Don’t you know you can’t catch Covid before [9pm]? It’s like a gremlin that comes out at night.

Remember, old people go to bed early and old people dictate policy (because they vote and because we keep fucking electing them). So curfews are good public health theater - only the young and people in hospitality suffer.

We know there is plenty wrong with them, which is why boosters are needed every four weeks to maintain immunity and why certain countries have already banned it depending on age groups. Eighteen months is not a long time and yet we already see the highest VAERS reports ever. I have never seen this vaccinate over everything else in my life. If you want it, get it, but we arent honest about it or the effect it has had on a lot of people. To say 200M have taken it and imply nothing has happened is not being honest. This is at least one change I'm seeing from folks around me because more know people who have gotten sicker than they ever have in their life after getting 2+ covid vaxxes.

Eighteen months is plenty of time. We need boosters because the virus is unstable and mutates. They release a flu vaccine every year and have done so for like a century. This is not new.

Yes, that’s exactly what these types want. They don’t have realistic views of the world and can’t stand the thought that COVID is endemic, will not be eradicated, and that they were sold lies. So they’d rather lock down again and “get rid” of covid, which any logical person now knows isn’t possible. Not even with vaccination.

At the end of the day, it’s denial of reality. We’re seeing this across many different issues currently in the US. In the future, historians will probably be very intrigued by the mass cognitive dissonance that were seeing currently.

From what I can tell, he and everyone in his house believed COVID-19 was real. They masked (3-layer surgical masks and not the good N95/KN95?), took advantage of contact-free delivery, and avoided crowds. I'm not sure of the vaccination status of others in his household, but he didn't trust the vaccines. Usually, when someone is sick, the reaction isn't anger, but the reaction to his hospitalization is anger from the family. He is the first person (I know of) in the family to be hospitalized for COVID-19.

From what I've heard, he is on steroids and they are causing him to have blood sugar issues, so they are controlling his insulin levels. He also can't breathe when he has to eat. My family is mostly northerners, from places that have higher vaccination rates (Maternal: Chicagoland & Wisconsin and Paternal: NYC area). The exceptions are a few family members in the Orlando and Tampa metros and of course my parents, my sister, and myself in NC/TN/GA respectively. I'm fully vaccinated and had COVID-19 breakthroughs, which I would describe as three-day allergy attacks that allergy medicine doesn't work on. I did have ear ringing for about a month after the last breakthrough. Both my wife and I are fully vaccinated and boosted. Our son Noah is too young, though.

So many people who are sick often claim it's allergies. You wouldn't believe how many times I hear that. Sometimes they even say the allergy took-away their sense of smell or taste. :haha: I don't trust anyone saying their COVID-19 sickness is allergies. I don't know if he was told, by the person asking for a ride, it was allergies or a cold, but that is a common thing I hear around here (metro Atlanta).

Other than certain health professions, annual flu vaccines are optional. So far, Covid vaccines and now boosters are being required regardless of industry. What's to stop the narrative to mandate endless boosters indefinitely?

At some point, it has to be a personal decision and I think there will be inevitable pushback. We can only portray the unvaccinated as the villains just so long as especially as we are learning the vaccinated are also vectors. I'm triple vaccinated but can still spread it around at work which is why offices are closed for at least six more months.

We sure could use a lot more effective anti-covid paxlovid pills, N95 masks, and test kits right now! Where are they? We have plenty of vaccine. Too much perhaps. They are throwing some out as they expire. I've had my vaccination, but it would be nice to have an N95 mask when I go out and paxlovid in case I get a breakthrough infection, which are occuring in some vaccinated people.

^
Stop being paranoid. You stand little to no chance of getting sick enough to need to go to hospital if you are vaccinated.

^ And of course he’s from California

Urban Cali, New York, Chicago, it’s where all the buffoons live.

Everywhere else people have a bit of commons sense and balance. I fucking would love to move out of this place. I was in the Carolinas a few weeks ago and people there are living their lives. You only get one life and too many idiots are still wasting it actually trying to find out how to avoid Covid. Bizarre and sad

Article from the BBC on a recent Oxfam report. As more data is processed, it's becoming clearer that lockdowns are actually beneficial to the wealthiest - at the expense of most everyone else: (so it should also come as little surprise that the same billionaire-owned media outlets are the ones continuing to push the pro-lockdown narrative)


https://www.bbc.com/news/business-60015294

^
I've been saying that for over a year. Its pretty obvious that all the lock down narratives were made only to increase the wealth of billionaires. I think 50 new billionaires were created during the "pandemic".

