompeted Delta there?

[Dion]

https://twitter.com/user/status/1466096907944488964

[PeteMoss]

Originally Posted by opendoor

Anecdotal impressions from doctors aren't all that indicative of anything. How many times have we heard reports from doctors that "ICU patients are getting younger and younger", yet when the stats come out the severity by age is more or less unchanged? Particularly when they're saying something like this:

Hospitalizations have gone up 5x in a week in Guateng, is she really trying to say that none of those people have Omicron, despite it being estimated that it has completely outcompeted Delta there?

Yep.

For most people's mental health its best to just wait until the data comes out. You can find articles about how this is mild or how this will rip through existing immunity from past infections/vaccines and be terrible if you look hard enough.

Swinging up and down mood-wise while doom scrolling is just going to impact your mental health, it isn't going to give you the definitive answer.

[Jay's Beagle]

US changes the inbound flights for testing from 72 hours to 24

By early next week, Canadians and all other foreign visitors who travel to the United States by air will need to get a COVID-19 test no later than the day before their departure.

U.S. President Joe Biden is slashing the current 72-hour testing window for fully vaccinated travellers as part of a suite of public health measures aimed at slowing the spread of the highly mutated Omicron variant.

https://calgary.citynews.ca/2021/12/...st-air-travel/

[keenan87]

Originally Posted by Jay's Beagle

US changes the inbound flights for testing from 72 hours to 24



https://calgary.citynews.ca/2021/12/...st-air-travel/

This is great!

[Nancy]

Germany locks down unvaccinated people, as leaders plan to make shots compulsory

Germany on Thursday announced a nationwide lockdown for the unvaccinated, as its leaders backed plans for mandatory vaccinations in the coming months.

Unvaccinated people will be banned from accessing all but the most essential businesses, such as supermarkets and pharmacies, to curb the spread of coronavirus, outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel and her successor, Olaf Scholz, announced Thursday, following crisis talks with regional leaders. Those who have recently recovered from Covid-19 are not covered by the ban.
The pair also backed proposals for mandatory vaccinations, which if voted through the parliament could take effect from February at the earliest.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/02/europ...ntl/index.html

[Acey]

I actually like the approach of stopping just short of mandatory vaccinations and instead making it damn near impossible to do anything without one. Gives antivaxxers less of a leg to stand on if they are still free to not actually get it but might as well stay home anyway.

[MoneyGuy]

Originally Posted by Acey

I actually like the approach of stopping just short of mandatory vaccinations and instead making it damn near impossible to do anything without one. Gives antivaxxers less of a leg to stand on if they are still free to not actually get it but might as well stay home anyway.

I do, too. Shut down those who are extending this with their stupidity so the rest of us can get back to near normal.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by MoneyGuy

I do, too. Shut down those who are extending this with their stupidity so the rest of us can get back to near normal.

This is permanent. People need to accept that they will likely be exposed to Covid at some time. Getting everyone vaxed is great for relieving the medical system, but it will not make this go away.

[Duruss]

Originally Posted by blankall

This is permanent. People need to accept that they will likely be exposed to Covid at some time. Getting everyone vaxed is great for relieving the medical system, but it will not make this go away.

Yes, but getting everybody vaxxed will reduce the seriousness of Covid infections and the resultant side effects of the infection to a manageable level. Just imagine a world where covid really is like the flu for negative outcomes.

[Amethyst]

Originally Posted by blankall

This is permanent. People need to accept that they will likely be exposed to Covid at some time. Getting everyone vaxed is great for relieving the medical system, but it will not make this go away.

I agree. 2019 style normal is not coming back, no matter how many people get vaccinated.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Amethyst

I agree. 2019 style normal is not coming back, no matter how many people get vaccinated.

Really?

I think we are almost there, This last wave we made it through with Flames games being held for the fully vaccinated. Christmas parties are being had by businesses. Businesses are bringing people back to work. Traffic is picking up. Kids sports are back in full effect.

For the vaccinated I’d say we are 80% back. If we were 100% vaccinated Delta would not have been an issue at all. We would have had 80-90% less hospitalizations even with the same number of cases.

