More Americans are saying they’re ‘vaxxed and done’ | Hacker News Reader

More Americans are saying they’re ‘vaxxed and done’

theatlantic.com

491 pointsnkurz1,725 comments

I'm vaxxed. I'm boosted. I'd very much like to be done. But my children cannot be vaccinated.

As a parent of a young kid it kind of feels like everyone has just moved on. I know folks in here will tell me that statistically speaking my children are unlikely to be hospitalized and so on, and I agree. But I know enough kids who got COVID and suffered the symptoms (e.g. a months-long scratchy cough) that I'm not going to stop worrying about it. We're still very unclear on the long-term effects of COVID, after all.

Couple that to daycare/preschool shutdowns: if there's a case in the class we've got to keep our kids at home for a week. We both work. We can deal with it, lord knows we've had to do it enough times already, but it's absolutely draining. And the stress of waiting/expecting the phone call from the school is always there, particularly in this Omicron phase where it feels like everyone and their dog is contracting it. And this comes from two parents that work from home. We're the luckiest of the lot!

Pfizer has already announced their trial with under 5s was not successful and they'll have to restart. Moderna was supposed to close out a trial in late November but instead expanded it to hundreds of new participants. Why? Unclear. Last I saw no-one seems to be covering it in detail. Out of sight, out of mind.

You've got your anecdotes, and I've got mine. My 3 young kids all caught omicron last week. Each were lethargic for a day, had a minor sore throat, and were back to normal in a day or two. The flu last month was way scarier with high fevers.

There's a lot of reason to be optimistic about omicron.

You'll drive yourself crazy focusing on every minor risk for children. COVID risk for unvaxed kids is the same as fully vaxed 40 years and much lower than fully vaxed seniors.

If you want to do some productive worrying, figure out how to reduce your child's risk of dying in a car crash. That's much more of a risk.

>Moderna was supposed to close out a trial in late November but instead expanded it to hundreds of new participants. Why? Unclear.

If I had to guess it is probably because you need a large group to prove its effective since so few children get seriously ill. Child mortality is under 0.0002%. You need a huge control group to get any sense of whether the vaccine works at preventing deaths.

RSV is more dangerous than COVID-19 for most small children. We don't shut down society because of RSV.

https://www.medscape.com/answers/971488-177692/what-is-the-p...

I am with you on all of this, with one small, slightly hopeful note. My under-5 is enrolled in the Pfizer study, and they are not starting over from scratch. The existing cohort is going to receive a third dose at >2 months past their last dose (starting at the end of this month, probably), and then immunogenicity will be reassessed. I am incredibly frustrated that pfizer and the fda have been so slow to roll the vaccine out to under-5s, but at least they don’t need to re-do recruitment and phase 1, etc.

My whole family had covid last February including my three young children including one under 1. The children had the mildest symptoms. If you are worried about your children getting covid then I hope you never let near a car as they are much more likely to die in a car crash than covid.

If you want to continue locking your self up fine, I don't care. Just don't try to force others to do the same.

Are you saying that until young kids can get vaccinated, it is not safe enough to remove shutdown protocols for preschools?

Parent of 2 very young kids here btw - it's been brutal, I feel your pain. Frankly, our kids get enough other diseases from nursery that a months-long scratchy cough doesn't sound too terrifying.

There's research coming out that shows the vaccines are causing heart inflammation (1) in younger people, so I'd show some caution in getting kids vaccinated.

I'm not sure how it compares to the effects of covid itself, just something to think about / read up on to make an informed decision.

1) https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-021-01630-0

A young child faces far more risk of dying in a car crash on the way to pre-school or Chuck-E-Cheese than they do of covid, but I'll wager you didn't give up driving your kid around. Your child could get struck by lightning, or get bitten by a rabid racoon, but (hopefully) you don't dwell on the risks and live your life paralyzed in fear by them (yes, these risks are the same order of magnitude of a child dying from COVID). The same goes for having your infant or young child injected with experimental vaccines, whose long-term effects are just as unknown and unknowable as COVID.

To each his own?

Like you’re free to worry about it, you’re free to be as safety minded as you want, you’re free to treat covid like the Black Death for all I care.

Am I free to just not worry about it anymore than I would the flu? (Which is very little, unless I’m going on a trip in like a week then I’m like I ain’t going out for anything)

I will pretend like covid is just a common cold until the fearful ask me to do some silly exercise like put my mask on at target so that their minds can be put at ease.

To be fair, the long term of effects of the vaccines are still very unclear. For adults and children. There are concerning reports regarding serious complications that tend to not get talked about very much in the media

I chose to vaccinate myself. I don’t have kids, but I’m not sure it would be a given that I would vaccinate them yet. I think I would want to have a better understanding of the risks. Sorry you’re in that position, I’m sure it’s stressful.

After listening to Dr. Robert Malone, I’m beginning to wonder if there aren’t a non-trivial number of physicians against vaccinating kids, who are getting censored. He is adamantly against it. Problem is we can’t even have conversations about it in social media without folks getting censored.

I also don't want anyone in my family to get COVID, vaccinated or not. But my wishes are irrelevant when our suburb's school district got 600+ cases 4 days. We will all get exposed in a few weeks unless we live like hermits. And if we do, we will get exposed within a few weeks of coming out of bubblewrap. New vaccines are not going to be approved in time to protect anyone.

So instead of agonizing about the inevitable, we just live our lives and focus on all the other ways we can improve our health and safety. We had months long scratchy cough from swine flu before, didn't stop traveling because of that, will not stop now.

I understand this sentiment but what is it that you actually want? Reality gets canceled forever because your kids might get a scratchy throat for a few months?

So we punish all of society to lower the probability of kids getting a disease which may make them uncomfortable for a while but may do basically nothing to them? Sorry but I'm willing to call that an acceptable risk.

Just fyi a cough persisting for a few weeks after an initial infection is nothing new at all (COVID or otherwise). I have suffered a few weeks of persistent cough after a viral/bacterial respiratory infection pre-pandemic and unfortunately am suffering right now with an annoying cough. But it will go away in a couple of weeks.

My kid's in day care. He's gotten a dozen diseases since starting. For all we know one was covid. With all this prevention none of these other diseases were stopped so why would anyone think covid could be stopped? It clearly can't.

"a months-long scratchy cough"

But isn't that normal at times for a cold season with kids?

There are lots of really nasty diseases children can get, where safe vaccinations exist. But most data so far told me with covid I have to worry much more about the social developement of my kids. That was really restricted and that is not good.

If they are not immune compromised you have nothing to worry about. IMO - you should be more worried about the physiological impacts of your changes in behavior around then in regard to your fear… it will have probably longer lasting effects on them.

As someone with a kid in daycare, stay close to the science. Young children are at low risk, the primary danger of them getting it is spreading it through the community. My daycare takes reasonable precautions and does contact tracing when a case appears, and follows CDC and professional medical guidelines, and until Omicron they kept Covid out completely. There’s been more cases at the center in the last two weeks than the entire year before that. All I can do is stay current on my vaccines and wear a mask where appropriate.

Anyway, keep doing your best. There are those of us who still have empathy for you, even if many want to bully you as some sort of coward for being cautious around a novel virus that’s killed 1 million Americans and disabled countless others.

> We're still very unclear on the long-term effects of COVID, after all.

And even less so the vaccines.

When your kids catch COVID they will have mild symptoms for a day or two and bounce back much faster than you or I. And yes it's a "when", not an "if". Vaccinating them against this virus is lunacy. There have been no long term studies on these shots.

I wasn't aware that the under 5 trial had failed, we are currently deciding if we will give it to our 6 year old. From a biologial/science perspective can someone here explain why might the vaccine work in a 5 year old and not in a 3/4 year old?

The daycare / preschool shutdowns, though, are simply because others haven't yet adopted the "vaxxed and done" attitude.

So I understand that you still need to be cautious, but you can also advocate for daycares and preschools being less hardcore about it.

I'm definitely moving toward being vaxxed and done, but the mom of my (vaxxed) 7 year old (i.e. my ex) is still in the cautious camp. I'm ok with waiting till the end of the surge or the end of the winter to dispense with the masks, but at that point.... yeah this thing needs to end. If you are dumb enough not to get yourself vaccinated and boosted, well, I'm sorry but that's on you.

>Moderna was supposed to close out a trial in late November but instead expanded it to hundreds of new participants. Why? Unclear.

Well if you look at all the European countries that are no longer giving Moderna to males under 30, I think you'll have your answer. Don't wait for CNN to tell you why either. Also, scroll through here https://airtable.com/shrbaT4x8LG8EbvVG/tbl7xKsSUIOPAa7Mx

I've got a 3 and 4 year old...

I'm vaxxed and done (until booster time)... 4 yr old is ASD spectrum, can't really keep him out of school he needs to learn socialization skills, etc... 3yr old is way advanced verbally and starts preschool as soon as we can get him in.

I've kinda given up on worry, because there's really no way it hasn't already come around us. Maybe during allergy season in the fall when we all were sick'ish. Or maybe some fluke it hasn't - but my county has 42% vax rate, so doubt it (Utah).

I just can't mentally focus on it anymore (anxiety kills too), and statistically we're better off than before the boosters.... so in my brain it's over...for us.

We probably should go back to masking up, and have thought about it. Really can't get myself motivated to even decide if it's worth it... I have ADHD and my exec/function motivation is suffering bad lately from the stress.

I think people are literally idiots who aren't vaxxed, and I wouldn't be so cavalier if we weren't...my biggest fears were not so much my kids getting sick but my kids growing up orphaned by Covid. They already lost a grandma (Cancer+lack of decent availability to treatment during covid). If my wife and I passed in our sleep, I can't imagine what would happen to the boys all by themselves until someone checks in on them...

I'm glad that fear is mostly off the table (I mean -- death is always lurking....but not like before).

I sympathize. Our kid is in the next window (5-12) and it has been a grand relief to get him vaccinated but when everyone was excited that they were vaccinated we felt very left behind. We continue to be responsible with our behavior but we also have been relaxing and carefully opening up. You are not forgotten and lots of us still care. Hang on and best of luck!

> Couple that to daycare/preschool shutdowns: if there's a case in the class we've got to keep our kids at home for a week. We both work. We can deal with it, lord knows we've had to do it enough times already, but it's absolutely draining.

At least now people start to realize that they work too much and that schools are not institutions of education any more but rather prisons for children so that their parents can be exploited by the capitalist elite class, having to work only to barely make rent.

Parents should be able to parent their children and the time effort required for that doesn't fly with both parents having to work 40 hours a week. When you have to get up at 0600 to get ready for the day, leave at 0800 for the job, come home at 1800, spend an hour making and eating dinner, you only have four to five hours with your children - and stuff like hobbies (both for parents and children), sex, dealing with adult stuff (insurances, paperwork) hasn't even been included yet.

“ We're still very unclear on the long-term effects of COVID, after all.”

Nor do we know the long term effects of the vaccines. What we do know is that children have “statistical immunity” to dying from covid right now. Long term consequences could come from either covid or a vaccine, worry about what you can control. And covid is out of control so stop worrying about it.

Are you also going to prohibit your kids from riding in a car because the chances of a traffic accident are non zero?

Asking because kids 1-4 are being hospitalized for COVID at the rate of 1.6/100,000, deaths are at 2/1,000,000 and traffic accident mortality is 11/100,000.

https://emilyoster.substack.com/p/covid-risks-for-small-chil...

https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/state...

> if there's a case in the class we've got to keep our kids at home for a week

The answer to that might be to just all agree not to do this any more. Vaccine or not, the policy of shutting down a whole class if anyone has a case of CoVID is just silly for preschool aged kids.

A more cynical view:

There is already a known safe and effective way to develop antibodies in children to stop transmitting CoVID, and that's ... letting them get CoVID!

So actually if a child in the class gets CoVID, maybe they should be required to sing to the whole class in a small room for a week.

Let's be clear. More people die of air pollution and climate change than of COVID, but the latter turns out to be a disease that requires immediate care which is why it gets more attention.

Before the attitude changes and governments broaden their view, I can understand why people feel "done" with it.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-03-10/air-po...

There seems to be very strong data to suggest Covid is a non-issue for children under 5.

I think if you are vaxed and boosted, and your older children are vaxed, and you don't live with an unvaxed vulnerable person, you can now safely continue your life activities ... mask if it doesn't inconvenience you.

I feel like COVID has become like a marshmallow test for adults, where those who can manage their emotions and make rational decisions can set themselves up for greater long-term rewards.

It looked for a while there like this could be a thing that gets “done”—that we would get a good vaccine into enough people, then incidence would decline so far it just goes away.

That didn’t happen. We’re stuck with it for a foreseeable future. Well, one can cry for the world that was, or one can get up and live in the world that is.

We’re not going to be done with vaccines and mandates. And that does not have to be a big deal. I have had to prove vaccination status of my kid for schools and camps for years. It’s annoying but not any harder than keeping my car registration up to date or any other minor bureaucratic headache.

I know someone who almost quit a great job because they were mad about a vaccine mandate from their employer. They were going to give up a good salary, great benefits, and a stable career because they were “so over COVID.” That is what failing the marshmallow test looks like.

> I know someone who almost quit a great job because they were mad about a vaccine mandate from their employer. [...] That is what failing the marshmallow test looks like.

Or perhaps it's a matter of personal principle. Personal conscience and conviction used to be held sacred in the US ... to the point that conscientious objectors wouldn't be forced to fight in wars (they could be assigned to work as medics in Army MASH units, for example, as my grandfather was in the Korean war). In modern US politics, it has become politically incorrect to have a personal principle or conviction that contradicts the approved viewpoint, or otherwise goes against the grain.

Because consideration for personal liberty has gone by the wayside, people are reacting by flatly refusing to be vaccinated. Many are convinced that the vaccine is actually harmful... and I'm convinced that viewpoint only gained traction because of the strong-arming going on in government.

It would have been much better to communicate clearly what we know, keep updating that communication regularly as new data comes in, fund efforts to develop and distribute vaccines, and let people choose without mandating anything. I'd bet the world would look very different today, and far more people would be vaccinated, if the US government had taken this route.

I think the marshmallow test is pretty flawed itself. But maybe the marshmallow test is actually a good analogy. I suspect many of the test "failures" were caused because the test subject (kid) didn't trust the authority figure (test administrator). When you can see a marshmallow with your own eyes, it's more believable. I think it's quite reasonable to factor in some probability that an untrusted stranger would "alter the deal". If you take the marshmallow now, no one can bait-and-switch you.