Before clicking on that article, I set for it a very low expectations bar: that it would at least give an explanation why.

It didn’t.

It also made it clear Elon Musk is skewing their data big time by having bet big on one of the best antidotes to global warming (i.e. transportation that doesn’t burn dead dinos) at the right moment. Not really pandemic-related; for pretty much the entire history of humanity, anyone who comes up with a solution to a previously great problem becomes extremely wealthy, it’s normal.

I was hoping the article would venture a plausible general explanation such as:

-Lockdowns force governments to shower citizens and businesses with gazillions of freshly-printed money they didn’t have;

-Which causes crazy inflation;

-Which means the people who already owned assets see those assets gain in value vs nominal currency; they’re now richer;

-Conversely, if you don’t have assets (“were poor”), then the only effect for you is that everything now costs significantly more than before; you’re clearly worse off.

Yeah, I think this is approximately what's happening. And in general if life gets a bit worst the richest are most able to cope on average. A government edict may cause famine or death for a poor day labourer in India ("walk hundreds of km home to your hut and stay there or be punished") but not even be noticeable to a rich person ("you should stay where you are but nobody will check").

I don't believe there is any specific billionaire agenda with lockdowns. I think people just support the policies based on what their motivations and costs are. And some have more influence than others. If you're a rich old Boomer stereotype on a large property the pandemic measures have little practical cost to you. Even the travel restrictions aren't such a big deal now (if you get covid, just wait in your villa for another week before flying back).

Meanwhile for the poor there was often no benefit even to the lockdowns. There was no lockdown of chicken plant workers. They just went to work and got covid. The poor old people are in packed homes or old folks' homes and they got covid too.

One cynical theory I heard was that because well-off people are now testing positive for omicron the shame will drop and "society will decide" to move on.

Does any industry require a booster now? I don't think I've heard that come up anywhere. Anyway that's a different discussion from whether the vaccines are dangerous.

Also, wealth on paper doesn’t mean buying power follows.

If the Canadian government decides to print several new trillion dollars right now and injects that into the economy, a $3 loaf of bread will now be $6, an apt that rented for $800 a month will now rent for $1,600, and my Canadian real estate previously worth $x Canadian dollars will now be worth $2x Canadian dollars, literally overnight.

“I doubled my wealth in Canadian dollars overnight”, sure, but maybe when measured in US dollars or Euros, I’m not any wealthier than before.

Extreme example: imagine that you owned a rental property in Zimbabwe at the start of their infamous runaway inflation. Eventually, your building brings in several trillion quintillion dollars in monthly rent; multiply that by the same standard cap rate as before and you’re now (on paper, in Zimbabwe dollars) 10^23 times richer than before, but in practice, you’re not. You could even be functionally poorer.

Edit: since I have some leverage, that scenario of printing fresh gazillions of dollars would actually make me wealthier (my debt, fixed in Canadian dollars, would magically diminish vs the value of my assets), but for the sake of the example, imagine an unleveraged portfolio.

And yes, as both 10023 and someone123 suggested, my Boomer parents literally did not notice the curfew. They weren’t out and about at night even back when that was legal. I’m not exaggerating one bit: if they had been somehow magically shielded from all news, and had been completely unaware of the curfew, they would STILL not have violated it one single time.

My experience is that younger people have also been more afraid of covid and more personally locked down (here in BC we didn't have many draconian restrictions for long, and punishment was minimal, so a lot of it was voluntary). The older people in houses did more traveling and parties and had more risk of getting covid.

I don't know many people who knowingly had covid so far (though a bunch had the sniffles and couldn't get tested, while they are 100% vaccinated, so I bet some probably have unknowingly) but of the ones who did the most common reason why is their parents invited them to some family gathering with Uncle so-and-so who just got back from Cabo etc. :)

It's the exact opposite of the "virtuous granny sits and home and the wicked teenager secretly parties then brings covid home and kills her" narrative. The grannies I know are fed up and undersocialized and they have about a 10% chance of dying each year so the 0.5% extra from covid when they are triple-vaxxed does not really change anything. Most of the joy they get in life is from visiting relatives so if you take that away there's not much left. Many of them have health orders in place that specify they won't be put into an ICU for weeks on a ventilator too.

