18 Likes
Lol perfect reaction image!!
2 Likes
I know this isnât the meme thread but I couldnât resist 
5 Likes
Of course it is. I figure itâs been in the US for a while.
3 Likes
Yay, boostered!
11 Likes
Oof, according to CNN the MN person who has Omicron was at Anime NYC 2021 con right before symptoms started. Soooooo, thatâs gonna spread. Cons are the germiest places ever even before covid.
I see the con required everyone to have at least 1 dose of vaxx, and kids had to show a negative test. And masks were required. But people eat and drink at cons. At least some precautions were taken?
{fires up copy of âLast Stand of the California Browncoatsâ on my kindle} <-- please someone get that reference 
7 Likes
Definitely. I had friends that planned extra vacations days after a con because they assumed theyâd get âcon crudâ - either a cold or a not-quite-a-cold - and wanted a couple days to be able to chill and nap at home while they werenât feeling great.
Is this a Firefly thing? Cause Iâm going to need to get it if so. Signed, the person with the âYou canât take the sky from meâ shirt.
3 Likes
Dislike this new report, since I am a person who lives in NYC and went to MN for Thanksgiving. But I tested negative 3 days after I got to MN, and 3 days after I got back. And definitely didnât go to any cons - I deal with enough crowds in daily life, haha.
At least both US cases so far have been very mild. So even if omicron can cause some breakthrough infection, fingers crossed it either produces milder symptoms in general or the vaccine still protects from severe outcomes.
6 Likes
No⌠well, sort of, in that the main characters are Firefly fans. Itâs a novella by Mira Grant. Basically, a virus that turns people into zombies gets its start at San Diego Comic Con and kicks off a global pandemic. Sort of like the ultimate con crud! 
ââ
6 Likes
Donât worry. Thereâs no way the us only had 2 omicron cases. Follow up is futile.
13 Likes
Yup.
Itâs more like SF is actually sequencing and most other places⌠are not
2 Likes
We have the series on our bookcase, including the huge door stopper of the novellas in HC.
Personally Iâve reread âKingdom of Needle and Boneâ two or three times in the past 18 months as we think about mandatory vaccinations and passed by a protest group yelling a relevant chant in the fall.
2 Likes
I have reread that one a few times myself. It is , uh, very relevant. I should do a whole reread of Newsflesh too.
2 Likes
On Sunday I encouraged my parents to travel to the US for a funeral for a dear friend (they were talking about going down in January, but I expect that is going to be worse that travelling now). On the plus side, they are going with my sister who is a GP, so she doesnât think it was utterly foolish. And they will be driving down, not flying.
I am very carefully not looking at the Pennsylvania numbers.
They both got a booster Monday.
7 Likes
And I thought the guy I work with who wants a religious exemption despite already being vacciniated was impressiveâŚ
7 Likes
An interesting development reported a couple of days ago:
6 Likes
Public health done right in a vaccine cautious community.
Also yeah omicron is already here on Australia, itâs everywhere.
@Bracken_Joy omg your meme game is on point and I nearly woke the baby giggling.
11 Likes
Just got my first notification of a COVID exposure, and while Iâm grateful life waited until I was boosted, Iâm spiraling about how I should react. Work/the CDC says as long as I donât have symptoms I should maybe get a test probably and keep going to work but that feels so irresponsible!
11 Likes
I think a lot of this depends on the details! If itâs a very close contact like a member of your household, Iâd probably try to isolate for a bit to see if symptoms developed. But if itâs more in passing, I think itâs okay to keep going about your business masked until/unless you have symptoms. As you say, even the CDC just says to test at day 5-7 and mask through day 14.
Even if you do end up contracting it, more and more evidence is building up to show that vaccinated people are less contagious. As long as youâre asymptomatic and masked in public, I think youâre still being responsible.
Anecdotally, Iâm the health liaison for my choir, and all the vaccinated people who have been exposed this fall (some to their unvaccinated spouses/children) never tested positive. We hear about the breakthrough cases because theyâre rare and therefore notable, and it makes them seem more common than they are. Between it being less likely for you to contract covid AND less likely for you to be contagious if you do, the mask is protection enough imo.
8 Likes