And it's starting to look like a pretty good description. There are plenty of people who were on-board with the "temporary" restrictions initially who are now doubting that these promised marshmallows are ever going to be delivered. I'm vaxxed. And I'm done. Good luck on getting your marshmallows.

> It looked for a while there like this could be a thing that gets “done”—that we would get a good vaccine into enough people, then incidence would decline so far it just goes away... That didn’t happen. We’re stuck with it for a foreseeable future. Well, one can cry for the world that was, or one can get up and live in the world that is.

Whats the magic number? There are places like New York that have 95% over 18 with at least 1 vaccine and 83.3% with completed vaccination status. But the problems still persist and the entire focus is on those last few percent of people moving the needle, when in the past we've been told "herd immunity" would be conservatively reached at ~70%.

https://coronavirus.health.ny.gov/vaccination-progress-date

It's interesting that you phrase it that way, because I was thinking exactly the same thing, but from the opposite direction.

I caught covid early, and while (for me) it was a nasty bug, I recovered with nothing more than a lingering cough for several weeks.

Against enormous pressure I decided not to get vaccinated. Everything I read supported that natural immunity is at least as protective as the vaccine, and most studies I've seen say it is much better. This makes sense to me, a natural immune response in a healthy person should be stronger than a vaccine, given that all a vaccine is supposed to do is "train" your immune system via an immune response to a "simulation" of the actual virus (apologies for the gross oversimplification).

I thought the marshmallow test was in the other direction - the millions of people who acquired natural immunity through infection, but "grabbed the marshmallow" in the form of the vaccine. What will the long term effects be? We don't know.

FWIW, my immunity does seem to have been pretty effective, since I just tested positive for Covid. My only symptoms were a light headache and backache. My wife, however was sick for around three days with fever and sore throat laying right next to me in bed, coughing. I took care of her, kissed her on the forehead, etc... I didn't get as much as a sniffle.

"Vaxxed and done" is the marshmallow!

The article's description of the "vaxxed and done" mindset is not very different from what you have described -- we accept that the disease will be endemic, and we treat Covid like we treat the flu, including keeping up with annual shots.

The marshmallow test has more to do with kids coming from a poor family, where it's the rational action to take what you can now as the opportunity disappears quickly, rather than with their willpower.

The marshmallow test has been largely debunked by recent follow up studies. It largely acts as a test of socioeconomic conditions at home if anything. The analogy to COVID probably holds but not in the way you’re suggesting.

https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2018/06/marshmall...

> I know someone who almost quit a great job because they were mad about a vaccine mandate from their employer.

That situation is impossible to assess without knowing the job description. I would also be hesitant to work at a place if the employer demands vaccinations because they are refusing remote work even when the job description does not require it. We have a pandemic and employers need to minimize unnecessary risks like open floor plans and crowded meetings rooms for employees that doesn't need physical proximity in order to do their job. On the other hand if the job description is being in a hospital or elder care facility, it would be irresponsible to let nonvaccinated employees treat clients. Everything between is a sliding scale that in a pandemic should lean towards safe rather than unsafe.

> ... set themselves up for greater long-term rewards

Such as?

> It looked for a while there like this could be a thing that gets “done”—that we would get a good vaccine into enough people, then incidence would decline so far it just goes away.

Coronaviruses in general are endemic to humans, and SARS-CoV-2 in particular appears to infect animals. Even if at some point no humans carried the disease, it'd still come back from some cross-species transmission. The only "done" state I ever expected is/was the same situation we have with influenza -- annual vaccine and seasonal waves of illness.

Your marshmallow test framing fails for me. Just as it is often important to signal community and solidarity, it is also often important to signal individuality and resistance to authority.

This pandemic has more in common is the Milgram and Asch experiment than the Marshmallow Test.

I'm not going to get vaccinated, and it is out of pride and the principle of it. I'm fortunate that I probably won't lose my job and if I did I would be fine financially. And I am in the age and health range where the absolute benefit of getting vaccinated is vanishingly small. So I don't pretend I'm some martyr or sacrificing for my principles. But it is my own small personal protest.

I have many reasons. Unrepentant corrupt, incompetent, and lying governments and pharmaceutical corporations are among them. But the biggest ones are my anger for coercion and threats of financial ruin people have suffered; the collectivization of health and personal responsibility; and finally I just don't like the way I'm spoken to about it and so I take great pleasure in the wailing and gnashing of teeth by the ruling class enraged by the commoners who refuse to bow down and submit to them.

> one can cry for the world that was, or one can get up and live in the world that is.

This is certainly beside the (your) point, but it's worth mentioning that mourning and grief (ie, to "cry for the world that was") is a crucial and possibly unskippable component to "live in the world that is."

They're certainly not mutually exclusive activities, and I'd love to see more STEM demographics recognize the former's necessity.

> We’re not going to be done with vaccines and mandates. And that does not have to be a big deal.

Sure it does. My body, my choice. I have no problem quarantining myself and have left my house less than 40 times in 2 years. I’m quite capable of managing my health and preventing others from getting what I don’t have so why take the risk with the vaccine? Do you believe that there are no long term effects?

I've gone through cycles with this. Mostly I am done arguing. I hate arguing about this. It's just more of the culture war shit that so many different media sources love pushing to keep people amped up.

I double vaxxed and boosted. Stopped wearing a mask for the most part, but with Omicron I started wearing a mask again because I just don't want this stupid virus. I'm healthy and would probably not have a symptomatic infection. But I still don't want this stupid virus, and I don't want to spread it.

I think for 2022 I am going to try to argue less, and focus more on my areas of personal expertise. I've done a lot of arguing and feel like I'm generally worse off for it.

I don't want to discourage you but it appears to me like with this variant (and probably even more with further variants), it will be impossible to avoid infection whatever you do (and I mean, mitigation strategies will have probably no effect). Look at the numbers we're suddenly getting without anything changing in the landscape (actually, despite a very high number of vaccinations). It looks like the virus has become so contagious that it has rendered our mitigation measures moot.

The virus isn't going away. No matter what you do with masks and other measures you'll eventually be exposed. The most you can do is delay it a bit.

https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/vinay-prasad/94646

I'm just happy to have a good excuse to wear a mask on an airplane. I always used to get sick after flights.

Thank you. Cannot agree more. Let's live out lives. Do what we love, grow in it and stop dividing.

Our office director is scared and has closed down again (were doing 3 days a week in person) due to Omicron. I don't personally think it was necessary and I liked working there in the quite (away from kids).

But, whatever. I am done with the fighting and with the political division over it.

Of course people are done with it.

Vaccinations were sold as the solution to the pandemic.

Yet worldwide infections are going up at the same speed if not faster than before vaccinations. But no policy maker acknowledges this. They refer to the lowered death rate, or blame a new variant.

But it means that policy that gave people more freedom because of their vaccination status are not having any significant effect on decreasing the spread of the disease, they might even make it worse by allowing infectious people to mingle.

Therefore it's very unreasonable and authoritarian to not allow travel, shopping and even fire people over their vaccination status, when an individual decision clearly has a minimal effect on the collective.

Yet politicians are not budging but doubling down on vaccination policy, if there was any trust left in the integrity and capability of our leaders...

There's some real irony that the people most likely to spread COVID -- those who are vaccinated and thus don't show symptoms -- are the ones "allowed" to engage in the most risky behaviour like large gatherings at restaurants, bars, theatres, sports arenas. Meanwhile those second-class citizens who are non-vaccinated won't take those risks and will also definitely know if they are sick, hilariously probably behaving the most safely/cautiously, as everyone should. Just as expected, infection rates just skyrocket due to new variants and people thinking "I'm protected" as they act as if there's no pandemic at all. Great.

Totally, but that trust has been long gone in the US.

1/2 the population stopped paying attention to Dr. Fauci after he lied about masks (understandably). Then we were told that that funerals were bad, but outdoor protests were ok. Then it was racist to even consider the virus came from a lab leak. Then Fauci claimed that technically, he didn't fund gain of function research (in the most scripted,PR speak possible). Then we were told that vaccines would allow us to go back to normal. The level of trust lost by major institutions in the US, both medical and media-based is astounding. Biden said he would end the virus, then he said that there is no federal policy to stop the virus. Trump was racist/xenophobic for closing boarders to China, but Biden closed boarders with South Africa and wasn't racist/xenophobic.

This isn't about politics, im double vaxxed and survived omicron. This is about a huge failure across the board, and I'm not sure how you turn it around. We need to change some of the political systems in the US. There needs to be term limits (in congress, supreme court, executive branch). The executive branch needs age limits, with a hard cut-off at like 65. The fact that the choice in 2020 was between septuagenarians is pathetic.

If you spent 1% of your time paying attention to anything called media, the gaslighting is obvious.

A lot of people at all levels are having a huge boost in the power (or influence) they can exert. It's hard to convince them to give it away, especially when they have still a sizable crowd cheering them on.

Vaccines were never expected to stop the pandemic. They were expected to stop people from dying from the pandemic. They are doing that. So far, vaccines have saved 1.1M Americans from dying from covid and saved 10.3M Americans from needing hospital treatment for covid [0].

Preventable Covid-19 cases can lead to higher health and life insurance rates. Firing employees who refuse the vaccine is smart business.

Vaccine mandates save the government a lot of money in several ways:

- US government pays $770B a year for medical care for older people and poor children [1]. Covid cases increase those costs. Fortunately, vaccines prevent most cases and reduce severity of all cases.

- US government has 23M veterans and pays $40B a year for their medical care [2]. Covid cases increase those costs. Fortunately, vaccines prevent most of the cases.

- When a person goes to the hospital and cannot pay, the hospital takes a loss and reduces the tax they pay. Hospitals write off about $40B in uncompensated care every year [3]. Uncompensated covid care makes those numbers bigger and taxes lower. Fortunately, vaccines prevent most serious covid cases.

- Workers can't work when they have covid or their dependents have covid. Covid sickness reduces economic output. Because taxes only apply to profits and most businesses have low margins, small reductions in revenue cause large reductions in taxes. Fortunately, vaccines reduce severity of all cases, so people recover more quickly and workers can get back to work faster.

[0] https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/there-is-good...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicare_(United_States)

[2] https://www.va.gov/vetdata/docs/QuickFacts/Expenditures_quic...

[3] https://www.aha.org/fact-sheets/2020-01-06-fact-sheet-uncomp...

At the same time though, opening up completely comes at hospitals being overwhelmed, supply chains breaking apart (already happened in my country).

It is a bit of a paradox. There is no right action it seems, locking up doesn't make sense but neither does opening up.

I'm fully vax'd and boosted. I'll probably continue to get boosted in the future. All that said? I feel like the government did a really bad job communicating who needs the booster and when.

First, they gave vague recommendations to immunocompromised folks. They said everyone else probably didn't need it. Then they said well, ok for older folks. Then this new omni variant comes out and they're badgering everyone to get boosted NOW or your no longer considered fully vaccinated.

There would have been so much less confusion if they were consistent with their communication from the start, and did a phased rollout of the booster just like they did with the original vaccine.

Edit: My point is that they knew there was reduced efficacy of the vaccine back in September. They knew the general public would eventually need a vaccine. They should have had a plan to gradually get the population boosted. If they had, most who wanted a booster would have had one before omni existed.

> There would have been so much less confusion if they were consistent with their communication from the start

I think it's worth considering a different framing:

> "There would have been so much less confusion if COVID variants and transmission/hospitalization/death rates remained consistent from the start"

It's easy to call out the communication, and don't get me wrong, it surely could have been better. But I often see this sentiment without acknowledging that the communication problems are a symptom, and driven by a very unpredictable situation, and very appropriate changes in policy based on that evolving situation.

This is effectively a disconnect between science and public policy. Science teaches us to keep our minds open to new data, so we can make new conclusions as we go. People just seem to get pissed when public policy changes in light of new data, lending to the narrative that scientists don't know what they're talking about.

I'll wait until the booster actually becomes specific to the current strain. Ideally I'd also like the vaccine to not make me sick for 2 days, since most other common vaccines don't (e.g. influenza). But maybe that's just not possible.

Not having increased risk of heart inflammation and rare dangerous thromboses would be nice too, but then again it seems like Covid causes those anyway. So maybe we just need to update our base rates for those conditions and move on from the way things used to be.

Plus, if I can still spread Covid and make grandma critically ill even after I have the booster, whereas I'm at super low risk for serious illness, is the booster even doing anything to reduce hospital utilization?

I had what I think was omicron, and it seems like I don't really need a booster on top of it... or do I?

The point is that I have no idea what the right thing to do is.

I feel like there's no public health response in the USA anymore. The President is just telling people to f*cking "Google it", everyone seems to be either a paranoid wacko anti-vax Covid denier Bill-Gates-is-coming-for-your-body-fluids-and-children cultist or a "trust the science" cultist, and the big pharma companies (Pfizer, Moderna) seem to be just raking it in hand over fist with all these vaccine doses.

Seems like everyone has to brush up on their statistics and start reading the research, because the news and government agencies just aren't worth a damn anymore when it comes to communicating. It seems that the Trump legacy of "abject societal dysfunction" is here to stay.

</rant>

Consistent messaging from the start in a situation where information and knowledge is very limited in the start = not learning.

The problem here is that we have a lot of internalization of changing your mind is bad in the political arena. "Flip flopping," etc. Inquiry is discouraged.

The article is actually much more interesting because it's about how views are changing differently for different groups even inside the same partisan grouping. It shows that conversation and messaging is an ongoing thing.

So what you're saying is the government should have predicted the future perfectly, and given Post-Omicron guidelines months before it emerged?

the bigger problem is that their initial selling point for the vaccine was "get your 2 shots and everything goes back to normal". Many people grudgingly got it despite some hesitancy and now have even less trust of the government now that the goal posts are shifting yet again

> There would have been so much less confusion if they were consistent with their communication from the start.

While that's true, I don't think it's reasonable unless, like a sibling suggested, the disease would be consistent from the start.

What would be nice is if they contemplated and acknowledged that the recommendations would be changing. Rather than saying 'others don't need a booster', they should be saying 'at this time, based on current understanding, etc, others don't need a booster'. In some situations, they can probably suggest what conditions might cause a change in recommendations.

> Then this new omni variant comes out and they're badgering everyone to get boosted NOW or your no longer considered fully vaccinated.

Currently the CDC still considers someone fully vaccinated after the two dose series. As far as I can tell there aren't any booster requirements at the national level.