I realize people have different experiences and live in different bubbles but overall I have a feeling our approach was not very effective and didn't direct energy to where it produced the most value. Instead we had a lot of lazy fear-driven one-size-fits-all rules and now a bunch of them remain in place due to inertia and risk aversion.

I also see plenty of young people very worry about Covid and plenty of middle-aged completely ignoring it. In fact Covid and vaccine denialism is the strongest on those groups.

I don't think it's a generational issue at all.

^ they are more brainwashed by (social) media perhaps, or more inclined to engage in virtue signalling

That was the case over here as well. Not because younger people were more afraid of Covid*, but because they live in small city apartments and not big suburban/country houses. Most young people don’t have friends over often anyway, because their apartment isn’t that good for entertaining, and instead meet friends at restaurants or bars (which were closed). And the police would turn up if you tried to have friends over in the city, whereas at a suburban house at the end of a driveway they would never know.

Nonetheless, almost everyone I know or interact with has had Covid.

*of course “essential workers” also tend to be young, and had to worry about losing income if they got Covid and couldn’t work, but it certainly wasn’t because they gave a shit about the virus

We have a mask mandate too which requires that we put on our masks to go check the mail or go to the garbage room or to the car. Generally with 0 other people around. Outdoor masking is probably 50/50. The other day I was outside for a jog and a woman who was maybe 8 feet away from me walked into a bush and faced away as I went by (there used to be a guy who would warily eye people on a giant wooded path about ~50 feet away and hold a cloth mask up to his face as others walked by but I haven't seen him lately; RIP mask guy, you should have held up a stack of 10 N95s). I have older relatives living in houses and for them there are no masks required to do a lot of their day to day stuff. It is much less annoying to visit them than to be home.

My friends are still having covid "scares" at work (they had to work in person through the pandemic including when vaccinated, so did my partner.. actually they were lower down the vaccination list than older work from home/retired people). I try to explain to them that there is a 99.999999...9% chance of people coming into their busy public workplace with omicron but I'm not sure they really understand the implications.

The covid fatality rate in my province last week was 0.7 per million per day and cases already peaked here (omicron was here in early December for sure and probably November). The week before was 0.3 per million per day.

^ I knew Canadians were kind of pansies (no offence), but that’s ridiculous.

Regardless the reasons, it doesn't seem generational matter. You also associate young people with an outgoing behaviour when we know the number of introverts in Y and Z generations are massive as well.

Social media, for instance, is not a generation issue either. Middle-aged people are also quite addicted on it and that's where they get their denialism and other conspiracy theories from.

You seem to be very anti-old people and you attribute everything is bothering you to them. But that's very simplistic.

:haha:

So retarded. I have no words....

Just make the unvaccinated wear one of these.

http://www.shootshescores.com/movies/Hard_Hat2.gif


The Darwin Mandate. Maybe add small speakers to the hard hat that makes an audible Alabama accent tone so that when people hear "dumb ass present" in the distance, they know an unvaccinated person is near by.

Might even encourage people to cough on them, to speed up the process to herd immunity.

This hat is also designed for folks that wear masks and a face shield inside a car, with no one present.

One thing I find pretty interesting is the variation between commentary in different places like between Canadian provinces vs. the US vs. UK.

We had a lower bar for implementing vaccine "passports" and nobody's really asking what the point is given that there's little impact of 2 doses on transmission right now. The reality is that it was a "stick" to encourage more people to be vaccinated. Testing and prior acquired immunity were never accepted here as an alternative to vaccination.

Our overall fully vaccinated rate is around 80% (including ineligible) which is a target that people in some other places say will bring them back to normal. Eligible adults are around 93% vaccinated. We still have people here arguing that "the unvaccinated" are driving our problems (most of the unvaccinated are 0-11 year olds).

For NS (another province) I still see news articles about say a party of 11 young people getting thousands of dollars in fines for assembling. If there is a single covid death usually there will be some kind of official comment. The population there is 1 million. They have had 117 covid deaths during the whole pandemic, with most being in old age homes.

I certainly think it's possible for people to be on the "not taking it seriously end" end of the spectrum but by and large that's not where we are in Canada.

