They can't go to work because they are contagious.

Who cares? The person they give it to isn’t going to get sick either (as long as they’re vaccinated, and if they aren’t then fuck them). And vaccinated, asymptomatic people are less likely to spread it anyway because they’re not shedding virus, not coughing or sneezing, etc.

Again, this needs to be like flu. You stay home if you’re sick. You’ve never taken a lateral flow or PCR test to tell you whether you’ve got virus in your nasal passageways.

We cannot have people isolating just because of a positive test forever. We shouldn’t even be testing anymore.

People are getting sick. They're just not getting sick enough to be hospitalized. Having an extremely contagious virus that causes symptoms spread through your workforce will cause disruptions, even if everybody doesn't die.

So?

Covid is everywhere. Why is that point so difficult to process?

The focus should be on immunity. Trying to quarantine is a quixotic exercise

I don’t recall you telling everyone to get tested for Flu or RSV before they went to their jobs back in 2018

I recommend thinking this through a bit more.

Most people are not getting sick. And people always get sick. This is nothing new. We cannot live as if it is possible to not get sick.

The CDC has always issued guidelines on what to do if you are sick.

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/business/sta...-when-sick.htm

^ And the CDC has created a colossal mess.

I don’t give a shit what the CDC is saying. They are fucking this up, they are idiots, and they are completely wrong in their approach to this.

Long lines of vaccinated people with no or few symptoms getting tested for Covid? To what end? Why is this necessary?!!!

Fire that moron heading the CDC. That will save more people than anything else we do right now.

The mental hysteria has now gotten to the point where healthy vaccinated people who happened to test positive are clogging up hospital emergency rooms in Vermont and unfortunately diverting resources away from those truly in need. Somehow we've become a nation of hypochondriacs. This is all so idiotic at this point. https://www.wcax.com/2021/12/22/covi...s-clog-up-ers/

My parents are coming to visit tomorrow for a belated Xmas since I've worked over the weekend, and none of us plan on getting tested since we are all fully vaccinated and boosted. It's asinine to spend hours driving around or standing in line to get tested nowadays if you are fully vaccinated.

If you are sick. Not if you’re not sick, but a lateral flow or PCR test detects the presence of virus in your nasal passageway.

Obviously the guidelines are so that you don't spread whatever you're sick with, lol. Why are we still chasing our tails about this?

Because it's having a very severe real world impact on various industries right now. People who are testing positive are calling out sick from work, even if they have very mild symptoms because they are fully vaxxed. So what do you get? Thousands of airline flights being cancelled. I just read so far today, 2,000 flights have been cancelled.

These policy decisions have very real consequences.

It's weird that some of you think "policy" is the only reason for disruptions lol. I just personally witnessed omicron spread like wildfire through my company. Ninety-nine percent of the people who work for my company can work remotely. It was STILL disruptive because so many people were sick at the same time.

Dude, the CDC literally has guidelines for this:

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019...isolation.html

It's policy.

This is why the airlines are starting to push back on the CDC because they recognize what's happening here, and the huge impacts it's having on their industry.

Great that most people in your company can work remotely, but I am referencing the airline industry where that's not an option for many folks. If employees are positive, but with mild symptoms, then should they stay home for 10 days? It's a complete overkill, knee jerk reaction.

This sounds like a cautionary tale about what cities/policy-makers who refuse to start adapting to COVID will face in the coming months.

Admittedly, HK is likely the strictest place on the planet when it comes to virus containment, but nonetheless the obvious message would seem to be that we should be collectively moving on globally from containment and fully focus on adapting:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...ntine-omicron/

The airlines are pushing back on the amount of time that people should isolate after being infected. They are not pushing back on the stipulation that people should isolate.

We'd still have these disruptions with a shorter isolation period because it is so easily transmissible.

They still recognize they can't have carriers of COVID working, especially since it can impact other people. Plus they fall under federal authority so they don't want to piss off uncle sam who could ground them.

It's almost like they have absolutely no concept of public policy, which in this case is health.

And indeed, the flight worker unions are pushing against the airlines (unsurprisingly...) to not reduce the isolation time. The trouble is that probably some people become uncontagious after a few days but others may take longer than 10 days, and it's probably not so easy to tell, so it's difficult to set policy here.

^ No, it’s really fucking easy to set policy. Stay home and don’t go to work if you are actually sick (meaning that you have clear symptoms). That goes for Covid, flu, common cold, strep throat, mono… you name it.

We aren’t trying to flatten the curve anymore. It’s not a novel virus to which people have no immunity. The healthcare system isn’t at risk of being overwhelmed.

And the people with symptoms are likely to be the ones with higher viral loads, who spread it more easily by coughing.

Some are getting sick, and those people will stay home, just as they now will with flu. But many of them are not sick, just “positive”, and no one should care.

The days when you had to be worried about being asymptomatic but killing grandma are over. Grandma’s risk is now, while still non-zero, as low as it can reasonably be (short of masks, testing, isolation and social distancing forever). The pandemic is over.

90% of Covid disruption today is caused by silly policy, not the virus itself.

HK's waning viability as a financial/business center is due to Beijing's takeover, not Covid. At this point, HK is basically mainland China, but with better food and worse housing. I used to have lots of expat friends based in HK; the only one who remains married a local HKer and had three kids, then got divorced, but doesn't want to leave his kids.

And if people are so concerned about flight cancellations, push for a vax mandate for all flyers. I'm amazed this hasn't happened yet. Talk about low-hanging fruit. Instead we have people pushing for vax requirements to enter an elevator or empty art gallery for two minutes, and no push for spending hours in a cramped tube with hundreds of others. How many vax-denying hillbillies are frequent fliers anyways?