> There would have been so much less confusion if they were consistent with their communication from the start, and did a phased rollout of the booster just like they did with the original vaccine.

The problem is: science is continuous discovery of and adaptation to new facts. In a society where significant amounts of the population have such a low respect for science that they seriously believe that Earth was created by God 6000 years ago, it is obvious that these people literally cannot grasp or cope with the fact that new discoveries come in timespans of single-digit weeks... Omicron was discovered at the end of November, barely a month later cases worldwide reached Delta records and now they went through the roofs.

I agree that there have been communication fuck-ups by politicians and the media, but basic science education in schools (and scientist staff in mass media) would have lessened the impact dramatically.

> There would have been so much less confusion if they were consistent with their communication from the start, and did a phased rollout of the booster just like they did with the original vaccine.

Biden called for a booster dose for everyone in September. The CDC and the FDA didn't agree.

I think the CDC did as good as you could when you design by committee. I didn't have any trouble following their recommendations or logic. It was an ongoing problem with incomplete knowledge on their part. It's certainly better than what Fox News was spewing. Science is ugly, but it is self-correcting, Fox and antivax people are not. At least that's how I see it.

I still don't understand how people don't get that recommendations change. It's like two years in, how are people not getting how this works?

Between the 2nd dose putting me in the ER with myocarditis which no one warned me about the risk of, and a $3500 medical bill due, being told I could be maskless and free if I got the "vaccine"[1], getting covid anyways and it being nbd, and then learning that the CDC redefined the meaning of "vaccine" for this treatment[2] (imo "immunotherapy" would be a more understandable word) -- yeah I'm done.

I'm not risking another ER visit, not paying $3500 more for "societal good", and I've lost trust/faith in the establishment to not play bait and switch.

[1] - California had a brief period where if you got vaccinated you could be maskless in gyms and restaurants, this was rescinded in August 2021

[2] - https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article25411126... The redefinition undermines what most would colloquially understand as a vaccine -- much like a "cure" something that to a major extent stops one from getting the disease, which the vaccine does not. Yes it's 80% effective at eliminating _hospitalization_ but vaccinated people still get Covid, still go through fever & long covid symptoms (loss of taste/smell anyone?), and still must quarantine else infect others.

Same here. Still have heart inflammation 4 months after my second dose of Pfizer. I remember when the statistics were “1/1000000”, and now its 1/10000 for boys 12-17 [1].

In my opinion its insanity to give this to children, especially now that omicron is here.

[1] - Table 2, https://www.tga.gov.au/periodic/covid-19-vaccine-weekly-safe...

"The redefinition undermines what most would colloquially understand as a vaccine"

It's very common for people outside of a profession to misunderstand terms from within that profession. That generally doesn't mean we get to redefine it on the fly. The Covid vaccines are vaccines because it is the correct and appropriate terminology to use within the fields that develop and administer vaccines. In terms of not being a "cure" and needing boosters, that is true to varying degrees for most vaccines. Flu vaccines - which for years have uncontroversially been called vaccines - are often less effective than the Covid vaccines.

> myocarditis which no one warned me about the risk of

I agree, it's now known as a "rare" side effect, but I wasn't aware either until after I got the vaccine.

How did you know something was wrong? I think a lot of people (including myself) feel heart pain after the vaccine but aren't sure if it's worth going to a doctor about it.

The CDC's explanation "interpreted to mean that vaccines were 100% effective, which has never been the case for any vaccine, so the current definition is more transparent, and also describes the ways in which vaccines can be administered" is totally on point and correct. People didn't really think about vaccines before and it wasn't a political thing where people are looking for gotchas like "They changed the definition of vaccine!" Before this age, you could just simply say "Yeah, vaccines give you immunity" and didn't need to be hyperacurrate but now everything is scrutinized, even when they provide a better definition apparently.

> the CDC redefined the meaning of "vaccine" for this treatment[2] (imo "immunotherapy" would be a more understandable word) -- yeah I'm done.

What is it with antivaxxers and their complaints about the definition of vaccination? They complained that the definition was changed to include a new way of conferring immunity. They complained that the definition was posted to be more accurate.

Vaccines have never been 100% effective for any disease I’m aware of. It’s entirely reasonable that the CDC would change the definition to be clearer.

Edit: “Immunotherapy” is also definitely not a more understandable word. Half of immunotherapy is dedicated to making the immune system do less.

> then learning that the CDC redefined the meaning of "vaccine" for this treatment[2] (imo "immunotherapy" would be a more understandable word)

This has literally always been the definition of "vaccine". Flu vaccines work like this. Polio vaccines work like this. Smallpox vaccines work like this. I don't think you can blame the CDC if you didn't know how vaccines work.

The point of vaccines has always been to drastically reduce the chances that you get sick at all, and if you do, the chances that you will get hospitalized or die. Given that the chance of getting myocarditis from these vaccines is far less than the chances of you getting hospitalized/dying due to COVID, it's the smarter option.

85% of COVID-19 hospitalizations were among those not fully vaccinated.[0]

90% of people who are dying from covid are unvaccinated.[1]

10 in 100,000 people in your likely age range experience myocarditis.[2]

However, yeah, if you have had a bad reaction before, you are likely to have another bad reaction. I'm sorry you went through that.

> Yes it's 80% effective at eliminating _hospitalization_ but vaccinated people still get Covid, still go through fever & long covid symptoms (loss of taste/smell anyone?), and still must quarantine else infect others.

I would argue 80% effective at eliminating hospitalization is not a trivial number. That is extremely effective. I will take those odds vs the chance of having an extremely rare myocarditis episode.

0: https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/brief/characteristics-of...

1: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/01/covid-omic...

2: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2110737

Does anyone have any experience of dealing with this in the UK? I’ve waited 7 months to get a date for an echocardiogram appointment for further investigation, previously the doctors just put it down as anxiety. When I thought I was having a heart attack I was told the ambulance would be 3 hours.

Anyone got a conversion of $3500 to Euro?

I'm double vaxxed and boosted and just spent 4 days in the hospital with Covid.

I actually entered the hospital without Covid and got it while I was in there. They had the entire place divided into separate wings and I had to be transferred between them. 103 degree fever, pulse 130, was pretty awful but came out of it fine.

I, too, am done with all of it. Let the chips fall where they may now.

wow, you just had a really awful covid experience despite having all preventive measures in place, and now that you're "done" it's time to take off the masks for everyone?

thanks for "letting the chips fall where they may" on everyone else who still would much prefer not to get sick and risk long covid but I will keep the mask on for now, thanks

Let the chips fall where they may == “I survived with no consequences so I don’t care what happens to anyone else”

Was the hospital stay a precaution or was it medically necessary?

Whoa, that sounds awful, glad you made it through.

From your username I'm guessing you're in your fifties, that's my age and I have fond memories of EMM386.

At that age the calculation starts getting a little different. I'm also vaxxed-and-done but still a little bit cautious.

It could have been a lot worse with no vaccine?

The vaccine may have kept you out of ICU. It doesn't seem logical to change to a "let the chips fall where they may" based on this experience.

I don't quite understand -- you went to the hospital for what original reason then, if it wasn't Covid?

I don't want to talk about vaccines anymore. Whatever study people have to cherry pick or whatever beliefs you may hold, whatever your stance is, most people have made the decision on whether or not to be vaccinated.

What I wish we focused on instead, is the medical system as a whole. We've been hearing stories everyday about how hospitals are on the brink of collapse. Why, in 2 years of this pandemic, have we not devoted the resources to expanding bed capacity and staffing hospitals? Why is testing still so unsustainable? From day 1 of the pandemic, from social distancing, to masking, to now getting vaccinated, the messaging has been do all of these things to avoid overwhelming the hospitals so it seems weird to me that 2 years later the messaging is exactly the same.

My wife is trying to become a nurse. Thanks to COVID screwing up her school schedule she's at least a year behind.

She's currently working as a residential assistant at rather nice elderly care facility where they are short staffed. She makes about what she would make at a fast food restaurant despite working in a semi-skilled position(requires CNA credentials) and working with COVID positive residents. They are just now discussing possible pay raises.

The pandemic experience is likely to push people out of health care and result in even less people choosing it as a career unless compensation and the workload changes. This comes just as the baby boomers are reaching an age when they'll start to need serious care.

If the virus is endemic, what even is the point of all this testing? What does is accomplish besides telling you “yup, this test says you have a virus”? I never got tested for respiratory viruses before when I got sick. Why this one?

We cannot move on until we eliminate all this mass testing. Yes test for confirmation before administering something specific to Covid but testing somebody whose only medical issue is something that can be bought over the counter… what is the point?

All this testing is just causing chaos in peoples lives.

I think it is great that omicron can propagate like this. The severity seems to be quite low. That means that everybody will be immune and we can move on. We should remove as well those mask and vaccine coercion, but I don't think that will happen.

I personally look at the raw data of death. I believe that most data you would get around COVID have bias, and only overall data speak the truth.

Look at what happened in Europe: https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps (This does not include hospitalizations) First of, you realize that the pandemic is not at all what we have been told. We can observe an increase in death in the winters, but somewhere like peaks with 10% more deaths than the years beforehand.

You realize that for the 0-44 age group, there has been NO PANDEMIC. So from the beginning, we should just let this age group live normally. (no mask, no restrictions, no mandatory vaccine, no pass, no isolation)

Then comes the other age groups > 44, that did have excess death especially during winters. We should focus on the care to them and allow them to have a better access to their doctor, even when positive. Equip all of them with early treatment pack (antiviral and antibiotics for the first phase, anticoagulant and anti-inflammatory for the second). Provide them access to vaccines, only if they want to take them as it is an experimental treatment.

The main reason why the hospitals got over populated is because we told people to isolate and not see their doctors. They wait to be really sick and have no choice than going to the hospital.

Then come the health structure. We should just double the wages of all the nurses, auxiliary, GP, emergency doctors. Allow quick formations for unemployed and military to become auxiliary.

And if you think we cannot pay for that, think about the cost of a single day of nation wide lockdown.

We aren't short on 'resources', we are short on doctors and nurses.

It doesn't matter how much money you throw at things, the number of doctors isn't going to change drastically. You can pay them 10x and the number won't change. We only have so many medical schools, and so many people willing to throw themselves on the sword to get through them.

Nurses are a little more flexible in that more money might mean more nurses, but only up to a point.

In either case, throwing a ton more people into a long term career to deal with a short term problem (I don't see hospitals needing the same capacity in 3 years that they do for the next wave) will cause other problems down the road.

> Why, in 2 years of this pandemic, have we not devoted the resources to expanding bed capacity and staffing hospitals?

When have we ( assuming you are US, forgive me ) ever devoted resources to anything other than the military industrial complex and tax-cuts for the rich?

We don't HAVE resources. We have already scraped out every piece of public spending and public works program out of our budgets.

You expect us to be able to just scale back up after systematically disassembling our university[0] and medical systems over the past 30 years?

OK, we increase capacity. We save a few people, so what? We are running a BUSINESS HERE. We can't have any extra capacity, that would cut into profits! Plus we are still low after paying $600 per insulin shot last month.

Besides, haven't you heard? Everyone made a killing off the pandemic! It was great for business! BCBS posted 2 billion in profit last year! Don't worry your little head: Our healthcare and technology CEOs didn't have to sell their private jets or wait on buying that new yacht they have been eyeing.

This is what neoliberalism looks like. Every drop of blood drained out of public spending, so we can reroute it to whoever gives our senators the largest bribe.

0: Which creates professionals upon which US healthcare depends

Thank you. I've also been trying to get this across to other people as well. And here's the worst part. If and when another high-spread virus emerges in the future, there will not be a vaccine available at the beginning, which is also when hospital overwhelming is most critical. So we will be in the exact same situation. I can't believe no one is talking about improving the hospital infrastructure to handle the inevitable next virus. Are there things happening in this regard and I am just out of the loop?

And $10 trillion dollars.

I know everyone is tired of this shit but I just want to remind everyone of one thing:

This is the FIRST time humanity has come together and actually come up with a way to beat a virus WHILE a global pandemic is still ongoing. At no other time in history have we even had the option of a solid way to protect ourselves like we do now. I think instead of focusing on how awful the past few years have been this is an important thing to remember - it is truly a turning point in human history and I think we are going to look back at the centuries beforehand and appreciate how far we have come.

There is also the possibility that we will look back on history and realize how hysteria and media fearmongering drove human society to take wholly unnecessary measures and paved a path towards more authoritarianism, more surveillance, a financial crisis due to the government printing trillions of dollars which a lot of it is going into the stock market and driving up companies to insane valuations, creating a generation of software addicts due to the pandemic forcing teenagers to stay home and cope using their computers as opposed to going out and interacting with their peers in person, and a myriad of other problems that we do not yet see in the short-term.

What way to beat the virus? Clearly not vaccines as they aren't that great... Clearly not lockdowns as as soon as we give that up the virus hits... We aren't beating it in anyway... Maybe it is time to accept the reality.

people don’t seem to realize just how good we handled the pandemic. Of course, we handled the pandemic awful compared to what we could have done. But in hindsight there’s always a better way.

In early 2020 we significantly altered society, cancelling major events, moving things virtual, and creating new apps and services to handle the pandemic. Then over the course of late 2020/2021 we created more apps and services and developed new technologies to treat Covid-19.

In just 1 year, we created and started widely distributing a vaccine which, while it doesn’t completely prevent the virus, makes it very mild for the vast majority of people. So far, at the second-year mark, over 2 billion people have been vaccinated. Along with monoclonal antibodies and other technology, we’ve significantly lowered the death rate, hospitalization rate, and likely the risk of long covid.

Imagine what an outbreak like this would do in an earlier time. You don’t really have to imagine because it’s happened before - the Spanish Flu outbreak and the Bubonic plague. Look at the population (not raw count because our population is much larger) of casualties those diseases caused. We failed to prevent covid-19 infecting everyone, but with vaccines and modern medical care we have made the infections significantly less harmful.

Society r who had even a whiff of objection to the narrative. The number of ordinarily sane people who’ve yelled at me because I questioned something...

No way dude. History is not going to look fondly at the last two years at all. We should be ashamed at our arrogance and hubris—the idea that we could somehow contain or control an airborne respiratory virus. The sheer damage we caused to our children.

Disagree. People holding to the lab leak theory were seen as racist/Xenophobic until the new leadership (president of U.S. arrived) and all the sudden its not a racist theory.

