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Ireland drops most Covid restrictions in wake of 'Omicron storm'

reuters.com

161–170 of 401 posts

Re: Ireland drops most Covid restrictions in wake of 'Omicron storm'

#161
post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just recovered from Omicron and I was vaccinated. I am not sure what your grandparents are going to tell me. That I should get another shot of the vaccine that did not prevent the disease?

Have you considered that you may have had more mild Omicron due to being vaccinated? It is true that breakthrough infections exist, especially in something as transmissable as Omicron. However, the point has also been made that being vaccinated helps prevent more serious illness[1] which in turn can help prevent hospitals from collapsing under the weight of the severely ill. [1]: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-…

This is called moving goalposts. The vaccines application states it will prevent transmissions, not lesson the symptoms. If it is simply "lessoning" the symptoms which has not been my experience with Omicron, but not preventing transmission then the authorizations should be pulled until they can be resubmitted.

Re: Ireland drops most Covid restrictions in wake of 'Omicron storm'

#162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure but if you need to get hospitalized due to Covid it's absurd that the rest of us need to bear that financial burden via increased insurance prices or increased taxes

what if they're actually much healthier than average (because of other personal choices)? and what about all the other bad decisions people do wrt. their health (which is what causes the vast majority of healthcare expenditures)?

Those other situations should also be factored into the price they pay for healthcare. That being said, many of those other issues (addiction, obesity, etc.) are much more difficult to "prevent" than getting a vaccine. If there was a vaccination for those issues, then I would put them in exactly the same class.

Re: Ireland drops most Covid restrictions in wake of 'Omicron storm'

#163
post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps I can set you up on a call with my grandparents and aunts and uncles so you can find out what life with measles and smallpox and polio was like. A few still have scars. Those days are gone because of vaccine mandates.

I just recovered from Omicron and I was vaccinated. I am not sure what your grandparents are going to tell me. That I should get another shot of the vaccine that did not prevent the disease?

Omicron is very resistant to the antibody response of the vaccines - the antibodies are supposed to cover the protein spikes which latch onto and enable infection of cells.

The t-cell response to infected cells learned from the vaccine, though, is very effective. Which is why vaccinated people still get infected (at a lower rate) but are many times less likely to get very sick, and almost none end up in ICU. The vaccines are effective.

Re: Ireland drops most Covid restrictions in wake of 'Omicron storm'

#164
post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps I can set you up on a call with my grandparents and aunts and uncles so you can find out what life with measles and smallpox and polio was like. A few still have scars. Those days are gone because of vaccine mandates.

I just recovered from Omicron and I was vaccinated. I am not sure what your grandparents are going to tell me. That I should get another shot of the vaccine that did not prevent the disease?

It ok to be ignorant, but you should think twice about that smugness. You are wrong, and you have very little excuse for being this wrong after two years of living in a pandemic.

Re: Ireland drops most Covid restrictions in wake of 'Omicron storm'

#165
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am I fucking crazy for not knowing what's going on any more? US hospitalizations are at an all time high, 2000 people are still dying every day, and it feels like everybody is just okay with that now. What happened? I get that everybody is tired of it, I am too, but it feels like we wasted two years of everybody's life just the take the bullet anyway.

“US hospitalizations are at an all time high,” How do you know that? My question, really, is how do you know what you know and are not being misled? (A la WMD to use an easy, universally understood, example?) “2000 people are still dying every day,” No, they’re not. According to the CDC (why do I trust them?) its currently 500/day [1]. It hasn't been > 2000 since September in the midst of the Delta spike. But even be…

> According to the CDC (why do I trust them?)

How would you (or really anyone I suppose) evaluate whether to trust the CDC or some other equivalent?

Also, thanks for those numbers. I don't know why that breakdown isn't more widely pushed.

Re: Ireland drops most Covid restrictions in wake of 'Omicron storm'

#166
post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Many (I suspect most)epidemiologists are saying there's no stopping Omicron. Which doesn’t mean we all have to get it at the same time. I’m so tired of these false dichotomies. There’s a lot of middle ground between full lockdown and completely giving up so everyone gets it at the same time. We’re already running out of ICU beds and emergency treatments like monoclonal antibodies where I’m at. Yet the prevailing lo…

Some people just have black-white thinking. See also "vaccines are not working" and lots of other nonsense.

Yes. But also, in current culture, it is politically useful to pretend you have only black and white thinking.

I dont think all or even most of people who use those is truly confused and dont understand. Instead, allowing anything else then "if not 100% miracle it dont work" would force them to admit they are wrong or politicians they root for are wront.

It is much easier to beat the other side in argument if you pretend you are too simple to understand percentages and shades. Because contemporary culture treats nuance as weakness and pretty much accepts that kind of argument.

Re: Ireland drops most Covid restrictions in wake of 'Omicron storm'

#167
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am I fucking crazy for not knowing what's going on any more? US hospitalizations are at an all time high, 2000 people are still dying every day, and it feels like everybody is just okay with that now. What happened? I get that everybody is tired of it, I am too, but it feels like we wasted two years of everybody's life just the take the bullet anyway.

“US hospitalizations are at an all time high,” How do you know that? My question, really, is how do you know what you know and are not being misled? (A la WMD to use an easy, universally understood, example?) “2000 people are still dying every day,” No, they’re not. According to the CDC (why do I trust them?) its currently 500/day [1]. It hasn't been > 2000 since September in the midst of the Delta spike. But even be…

"Why These Numbers are Different

Provisional death counts may not match counts from other sources, such as media reports or numbers from county health departments. Counts by NCHS often track 1–2 weeks behind other data."

Your source itself says that it does not yet have complete data for January 2022.

Re: Ireland drops most Covid restrictions in wake of 'Omicron storm'

#168
post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just recovered from Omicron and I was vaccinated. I am not sure what your grandparents are going to tell me. That I should get another shot of the vaccine that did not prevent the disease?

Gotta topper up once a month. That boosting is all about recharging your battery to fight whatever else is out there lurking around every corner just waiting for you. God this is ridiculous. The vaccines were approved to prevent transmission and they didn't do that, but now Pfizer and the likes will make sure that they get their money's worth and then some.

The vaccines were approved to keep people from dying, with a secondary goal of REDUCING spread. The experts were very clear that vaccinated people would spread it less than the unvaccinated, and all of the data shows that’s correct. Omicron didn’t exist when that data was being assessed, so think about it like someone in 2000 saying RSA 1024 was good encryption — they were hardly in the pocket of big crypto when they updated that to RSA 2048 a few years later after the attacks got better.

Re: Ireland drops most Covid restrictions in wake of 'Omicron storm'

#169

At this point, you’re either vaccinated, have been sick or are dead, so all good. With Omicron beating out Delta and not causing as many hospitalizations - sure, why not.

Define sick.

I just sat at home with no sense of smell or taste for 2 weeks.

Re: Ireland drops most Covid restrictions in wake of 'Omicron storm'

#170
post #2

This is refreshing to hear. Hope other countries will follow and we’ll start returning to normal.

I think this is the new normal. Either open/close as soon as a more dangerous variant comes along (can happen with most of the Earth population unvaccinated). Or just let it be and get used to health system being on its knees on peak seasons and more vulnerable/unvaccinated dying of.

Also accept the reality that hospitals being at capacity is the normal and not a anomaly. Just part of our hyper-optimized JIT economy. Near 100% utilization rate has been reality at flu-seasons for long time. And economically it is just not realistic in general to keep excess capacity.
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