~*Official #COVID-19 Thread of Doom*~ Revenge of Omicron Prime

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

WE DID IT!

 

U.S. reports at least 1.1 million COVID cases in a day, shattering global record

WWW.REUTERS.COM

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The United States reported at least 1.13 million new coronavirus infections on Monday, according to a Reuters tally, the highest daily total of any country in the world as the spread of the highly...

 

[Jason]

Just now, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

WE DID IT!

 

U.S. reports at least 1.1 million COVID cases in a day, shattering global record

WWW.REUTERS.COM

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The United States reported at least 1.13 million new coronavirus infections on Monday, according to a Reuters tally, the highest daily total of any country in the world as the spread of the highly...

 

 

[AbsolutSurgen]

I think someone in the Ford Government actually looked at who was in the hospital. 

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

Lmao

[Jason]

5 minutes ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

Lmao

[Jason]

 

[CitizenVectron]

 

 

Throw them in the ocean.

[Air_Delivery]

1 hour ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

Lmao

[Jason]

 

[Ricofoley]

He makes a compelling case, but what if we added in a bunch of means testing?

[Jason]

 

[Fizzzzle]

6 hours ago, CitizenVectron said:

Flight attendants want vaccine requirements to fly, but more because it would stop assholes from flying than reduce spread:

 

 

Anecdotally: I've only been out to one restaurant since the pandemic started, and it was about two weeks before Omicron hit (and when cases were trending to zero where I live). While there I had the chance to talk to a server. In my province, only vaccinated people have been allowed in restaurants since October. She said that prior to that it was basically only assholes going to restaurants (as the pandemic raged, vaccinated mostly stayed home to be safe), and then as soon as the passport system started there were almost no assholes going out to eat. 

 

More than almost anything else in society right now, I bet you could use "being double/triple" vaccinated as the ultimate asshole test/filter.

When we first opened for dine-in again, I thought to myself "I'm not going to be a mask nazi, people take them off when they sit down, anyway." VERY quickly it turned into an asshole check.  I don't care about the mask so much as your refusal to wear one alerts me that you're an asshole and you can go somewhere else.

[Keyser_Soze]

1 minute ago, Fizzzzle said:

When we first opened for dine-in again, I thought to myself "I'm not going to be a mask nazi, people take them off when they sit down, anyway." VERY quickly it turned into an asshole check.  I don't care about the mask so much as your refusal to wear one alerts me that you're an asshole and you can go somewhere else.

 

I've always considered the mask wearing a sign of respect. Especially if you're around elderly or employees who are wearing them, you should also wear them.

Anyone who doesn't is generally pretty selfish.

[Fizzzzle]

7 minutes ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

I've always considered the mask wearing a sign of respect. Especially if you're around elderly or employees who are wearing them, you should also wear them.

Anyone who doesn't is generally pretty selfish.

At the very least, I've always thought of it as a "read the room" situation. Last summer I went on a hike with my (now ex) girlfriend. I brought my mask with me and would put it on when passing people on the trail going the other direction. At one point she was like "why do you keep putting your mask on?"

 

I just looked at her and said "I'm only putting it on if people coming down the trail have theirs on, because clearly they think it's a big deal, so a few seconds of putting some cloth over my face isn't a big deal if it makes them feel better."

 

Basic empathy is a hard thing for people sometimes.

[CitizenVectron]

Biggest one-day jump in ICU since the pandemic began, in Ontario:

 

 

I'd be curious as to how many are incidental cases. Not because I'm a chud, but just so we have more data. In my own province, roughly 1/3 of hospital cases are incidental (meaning they were admitted for other reasons, but turned out to test positive on arrival), and between 0-10% of ICU as well on any given day. However, just because they are incidental that doesn't mean they aren't an additional strain on resources (additional isolation, PPE, time to treat, etc). Plus many end up getting treatment for COVID while there, anyway. However, in the case of ICU the incidental rate tends to be much lower.

[AbsolutSurgen]

1 hour ago, CitizenVectron said:

Biggest one-day jump in ICU since the pandemic began, in Ontario:

 

 

I'd be curious as to how many are incidental cases. Not because I'm a chud, but just so we have more data. In my own province, roughly 1/3 of hospital cases are incidental (meaning they were admitted for other reasons, but turned out to test positive on arrival), and between 0-10% of ICU as well on any given day. However, just because they are incidental that doesn't mean they aren't an additional strain on resources (additional isolation, PPE, time to treat, etc). Plus many end up getting treatment for COVID while there, anyway. However, in the case of ICU the incidental rate tends to be much lower.