Lest we forget, China's reaction to Australia’s call for an international probe into the origins of the corona-virus pandemic was by no means working together for the global good.

I wish I could agree with the thought but that's not what I remember happening.

As for history: Communication in the 21st century has made it so that there is constant talk between countries but this cannot be confused with collaboration.

The Spanish flu of 1918 was clearly different then this due to it being in the late stages of WWI.

I'm not convince we did beat it.

For decades people would ask, "why is there no vaccine for the cold or flu like smallpox, measles, mumps, rubella, and chicken pox?" and the answer was that they were fast evolving corona viruses and you cannot vaccinate for those.

Then suddenly we have one this time. But it's efficacy drops - according to Pfizer's own trial - to ~47% after six months. And people "double vaxxed and boosted" still get it. And still die from it.

So...we still don't have vaccines for those it seems to me. It doesn't matter how many people call them that, they don't provide immunity like vaccines do.

Big pharma did get super rich off of them. And you can't sue them if they kill your spouse. So there's that at least I guess.

I agree being able to deploy a vaccine in record time is very impressive.

I think an interesting thought experiment would be: take the modern COVID strain and go back to the 1900~'s UK/America? (That's where most the site is from as far as I know)

Just the massive lack of co-morbidities (Diabetes, heart disease, obesity, cancer) and demographic differences (Average age was far lower, population density) could make it an almost a non issue.

Vaxxed and I caught Cov19 a couple weeks ago (likely omicron). Same with the wife. I've had allergies that were worse. It was a 3 day event with a very mild fever and a bit of a cough the last day. It was extremely mild, and if I hadn't decided to take a couple days off to catch up on my reading after getting tested, I would have probably just eaten a couple advil and continued on as though nothing happened. So now I'm considering skipping any future boosters unless they specifically target a new more dangerous strain.

That said, I'm also still wearing a mask, although i'm having a hard time with the whole concept now too since i should be able to keep my immunity going simply by keeping myself exposed. I was a pretty strong advocate of mask wearing even when the CDC initially told people they could take it off, instead deciding to wait until more people were vaccinated (which never happened in TX). But now, I suspect I might be doing myself a disservice by not exposing myself to all the variants and things floating around.

The main reason to wear a mask is to prevent yourself from infecting others if/when you get infected again. One usually becomes infectious before the symptoms become obvious, i.e. before becoming aware of the new infection. Wearing a mask is mainly for the benefit of others, not for your own. And it’s a game of numbers. The larger the proportion of the population who wears a mask, the more the spread of the virus is contained. It is a bit like democracy: One's own vote doesn’t make a significant difference, but the collective votes do.

> But now, I suspect I might be doing myself a disservice by not exposing myself to all the variants and things floating around.

Honest question: do you know of any source that indicates natural exposure to C19 and variants provides stronger (or equally strong) protection than vaccinations/boosters? Thanks!

I think a lot of this depends on the typical severity of Omicron (and future variants).

I'm vaccinated and boosted. I wear a mask in public. I don't go out much. I do travel fairly regularly (fly maybe 1-2x per month). I finally got Covid last week, likely on a flight. I had ~3 days of mild cold-like symptoms (sore throat, runny nose, congestion, very low grade fever that approached 101F). It was far less severe than any flu I've ever had. I extended my trip by a week to meet how I read the CDC guidelines (which are clear as mud for mildy symptomatic cases).

If the severity for everyone was that mild, then I'd say we're done. However, I worry about the unvaccinated and the unboosted. I wish there was better data on the severity of Omicron for different categories of people.

This is anecdotal, but I'm the only one in my family who is vaccinated (which took me catching swine flu years ago to convince me), but my elderly mom and younger brother and sister had omicron and all had the same symptoms while be unvaccinated.

I was in the house but didn't catch omicron due to the vaccine (I guess?).

If Omicron is as mild as it initially appeared, we're back to normal by summer 2022. My wild assed guess is that if death rates don't spike by February it will be increasingly difficult for the government and health officials to justify a continuation of current recommendations.

I am triple vaxxed and will happily wear a mask for the rest of my life, but we are in the midst of a slow moving train of economic turmoil brought about by COVID and the resulting decisions(which I'm not arguing with. some were stupid but hindsight is 20/20). We will soon need to get the world back to as normal of a state as we can because we will need the economic benefits. We will need to get our kids back in school and socializing. I know many people are scarred and will not want to emerge from their caves but without compelling justification(such as a new variant which is actually dangerous) we will return to normal soon.

I personally worry about the availability of medical services due to attrition among medical staff and ICU load due to the unvaccinated. I also have taken precautions, but I can’t guarantee that I won’t get into a car crash or suffer a random medical incident requiring urgent care.

Exactly - Delta had a reputation for being both prolific and extremely virulent. Long COVID, loss of smell & taste, heart and lung problems, etc. A terrible illness.

Omicron seems to carry far fewer of those risks from what data we have, especially if you are vaccinated.

Great article! Just a week or two ago on this forum there were people willing to treat me like a far right conservative or a general anti-vaxxer from the facebook troll factory, just because I didn't like a private institution’s booster mandate.

That was fascinating.

Welcome to the internet. Some of it stems from exhaustion. People sense any sort of deviation from the official dogma and they assume you're another idiot who they'll end up arguing with. It's sad. There is a lot of nuance to many of our cherished positions and discussion strengthens the truth but many people just get offended by genuine curiosity.

I'm not sure vaccine or booster mandates make sense anymore because they're not effective enough against stopping the spread of omicron. Charging more for insurance for the unvaccinated still makes sense, though.

The hivemind has the memory of a goldfish.

We still don't know if the omicron variant leads to "long COVID".[1] We'll know some time in February. That has a big effect on what to do next.

Omicron-specific vaccines are in test. Moderna's should be out in Fall 2022. Pfizer claims March 2022.[2]

The next generation in vaccine technology is the US Army / Walter Reed Medical Center broad-spectrum vaccine. This should protect against all COVID and SARS variants.[3] That's in Phase I safety testing, with about 75 volunteers. If that works, the problem is solved.

[1] https://www.infectioncontroltoday.com/view/-omicron-the-pand...

[2] https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-deta...

[3] https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2021/12/us-army-create...

> The next generation in vaccine technology is the US Army / Walter Reed Medical Center broad-spectrum vaccine. This should protect against all COVID and SARS variants.[3] That's in Phase I safety testing, with about 75 volunteers. If that works, the problem is solved.

Sure, until the next variant.

The problem of the spread was mostly solved by vaccines before Omicron, at least for people who got the vaccines. Then Omicron came along and it can break through the vaccines much easier than Delta or other variants.

If we develop a vaccine for Omicron, some other variant is likely to come along and break through that vaccine too. Omicron was far more mutated than Delta. Are we just supposed to hope that doesn't happen again? Is is possible for a vaccine to protect against all possible future variants?

We can't keep a state of emergency in place and wait for one new vaccine, after another, endlessly. When does it end?

Let's say we do have a magic bullet vaccine that protects against all present variants, and all possible future variants: wouldn't a significant number of people refuse to take it, as they have refused to take the vaccines we have now?

Nice to seeing that "hang tight for 3 weeks, we'll know more then" is still effective after 2 years.

Last I read, Moderna was also claiming as early as March 2022 (but possibly Q2) for their Omicron-specific booster[1]. Has there been other announcements pushing that back to the fall?

[1]https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/...

Harboring concern over long term risks of covid because o f lack of data, but unconcerned about long term risks from vaccines for covid because of lack of data? You MAY be brainwashed.

This is absolutely me.

1. My personal risk, as someone who is vaccinated, 38, and in decent shape (https://imgur.com/a/gdbBKGK), is quite low. (OK, I could lose some holiday weight, fine.)

2. My immediate friend circle is vaccinated…and the vast majority already danced with Omicron already, and came out just fine.

3. I live by myself.

So…I am over it. This variant seems to be unbelievably, uncontrollably contagious, and the spread cannot be mitigated without extreme measures. And the people who are at by far, BY FAR the most at-risk are the elderly unvaccinated, who have had ample opportunity to get vaccinated. They will probably be exposed to this virus no matter what I personally do, and probably no matter what anyone does, so why should I substantially alter my life for them, when it will almost certainly change nothing?

—

And to rant just a bit more: “oh it’s just a mask”. Well, I’m sorry, I have this weird thing where I like to see people’s faces, and see their expressions so that I can get a better idea of their emotional responses. I know. So inhuman of me. (I do wonder if the people who think masks are no big deals have anything resembling social circles…)

You would think in 38 years a person could learn some body language. Between that and seeing someone's eyes, I have little to no problem reading people's reactions with a mask on.

If you are having trouble it may be a personal problem.

I think the message of "vaxxed and done" is the right way for us to be moving, but I think it's incomplete.

To get vaxxed insulates you from the risk of severe disease. It reduces the risk to the point that going out and living life is an acceptable risk, just like any other. However, it doesn't protect you from infecting others. To that end, I think that indoor mask mandates continue to be justifiable and should continue until we either evolve a COVID-19 variant weak enough that moderate disease isn't disruptive, or it fades away.

In order for us to continue to have freedom, it requires collective sacrifice. We have seen a large swath of the US population unwilling to make relatively simple sacrifices to ensure that we have freedom of mobility. This is disappointing to see.

Personally I'm completely sick of mask mandates. First off the effectiveness of masks is even questionable except for k95 masks, which are hideously uncomfortable and look ridiculous.

In any case, I firmly believe that people should have the freedom to decide for themselves whether they want to wear them. I was in Copenhagen a few months ago where no one was wearing masks anywhere including indoors, and it was so refreshing seeing life as usual again, smiles on peoples' faces, etc.

Call me crazy, but I thoroughly enjoy the unrestricted flow of oxygen into my mouth during inhalation and the unrestricted flow of carbon dioxide out of my mouth during exhalation.

I would agree with this but add continuous testing to the mix, and actually quarantining if you have a positive test but no symptoms. It seems like the most reasonable comprimise between the individual desire to return to normal.

Unfortunately this is a large individual responsibility, both in behavior and in the costs of getting enough tests. PCR tests are mostly impractical for continuous testing while going out and about becuase of the large time lag between testing and results, made worse by spiking demand and limited lab capacity, and buying rapid tests can add up as a real cost to the average family.

But anybody who I spread it to and is vaxxed also has minimal, acceptable risk. If they aren't vaxed, that's on them.

I disagree with this language of "collective" sacrifice. A group can't sacrifice or suffer. Only individuals can sacrifice and suffer. Lockdowns are a sacrifice paid strictly by individuals.

I'm vaxxed and mostly done. Already contracted Covid, have 2 vaccines, I'm down to get a booster every year or two, at my own leisure. Having vaccines mandated every 6 months is not something I'm OK with and to be honest, it feels a lot like the government trying to deflect from the fact healthcare isn't OK (at least in my home country, Canada).

There's always been risks to life and this feels more like governments are trying to convince people the risk should be zero so they can be the heroes while at the same time expanding their powers...

Tangentially, I recently moved to Canada and was surprised by the lack of quality healthcare..

Literally could not believe some walk ins have paper files and use fax, plus finding a GP apparently is a months long quest.

Visiting a specialist took ages, and I wouldn’t say it was the best / most modern infrastructure there either.

(And I went in downtown Toronto, must be so much worse for more remote places I guess).

In the end we kind of shunned the public system and decided to go private healthcare instead. But (luckily) have not really had to take advantage of it)

/rant

Early on in the pandemic, I used to be in the camp that wanted mask mandates and vaccination passports. I see how dangerous and ineffective this is now. Governments are not good stewards.

The virus will keep evolving to evade our vaccines. This is never going to end. We will never eradicate Covid, and we'll never reach vaccine-mediated herd immunity.

The administration forcing a purge of unvaccinated US soldiers, government workers, and employees of companies that do business with the government is obscene. Not only is this government overreach, it's a political witch hunt. It's disemboweling of dissent from the ranks, which is chiefly undemocratic and un-American.

I'm so angry at how this has been handled by both the Trump and the Biden administrations. Give people tools and understandable science (which Trump botched), but stop trying to become Big Brother (which is what Biden is doing). And above all, stop turning this into a political matter that toys with people's safety and employment.

At some point we should (not) start charting and obsessively reporting all the other endemic viruses. I’m curious how anxiety inducing they are compared to Covid

Why is there much difference between getting a booster every 6 months rather than every 12-24 months?

Compared to lockdowns or even just mask mandates, both booster schedules seem like a pretty minor inconvenience given the pandemic-halting benefits.

Are you me? Same here. Fully vax and picked up omicron. 2 days bed. Every single flu I've ever had was worse than this covid.

>Already contracted Covid, have 2 vaccines, I'm down to get a booster every year or two, at my own leisure.

I will go get the flu shot. I don't know, nor care, what strains they are going for in the flu shot. I do know they tend to target different strains every year. They can mix match as much as they like. If coronavirus is the one they want to target this time, fine whatever.

>I'm OK with and to be honest, it feels a lot like the government trying to deflect from the fact healthcare isn't OK (at least in my home country, Canada).

2 weeks to flatten the curve was only to prevent healthcare system from collapsing. But for whatever reason they switched to 'lets eradicate all illness by staying home and wearing masks.

>There's always been risks to life and this feels more like governments are trying to convince people the risk should be zero so they can be the heroes while at the same time expanding their powers...

Makes me wonder. why in history did we never try to end the flu season? there's clear starts and ends to the flu season. Mandate wearing mask in public stores seems like it eliminated flu and cold.

Though you touch on an interesting thought. Has covid really been all about government expanding their power? I dont think covid was created for this purpose, but I certainly suspect they all jumped on board to using it as an excuse to expand their power.

How deadly does a disease have to be for you to feel it’s not worth the risk? 1%, 10%, 50%?

As a side note, I want to thank dang for allowing these threads to stay up, even though they get a bit political and contentious at times.

This is the only place I have to talk about COVID issues with smart people that I respect.

Agreed... I may not agree with what everyone says but I like how [generally] civil the communication is, in stark contrast with, well, nearly anywhere else :)

hear hear,

HN is one of the rare places where the Culture War is still fought in a relatively chivalrous manner.

Maybe this is the place where the Future is born? The Culture War is a philosophical one, and only philosophy could stop it.

I'm not vaxxed - but want to be. I tested positive for COVID now a second time last week and taking a few days off to be safe. This time it felt a lot easier to go through so I assume it's Omicron. First time around in July 2020, I was in bed for a day and couldn't smell anything for about a month.

