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Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado

covid19.colorado.gov

311–320 of 703 posts

Re: Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado

#311

Surely this is the end of the pandemic? With an estimated 300k+ cases per day here in the UK, that is 10 million this month on top of everyone who has already had it. It’s as though nobody is ready to acknowledge the elephant in the room that Covid is nearly finished. Or am I missing something?

You're missing the fact you can catch it over and over. My wife is currently battling Omicron after we both had covid at the start of last year. Fully vaccinated and boosted three weeks ago, caught it anyway. With an infected population this massive mutations happen fast enough to cause a new wave before the old one burns out.

The epidemic ends when the unusually high threat of serious illness or death ends, though, right?

If we get to the point where people aren't dying of covid at a significantly higher rate as any of the other "usual suspects", does that not mean it's over? It looks like between the vaccinated and just about everybody else that is about to or already has gotten covid, we're must may arrive at the point where covid is a just another thing on the list of seasons ailments.

Re: Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado

#312
post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have omicron right now (4-5 months after 2nd jab, so pretty much no effect from that) and it's just like a common cold (certainly wouldn't call it "battling omicron"). I have zero problems with getting this each year.

Every year you'll be a year older though, which eventually results in being in a different (higher) risk category.

But this means, that we can reopen everything, let young people "live", and target the efforts towards old people (and other risk groups).

Atleast here in slovenia, most of the mandates affect mostly the young and healthy... yes, theoretically neither 20yo bobby nor his grandpa can enter nightclubs, due to them being closed, but with such data, we could reopen nightclubs, let bobby party and do all the stupid stuff we were free to do at 20yo, and focus the effort at grandpa, so he gets vaccinated, gets the masks, has somone bring him food, so he doesnt have to go to the stores, subsidize a plan for a smartphone to encourage more videoconferencing instead of live visits, give out free tests at home, to detect the infection early, etc.

Re: Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado

#313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for this, just in those two blog posts she answered many lingering questions I had about how omicron has been changing things. the SEOd google results are always a flood of incomplete or speculative information when I try to find answers to covid questions so this is a dream come true. If anyone has any other sources like this that can find and interpret good data for covid I'd love to hear about them.

I've also found this blog to be useful: https://thezvi.substack.com

Calling zvi's blog "useful" is an understatement, he's practically a lesser deity of covid-19 modeling.

Re: Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado

#314
post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have omicron right now (4-5 months after 2nd jab, so pretty much no effect from that) and it's just like a common cold (certainly wouldn't call it "battling omicron"). I have zero problems with getting this each year.

I'm happy it's not a battle for you, but it is for my wife.

I hope your wife is ok. Unfortunately, infection with Omicron is inevitable and not preventable, without living in a bubble. It's too infectious, and the vaccine, unlike with previous variants, does basically nothing to stop transmission. Combine that with an R0 equivalent to measles, and avoiding infection was never possible. She probably took every precaution she could reasonably take, and still got infected. That was my experience as well.

Statistically, people who are healthy and vaxxed developing severe symptoms from Omicron are outliers. That is no comfort to you, and I can assure you I know how you feel on that front when people like me tell you the stats. My mother-in-law suffered a very rare (statistically) adverse event from her second Pfizer shot in May, which killed her. She was in her early 60s, and healthy, but suffered cardiac arrest 3 hours after her second shot, in the midst of a fever. It was an exceedingly rare event, but it was no comfort to us to be told that.

Re: Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado

#315

Surely this is the end of the pandemic? With an estimated 300k+ cases per day here in the UK, that is 10 million this month on top of everyone who has already had it. It’s as though nobody is ready to acknowledge the elephant in the room that Covid is nearly finished. Or am I missing something?

Omicron evades the "natural immunity" that people were getting a hard on for. That explains a lot (not all) of the massive fitness it has - it can infect people that previously had Covid infections again.

Immunity is a spectrum, not a binary condition. Infection by previous variants appears to still provide a significant level of durable cellular immunity against Omicron.

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.06.471446v1

Re: Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado

#316
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But now we’ll be able to reach herd immunity. Very mild and highly transmissible. This is the best possible outcome.

I've been watching over both my parents the past week. Both Omicron cases. "Very mild" is... not accurate. It hasn't hospitalized them, but even without quarantining, they'd be incapable of living anything like a normal life. The common cold it most certainly IS NOT. (Both are double vaxxed and boosted, btw)

Keep in mind, that between the "like the flu" and "mild" designator, folks are dismissing the severity of Omicron. But we must keep in mind that "mild" is in reference to "severe" which entails death and ground glass lungs.

Re: Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado

#317
post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Fully vaccinated and boosted three weeks ago, caught it anyway. Vaccines do not prevent contagion but reduce the chances of severe symptoms. Also AFAIK vaccines do not lower transmission either.

If a vaccine reduces your cough/oozing orifice severity, wouldn’t that reduce transmission?

Technically yes, but see this comment:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29826355

Re: Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado

#318
post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If something's a one a million event, happening billions of times per day, it'll happen pretty much constantly. This one, omicron, seems to mostly infect nasal passages and upper respiratory tract. The next, maybe after spending 2 years spreading across all the weasels of upper winchester county, may affect the lungs again. This is a lottery that's less fun to play... (edited for clarity)

Yeah, sure. Who knows what viruses could be spreading and mutating amongst those weasels. It's not like SARS-CoV-2 is the first, and it won't be the last. But when you say > This is a lottery that's less fun to play How exactly do you propose not playing? Lockdowns, social distancing, masking, etc. for life? We're eventually going to have to start treating Covid the same as we've always treated "the flu" and it defin…

I believe the idiom is "the horse left the barn"

There are a number of things going on in the world that fall into the "really bad" category of both thing and trend of thing.

There's space in between bland acceptance and incapacitating terror. At the very least have an honest, clear eyed view of where the risk bars are going, and it isn't in a good direction.

Re: Omicron at 100% Prevalence, Colorado

#319

Just giving my 2 cents. Got boosted 3 weeks ago. Now I have covid. Everything is fine, feels like the least ill i ever was from anything. But I wanted to state that omnicron is a beast. I did wear a ffp2 mask with nearly every social contact and if we didnt wear mask we would test ourself. I am sure I got it from the streets from people passing by. That said I am in the french alps and it was vacation time here. And…

Maybe it's time to start taking the wear 2 masks advice seriously.

As I understand it, wearing two masks was only recommended for those wearing surgical or cloth. If your wear an N95 or equivalent you only need the one.
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