 

 

[CitizenVectron]

What makes it particularly hard to measure is that there isn't a single metric. Was someone admitted for a heart attack and found to have COVID? Yes. But did the COVID contribute to the heart attack in the first place? Perhaps. Or, was the person admitted for a broken leg? Yes. But did their COVID symptoms worsen and require treatment while in the hospital?

 

I can't find the thread, but on twitter this morning I saw something from a San Francisco hospital where they specifically searched all admissions for the past few weeks and found that 70% of COVID cases were incidental. But then when they also searched what % of COVID+ patients were receiving treatment for COVID...it was 50%. So 20% of patients were not admitted for COVID, but were being treated for it. So which measure is correct? 

 

It's important to have all this data, but also important to realize (which of course the chuds do not) that incidental case % only matters if hospitals aren't being overloaded. If a hospital runs out of ICU beds it doesn't really matter if they say "well technically X% are incidental so it's not as serious as the hospital says."

 

[CitizenVectron]

 

[SuperSpreader]

Racist whites 

[CitizenVectron]

There's definitely a gap in terms of understanding how well the vaccines work.

[AbsolutSurgen]

27 minutes ago, CitizenVectron said:

What makes it particularly hard to measure is that there isn't a single metric. Was someone admitted for a heart attack and found to have COVID? Yes. But did the COVID contribute to the heart attack in the first place? Perhaps. Or, was the person admitted for a broken leg? Yes. But did their COVID symptoms worsen and require treatment while in the hospital?

 

I can't find the thread, but on twitter this morning I saw something from a San Francisco hospital where they specifically searched all admissions for the past few weeks and found that 70% of COVID cases were incidental. But then when they also searched what % of COVID+ patients were receiving treatment for COVID...it was 50%. So 20% of patients were not admitted for COVID, but were being treated for it. So which measure is correct? 

 

It's important to have all this data, but also important to realize (which of course the chuds do not) that incidental case % only matters if hospitals aren't being overloaded. If a hospital runs out of ICU beds it doesn't really matter if they say "well technically X% are incidental so it's not as serious as the hospital says."

 

It's not a simple issue.  There is clearly judgement in the hospital.

 

Reports are clearly stating that a significant amount of hospitalizations due to Omicron are very short in duration (saw one report that more than half were 1 day or shorter).

 

There are a lot of people who 1) recognize that ICUs will be strained 2) given the realities of Omicron believe the strain is inevitable and 3) believe that many of the interventions being implemented will have a  negligible impact on that strain but will have other significant social costs.  Does that make those people chuds?

[AbsolutSurgen]

Mother isolates from COVID-positive teen son by putting him in car trunk

DRIVING.CA

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The Texas teacher drove the boy to a coronavirus testing site in the back of the vehicle, say officials

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

2 minutes ago, AbsolutSurgen said:

Mother isolates from COVID-positive teen son by putting him in car trunk

DRIVING.CA

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The Texas teacher drove the boy to a coronavirus testing site in the back of the vehicle, say officials

It’s completely understandable after having interacted with teens in any capacity as an adult. 
 

wait the kid had covid too??

[ort]

 

Homer Simpsons was a true genius ahead off his time.

[CitizenVectron]

34 minutes ago, AbsolutSurgen said:

It's not a simple issue.  There is clearly judgement in the hospital.

 

Reports are clearly stating that a significant amount of hospitalizations due to Omicron are very short in duration (saw one report that more than half were 1 day or shorter).

 

There are a lot of people who 1) recognize that ICUs will be strained 2) given the realities of Omicron believe the strain is inevitable and 3) believe that many of the interventions being implemented will have a  negligible impact on that strain but will have other significant social costs.  Does that make those people chuds?

 

Sorry if I wasn't clear—the chuds I am referring to are the people who are using the idea/existence of incidental cases to attempt to downplay the severity of COVID not only now, but also in the past. The idea is that if 50%+ of cases are incidental then that means the government has been lying to us all along, and what else are they lying about?! Except of course we can measure deaths fairly accurately, and obviously COVID is serious.