PS our federal debt to GDP when up by 20 percentage points during the pandemic so far.

^^^

That's the nice thing with Omicron is that its speeding this whole process up.

It's unfortunate that some kids can't get the vaccine, yet... but... the way Omicron is going, the parents will get it, and bring it home to them. So either way, they will get it.

It's just a right-of-passage that everyone will face or if they have already, gotten it out of the way.

The old will get it too.

I haven't caught Covid during the whole pandemic, even though I was carrying on my activities normally (with masks, sanitizers, those stuff). However, Omicron got us on the first week of January.

It's indeed seems to be a blessing: most people vaccinated and a less lethal variety that spreads incredibly fast is the best thing on this moment. Covid must be buried for good.

In Canada we have had 24 deaths of people under age 20 during the whole pandemic.

There was an uproar a while back when they removed a 14 year old from the covid death count in Alberta. He had stage 4 brain cancer, tested positive for covid, and died 2 days later. The bulk of children who truly died of covid in Canada were likely profoundly ill and it may have been secondary in many cases (it wasn't even ruled secondary for the 14 year old). The average rate by age obscures what is going on, exaggerating the (still super small) risk of death in normal children and underestimating it in those with serious health conditions.

Recently in BC they did a chart review of people hospitalized with covid in December in one region and found a little under half were incidental.

Discussion of this topic was regarded as borderline right wing conspiracy material by a lot of people here up until recently, and that may still be the case.

Another meme going around here I notice is that huge percentages of people say they are immune compromised so the vaccine statistics don't apply to them. But that doesn't show up in the data. There's no big cohort of immune compromised 25 year olds dying of covid.

@yuri

And that's how we have to look at it. I'm not trying to have a Dr.Mengele vibe but at this point with vaccines and the incredible rate of survival, its feasible. That and a combination of the immune system, work incredibly, for most. And by most, probally 99 percent of the global population. But not all will make it. Just like not all make it with the flu or TB or Malaria and so on. It's what nature does. Cancers, things like that. Will go on for ages. Just the dynamic, the ecosystem.

And its nothing new. Before the invention of inoculation, using cowpox, vaccination, vacca.... vacca = cow... things like smallpox, was a right-of-passage.

But the world lived on. Moved on. Humanity did not regress. And Covid will not be that.

Healthcare.

And at this point, I'm not sure if we should waste our time arguing with people that won't want to vaccinate. I see that's a bigger problem in the US than it's in Brazil, but it's not worth. Those people won't change their mind, so be it. If they get sick and die, there's nothing we can do about it.

Yeah some of it probally political... or used to scare... and maybe to look good.

Its unfortunate with cover ups or fabricating true information, that there is such an attempt at masking the reality. Such as the BS that's going down in China.

I think part of the problem is that people have just forgotten or maybe are not use to the idea that folks die. This fear of death is not good.

Might be the side effects of being in a Western Bubble.

Tech does. Employees have until March to get boosted. At least with the big companies.

People are making a big deal over vaccine side effects. They are not that bad. Ya take it, and two things happen, you don't feel it or if you do, you get a warm feeling, tired, headache (Tylenol helps) and that's about it. Just put a movie on, lay on the couch or call off of work. If anything, use a sick day. Its a good excuse to take off of work. If anything, you should be thanking the vaccine. And if you don't have any side effects, just lie! Take off anyways, give yourself a nice 2-3 day vacation. :shrug:

Not entire industries, but many Universities (including mine) are requiring boosters for students and staff. .

On another note, after 32.5 hours of labor, and in the end a c-section since her head was rotated the wrong way and wouldn't go through, my daughter was born yesterday morning. We're stuck in the hospital (UChicago) for a while while she recovers.

If I'm going to get COVID, this is probably where I'll get it given the zillions of people entering our room all our time (I had to wait 3 hours to eat my lunch since people kept coming in and it's hard to eat lunch with a mask on). Not to mention I won't be going into work for the next 6 weeks due to being on parental leave, and by then Omicron should be over. If our baby gets sick though, they'll take her straight to the NICU which wouldn't be so fun for us. On the plus side, due to visitor restrictions (1 support person only, no swapping), my in-laws can't come visit us (nor my parents, but they live 2000 miles away rather than 100 miles away)!