My partner on the other hand has no desire for us to get vaxxed because they know people personally who have died after getting the shots. We also know many who died from getting COVID. We're not anti-vax people generally, our kids are all got regular shots but with this, we decided to skip it for the time being. Knowing this, we intentionally wear masks when needed and try to operate safely and give distance.

I think the US government failed in communicating properly and now with the approach of "shunning the unvaxxed", it's only causing further divide and a lot of my conservative friends will now never get it as a way to spite the government orders.

They never would have gotten it anyway.

> they know people personally who have died after getting the shots

I don't think that's possible...

I am one of those, triple vaxxed and done. CDC has now said that the majority of those that died had 4+ co-morbidities. They have also indicated that getting vaccinated does not reduce your ability to spread the virus. So if that is the case, there is no longer a real need to vilify the unvaxxed. CDC statement appears to indicate that the primary reason for people dying is poor physical health prior to infection. With that said I do think vaccines likely reduce the severity of the infection but I don't buy all these people saying they would have died if not for the vaccine, how do they know? This has motivated me to start working out again and to try and lose weight. Going to make sure my kids are physically active now as well. Omicron is essentially impossible to avoid at this point short of locking yourself in a room and having everything delivered to your front door. The risks are known and its time to trust people to weigh those risks and make their own decisions.

I think the issue now is a political one. The democratic party has hung their hat on how bad covid is and how important it is to get vaccinated and to state at this point, NVM lets just get back to normal would be a loss of face. Instead of just saying that the virus has evolved and is less lethal now they have continued to double down on the vaccine mandate which I don't agree with. I am a democrat so I am not coming at this as a republican. I am not downplaying the severity of the virus but at this point it is here to stay. Even if we locked down for 3 months, once we were released someone from another country would come in and re-infect everyone again. Also during lock down do we once again tell the poorest among us that while they are 'essential' that they are also worth less and must continue to work and face the risk alone so as to ensure the rest of us can isolate in safety at home.

Edit: I said "does not reduce your ability to spread the virus" I meant to say "does not remove". My fault.

> CDC has now said that the majority of those that died had 4+ co-morbidities.

This is in reference to a specific study that followed 1.2M fully vaccinated individuals and found that 28 of the 36 deaths had at least 4 high-risk factors (https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7101a4.htm). They are not referring to the unvaccinated who still have a much higher risk of hospitalization and death.

> They have also indicated that getting vaccinated does not reduce your ability to spread the virus

That is not correct. Vaccination does reduce, but does not eliminate, transmission of the virus

“ We found that both the BNT162b2 and ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccines were associated with reduced onward transmission of SARS-CoV-2 from index patients who became infected despite vaccination.”

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2116597

Some of your points have validity, but three are borderline dangerous misinformation:

- The majority of those who died WITH THE VACCINE had 4+ co-morbidities. The virus is still very dangerous to the unvaccinated

- The vaccine does indeed reduce your propensity to spread the virus, although it doesn't eliminate the risk.

- The reason for lockdowns is not to make the virus "go away". It is to control the impact on the healthcare system. We have now surpassed the previous hospitalization record and this thing is still going exponential. You may be fully vaccinated and at low risk for a COVID related death, but if you'd like to be able to get acute treatment for appendicitis or a heart attack, we need to take steps toward a lockdown immediately.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-breaks-covid-19-hospital...

If we want to get rid of vaccine mandates I think the give and take has to go both ways. For instance: https://www.covid19treatmentguidelines.nih.gov/therapies/sta... : "Unvaccinated individuals at the highest risk of severe disease (anyone aged ≥75 years or anyone aged ≥65 years with additional risk factors)." in Tier 1 for priority usage of new, hard-to-get treatment.

Those who don't want to get vaccinated should take personal responsibility for that, not expect society to take as much care of them when they're choosing not to help take care of society (even in terms of "reducing burden on healthcare system by getting a likely-less-severe case", even if transmissibility isn't affected as much).

> there is no longer a real need to vilify the unvaxxed

I very, very much disagree with this.

Unvaccinated people have a much higher rate of severe illness that requires hospitalization. Filling up hospitals unnecessarily kills people, and delays preventative care.

People who are voluntarily unvaxxed without a medical necessity are, to be clear, 1) categorically stupid 2) responsible for the injury and death of others.

Vaccination makes you much less likely to get sick in the first place and probably reduces how long you are infectious if you do get sick. Neither of those things fit with 'does not reduce'.

> The democratic party has hung their hat on how bad covid is and how important it is to get vaccinated and to state at this point, NVM lets just get back to normal would be a loss of face.

During the recent recall attempt for Gov. Gavin Newsom, the ads supporting him essentially said, "The Republican candidate will remove the mask mandate and kill your grandma. Vote to keep Newsom, he'll keep grandma alive with mask mandates." so yeah I figure it's gonna be a while before California Democrats, at least, can support easing up on the masks.

I encourage everyone eligible to protect themselves by getting vaccinated but vilifying people who make unhealthy choices is never an effective public health measure. We should have learned that from the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

The only hard question is hospital triaging. Who gets treatment if there's only room for 50% or 20%? Who can even decide? Does anyone volunteer to be excluded from medical care? This affects more than just covid patients too.

Any way we choose, it amounts to sacrificing XYZk people so we can go back to living a normal life. I don't think that's an exchange most people are willing to take.

And yes, lockdown measures are usually in response to hospitals filling up. Check for example [0] against the timeline of lockdowns for that area. If you know any counter examples I'd like to hear about it.

[0]: https://www.alberta.ca/stats/covid-19-alberta-statistics.htm...

> Omicron is essentially impossible to avoid at this point short of locking yourself in a room and having everything delivered to your front door. The risks are known and its time to trust people to weigh those risks and make their own decisions.

As viruses can remain active on surfaces, unless you irradiate the deliveries with a UV lamp (and do it again after unboxing them, since there may be viruses on the actual item) even that would not be enough.

> Even if we locked down for 3 months, once we were released someone from another country would come in and re-infect everyone again.

That's if you assume away animals, as viruses that affect mammals are rarely limited to humans (ex: chicken flu)

> Also during lock down do we once again tell the poorest among us that while they are 'essential' that they are also worth less and must continue to work and face the risk alone so as to ensure the rest of us can isolate in safety at home

Agreed. It's time to accept we're not immortals, viruses exist, and yes it's a shame that covid is now endemic, but it's even worse to perform lockdowns of dubious efficiency that only have one guaranteed effect: hurting the economy, and the "poorest among us".

American here, totally agree with your points and upvoted. I’m just wondering if you can provide a source for this?

> They have also indicated that getting vaccinated does not reduce your ability to spread the virus

I see the focus being solely on vaccines leads to a lost of mistrust in the agencies meant to protect our health. Everything is viewed through a lens of "will this cause more or less people from getting vaccinated". At every turn the agencies push vaccines and vaccines alone as the answer, ostracizing those who choose to live with a higher risk tolerance. Whether its true or not, a lot of people feel that coverage is skewed to push vaccines and anything relating to treatment or healthy lifestyles is downplayed.

I too am double vaccinated an boosted, but everyone has a point at which they say enough is enough and will stop getting boosters and isolating indefinitely.

For instance, take the CDC guidance on preparing for a hurricane or tropical storm:

Step 1: get a covid vaccine.

https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/features/hurricanepreparedness/inde...

> They have also indicated that getting vaccinated does not reduce your ability to spread the virus.

Think about this: spreading covid misinformation like this leads to people dying earlier than they would have otherwise died.

Furthermore, a lesser-talked about side-effect of extended (semi-)lockdowns and associated measures is a general reduction in the physical health of the populace. How many of us have put on a few extra pounds? This survey [1] (which, admittedly, seems to be probably skewed by sampling bias), shows that millennials put on 40+ (!?) pounds over the pandemic.

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1257041/average-weight-g...

> The democratic party has hung their hat on how bad covid is and how important it is to get vaccinated and to state at this point, NVM lets just get back to normal would be a loss of face.

It actually still is important and advisable to keep your coronavirus vaccinations up to date. There's a reason why Israel marches ahead and begins to distribute the fourth shot in a year to the most vulnerable groups, and likely access will be expanded similarly like it was for the first three shots.

FWIW, it should become a normality that people visit their general practitioner once a year, get their general fitness and blood checkup done and their missing/expired vaccinations refreshed. Our societies may very well benefit from eliminating millions of workdays lost every year to the ordinary flu [1].

[1]: https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/1225629/umfra...

It’s time we start moving on with our lives. We’re going to figure out what it takes to live with a new disease, so we may as well do it now. The damage done to the to the general mental health due to the breakdown of personal human networks will exceed the loss of life due to infection with poor physical health.

I, for one, will not go on living in fear like this.

* People can be overweight for decades without dying.

* People can be over 65 for decades without dying.

* People can be cancer survivors for decades without dying.

* People can have type-1, type-II diabetes for decades without dying.

* People can have heart valve issues for decades without dying.

* People can have COPD for decades without dying.

Let's quit blaming those people who are in the high risk category dying from a clearly preventable illness.

> Instead of just saying that the virus has evolved and is less lethal now they have continued to double down on the vaccine mandate which I don't agree with.

What makes you say with any degree of confidence that the virus is less lethal now?

The data's not in yet. At this point, it's all magical thinking.

> So if that is the case, there is no longer a real need to vilify the unvaxxed.

This is such a bad take. Unvaxxed cause the majority of hospitalizations, deaths and complications. This is just objectively wrong that it doesn't matter that much.

Done? I still get yearly flu shots. I'd be okay with a yearly covid booster.

The CDC is a bought voice of the corporate ruling class whose only interest at this point is getting working people back to work, with the exception of the pharmaceutical companies who want people to get vaccines. This is why the government has no consistent position on anything.

> To understand how ideologically scrambling the Omicron wave has been, consider this: Some 2022 Democrats are sounding like 2020 Republicans. ... In the current Omicron wave, these Republican talking points seem to have mostly come true—for most vaccinated non-senior adults, who are disproportionately Democrats.

This is such a stupid lead sentence. 2020 Republicans and 2022 Democrats are talking about different diseases in an entirely different global context.

The talking points didn't "come true" any more than saying it's raining while it's sunny out "comes true" if it happens to start raining a week later. The Republicans in 2020 were completely wrong to downplay the seriousness of a rapidly spreading disease we knew little about, that was killing thousands of people, and that we had no vaccines or good treatments for.

The fact that the current strain is less deadly, we've learned more about it, millions are vaccinated, and we have better treatments doesn't mean they were somehow right all along.

I am a gen-x firmly in this camp. I feel I've done my part for nearly 2 years. Unless omicron starts decimating people I'm also pretty much done except for future boosters as recommended by CDC and research. I am burned out. I am hanging out with friends who are in the same boat as me. I will respect masking up with people who want to do that, but that's much more rare these days with friends and family. Life is full of risk and we just have to weight the situation and go from there. For me, currently, that is I don't bother with masks and count on my immune system and vax.

From conversations with various people (and not any kind of meaningful study), it seems to me that there is a qualitatively different experience of this situation for people that naturally think about things all the time. For my wife, having to skip the occasional event that she'd like to go to isn't a big deal, but having to constantly think about how risky each behavior is and make a conscious decision weighing that risk against other factors (like social expectations and psychological needs) is _extremely_ effortful.

I view "vaxxed and done" as a form of rounding, selected by people who find it psychologically untenable to handle a changed _risk profile_ by changing their behaviors in moderate ways. I'm boosted, as is everyone I'm in contact with - that has shifted my risk profile sufficiently that I felt comfortable eating at some restaurants (but not others) and at nearly any normal outdoor event, but not at a concert, a crowded bar, or a packed bus. But I have to keep an eye on infection rates, and change my behavior when they shift radically (as now), or when the risk profile updates for a new mutation.. And that's tractable for me - I think about everything I do, constantly, which I assume is much more true among the tech crowd than the population at large.

But most people _just don't do that_ kind of thing - being told to keep worrying about and considering a thing constantly sounds to many like "just keep stabbing yourself in the arm every day and eventually things will be fine". I don't know what there is to do about that, but I think it would be valuable for some folks in here to have a more realistic idea of the cost constant vigilance so often imposes.

i’m young, vaxxed, and i still think about the implications of covid when going to events. It goes kind of like this:

- Is this a public area where immunocompromised people have to be (e.g. grocery stores, doctors offices?) If so then I wear a mask

- Is this an area which isn’t really safe for immunocompromised people anyways (e.g. restaurants, gyms). If so then i don’t wear a mask unless they require it or someone asks me

- Am I hanging out at a friends house or venue with other friends, all young and presumably vaccinated? If so then i don’t take any precautions, even if it’s a large tightly-packed gathering the risk of any serious infection is minimal and the virus is spreading anyways

People need to understand that “stay safe and weigh the risks” does not mean “take unnecessary precautions and constantly worry”. It takes 2sec to realize that hanging out with vaccinated friends and family and strangers is completely fine, and maybe i should bring a mask in my pocket just in case i need to call a Lyft or stop somewhere. It’s basically automatic

i’m young, vaxxed, and i still think about the implications of covid when going to events. It goes kind of like this:

- Is this a public area where immunocompromised people have to be (e.g. grocery stores, doctors offices?) If so then I wear a mask

- Is this an area which isn’t really safe for immunocompromised people anyways (e.g. restaurants, gyms). If so then i don’t wear a mask unless they require it or someone asks me

"For more than a year, I did everything that public-health authorities told me to do. I wore masks. I canceled vacations. I made sacrifices. I got vaccinated. I got boosted. I’m happy to get boosted again. But this virus doesn’t stop. Year over year, the infections don’t decrease. Instead, virulence for people like me is decreasing, either because the virus is changing, or because of growing population immunity, or both. Americans should stop pointlessly guilting themselves about all these cases."

Yes, indeed. It's time for people to resume critical thinking regarding this, and not be guided by "lizard brain" level fear responses. The virus has evolved, we've learned more, we know who to protect the most -- time to adapt.

Agreed.

There is also this weird fixation on being the single person who will infect another who for whatever reason is at high risk either due to obesity, not being vaccinated despite being in a high-risk group, etc. As if you're very presence in some public location is going to be the only way another person encounters the virus.

It's just not realistic. Every single person will eventually catch a cold just like every single person will eventually catch the omicron variant or whatever one surfaces next.

This fixation that we, or the government, is capable of isolating human beings in a manner to prevent them from ever being exposed to an endemic virus is utterly absurd.