Masks, Vax Passports and work from home is all that’s left. Vax passports wouldn’t be a thing with 100% Vaxxed.

Summer was normal.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by Amethyst

I agree. 2019 style normal is not coming back, no matter how many people get vaccinated.

I wasn't saying that. At a certain point we'll have a high degree of natural immunity and people will just have to accept that getting covid is a reality.

We might see more people wearing masks in public places, but for most things will likely be going back to normal soon, but living with covid, which will become less deadly as more people get natural immunity.

[cal_guy]

Originally Posted by GGG

Really?

I think we are almost there, This last wave we made it through with Flames games being held for the fully vaccinated. Christmas parties are being had by businesses. Businesses are bringing people back to work. Traffic is picking up. Kids sports are back in full effect.

If you look at hospitalization among the fully vaccinated in Alberta you'll see that hospitalization among that group are more or less in the same ballpark as the levels that you see in a normal flu season despite the fact that Alberta hasn't had a flu hospitalization for like a year and half now. I think we'll be return a pre 2019 like world, but without mandatory vaccinations or some luck I don't think we'll see it for a while.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by GGG

Really?

I think we are almost there, This last wave we made it through with Flames games being held for the fully vaccinated. Christmas parties are being had by businesses. Businesses are bringing people back to work. Traffic is picking up. Kids sports are back in full effect.

For the vaccinated I’d say we are 80% back. If we were 100% vaccinated Delta would not have been an issue at all. We would have had 80-90% less hospitalizations even with the same number of cases.

Masks, Vax Passports and work from home is all that’s left. Vax passports wouldn’t be a thing with 100% Vaxxed.

Summer was normal.

I agree that we are getting there, but even a 100% vaccination rate doesn't mean we still won't have people in the hospital or ICU. We need to also focus on treatment, because there are people out there who despite being vaccinated will still get hammered by this.

As an example, Manitoba had 172 new cases yesterday, 79 are fully vaccinated (so double shot). Cases mean nothing, but when you break down hospitalization rates, 42% of patients in Manitoba hospitals with COVID are fully vaccinated & 6% of patients in ICU are fully vaccinated.

Now, obviously these people are being exposed to COVID or catching it because there is still WAY too much spread due to unvaccinated / people not using their brains, but I think we need to accept that we will always have people in the hospital & ICU with COVID, and we need to find ways to treat them and manage our health care resources better.

Also, being healthy, double vaccinated, and being exposed to COVID is not the worst thing in the world. In fact it might be good as it helps our body keep a strong immune response. I think this will be true even after the 3rd shot. So I think with time we need to accept that there will be vulnerable people that no matter what they do, they need to have treatment options available to them, and for the healthy, we need to accept that the vaccine bloody works, and our body is amazing at fighting this off (in combination of the vaccine or even prior infection OR future infection).

I still see way too many healthy people who are double vaccinated and are paranoid despite SO much evidence to the contrary.

It really helps being double vaccinated & running into a situation where you are exposed like I did. It turns into everyone tells me it works, to realizing from personal experience, holy crap this is amazing.

[Azure]

This is Manitoba from this morning. I believe these numbers are really skewed compared to the rest of Canada and I'm not sure why.

[opendoor]

Those numbers aren't out of line with what you'd expect. 74% of Manitoba's population is fully vaccinated and 16.7% unvaccinated. So with 44% and 50% of cases coming from those groups respectively, that would imply a vaccine effectiveness of 80.1%.

Hospitalization comes in at a similar rate (about 82%), however you need to age-adjust hospital stats. Comparing a vaccinated 80 year old with an unvaccinated 10 year olds in terms of severe disease obviously makes no sense when you're trying to figure out the effect of the vaccine. When you adjust for age, you get a much different picture. I don't know Manitoba's age breakdown, but BC is still showing 95% risk reduction in hospitalization after adjusting for age.

And ICU speaks for itself. Even without adjusting for age, those numbers suggest 98.5% effectiveness.