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

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

#181
post #159
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That you should be glad that your vaccination made you an order of magnitude less likely to have a severe case? Polio didn’t kill most people either.

> That you should be glad that your vaccination made you an order of magnitude less likely to have a severe case? For Omicron? And even if. It is great if it is a result of my personal decision to get vaccinated. It is awful to force others to get vaccinated, especially if most claims regarding efficacy get weakened a lot over time and people ignore that. Vaccine mandates and mandatory passports everywhere have faile…

Yes, even for Omicron. Vaccinated people are far less likely to have severe cases at every age group — not being boosted means you’re less likely to avoid a case altogether but the T cell response is quite effective at helping you kick it faster.

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7104e3.htm?s_cid=mm...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/01/21/cdc-studies...

https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#rates-by-vaccine-s...

As for Rwanda, that’s moving the goalposts — there are many things which the Rwandan government has done which most of us do not approve of.

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

#182
What COVID-19 has taught me is people really have different levels of risk tolerance. I'm realizing I am very risk prone. Omicron never scared me and I got it. It was so mild, I would have thought I was hung over if I didn't have a home test. On the other hand we had a guest visit us from SF who really hasn't left his apartment during the whole pandemic from being terrified of the virus. His personality has changed for the worst. He is much more anti-social now and it was difficult to even have a simple conversation with him. He wears a face shield and double masks. Being so risk adverse as to become a recluse has really impacted his mental health negatively probably worse than getting COVID.

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

#183
post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m worried about him spreading it to immuno-compromised relatives.

Understandable. Although vaccinations have proven only partially effective at preventing you getting covid so even if he was vaccinated you wouldn’t be in a much better position in that regard.

You might be right, but we’re erring on the side of caution. There are many things we can’t control so we’re focusing on the things we can.

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

#184
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-…

Have you considered that 99%+ of cases are mild or asymptomatic and that this reasoning amounts to confirmation bias? Especially with Omicron? Moreso in healthy people under 50 who are orders of magnitude less likely to suffer severe illness or complications.

The fact that you had mild symptoms, or any sort of symptoms for that matter, while vaccinated does not actually imply that you would have been substantially worse off without the vaccine, given the statistical likelihood of mild infection.

This isn't the damn plague and it's high time we stopped acting like it was.

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

#185
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-…

> Have you considered that you may have had more mild Omicron due to being vaccinated?

Yes, maybe. I think that there is no good data that supports that for people under 70 without co-morbidities.

> 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.

Recently I found out that in my country at the peak of the most deadly wave only 5% of patients in hospitals were admitted because of Covid.

It does not prevent transmission, it does not stop hospitals from being overfilled and it does not stop symptomatic disease. What is a good science-based reason for mandatory vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 for everyone?

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

#186

Earlier 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.

The vaccines application states it will prevent transmissions, not lesson the symptoms

Did you get this from an official source? I mean, no-one should have stated this because it is simply not true, nor has been for most common vaccins out there. At least in my country none of the official sources nor epidemiologists nor virologists ever said this. They'd only go as close as stating 'can prevent transmission in xx% of cases' or something like that.

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

#187
post #59
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.

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.

How deaths are counted really does matter. If we aren't accounting for the fact that many people are incidentally tested for Covid prior to their death of something else then that is going to be difficult to interpret in the middle of the Omicron wave.

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

#188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue a lot of people have already gone crazy and will do anything to avoid going back to normal and letting people live their lives. The obsession with the need for a "new normal" amongst some is really terrifying. There needs to be some targeted campaign to "deprogram" the people that have become obsessed with covid and make them move on. I'm serious about this, if we just pretend it will get better on it's own…

People have different situations. I'm severely immunocomprimised - while I get and understand that the world can't remain locked down indefinitely for a small segment of the population, I'm absolutely going to advocate for my own survival, and that doesn't make me "crazy" or that I need "deprogramming". It's not irrational to not want widespread transmission of a virus that has a 20% CFR for people like me.

CFR?

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

#189
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…

No post body was provided.

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

#190
post #166
post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pre…

I kind of resent being lumped in with a politically motivated, black-and-white, feign ignorance kind of crowd. I try to assess the data as it arises, and the data about Omicron is markedly different than previous variants. I don't think I said anything in my comment that deserves this attack.

If anything, attacking anything that hints of "maybe we should reassess given current data" as being the same as the antimask/antivax rhetoric of the last two years is itself exactly what you are criticising.

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