[CitizenVectron]

From an interview, an estimate of where we'd be right now without vaccines:

 

 

Of course 2,500 in the ICU actually means that most of them are dead already, since there isn't that capacity.

 

It's definitely great (in terms of individual outcome) that Omicron is less severe...but the big saviour credit goes to vaccination.

[Guest]

18 minutes ago, CitizenVectron said:

Except of course we can measure deaths fairly accurately, and obviously COVID is serious.

But to @AbsolutSurgen’s point, serious to who? Even pre-vaccine, Covid represented close to zero additional risk of death (measured by probability of death in the next 12 months) for people under 50. So are the policies being implemented during the current wave, with widespread vaccine availability, sensible as a means of preventing stress on the hospitals?

[CitizenVectron]

12 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

But to @AbsolutSurgen’s point, serious to who? Even pre-vaccine, Covid represented close to zero additional risk of death (measured by probability of death in the next 12 months) for people under 50. So are the policies being implemented during the current wave, with widespread vaccine availability, sensible as a means of preventing stress on the hospitals?

 

I'm not defending school closures. As I've said, it's a lose-lose and most of the decisions are being made on political basis in either direction. But to your point about serious risk:

• Obviously people over 50 matter (not saying you don't believe that, it's just a common chud talking point that only "vulnerable" people are mostly dying, so therefore it's not a big deal)
• There's more to risk than just death

The calculations have definitely changed with how contagious Omicron is, so most of our efforts to contain previous waves won't work. But when it was more possible to contain the virus, I do believe most of the efforts were worth it (not all!). Hell, the 6x difference in deaths per capita between Canada and the US shows that. 

[Guest]

21 minutes ago, CitizenVectron said:

 

I'm not defending school closures. As I've said, it's a lose-lose and most of the decisions are being made on political basis in either direction. But to your point about serious risk:

• Obviously people over 50 matter (not saying you don't believe that, it's just a common chud talking point that only "vulnerable" people are mostly dying, so therefore it's not a big deal)
• There's more to risk than just death

The calculations have definitely changed with how contagious Omicron is, so most of our efforts to contain previous waves won't work. But when it was more possible to contain the virus, I do believe most of the efforts were worth it (not all!). Hell, the 6x difference in deaths per capita between Canada and the US shows that. 

You are the one who brought up deaths as a means of assessing risk  And what happened before is irrelevant to what is happening now. You aren’t containing anything in January of 2022, and vaccines are widely available. The risk to an individuals health is pretty squarely on their own shoulders now. Effectively punishing those who are doing the only thing that actually makes a difference because some people continue to refuse vaccination is bad for future compliance in low risk groups.

[CitizenVectron]

I was referring to deaths as showing that COVID was serious (to the people who claim it has never been serious). Some people claim that if hospitalizations have actually only ever been half of what is reported (which likely wasn't true with less-infections variants, compared to Omicron, but that's a different issue), then that means COVID has never been as serious an issue. But obviously it was considering the amount of death.

[Chris-]

Is there a single (reputable) person on this board who claims COVID is or never was a serious issue? 

[skillzdadirecta]

Bride-to-be attempts to contract COVID at club so it doesn't spoil...

NYPOST.COM

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An Australian bride-to-be is purposefully trying to catch COVID-19 to prevent it from ruining her wedding day in six weeks.

 

[Keyser_Soze]

I got my 5G firmware upgrade and didn't even bleed!

[AbsolutSurgen]

 

Quote

Measurements of airborne infectivity change are coupled with a detailed physicochemical analysis of the airborne droplets containing the virus. A decrease in infectivity to ∼10 % of the starting value was observable for SARS-CoV-2 over 20 minutes, with a large proportion of the loss occurring within the first 5 minutes after aerosolisation. The initial rate of infectivity loss was found to correlate with physical transformation of the equilibrating droplet; salts within the droplets crystallise at RHs below 50% leading to a near instant loss of infectivity in 50–60% of the virus. However, at 90% RH the droplet remains homogenous and aqueous, and the viral stability is sustained for the first 2 minutes, beyond which it decays to only 10% remaining infectious after 10 minutes. The loss of infectivity at high RH is consistent with an elevation in the pH of the droplets, caused by volatilisation of CO2 from bicarbonate buffer within the droplet. Three different variants of SARS-CoV-2 were compared and found to have a similar degree of airborne stability at both high and low RH.

 

[AbsolutSurgen]