Given that this has an animal reservoir, and has now infected multiple mammals, I think we can put it in the "Never Going Away" category, in that even if we stopped human-to-human transmission entirely, it would still pop up like rabies.

The best case scenario is that it begins to look like the flu, unless someone comes up with a vaccine which makes you immune to all variants forever.

One of the bigger mistakes around this focused on a compliance percentage that was unrealistic. We can't even get people to stop killing one another, the idea that everyone was going to upend their lives in a sudden bout of cooperation was not a reasonable expectation. The resistance we are to expect is beyond the four percent "lizardman constant" and probably closer to twenty or thirty percent. And the moment it became politicized, the compliance percentage would drop even further.

Then you have to ask yourself, how long will people put up with it? How long will people stick to a diet? How long will they keep to their budgets? Generally, long-term discipline does not happen as much as we would like.

Most pandemic responses were formulated with overly optimistic opinions about compliance rates and how long people would do whatever you told them. Meanwhile, various authorities are fumbling around and eroding confidence. At one school in a city where Omicron rates were booming, school administrators made attendance mandatory for some gathering to talk about the hat situation. Apparently, dealing with the hat situation was more important than avoiding creating a possible superspreader event. The more of this senselessness that becomes evident, the less people are apt to do what they are told.

Frankly, we've done about as well as I could have expected.

I wish I could feel "vaxxed and done". My whole extended family is vaccinated and everyone who's old enough is boostered.

But I have three children in elementary and middle school. Like school systems across the country, ours is in chaos due to COVID absenteeism. Roughly 1/3 of the students and 1/4 of the teachers are currently out sick due to positive tests, some symptomatic, some not, and the numbers keep going up every day. Just waiting for our turn and then the kids have to stay home for two weeks! Hopefully February will be easier?

This is an artifact of the refusal to admit that SARS-2 is an endemic respiratory virus. If you have to isolate whenever you encounter a possible COVID exposure, it will always be untenable to be able to actually function as a society. We need to go back to the way it always was in pre-COVID times: you stay home when you're sick, but you don't drop everything and stop the world if a friend of yours gets the flu, or adenovirus, or any of the other 4 circulating hCoVs, etc

Nit: "Boostered" is not a word. "Boosted" is [0]. This is similar to when I hear people say "orientate" instead of simply "orient". We don't need to over-Latinize when simpler speech will do.

[0] https://www.thefreedictionary.com/boosted

2 weeks? Didn't the CDC change it to 5 days?

I found this discussion between 3 MDs to be one of the more enlightened ones on the subject:

https://peterattiamd.com/covid-19-current-state-omicron/

One of the big takeaways for me, personally, was that the push for boosters may be, in part, due to measuring the wrong thing, namely circulating antibodies as a measure of resistance to infection. Even when antibody levels dropped weeks/months later, it seems people still maintained B-cell and T-cell immunity.

From the link:

"A Johns Hopkins study in pre-print shows the importance of T-cell immunity in protection from COVID

-This is an under recognized part of the immune system and absent from much COVID discussion

-T cell immunity is solid against Omicron as it is for Delta"

P.S. - Here's my chance at one of my favorite dad jokes: Why have scientists been researching ants to battle COVID? Because they all have ant-y bodies... :-)

This virus is so weird. It's just at the limit between dangerous and tolerable. It just doesn't kill enough people to add more restrictions.

It's odd how humans of today will not agree to change their habits when the punishment is mild.

Every viral replication is an event that could yield a new variant. A new variant can lead to new problems. It is therefore of interest to limit viral replications. This, in addition to the health care system capacities, are crucial targets to address.

Fortunately, vaccines can improve both targets due to the reduced (though now less effectively so) infection rates, shorter infection periods, etc. This makes me personally hopeful that Omicron will become the final "pre-endemic" variant. However, while I too feel tired and sympathize with the described "vaxxed and done" mentality, I know we must stay vigilant and continue to reduce opportunities for this virus to find new ways to remain a pan- rather than an endemic. Acceptable costs of this vigilance, and the nature of it, i.e. the measures we take, need to be updated just as everything else.

How can you simultaneously say that Covid will become endemic, and also that we need to try to control its mutation rate? Ongoing mutation is a fact of (viral) life.

The risk is now "priced in" to our consciousness. Back when it first started, covid was a big scary unknown risk to take for simply going outside and interacting with people. Now, it's a well-known risk, and people are willing to take that risk, along with other well-known risks for going outside, like the risk of getting into a car accident or slipping and falling.

I think there are a number of factors at play.

One, we've greatly reduced the risk of COVID through vaccines. This is the primary thrust of the article; if you've vaccinated, you're very unlikely to have serious consequences.

Two, we're fatigued. You just can't be constantly vigilant for two or three years without something breaking. This compounds point one. We don't, as the article mentions, know what kind of relationship Omicron has to long COVID, but at this point, many are too tired to care. "I'm safe enough" is all we have the capacity for.

Third, a large portion of the population is in denial about their own levels of risk. If there was a 1% chance of dying every time you drove a car, or even a 1% chance of dying every time you got into a car accident, there would be panic in the streets, no pun intended. But a lot of people round a 1% chance of dying from COVID down to zero.

Some people were in the "willing to take that risk" from the beginning, and were relentlessly demonized. Now it's OK though if everyone feels that way.

I think the big question is whether deaths were front loaded. IE, in future waves, far fewer people will die, because people most predisposed to death had already died. This is my guess, but it's decidedly non-scientific.

Yes it's sort of like the alarming scourge of preventable automotive deaths, except that it's over 10 times worse. Also like slipping and falling, but about 20 times worse.

"Vaxxed and done" is a strange label for this sentiment:

I was expecting the article to be about people who, like me, are vaxxed and boosted and not really interested in getting more shots for this every six months perpetually.

Covid is no longer an emergency. It's been two years.

It's time for the executives and individual teachers to stand down and work within the intent of the laws as they are on the books. If the legislatures didn't pass the right laws, then too bad, and people may die.

But anything else is tyranny of the executive. And if we don't take the power back from them now, they will never give it up later. It may already be too late.

It's interesting that COVID and vaccines for it are treated so much differently than others. Does the average person on the street know which variants of influenza are currently circulating? Do they have a preference for manufacturer of their influenza vaccine? Do they know what type their influenza vaccine is? Probably not. But suddenly everyone cares deeply about all of these things for COVID.

To me it's simple: I ask my doctor what I should do and then I do it.

I get where you’re coming from, but I think that the obvious difference is that regardless of the severity of the current covid variant in vaccinated people, the flu hasn’t upended every bit of life as we know it for a 2+ year period any time in recent memory.

US recommends everyone get a flu vaccine and we usually only hit about 50%.

I know a fully vaccinated person (2x pfizer vaccine) in NYC who's also received 2x boosters and is NOT immunocompromised and has legitimately tested positive for covid three separate times.

I'm vaccinated with a booster and I'm starting to loose sight of the point.

That said, cases are skyrocketing and hospitalizations (most of which are unvaccinated people) have only slightly increased.

I've already given up two years of my life, that's about enough.

Covid is now endemic. I have yet to see any expert analysis to contradict this. Endemic means that your probability of catching the virus eventually is 1. Covid restrictions at this point are a joke. I'm vaxxed and done.

Poor communication, made up for with intense marketing push via all channels.

Lies and miscommunication, over public health policy, without transparency and openness.

Silencing criticism, rather than open discussion.

I’m surprised more people are continuing to follow along.

I'm not an angry conspiracy theory guy but the government gave me the idea that we could beat corona if we just got everyone vaxxed and follow guidelines. Two years and 3 jabs later it's still SNAFU.

At some point you get demoralised. And I know it isn't anyone's fault which somehow makes it worse. The Alex Jones supporters at least have someone to hate.

I think it boils down to two questions:

- What is the average level of risk to someone taking reasonable personal precautions?

- What level of state-sponsored violence is justifiable to further reduce that risk?

Governments and societies have been acting out-of-control and it needs to stop.

If people don't want to take personal precautions, they should be at liberty to assume the additional risk.

> - What is the average level of risk to someone taking reasonable personal precautions?

Depends on how full hospitals get. We all get into accidents. We fall and hit our heads, we might get a heart attack, a pregnancy might suddenly go bad and a C-section (or worse surgery) is needed.

As COVID19 fills up hospitals around the country, the risk isn't from Omicron itself anymore, as much as it is from an overburdened health care system.

--------

The big example was the Montana train derailment last summer. It was difficult (but possible) to get all of the injured to an appropriate hospital, many being forced to go to hospitals hours away because the nearby hospitals were full of COVID19 patients. But this new wave of Omicron is even worse than the summer of 2021 by any measurement.

> - What level of state-sponsored violence is justifiable to further reduce that risk?

While the health care system of the USA is technically a free market, with a mix of for-profit hospitals (and charity / religious hospitals, and a few state-sponsored ones for groups like veterans)... people expect hospitals / health care systems to be functional.

Since the state is ultimately responsible for the health care of its local population (whether they want to be responsible or not), its important to take actions needed to keep our hospital open.

The state will pull in the national guard, they will call in Navy hospital ships, they will declare emergencies to help. From that perspective, asking everyone else to get vaccinated or booster-vaccinated is just more of the same, its another action to minimize hospitalizations. Forced vaccinations are far more effective than national guard in this situation.

> Governments and societies have been acting out-of-control and it needs to stop.

I know someone who went to work while testing positive for COVID19. The amount of apathy and callousness the "individual" has in this situation knows no bounds.

"Individualism" is now selfishness. Its more important to save a few hours of PTO / leave rather than protect your fellow customers or coworkers from the disease.

People have lost their goddamn minds over this. They ignore the hospitalization stats, they ignore the overflowing morgues. They focus on selfish self-centered action rather than community.

> If people don't want to take personal precautions, they should be at liberty to assume the additional risk.

I agree, the problem is no one is making them assume the risk. If they truly assumed the risk of not getting vaccinated, one of a few things would happen:

1. The risk of not getting vaccinated would be priced into their health insurance premiums and their costs would skyrocket.

2. If they require hospitalization, they should be turned away at the door if there is insufficient capacity. Alternatively, they can be hospitalized but discharged the minute their presence begins to strain resources. They could even be refused assistance generally.

3. If I can suggest that my infection came from person X (e.g. I was around them when they had the virus), then they should be liable for damages.

None of those things will happen, because people don't want to assume the risk that comes with their choices, they want to offload it onto other people. They want to be able to not be vaccinated then scream for help when they get in trouble and have the healthcare system ride to the rescue.

> - What is the average level of risk to someone taking reasonable personal precautions?

How much risk to others is acceptable? Even though someone who follows reasonable personal precautions, but decided not to vaccinate and, therefore, has a higher risk of being a carrier and infect someone else who also followed reasonable precautions but cannot vaccinate for medical reasons. That second person now faces a 3% risk of dying a horrible death. Even if the second person is fully vaccinated, the chances of dying are non-zero, and increased because another person decided not to be vaccinated.

If we could contact-trace perfectly, would it be fair to charge person A with reckless endangerment, because person A didn't take all available measures to prevent further deaths? If person B dies because of person A, should we call it manslaughter?

>If people don't want to take personal precautions, they should be at liberty to assume the additional risk.

I agree to a point. If their personal choices endanger others, then it's less about their liberties and more about how their choices impact others negatively.

Another part of the problem is more human in nature. People are tired of others crying about their own freedoms in regards to vax, but declaring other's freedoms are their choice as well. You know the political party I'm speaking of.

>"What level of state-sponsored violence is justifiable to further reduce that risk?"

What is this referring to? Can you say what instances of "state-sponsored-violence" have occurred in the pursuit of risk reduction?

What violence?

I'm in this group. It's not that I desperately want to go on a vacation or back to a normal life, whatever that is, but that the governments around the world have demonstrated total cluelessness on how to fix the problem. And I am even OK with that! Nobody knows and it's ok. But at least show some form of a plan and stick to it. Instead we have just a ton of interest groups each pulling in their own direction. So we have lockdowns, maybe something is gained from it, but then everything opens up, we need to save restaurants etc. and then of course we need another lockdown and so on. We're not accomplishing anything, that we have a new worse variant every nine months is proof of that. So yeah, I got my booster, I wear a mask, test when meeting larger groups of people (and others do too), but obsessing about it all day does not accomplish anything.

Most vaccination opposition I've encountered in my personal life fits squarely in the venn overlap of personal fiat and political posturing. It's now fashionable to be anti-vax, whether because it demonstrates your disdain for the government or a particular political party. More than once I've had family members insist that vaccination, or mask-wearing, or any kind of caution, was merely a "personal choice" before themselves getting sick and infecting someone else who became gravely ill because of it.

Any talk of our cultural schism over the remedial responses to the epidemic which does not include discussion of political leadership and propaganda is itself seriously flawed and misleading. Nobody gave a crap about flu vaccines. We all know why this is different.

For those who think the addition of boosters is odd or suspicious, I suggest looking at the vaccine schedules published by the CDC. Not for Covid, but for the dozen or so vaccines most of us have already had. There is a lot of variety in how different vaccines are scheduled and multiple boosters are very common.

Under 18: https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/schedules/hcp/imz/child-adolesc... 18 and over: https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/schedules/hcp/imz/adult.html

I, personally, find it amazing that so many people were willing to sacrifice nearly two years of their quality-of-life to fight a virus that wouldn't hurt most of them. I know everyone is doom and gloom about covid, but I'm actually pretty impressed with how much the typical person (outside of political manipulation and coercion) was willing to sacrifice for others.

If you had asked me in early 2020 how long it was possible to keep this up, I'd have guessed 6 months or so. Lament all you want that people are dropping their vigilance, or about how effective any of it actually was, but I'm generally pretty impressed with how far the "common man" was willing to go.

> so many people were willing to sacrifice nearly two years of their quality-of-life

This always smacks of hyperbole. How much quality of life was sacrificed, really? It's not like we had to all go dig trenches or something. We just had to stop going to brunch.

I wonder if sociologists can explain the americans obsession with politics in everything. This is not normal, there seems to be something exceptional about how it is normalized to discuss natural phenomena with political lingo

Because anything with two sides can be advantageously leveraged if it correlates with political alignment. An apolitical question is an opportunity to create and align a political question.

I have to wonder how much of this comes down to a complete loss of empathy and patience with the willingly unvaxxed.

