Thanks doctor! Bless your heart! :cheers:

Keeping testing requirements for travel and the 5-day isolation period though, so the irritating and economically costly rules remain.

No one wears a mask anyway if they don’t want to (I haven’t in months and I ride the tube every day) and vaccine passes are a non-issue if you’re, you know, vaccinated.

But Covid will end up killing far fewer people in England this winter than the flu typically does. There is no reason whatsoever to even acknowledge that it exists anymore.

Its a much broader and long term problem than that. Its basically a system put in place under FDR/WW2 that made sense for 1940's America/Western Europe.

But its clearly totally outmoded in the modern world.

You dont need to be a doctor to read basic stats.

Its amazing that you think your irrational fears are a virtue.

Being respectable to my co-workers is not living in fear. That is what they want and that is what I did. However I am in fear of your constant ranting on this forum that I've been visiting for 20 plus years now.

You people cant be helped lmao

I have been coming to this forum since 2007 chief.

This scenario is expected. The perceived accuracy of the tests depends on interpretation. This is tricky and has been obscured somewhat by science-y coverage. If you define "false positive" as "negative when I turned out to have covid" the antigen tests look terrible, but if they are taken to be indicators of a narrower window of infectiousness they might be better (at least, this is what the proponents say). I don't have a strong opinion on any of this and I think the information from all tests can be used correctly or incorrectly. I believe that had there been boring open conversation about these tests we would have settled on a slightly better outcome a year ago or longer and improved by the pandemic by 5% or whatever.

The wider phenomenon I notice is the debate about them around here has been, well, a bit unhinged. The other day there was a bunch of noise about the province (BC) hoarding tests and a debate over whether 1.5 million antigen tests locked up in a warehouse was "millions" or not. A lot of people who likely would have argued in mid-2021 that antigen tests are bad because they're less accurate are now freaking out about the desperate need to get them into the hands of the public. I doubt the tests have changed much and the potential upside has dropped a lot since the pre-vaccine days.

We still have people here screaming about how the government has thrown them to the wolves by only somewhat delaying school openings (maybe to add air filters in early 2022?) because their triple vaxxed 9 year olds might get omicron.

Modern world doesn't need guillotines, you just ban somebody from social media, achieves the same thing with much less mess and much less backlash

I dunno. I ban myself from social media for long periods and it's pretty great. :)

My simple rule is that Twitter should only be used for the raunchiest gay porn. If people universally followed this, they would be a lot happier. The porn-consumers would get what they want and the others would leave and be less worked up.

Im with ya, I never had social media to any extent, Im just saying if you want to silence inconvenient voices on the public square, no need to chop off their heads. You can just silence them virtually.

^ It's very hard to crack the minds of the fearful and paranoid. Once they get caught into that trap, they use every rationalization that they can to reinforce these behaviors

Says the one that's making the noise about it.

They pretend like they are immune, but so many of them share the fear of wearing a mask or social distancing. How can they be soooo scared of taking a COVID test when they don't even think COVID is that bad? Plus they haven't been getting what they wanted for 2 years, so maybe they are super frustrated.

Late to the party on this one I was just going to post this.

Nobody is afraid of doing those things, they don't want to do them because there is no Point in doing them.

Deluded.

Yes they are, especially since they have complaining about it for 2 years. If there is no point, especially, then you're gonna be upset even harder. Good thing there is a point, but as long as you deny it this is gonna hurt.

Scared.

Not all of America's government is on that train. Supreme Court stayed the OSHA mask/testing provision, so there's that.

Hospitals are still overloaded as well, although it would be interesting to see health care facilities in unvaccinated states crack and ask for help.

He’s a troll.

Not a single hospital in the USA was ever "overloaded" not one single time did a hospital run out of beds in North America.

Yes they have.
So much so the National Guard was called to several states. Usually people who are scared of restrictions blame the staffing (mandates, "useless" COVID tests, quarantine) but you didn't pick up on that one yet? Use one of those I just mentioned.

You are believing fake news and exaggerated headlines my guy. Im not even being a dick. No hospital in the USA was actually overrun by covid cases.

It only ever happened in Italy in early 2020.

Several hospitals have and TUP even admitted it a few pages back.
If he did then you know it's true. I could post sources but the game is set; just call it "fake", "propaganda", "msm", or ect.

Good decision. There's no putting the Omicron back in the bottle, and it's weaker than a regular cold anyways. We used to keep society open for business even during cold/flu season, now we can say we tried the opposite, and clearly, cost-benefit calculations favor the former approach :tup:

I personally think testing every and anytime someone gets the sniffles is overkill but if UrbanImpact wants to do it out of due diligence or peace of mind, who cares? The only issue I have is when it's expected of everyone. Same with masks at this point, not going to drag on someone for wearing one but don't push me to do the same if they are not required.

Our hospital is as full as it's been since this all started.

I was at a meeting today and they stated that about 85% of the COVID cases in the hospital are unvaccinated. That's in a community that has a close to 70% vaccination rate.

And we've had an indoor mask mandate forever. It's all a total waste of time, no matter what the germaphobes say. The only REAL and PRACTICAL thing you can do is vaccinate. The rest is political virtue signaling nonsense

The issues are when it’s expected of everyone, or when it costs everyone money because the tests are paid for by government or insurers.

