Great! Other countries need to follow suit. We have to learn to live with this disease, like the gazillion others.
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Ireland drops most Covid restrictions in wake of 'Omicron storm'
171–180 of 401 posts
Re: Ireland drops most Covid restrictions in wake of 'Omicron storm'
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Have you read the EUA?
Re: Ireland drops most Covid restrictions in wake of 'Omicron storm'
#173Many (I suspect most but I only follow a few) epidemiologists are saying there's no stopping Omicron. It's more contagious than measles - if you're in a room with somebody who has it, you're exposed barring a properly fitted N95 mask. All of us will be exposed by mid February. It's also many times less pathogenic than Delta, and it's a gift that nothing at present can outcompete it. I believe it's the version that wi…
> It's also many times less pathogenic than Delta This is a misleading way to say your risk of hospitalization is about half of what it was with Delta. Vaccination is making it safer to get closer back to normal — which is why Ireland can consider it with their much higher rate of over 92% versus the U.S. 63% — but we still need to be thinking about masks and improved ventilation when it’s spreading, especially since…
Why on earth would you vaccinate kids? It’s not going to do anything to the spread of the virus, as the grand parent post mentioned it is extremely infectious and neither masks or the vaccines have been shown to make anything else than a dent in the levels of infections. They aren’t at risk of the virus either. The energy would be better spent convincing the few >60yo who haven’t been vaccinated to get the shot. But keeping restrictions until kids are vaccinated? What is the point?
Re: Ireland drops most Covid restrictions in wake of 'Omicron storm'
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
To some reasonable level, the vaccines do prevent transmission. However, no vaccine is perfect - just look at the flu vaccine - even if the strains picked for the vaccine for the year are right, some people will still get the flu.
The vaccine helps to prepare your immune system to deal with the virus - in some cases that means it can fight it off entirely, or in other cases it will be able to fight it off quicker and your symptoms will be milder because your body is prepared.
Re: Ireland drops most Covid restrictions in wake of 'Omicron storm'
#175Earlier 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.
1. This isn’t the same virus as at the start of the pandemic. 2. There is a treatment protocol for COVID, unlike at the start of the pandemic. 3. There are now vaccines. There is now a large portion of the population that has vaccine immunity. 4. There is now a large portion of the population that has natural immunity. 5. It should be abundantly clear that case counts is no longer a meaningful metric. 6. Covid is a d…
> 3. There are now vaccines. There is now a large portion of the population that has vaccine immunity.
Yeeeeesss. The vaccines are beneficial in preventing serious illness but it's important not to overstate their efficacy.
As I write this I have COVID, which I caught from my girlfriend. We're not sure where she got it, but she started showing symptoms and tested positive last Saturday. I started showing symptoms on Monday but didn't test positive until Wednesday.
We're both double vaxxed and boosted. In my case I had 2 x AZ and 1 x Moderna. Can't remember off the top of my head what she had. Both of us are in good health. Neither of us have underlying health conditions.
She's fortunately started feeling a lot better now but I've really only just passed rock bottom. I feel much better than yesterday but still far from well. The internet is full of stories of people who were all, "I had COVID: it lasted 4 days and was no big deal," and then a week later are either in ICU or dead, so I'm not taking anything for granted. Seeming to get better and then getting rapidly worse, or having it linger on for a surprisingly long time, is something of a hallmark of COVID. (Of course, there are also plenty of people for whom it really is no big deal.)
Probably I won't become seriously ill or die, but COVID is no picnic, and if you had the choice of getting it versus not getting it I'd advise against it. Even with Omicron, if a large enough proportion of the population were infected at one time, our healthcare systems would collapse under the pressure. Whilst I don't like to credit the current UK government with terribly much intelligence, our experience in this country has been that it has required some degree of careful management to avoid that scenario playing out. Even still, our death rate is high compared with many other nations.
There's also the fact that the picture is very different across different countries: for example, the situation in Ireland is very different to the UK.
TO BE CLEAR: Unless you have a very clear and specific medical reason not to, you should get vaccinated, but let's not pretend the vaccines are a panacea. That's misinformation as much as it is to state that they're completely unnecessary, that COVID is some sort of elaborate hoax, or - and I don't have enough faces or palms to adequately express my despair at this perspective - that they're some sort of government conspiracy to track us all with nanobots.
Re: Ireland drops most Covid restrictions in wake of 'Omicron storm'
#176At 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.
> At this point, you’re either vaccinated, have been sick or are dead, so all good. Or you’re too young for the vaccine. Hospitalizations among 0-1 year olds are significantly up with Omicron. Even 1-14 year olds represent a sizable portion of hospitalizations in many states, presumably biased toward those in that age group too young for the vaccine. Being a parent of young children is not great right now as Omicron…
Statistically... For kids is much more dangerous to sit in car or have parents alcoholic. Just because it is not in news and we used to it, it doesn't change fact, that kids suffering and die because of other s*its.
Re: Ireland drops most Covid restrictions in wake of 'Omicron storm'
#177At 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.
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.
> 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.
Clearly at some point, we’re going to end the pandemic-related restrictions, right? It seems a valid question to ask periodically “is now the right time to stop doing X?” Whatever X is and whether or not you think X is effective vs X’s downsides are all factors into your answer, but factors that shouldn’t preclude asking the question.
There are going to be a range of people’s answers from “YOLO!” to “but think of the children/grandma!” Society (with government as the instrument) would do well to decide based on the science and stats, not on what the extremists on either end would prefer.
At some point, we’re going to stop wasting everyone’s years all together, but that’s inevitably going to take all the years away from (kill) at least one person who would have survived if we’d stayed locked down. It’s a living Trolley Problem.
Re: Ireland drops most Covid restrictions in wake of 'Omicron storm'
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is Delta still dominant in the US? First time I am checking the US Covid stats in months, and it seems like both deaths and hospitalizations in the US are rising. The opposite is true for most of Europe, where omicron cases are rising exponentiallly, but deaths and hospitalizations are falling flat.
It’s definitely strange that there’s such a disparity, and I assume it’s because there are differences in what is considered a “Covid death” in the US vs elsewhere.
There’s that, and American obesity / general lack of health. (Just a guess.)
Re: Ireland drops most Covid restrictions in wake of 'Omicron storm'
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
To some reasonable level, the vaccines do prevent transmission. However, no vaccine is perfect - just look at the flu vaccine - even if the strains picked for the vaccine for the year are right, some people will still get the flu. The vaccine helps to prepare your immune system to deal with the virus - in some cases that means it can fight it off entirely, or in other cases it will be able to fight it off quicker and…
The FDA didn't approve the vaccines under emergency use to lessen the symptoms, only to prevent transmission.
Re: Ireland drops most Covid restrictions in wake of 'Omicron storm'
#180Many (I suspect most but I only follow a few) epidemiologists are saying there's no stopping Omicron. It's more contagious than measles - if you're in a room with somebody who has it, you're exposed barring a properly fitted N95 mask. All of us will be exposed by mid February. It's also many times less pathogenic than Delta, and it's a gift that nothing at present can outcompete it. I believe it's the version that wi…
> The only thing I'm dreading is the smugness of the antimask/antivax crowd who will ignore the herculean effort that avoided complete collapse of the health system and just claim they were right all along. I am pretty happy that the vax-mandaters are being taught a lesson by the virus. They would have pulled through otherwise.
LOL, just what lesson do you think that would be? I'm happy that Omicron is getting some immunity into the selfish idiots of the anti-vax crowd.