Why would you have empathy for them? They have fought the vaccines for close to a year now and if they haven't gotten it they probably have a pretty good reason. Shouldn't the vaccine protect vaxxed people from everyone?? I seriously do not understand vaxxed people who care about other people's vaccination status, especially when those people aren't their elderly friends and family.

I don’t think you need to lack empathy or patience to desire a return to normalcy with an understanding that if someone decides not to protect themselves they may experience negative consequences.

We all have our choices and risk tolerances, people can make their decision and move on with their lives. I don’t stay off roads just because some people might not be wearing seatbelts.

> I’m prepared to treat this like I’ve treated the flu: by basically not worrying about it and living my life normally.

I wish I could feel this way! I actually have little to fear from the initial covid infection and, if covid were 'just like' the flu, I would go back to my old patterns.

Unfortunately, I know people in higher-risk categories (my parents included) for whom a covid infection would be significantly worse than the flu (though likely not fatal) and the research on 'long covid' is both developing and scary[1]. We aren't sure about the risk factors yet, which means it's hard to estimate how careful to be[2].

Ultimately we will all, individually, need to make decisions about when things seem 'safe enough.' I don't begrudge people making their own decisions, as long as they behave in a way that allows me to continue to make my own decisions.

[1] https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/12/16/1064594... [2] https://www.bbc.com/news/health-57833394

I'm continually astonished that discussion of the vaccines seems to continue as if we can't plainly see that they are totally ineffective at preventing infection and transmission, and that the virus is a very minor threat for non-elderly, healthy people. It's as if some people are living in a parallel universe where vaccinated people are not getting infected, and other people are still dropping dead on subway platforms in viral videos.

i think i'm done with current level vaccines. I've had 3 mrna. The second and third each took me out for 2 days. I don't see any reason for more unless a better one comes out. I do think 3 are important though.

Apparently, booster efficacy wanes after about 10 weeks[1].

If you think the 3rd shot is important, why not the 4th, 5th, ad infinitum?

Genuinely curious, not trying to be difficult.

[1]: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...

Yeah, after contracting COVID in January 2021, and now 3 shots (including a booster), I'm just tired of the whole thing. If I'm not immune "enough" after all that, so be it.

I’ve gotten my flu shot yearly for my entire living memory. I don’t really understand why a booster vaccine for a pandemic that’s killed an order of magnitude more people than the flu does per year is some serious burden.

For all vaccines, neutralizing antibody titers decrease over time. This is why boosters exist in the first place.

Why do you think 3 is enough but not 4. That's not rational, its just psychologically comforting

We've been convincing people to get vaccinated so they can restart normal life again. It is no surprise that lots of people are getting frustrated if the promise has not been delivered and there is no end in sight. Particularly, when they themselves are low-risk or already had mild COVID in the past.

I've never had a problem with the COVID restrictions or vaccines. They're almost comically benign. There are so much more horrible things that people are forced to go through every day in this country; people who are homeless, who get abused, who don't have enough to eat, who risk getting shot or stabbed just walking through their neighborhood, who don't have access to transportation, education, jobs. Or those who juggle multiple jobs, childcare, eldercare, relationships, going paycheck to paycheck. I am incredibly lucky to be healthy and safe with a steady job.

To imagine that I can save a human life just by getting a shot, putting some cloth on my face, and standing 6 feet away from people, is amazing. Happy to do it. When I'm old I'll be grateful if today's children do the same for me.

The best thing everyone can do is to go get Omnicron, give it to everyone quickly, so that we can all synchronize our collective immune effort.

Quarantine is the antithesis to that, and can throw away this opportunity.

Don't get vaccinated, get Omnicron.

Go get Omnicron, and give it to everyone, before we miss this small window.

wtf?

Why are we still debating this bullsh1t? This current global crisis has stopped being a healthcare one for a year now [I frankly would say almost 2 years now because until ~april-may 2020 any statement about the virus would have been hard to verify].

Its really weird how the "its just a flu, lol" crowd is totally okay with flu vaccines yearly but having more than 3 vaccines against a thing that has killed millions of people is JUST TOO MUCH. CAN'T HAVE THIS.

It's amazing how many can't see overshoot when they're in. Even more amazing that they don't realize that those who are the loudest in overshoot tend to end up being those most effected by the blowback that results. Funny enough, one of those is going to end up being Donald Trump, who is still trying very hard to cast himself as the savior of the pandemic. Of course he will be mostly isolated from the consequences other than having his dream of a 2024 comeback dashed. It's going to be hard on those with lesser resources to ameliorate the storm they find themselves in.

I've vaxxed and boosted and will continue to get boosted as often as is recommended. I follow the local regulations, which in NYC mainly involve masking up and showing a vax proof for indoor activities like dining, concerts, and riding the NYC subway. I'm not stopping my life though. I've travelled internationally in the past few months, both to see family and sight-see. Seems like not a bad compromise. The one thing I don't as much is masking up outdoors, which is more common now in NYC than it was a month ago. I'd say 70% of people are doing that in Lower Manhattan.

COVID doesn't transmit well outside, people who wear masks outside are either paranoid, uneducated, or virtue signaling.

You don’t have to have proof of vaccination to ride the subway.

I'd recommend reading "On Living In The Atomic Age" by C. S. Lewis.

I am vaxxed and boosted. Everyone I know in my very Republican rural county got the new wave of Omicron in the last ten days, including me. No one got seriously ill. My symptoms were barely detectable.

I am done with Covid, I did my part to stop prevention. At this point, it is damaging children to keep them locked up. People should live their lives as normal. People who are vulnerable are welcome to take precautions for themselves if they wish. I am returning to life as normal and recommend all of you do the same if you don't have a risk factor.

The author missed one point about the 'vaxxed and done'... some actively WANT the virus to spread at this point. If everyone is going to get it, then there is an argument to be made to just "get it over with". There are valid reasons to wait (hospital concerns, availability of Paxlovid), but there are also valid reasons to want this done now. The cost of waiting is high. The US is only expected to have 10m courses of Paxlovid by June. For a population of 330M, this means less than 1 in 30 people would even have access to it.

The problem is that "being done" or "being over it" doesn't matter. The virus doesn't care how we feel. There are still consequences for catching the virus, even if vaxxed. There are consequences for spreading it, since vaccination rates in many places are low and unvaxxed end up in the ICU and tie up resources.

You, being over it and not isolating or being cautious, could mean someone's Stage IV cancer surgery is cancelled. It's not what people want to hear, but it's the truth.

It's a really hard position that we find ourselves in. In the beginning when we believed that there was a chance of containing Covid-19, many people I knew(myself included) thought that we would finish with this pandemic within a year. Due to a variety of reasons including poor over all handling of the pandemic by world governments, people refusing to wear masks or respect social distancing guidelines, or to get vaccines, that path was closed to us. We are now two years into this, and for people like me who are vaccinated and boosted... Who have spent the entire pandemic following guidelines, avoiding social gatherings, watching others flout the rules... Getting Omnicron and riding it out at home for supposed "super immunity" is looking pretty attractive. I'm exhausted from dealing with the pandemic, everyone is. My heart hurts for the people who can't get the vaccine and want to, but my sympathy is running low for folks who have simply refused. I experience shame when I catch myself thinking, "We can't let this run our lives forever!", knowing that it was the rallying cry of people early on in the pandemic who refused to cooperate with CDC recommendations.

I very rarely share personal anecdotes involving my family, but here goes: I have been watching my mother care for my grandmother whom is in hospice care for about a year now. My grandmother was already sickly enough that they chose not to get her vaccinated when the vaccine came out. This in part because my grandmother has a bad enough grasp on reality at this point that she becomes confused when she leaves her house and my mother is trying to avoid her having a panic attack and possibly hurting herself or straining her already damaged heart. My grandmother is housebound and mostly bed bound, and my mother mostly works at home and takes care of her. In the beginning my mother wasn't letting people into the house to see grandma, but my mother thought that there would be time for the pandemic to pass for my grandmother to see her other family members before she passed. Now grandma's health is declining and there is a growing sense of urgency. My mother is distraught... Does she let grandma pass without seeing her family members again(Really more for the family members than grandma at this point, but maybe not in my mother's mind), or does she risk bringing covid into the house and ending grandma's life potentially a bit prematurely and frankly awfully? My mother is caught in the very non-enviable decision between quality of life and length of life... For her own mother. I know this is a decision that many families have to make for their loved ones, but in the midst of a global pandemic when so many have lost their lives it feels even sadder somehow.

I think I can tell how this will be received, but here it goes.

I'm vaccinated, not boosted. I consider myself "vaxxed and done" because, based on the data we are seeing, I don't believe it makes sense for me as an individual to become more vaccinated. People should have the choice to take it based on their own needs. As with pretty much every one-size-fits-all health program to come from the federal government, to me it's pretty clear that applying the same logic to SARS-CoV-2 is a not-so-good move in the long term. The fact that federal mandates and several boosters are on the table does the opposite of convincing me that I should continue to be a part of this science experiment.

People against these vaccines or those who had one and aren't getting any more might very well be wrong, but their reasons aren't necessarily stupid. You may not agree with my current stance, but am I stupid or crazy?

Having had COVID twice (once before the vaccine and once after) as a young person who is fit, works out, eats healthy, and has survived without even being able to tell the difference between this particular disease and a bad cold, I can't distinguish a benefit to more vaccines for myself or for others around me. If I can still spread the disease during the vaccine's full potency, and the virus is here to stay, and others can choose to keep taking vaccines, and I spend the vast majority of time isolated at home, and I get antibodies from catching the disease, and I regularly take greater risks with my life than I have from COVID as an individual, then I really just can't see the point.

What's worse is I really struggle to recognize the authority of those whom are still, nearly 2 years later, insisting on masks and vaccines and social distancing. Putting effort into vaccinating very young children and prioritizing that over vaccinating other parts of the world makes little sense to me, at least in relation to the narrative that this is a virus we can control. Is it great that we have these mRNA treatments? Absolutely. Is taking them indefinitely, using them on people who don't have a great need for them, and continuing this whole mask and distancing thing reasonable and sensible? I don't see the sense in it.

The fact that every indoor establishment, in my experience, forces you to act like the virus is only a danger until you sit down 15 feet from the entrance tells me a lot. Once you sit down at a table, then being maskless is a-ok even if you haven't gotten your food yet. It tells me that a large swath of the public either doesn't truly believe in the danger. It tells me that we are doing irrational things, and irrationality rarely occurs in isolation.

People should do what they think is important. If you're elderly, the vaccine is probably right for you. Now that we've lived in a pandemic for what seems like forever now, the intellectual insult in having absurdities thrown in my face is worse than the virus has been to me. So no, I don't plan on getting a booster, and I've moved on with my life. If SARS-CoV-2 is here to stay as another seasonal endemic disease, then it's really time to settle down with the panicking and allow it to develop into effectively any of the other coronaviruses that are already endemic. We are fortunate that's even a possibility that seems to be proving out.

The only thing keeping me from being done is the fear/suspicion that the healthcare system is on the verge of collapse.

Front line workers are not being compensated well enough. This means less people taking the career path and increased burn out.

We are in for a world of hurt and the only thing I can do is try to not be sick when the hammer falls.

This is why I got the vaccine. I'm personally not afraid of COVID. But the healthcare system shutting down to the point where we have patients dying in the hallways? That scares me.

Too many kids who want to become lawyers or software developers instead of doctors and nurses. With an ageing population that's not good.

I’m under 30, healthy, and have no kids.

I got both doses of Pfizer as soon as I could last year. But until a more severe (than Omicron) variant arrives, I’m not planning to get a booster.

That calculus may be different for others and I totally understand. In fact, I encouraged my parents and grandparents to get the booster as soon as they could.

Its time to move on. Everyone has had a chance to get vaccinated and boosted that is at high risk (under 5s are not at high risk). We can't live in our houses forever.

Said another way, the mental health issues with being stuck in our houses are much more severe than COVID-19 at this point.

I am curious if those (especially posting here aligning with this position) would change their minds if a more deadly variant were to arise, if the vaccines available evolved to better match the strains by probability, or otherwise.

Vaxed, booted, probably going to get omicron + super immunity before winter ends. What else is there to do.

Lowkey waiting for crop dusters to drop aerosolized vaccine on the regular.

>Lowkey waiting for crop dusters to drop aerosolized vaccine on the regular.

Yeah, just like with DDT!

Individual medical decisions are the domain of the individual.

If you support eroding this line, hope you enjoy your forcef daily nursing home sedative.

I'm somewhat concerned by this notion that eventually everyone will get the Omicron variant. I personally do not have any family members, friends, neighbors, coworkers, etc. that have gotten any form of Covid (that I know of), much less died. We've all continued to wear masks and social distance and have gotten vaccinated. None of us has even had a little cold in 2 years! I hope that "everyone will eventually get the Omicron variant" is not true.

my guess for a while has been that covid is endemic at this point and will be "a thing to live with" like the flu, where it would be in the best interest of everyone if they stayed home, got vaccinated every year (or as necessary), etc. - but is now a "personal responsibility" or however you would like to frame it

Why the 'xx'? I mean "X-mas" is a cross I get that. But why "vaxx".

"Weaponized selfishness"

We've fattened the curve.

It feels like a lot of the replies here are dubious and I suspect a large number of them are from antivaxxers who are trying to amplify a message of, "See, even people that got the vaccine are sick and tired of it. They're with us even though we don't agree with them"

I am vaxxed and done. I was told by doctors and by government officials, that vaccine will make me immune to virus indefinitely, and I do believe that. Anyone who says otherwise is a liar and antivaxxer for me.

>This year, COVID is on pace to kill more than 300,000 unvaccinated people who would, quite likely, avoid death by getting two or three shots.

For the record vaccinated people die too.

What’s the case fatality rate for vaccinated vs. unvaccinated people?

Joe Rogan interview doing numbers LOL

I enjoy such balanced pieces and I think in times of hugely divisive topics like with COVID we need more of them! My big thanks and compliments to the author.

> We have no idea what the effects of Omicron on long COVID will be, but evidence of lingering symptoms should make us wary of just letting tens of millions of people get needlessly infected.

That... reads a little bit like what your typical hypochondriacs say. We have lingering symptoms of other illnesses as well (like bronchi-pneumonia).

Mathematically speaking, all hypochondriacs are technically correct, but the same applies for many other things that people just don't think about. There is no such thing as "zero percent risk".

In the end it's all about (a) the risk % and (b) whether that % is acceptable but alas, I don't think humanity will soon agree on actual numbers related to COVID. That's the crux and the core of the entire segregation issue.