This is superfluous healthcare spending and waste, which is a much bigger problem than the virus.

Yeah it is time to move on but is still killing over 2000 people a day in the United States. To those of us vaccinated it may be no worse than a cold but it certainly is not the case to those who are not vaccinated, but I don't give a damn. I doubt 2000 people die a day in the United States from colds... or the flu for that matter so it is still a more severe sickness. I am vaccinated and boosted so I really don't give a shit about the non vaccinated and their health.

This I agree with. Everyone is entitled to 8(!) tests per month by their insurer who will undoubtedly pass that cost along in the form higher premiums. And those free USPS distributed tests aren't "free" either. Though my wife and I did order them.

Why ever bother with this rubbish? You are delusional, and when you say "it's weaker than the common cold," you lose any iota of credibility you ahve on this forum.

I'm vaccinated and boosted and its certainly worse than a cold for me. More like the flu. Guess its a good thing I didn't get delta.

How do you know which variant you have? Was your sample sequenced? Delta is still out there, you might have Delta, or you might have a mutated form of one of the many other variants out there.

Omicron was circulating in the US as early as November 21 according to sewage samples. That is 6 days before South Africa reported an outbreak from a new highly mutated variant which ended up being named omicron. Omicron was all over the world by the time we even heard of the first outbreak.

If you're in a major metro, delta is likely not still out there anymore. It may still be circulating in more rural areas.

* posts deleted *


I would like to take this moment to remind all of you political axe-grinding dip-shits that there is a covid thread in the CE toilet specifically designed to contain all of your political dip-shittery.

Well I hope you start feeling better soon. Yeah, I just heard that a friend is pretty sick right now and she was vaccinated and boosted. She is in her early 40's and a healthy active person and claims that this is the sickest she has ever been in her life.

She might also be sick with the flu or a myriad of other common viruses.

The sickest I have ever been in my life was with either strep or mono, and another time with a viral stomach flu. Both within the last 10 years

I guess the time that I caught a flu like illness in India when I was 14 was another one

My workplace seems to be going in the opposite direction when it comes to masks and what not. They recently announced that regular cloth masks are no longer acceptable, and all employees must use a blue surgical mask or an N-95. I believe they're moving toward trying to get everyone to wear an N-95, as they're passing them out to anyone who asks for one. The overwhelming majority of employees are vaccinated, and omicron and subsequent variants are weaker than previous strains. It doesn't make any sense to me, and I've been pretty on-board with masking in public this whole time.

Nope. She tested positive for Covid. I would assume it is omicron given the fact that Delta is pretty nonexistent in new cases. Her 16 year old son now tested positive and is sick, but not as bad, yet.

Meningitis was a bitch, but I was pretty young. Also had a really bad case of food poisoning in September that was 10x worse than any of my Covid infections.

I actually had strep three weeks before I caught Covid (Omni) in Mexico, and my first thought was I would take that bout of Covid 5 times in a row over having strep. That being said, I'm not vaccinated against strep.

It seems that if people personally experienced symptoms that were mild, or not as bad as a previous infection, they are less likely to support restrictions. Makes sense, but not a good case for public health policy.

Yes the sickest I ever felt was also probably strep. Stomach virus' are awful but those are usually waves of awfulness with waves of not-so-awfulness. Strep and other infections just leaving you feeling constantly awful for days at a time. I had this upper respiratory infection that gave me a fever that lasted like 8 days about 10 years ago. That was awful.

Someone else in that same multi-generational household is now in the hospital with COVID-19. She was taken by ambulance and can't talk. We can only talk to her through text message. And we discovered she wasn't vaccinated, but did mask (2-layer surgical mask), avoided big crowds, and took advantage of delivery services to stay safe. Two others in the household seem to be doing well and decided to move-out. Someone else in the household is fine (no symptoms), but is now alone. So we know who is vaccinated. Potentially three out of five are vaccinated? This latest variant finds the unvaccinated. In the past, masking and avoiding crowds may have helped people to avoid COVID-19, but I think now only vaccination works. Get vaccinated!

Again, we are still able to communicate with her through text message. I still remember her game nights, movie collection, and cooking. She can cook anything. In a multi-generational household, there seems to be enough food for an entire city block. And usually there are always people showing-up (family, friends, neighbors) to eat and talk, staying a few hours before returning to their homes. I haven't been up there in a few years. It's a good reminder to spend more time with our family and friends.

Really sorry to hear that, hope she will recover.

Right, because vaccines work but masks are almost pointless.

Masks for the large part are a political statement. Older/sick people wearing an N95 makes sense (as they should) but a healthy 20 or 30 something wearing a cloth mask out for a jog is pure lunacy and no doubt predicated on factors beyond science.

how many times are the same people going to say the same thing over and over?

I just wore my mask during my entire walk to Best Buy and back because it keeps my face warm.

Don't say that about your fellow Texans...
They are virtuous for wearing their masks MORE than Californians.
The people not wearing their mask for a political statement are giving me looks for wearing a mask (KN-95) in an antivaxxer area. JManc gave me the idea!