Some other COVID-related observations:

- Many nurses are complaining that they barely have had any days off since March 2020 (not sure how true this perception is), and also seems like every other nurse in labor and delivery was a new trainee.

- All the attendings / residents / med students are wearing N95s + eye protection. But most of the nurses and service staff are just wearing surgical masks ( halfway through our stay in Labor and Delivery, those nurses shifted to N95s. But that's not the case in the post-natal unit.)

- Pharmacy / maintenance / etc. is many hours late all the time... I guess they're understaffed for the volume of people in the hospital right now (UChicago hospital is adjacent to some of the most unvaccinated zip codes in the city)

- Due to understaffing in the kitchen, no selectable menu for hospital food. Fortunately there's a 24-hour Panera downstairs. I could also walk to campus eateries but there's too high a chance of awkwardly running into my colleagues :).

- My ears are hurting from near constant wearing of a KN95 since Friday evening. I wish I had N95's instead...

- Surveillance testing of UChicago (university, not hospital) students and employees showed a drop in positivity rate this week from 9.6% (!!!) the week before to 6.4%, (though 5 weeks ago it was just 0.4%). Hopefully this means something!

^ congrats, man!

Glad to hear mama and baby girl are both healthy.

Congrats, sir. I think your observations of the hospital reflect my girlfriend's experiences and observations working at a hospital the last two years.

One slight addendum, on the room next door, I see signs saying "restricted access, gowns and respiratory equipment required." Presumably our neighbors are COVID+. Hopefully the nurses are actually doing that and not going straight from that room to ours :).

^ Yeah, because of all of those newborn babies we keep hearing about dying of Covid, right? :uhh:

Congrats on your baby btw. Now please raise him or her to be rational....

The NICU here is full of newborns with complications from Omicron (to the extent that the resident who did our intake said they're taking any babies that are at all sick directly to the NICU so that they can be monitored for complications) . Sure they probably don't die most of the time, but it doesn't sound fun to not be able to take your baby home (and if you're COVID+, you're not allowed to visit the NICU, or at least that's what our OB said when he urged us not to get COVID before delivery).

But thanks (and if you think I'm cautious about COVID, you should meet my wife... She walked 1.8 miles both ways in below-freezing weather when 38 weeks pregnant to her OB appointments because she didn't want to risk getting COVID in a bus or Uber, then she waited standing up outside the waiting room for 40 mins because another patient wasn't wearing her mask correctly).

^
Walking 4 miles in below freezing weather was probably more dangerous than any threat Covid could ever pose. Just sayin.

Yeah, I mean when it comes to women giving birth, I generally make an exception for my criticism of overly protective and irrational behavior. You can't argue with women/Moms ;)

And babies are truly such a gift. So whatever.....

Nah. Did it all the time when I lived up north. If it's 20 to 30 degrees, not a big deal if you're bundled up. Even better if suns out.

brain dead response. I feel sorry for you.

Yes we didnt have rolling lockdowns, restrictions, travel bans, mask requirements all over the country and world for the last two years.

We are crazy! That never happened! Delusional

As of January 12th https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS/Provisiona...-Yea/nr4s-juj3

Please read the data

259 people under the age of 4 have died of covid 19 259 out of millions of children.

259

If we include everyone under the age of 18 its just over 800

You are hysterical if you think there is a risk to children.

Compared to Europe, Australia, Canada, etc., our restrictions were actually pretty tame. Here in Texas, they were virtually non existent since early last year. Haven't worn a mask since then apart to travel, visiting California or going to doctor.

Nowhere in the U.S. is talking about lockdowns in response to Omnicron as far as I'm aware. There's two different discussions here; what was an appropriate response from March 2020 - Dec 2020, and what is an appropriate response post widespread vaccine availability.

All the recent papers coming out saying that covid in the last month is associated with a ~fourfold increase in fullterm stillbirth / neonatal death really scared her (though in their samples all the fetal/neonate deaths are in unvaccinated women, these studies are also pre omicron when vaccinated women were less likely to get sick). Probably more dangerous than listeriosis and you can bet she ate absolutely nothing that could be considered risky for that.

My theory with these people is they have placed being afraid and cautious as virtues in their own backwards moral framework.

These are hollow empty people and being terrified of covid is actually the most meaningful thing they have probably done.