It boils down to: if COVID truly kills 3% of people then that's horrifying; but if it kills 0.03% then why bother at all?

---

I sympathize a little more with the "vaxxed and done" group. Endlessly worrying about risks that get smaller and smaller as herd immunity is nearing completion does not seem to be worth shutting down society for (if the risk is indeed getting smaller but random bits and pieces of news make me think this is the case). And we're also likely mortally wounding the economy so much that the kids whose physical health we are so worried about right now will have to deal with our mess and suffer severe mental health problems for decades (maybe a next Great Depression even?). I think that's a worthy discussion to have.

---

"We need to keep the measures for the kids"

I hear you but I don't think people will ever arrive at an universal consensus on this topic. Even if the lockdowns last forever a lot of cultures around the world will still not change. E.g. where I live kids having a scratchy cough merits a pat on the head and insistence of drinking hot tea with lemon and honey and a few pills, and the matter is considered done (and 99% of the time it really actually is done).

On the other end of the spectrum we have parents that give me murderous looks if I sneeze in the mall at a 5m distance from their kid. Sorry but it gets a little absurd at this point. I get it, you get over-protective when you are a parent but you should also abide by the society you live in. If you are that worried then maybe don't live in the city? I definitely have not gone out just to murder your kid so maybe loosen up a little. We're all in this together.

---

Many things in this world carry some risk and we just accept it and don't think about it. And I literally mean thousands such things. As COVID starts looking like a minor threat more and more with time (also illustrated by the "flurona" thing lately; it almost sounds like some medical professionals are ready to call COVID "a flu"?) we have to start asking ourselves if we aren't perpetuating extreme measures for a dwindling threat.

Continuous reassessment and readjusting is key. Maybe it's time to take a hard long honest look on how things are today. As a starting point, many doctors are saying that Omicron is more infectious but that a lot of their patients barely feel it.

IMO we shouldn't get distracted by segregation and point fingers at each other. That solved absolutely nothing so far and it's not realistic to expect it to change in the future.

Let's work on getting some actual numbers and see what we should do next?

Two sources I've been reading on the endgame here:

(1) Circuit-breaker criteria for interventions (vax mandates, mask mandates, indoor gathering restrictions, etc): https://alexanderjxchen.github.io/circuitbreaker/

This chart has helped me understand how public-health entities could explain future interventions.

The major issue it illustrates is the choices of the voluntarily unvaccinated can affect everyone by clogging hospital availability for everyone. Targeted interventions can reduce this impact.

This is, notably imho, different from attempting to protect medically at-risk people who cannot be vaccinated.

(2) Ian Mackay's recent post has helped me imagine what the shift to SARS-CoV-2 as an endemic illness will feel like: https://virologydownunder.com/living-next-door-to-alice/

Mackay says that, whether or not we want this outcome, the world is making public-policy choices that will lead to humans living alongside endemic SARS-CoV-2 forever.

He says the turning point will come when there is no longer a number to put on the wall:

> And at some point soon, testing levels will drop as the public realise there is little point in queueing and getting swabbed or paying for rapid antigen tests (RAT) when there are few conditions in place to do anything with those results. Slowly those who are sick “enough” or need evidence that they are infected will get tested. Fever clinics and drive through testing will slow down and pack away. We will know only very approximately how many cases are in the community from at that point. This is a significant shift from the super intense scrutiny of case numbers we’ve had in Australia. Then the media will also stop caring as much.

While he's writing about Australia, and I think writing in the context of a public-health expert who is dispirited by seeing a case explosion accompany the lifting of restrictions, his point resonates -- my feeling is that the pandemic will be "over" in the US when nytimes.com no longer has the little sparklines with covid case counts.

Mackay suggests that the shift to endemic illness means some people who are currently being protected will die:

> Even with a great vaccine, there will be those with waning immunity. There will be new birth cohorts with no immunity. There will be those who don’t get vaccinated. There will be those with immune systems that don’t work as well as needed. There will be some with risk factors that may override the protection afforded by vaccine immunity, subjecting them to a baseline of worse outcomes. Together these people will likely see more severe COVID-19. This is a tale that can also be told about other infectious diseases. There is always a proportion we can’t protect.

He highlights post-covid conditions as the remaining wild card. What fraction of people who are infected and recover will have long-term health impacts? Will we have to adjust society to accommodate those people?

I found Mackay's early 2020 blog posts helpful in wrapping my head around what we were about to experience and thought they held up pretty well ( https://virologydownunder.com/past-time-to-tell-the-public-i... , https://virologydownunder.com/so-you-think-youve-about-to-be... ).

I also thought his "Swiss cheese" diagram ( https://virologydownunder.com/the-swiss-cheese-infographic-t... ) did a good job of communicating why classrooms should have 5-6 air changes per hour of MERV13 filtered or outdoor air and how that fits in with other ways of reducing all sorts of respiratory illness (even beyond covid).

Strange thread

I can understand why people feel this way, and in the UK this is also somewhat prevalent. In part, it stems from the poor messaging on COVID risks (at the individual and population level) and control measures we have available. In short, the UK media are somewhat pushing "COVID is over" at the same time as "the only tool is lockdown, and we can't do that again". These two factors, I suspect, mean that people are encouraged by the vaccination-heavy strategy we're pursuing.

Children are one group for whom this strategy may be problematic, and is a more significant issue in the UK than US right now given that only 12+ are eligible. This review discusses some of the arguments around this topic: https://adc.bmj.com/content/early/2021/11/01/archdischild-20...

We also have CEV and elderly groups for whom the vaccine still leaves a reasonable degree of risk. Here's an opinion piece that cites research into CEV & vaccine protection: https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/03/30/vaccinated-yet-still-cl...

In addition to the health risk/benefit to the individual, there is also the societal cost to lost productivity. This is where keeping low COVID prevalence may be worth pursuing on a solely economic basis through low-invasiveness NPIs.

Of course, there's also the risk of escape variants, and that's just simple maths. As vaccine-only strategies do not keep R(eff) < 1, there is reasonable potential for escape variants like Omicron to surface. Though I am not an expert, I am personally sceptical of arguments that suggest the evolution pathways of a virus are constrained to low virulence.

In general, I think the UK is talking about living with COVID, but really means "ignoring COVID". There is room for making accommodations to our lives that keeps COVID incidence lower than present, and these are for the most part quite easy to do. Unfortunately, our vaccine-only policy & poor mask messaging has really damaged the public's appreciation for a multi-faceted public-health approach. The UK is currently enjoying far fewer restrictions than in the early waves, and life is for the most part "back to normal". However, high incidence rates after Christmas are leading to people adjusting behaviour despite few restrictions. Anecdotally, I would not visit the pubs that I went to in October/November because COVID incidence is ~7%.

It feels to me as though western countries have forgotten that the rest of the world is in the throes of the pandemic, and ignoring this fact isn't going to help us in the long run. Despite the fact that we're all tired of this pandemic, keeping on top of things doesn't have to be draconian, and will be in our best interests whilst the majority of the world are unvaccinated.

yeah but 45% of Americans still didn't get vaccinated :)

Ahh. it begins.

- US midterm is coming up in november.

- One of Biden's major election point was combating Covid and curbing infections.

- This has largely been a catastrophic failure. More Americans have died from Covid under Biden than under Trump (not that it matters)

So, the left media will now begin a year long campaign down playing domestic covid severity, and make sure that Covid will NOT be a major talking point for the 2022 elections.

Edit: republican will 100% pull a "i-told-you-so" move in their campaign trails. I'm Canadian and our government (even conservative learning province/state government) is still using the partial lockdown as a mean to curb infection, it's very very obviously NOT working.

What will be really interesting is just how the medical community is so detached from the political community. I understand you shouldn't bring politics into science, but you also can't blind yourself and optimize for only one metric.. everything is a trade-off.

"220,000 deaths.

If you hear nothing else I say tonight, hear this: Anyone who is responsible for that many deaths should not remain President of the United States." Joe Biden

https://twitter.com/joebiden/status/1319446692236791814

And his predecessor did not have the vaccines available to combat deaths. So they are in a tough spot to be sure. The only thing they can do now is to downplay and reframe:

"The overwhelming number of deaths, over 75% percent, occurred in people who had at least four comorbidities, so really these are people who were unwell to begin with." CDC Director Rochelle Walensky

https://youtu.be/BhOoWGXRGb0?t=165

They are also finally trying untangle deaths "with Covid" and "from Covid": https://twitter.com/disclosetv/status/1480207649807507458

> So, the left media will now begin a year long campaign down playing domestic covid severity, and make sure that Covid will NOT be a major talking point for the 2022 elections.

Good luck with that. When the CDC decreased the isolation time to five days, all the talk was about how they were corrupted by capitalism.

As someone who was painted hard with the "science denier / conspiracy theorist" brush for my objections to mandates, it's a very deep level of schadenfreude to see the very same people devolve into conspiracy theories of their own that put them at odds with "the science".

The government has created a dangerous foil for the "anti-vaxxers" -- people who are terrified to leave their bubble of presumed safety. Perhaps we can come up with a pejorative term for them... "Pro-hypochondriacs"?

They will not disappear so easily.

> More Americans have died from Covid under Biden than under Trump (not that it matters)

It matters enough to write it, and it struck me as weird so I looked it up. Kind of hard to put the numbers together, but it seems we're at 830k[0] deaths now; 350k were in 2020[1] (though most cases started being reported in April) which is indeed less than half of current total. I also looked up Jan. 2021, curious if it changed anything in a meaningful way and there were 77k through Jan. 26[2]; it puts the total deaths at roughly 50/50 between presidents, though one presided over ~9 months of deaths and the other over 12.

I guess that means the rate of deaths is slowing down, but not by much.

[0] https://usafacts.org/visualizations/coronavirus-covid-19-spr... [1] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/podcasts/2022/20220107/20... [2] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/27/us-reports-record-number-of-...

> What will be really interesting is just how the medical community is so detached from the political community.

Regretfully, I don't think this is actually true anymore. I can only speak for the US. Maybe it was never true, but we're just now seeing it. The health insurance industry is heavily political, lots of money is spent drafting business friendly regulation. The pharma industry has an incestuous relation with the regulatory bodies that are supposed to keep it in check. So, it's note exactly red vs blue politics, but in my mind, there is a degree of green politics, and the actual politicians are simply clamoring for scraps of political capital during the crisis, while big pharma and unelected bureaucrats are spending tax payer dollars and controlling the medical community.

> This has largely been a catastrophic failure. More Americans have died from Covid under Biden than under Trump (not that it matters)

True, but Trump only dealt with Covid for about 9 months at most, and that was starting from 0 cases in February, meanwhile Biden has dealt with it for 13 months at this point, and also took office in the middle of the major winter wave, and then the Delta wave in mid 2021, and now the Omicron wave at the end of 2021, which were much more infectious and mostly affected those that could not or refused to be vaccinated (once vaccines were widely available in April at least).

Biden didn't create those waves, by the way. This is a global problem, and judging by how the US got the variant spikes after most of the rest of the world did, likely didn't originate here. He could have been like China or Australia and enforced hard indefinite lockdowns, but it was clear after the one Trump agreed to a partial two-week lockdown that the US public wouldn't even comply to that, so good luck Biden imposing any future lockdowns.

Yes, the majority of people were vaccinated in 2021, but I'd argue a good chunk of those same people (waves hi) were self-isolating as much as possible until they got vaccinated anyway and were much less likely to be included in the deaths of 2020 anyway.

Biden definitely could have done a better job managing Covid (ordered increased home tests made and ship them to citizens before Omicron became a thing, for one idea), but there's a good amount of the population that wouldn't have listened to him no matter what measures he tried to push.

I also disagree with you that Democrats are going to downplay covid (the media might, but it sounds like it's just to force people to go back to work and kids to stay in school because they're too afraid of the economy getting worse).

About the only thing Biden can point to as something good he's done, is the vaccine rollout, so if they downplay it they don't have much to go on.

But I agree it won't matter in the long run because the Democrats are going to lose the midterms, big time, and probably the presidency in 2024.

I was fooled for a bit thinking that people might be coming to their rational senses, but it does seem there is a media campaign to minimize covid.

> a catastrophic failure

Using what criteria? We have no way of knowing what infection rates would be like today had Biden not been elected.

Next topic please.

The data suggests:

Young males with history of heart arrhythmia should be vaxxed.

90% of pregnant women should be not be vaxxed.

I don't get it. It takes 10 minutes to get a booster. It's such a non-event.

So many commentators who say, "Your suffering is an indication that the vaccine worked!" or "That's the exception that proves, the rule! Look at this science!" when people raise concerns with the objectivity of our scientific institutions themselves. I am having a hard time distinguishing between these people and the thousands of CPP affiliated commenters that come on every YouTube video related to Chinese propaganda and policy. Here's a much better quote for this situation:

"Who are you gonna believe, me or your own eyes?" - Groucho Marx

Yep, this hits the nail on the head. I've got my shots, and now I'm firmly in the "let it rip" camp. Omicron is the endgame as far as I'm concerned.

The point of all the onerous COVID rules and vaccine mandates was to prevent the spread, right? Keep pressure on the hospitals down? It didn't work. In the US anyways, COVID is, and has been, everywhere. Masks? Useless. Student/teacher/daycare exclusions for exposure? Useless. Vaccines? I think worthwhile, but in the face of Omicron, also basically useless.

More and more people are realizing they will be exposed to COVID during their life. It's not an if, but a when. I knew this the minute it became a pandemic, but others had some idiotic "we can beat this virus" mentality, promulgated mainly by the (left-leaning) media.

Well guess what? The only thing that would have made one bit of a difference (besides the vaccines) was bolstering the healthcare system. But the current administration in the US has done nothing of the sort. Time to let it buck, let the cards fall where they may.

If you think this is bad, wait until there is a recombinant variant that is a mix of Delta and Omicron. They are already calling it deltacron.

Frankly, I don't know how much more the collective psychological fabric can withstand. So many are well-past their breaking point.

Sending positive thoughts to all of you that we can continue to survive and persevere.

Many of us don't have the option to just stop (as much as I'd like to). I've got a wife and two kids to provide for. My asthmatic mom just caught Covid. I'm past burnt out but I'm just showing up until I can't even do that anymore. I'd consider myself a pretty tough person normally but this thing has just broken me. I can't imagine how others are coping.

Meanwhile I'm left thinking, how can we go on like this? How can I help others?

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